They all call me an Outer God.

This pattern is almost identical to the pattern on the masks worn by several angels in 06.

For some unknown reason, Ria's muscles tensed up involuntarily, and her face turned pale.

"I seem to recall you mentioning the imitation angels. What is your relationship with those angels?"

He had lost count of how many times the people around him had been silently replaced by Hephaestus, or whether they were originally Hephaestus. Naturally, he was on high alert when they met again.

However, those people are all archangels of the first meme. With many gods asleep, their existence is supreme, so how could they be easily replaced?

No, after all, He is the embodiment of chaos. With His intervention, anything is possible. Even if one travels back in time to meet someone from the past, it is not impossible for them to be replaced.

Seeing that Ria's emotions were clearly starting to change, the swollen woman suddenly burst out laughing.

"You've already grown quite a bit by not losing control of your emotions, but please don't worry. They have nothing to do with me. I created this symbol simply because I thought it was aesthetically pleasing."

"Isn't it beautiful? The golden eye-like markings are just like the eyes that appear on your body."

As she spoke, the swollen woman spread out her arms.

"You don't need to be wary of me. I am a product of your dream. Nothing in the dream is real. You just need to seriously consider my advice."

"When you're unsure who to pray to, why not look behind you? You don't have to carry all the pressure on your own shoulders. You actually need Him more than you think."

"Of course, the reverse is also true."

"He needs you more than you think."

Ria didn't understand what the swollen woman meant, but when he turned around, many golden pupils emerged from the mist and stared at him.

At one point, they transformed into a pure black figure. The mythical creature, prostrate on the ground, opened its golden eyes and stared at Ria with a devout and obstinate gaze. Then, it slowly took a step and walked towards Ria.

“Swarth…”

Ria muttered to herself, but then she saw the mythical creature's body twist and contort as it approached, its appearance being stretched and becoming increasingly grotesque.

Then, He appeared.

Lia saw a highly polluted black mist compressed inside a pitch-black, unidentified object. The deep black mist covered the surface of the black mist like a cloth, just like a misty person wearing a strange cloak.

At the end of the cloak, the tentacles covered with golden eyes swayed erratically, occasionally turning into new mist and then solidifying back into tentacles.

Ria recognized the thing as Swarth, but it didn't really look like Swarth. The thing now gave off an unmistakably strange and frightening feeling.

"you--"

【…】

The mythical creature said nothing, but silently extended its hand to the person in front of it, if it could still be called a hand.

He was quiet and very patient.

As Ria looked at Him, the pollution on the surface of his own body suddenly intensified. He soon could no longer stand up and writhed helplessly on the ground, watching the flesh on the surface of his body turn even blacker.

The swollen woman's eyes were still full of laughter: "This is my suggestion, and of course, it's also an option."

"For those who are Meme 3, the next step to advancement will be to completely transcend the realm of humanity. Once you make this choice, your only path will be to become a mythical creature, without retaining any humanity."

"This is the path that the body has paved for you long ago. His countless eyes have watched you walk step by step, without going against His will in the slightest."

"Next, you will fight the Death Knights, witness the glorious sunrise and the resurrection of the gods