Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 587 Snail Annihilation City

At that moment, it was as if the sun, moon, and stars in the sky had become the masses of living beings, while the people remaining on earth had become eternal, indestructible stars.

They were able to witness the alternation of day and night, the changing of eras, and the birth, movement, and eventual annihilation of the stars.

It was as if countless eras had passed in the blink of an eye in the vast universe.

...

I don't know what the ultimate void that King Kurans of Os-Nargai once saw when he traversed the stars was like, but Milo guessed that it was probably something like the fantastical experience before him.

Without experiencing it firsthand, the narrow-minded human mind simply cannot imagine what kind of scene the people on this preserved land are facing at this moment.

The beauty within is equally profound, distorted, and difficult to comprehend.

If you can truly see beauty in this chaos, it means that your inner self has changed.

Chaos will try to take over you.

……

When the speed of change reaches its limit, everything that falls into people's eyes seems to slow down, as if it were eternal. Perhaps a breeze or a beam of light can indicate the beginning and end of an era. The cycle in the universe becomes another kind of meaningless rolling at this moment. Life and things evolve into the various forms they have had in the endless past. Everything comes and goes, comes and goes, over and over again, as if there is no beginning.

However, humans cannot become eternal stars, and in fact, stars are by no means eternal either.

This bizarre and psychedelic journey finally came to a standstill at a certain special moment.

If we consider the fleeting moments of the past as a book on a windowsill with its pages fluttering in the wind, then at this moment, they are like pages stuck in a special envelope, the wind unable to turn the next page.

However, the lives within it have no way of knowing whether the wind outside the window was turning the pages of the book forward or backward.

After a period of confusion and bewilderment, people who have recovered find themselves in an unfamiliar era.

That is, the letter that the book's owner placed between a certain special chapter, a letter that preserves ancient secrets in handwriting and ancient ink marks.

……

...

The sun hanging in the sky at this moment seems so unfamiliar, or perhaps, so young?
Its intense burning sensation felt like a serious gaze scrutinizing these uninvited guests on the reserve.

Reserves? No, there are no reserves left.

Milo and the others were standing on a slippery, moss-covered ground.

They were in a colossal city, a city filled with futuristic art styles.

Everything here defies common sense and breaks through the limits of geometric proof.

Those unprecedented spatial structures and dimensions will make anyone who tries to understand their true nature feel intensely dizzy and disgusted.

Silt, wetlands, moss-covered ground, and huge green stones.

Every piece of rubble here seems older than the stars.

On the road, the protruding stones that the naked eye can see are often a concave structure. The twisted edges and the visual distortion caused by the structure make most people feel cursed just by being in it.

And this was before they encountered the miasma.

...

The anxiety and fear they had experienced earlier were magnified to the extreme at this moment. Instinct kept reminding and warning them that they were now in an unclean place.

All the confusion and bewilderment were finally jolted awake by a loud bang.

boom--

In the heart of this city, which exudes a sense of weight and solemnity, stands a massive white monolith, the same one Rebecca had seen in her illusion, the one that stood atop the vast sea of ​​sand. And the source of the deafening roar now is the same terrifying beast that appeared in the illusion—the Great Beast.

Its ancient form lingered around the monolith, and the limbs that had previously been hidden beneath the sea were now fully exposed to the air, their ferocity, evil, and the intense oppressive force emanating from the order of life terrifying everyone.

……

Where is this?

Or rather, what era is this?
Perhaps the ancient building materials that don't belong to Earth and the eerie totems that can be seen everywhere have already provided the answer, but people are just too afraid to think in that direction.

...

Milo turned around to make sure Rebecca was still standing behind him and hadn't gotten lost.

He reached out and gently patted the other person's dazed and confused face:
"Wake up, we've arrived at our stop."

Rebecca's eyes were still somewhat unfocused, and she gazed around with a hint of unease.

"here it is……"

"R'lyeh".

Milo blurted out:

"Perhaps a younger R'lyeh, who knows."

...

“…Why…?” Rebecca was still a little confused.

What just happened was completely beyond her comprehension.

The good news is that as long as she stands by Milo's side, she will never be consumed by fear.

She was confused:

"Isn't it only tragic souls who can resonate with R'lyeh? How come we also..."

Milo looked around and saw every familiar face.

Raven, hybrid, Monqueya, other hunters, He Fang of the Bloated Daughter Order, and other members of the order.

Yes, everyone entered R'lyeh.

but……

“This isn’t the R'lyeh from the bottom of the sea.” Milo stared at the sun in the sky for a long time, then shook his head and said, “I don’t know what went wrong, but we were led to R'lyeh from the old days, the old city of the Snail’s Den.”

As they were talking, Milo noticed that there were unfamiliar eyes staring at him from a gap in the building not far behind Rebecca.

His expression turned somewhat strange.

Because the creature hidden in the shadows of that building was just too...unusual.

Perhaps startled by Milo, the creatures hiding behind the building began to "flee".

However, its movement speed is surprisingly slow.

Rebecca, who happened to turn around and see this scene, instantly got goosebumps on the back of her neck.

Because the startled creature was a giant conch shell.

However, what extends from the snail's mouth is a human-shaped upper body. Its skin is pale, with the skin texture and mucus unique to mollusks, and its forelimbs are slender.

His facial features weren't exactly grotesque, but his incredibly human eyes were enough to drive anyone crazy.

Especially when it was frantically fleeing the place, the way its abdomen, which was connected to the shell, was stretched and thinned made everyone who witnessed the scene frown...

It clawed at the cracks in the stone slabs on the ground with both hands, dragging the heavy snail behind it, desperately trying to escape the stares of these strangers.

But soon, something even worse happened.

The snail behind it got stuck in the building structure.

The snail-like creature (let's call it that for now) seemed to be stressed and struggled even more frantically, pulling and twisting its body in an attempt to break free of the large shell behind it from the building.

Its waist was stretched longer and thinner...

Finally, under the furrowed, half-closed gazes of the crowd, it broke in two.

"Ahhh—Ah!!"

The snail-man screamed.

Its elongated abdomen began to contract rapidly from the fracture point, much like all mollusks within the scope of human understanding, accompanied by a large amount of mucus gushing out, a scene that was extremely disturbing.

Even though the snail-man wouldn't die anytime soon, it screamed and crawled back to the building with its hands, determined to pull its snail out. But when it found that the shell was completely stuck and couldn't be pulled out because of its struggle, it tried to hide inside the snail with its broken body. But as soon as it lifted its upper body, the gushing mucus and exposed internal organs "flowed" down from the broken part.

...

“eww…”

This scene made Rebecca instinctively look away.

If nothing unexpected happens, a second category will be added to her list of foods to avoid in the future—snails.

The first is mushrooms.

...

In contrast, Milo didn't feel anything.

He spread his hands at Rebecca and teased her:

"No wonder it's called the City of Snail Annihilation. With that kind of intelligence, it really deserves to be annihilated."

As long as you don't take the human-like parts of a living organism too seriously, you won't be bothered by that disgusting feeling.

The Narods are slowly dying.

It retracted its entire body into its shell, but no matter how tightly it pressed its broken body together, it could not heal, and so the painful screams began to gradually weaken.

……

Not far away, the raven no longer glanced at the tragically dead snail man.

He surveyed his surroundings, searching for any suspicious clues, while at the same time, he couldn't help but appreciate the details of this ancient city.

His blue-green eyes roamed over the many twisted and blasphemous architectural structures, occasionally focusing on certain totemic carvings. Raven possessed a eclectic knowledge of ancient civilizations, but this knowledge was only gleaned from fragments of surviving texts, far removed from the true nature of those ancient civilizations. This unexpected journey, then, was an immense blessing to him, a thousand times greater than any divine favor.

For a moment, the raven seemed to have truly become a tourist traveling through time.

Until he realized that a problem existed.

"What about the bodies of those indigenous people?"

...

One of the hunters tried to recall.

"A corpse? Perhaps it wasn't teleported here..."

"Nonsense! That corpse was just under my feet a moment ago!"

...

After a few words were exchanged on the field, Milo felt the flask on his body become even heavier.

At this moment, the snail-like person's intermittent wails finally stopped completely.

In the muddy, moss-covered city streets and alleys, faint, furtive sounds began to emerge.

Those who had previously been distracted by the gruesome deaths of the Snail People finally realized that beneath the shadows of each strange building, there seemed to be a pair of deep, menacing eyes watching them, these uninvited guests who had traveled across millions of years.

If you listen carefully, you can also hear slightly rapid breathing in the dark area.

In the darkness, beams of sharp hostility swept over Milo and the others.

Led by Monquia, the hunters finally reacted, spreading out in the open area in a defensive formation, keeping an eye on the shadows beneath the eerie buildings.

On the other side, the remaining members of the Swelling Daughter's Order also reorganized their weapons and equipment, and lined up in formation with He Fang as the center on the other side.

As for Milo, he simply swung the scythe that belonged to Monquia high into the air and threw it back to him.

Then he instructed Rebecca, "This time I won't encourage you to run around recklessly. I'm not familiar with this area either, so you have to stick close to me."

“Okay.” Rebecca nodded gently, then drew her revolver.

"These are all for you." Milo said, hanging the revolver and several magazines he was carrying on his person onto Rebecca's waist.

Rebecca quickly adjusted her guns, one in each hand.

What kind of attacks are we facing?

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a R’lyeh from the same era, let alone the ancient R’lyeh.” Milo shrugged. “It’ll probably be something like an octopus or a conch.”

“This place is definitely not part of the original plan, right?” Rebecca’s gun was locked on the shadows beneath the ancient building in front of her.

“Of course.” Milo grinned.

The original plan was to bury the natives one by one, then observe their spirits and compile the contents of the "Snail Annihilation City Text".

And now, well, they've all been teleported to the depths of R'lyeh in a special era.

Even Milo himself can no longer distinguish between his surroundings and reality. Having traversed several abyssal worlds, Milo knows that reality and illusion are merely relative concepts, and drawing hasty conclusions is often too arbitrary, even for someone like him, a shadow of the past.

However, one thing is certain: the one who caused all of this must be the one who is said to be sleeping deep within the mansion of R'lyeh.

One of the oldest and most powerful Great Old Ones.

……

At this moment, familiar sounds began to emanate from the bizarre buildings of R'lyeh—

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

The pronunciation is exactly the same as the spells chanted by the indigenous people.

The translation is: "In the mansion of R'lyeh, the slumbering Cthulhu awaits your dreams..."

The difference is that the indigenous people's chanting was devout, humble, and sorrowful, while the sounds echoing in R'lyeh were relatively higher-pitched, solemn, and dignified, as if some kind of proclamation or hymn ceremony was taking place.

...

The next second, a large number of pale-skinned, strange creatures emerged from the shadows of the ancient buildings.

They all appear to be snail people.

No, they used to be snail people, but now they have broken free from the constraints of that heavy snail shell. Although their lower bodies are still soft tissue, they are light and agile, even...

You can even jump by swinging your lower body in conjunction with your upper body!

Clearly, the snail-like creature that Milo and his companions had just seen, which had torn itself in two, was likely a juvenile.

These are the adult Snail People in front of us.

They crawled out of the shadows, chanting the R'lyeh incantation.

What's chilling is that some of them have the faces of indigenous people, the very corpses that disappeared not long ago after being beheaded by hunters...

...

"Hahaha--"

A sudden, sharp laugh came from behind.

It was He Fang, a priestess from the Swollen Maidens' Order. She made no attempt to hide the mocking expression on her face, laughing loudly as she addressed the Raven's ranks:
"You don't actually think the rumored 'sleep' is the kind of sleep where humans completely lose consciousness, do you? It is true that it falls into a deep sleep at the bottom of the sea, but it is still one of the most ancient creatures. Perhaps the body is asleep, but the will is always awake. You bunch of self-proclaimed scholars and butchers, damned and arrogant things, you have blasphemed the Ancient Mother and the gods of the sea. It's time to pay the price, Raven."

(End of this chapter)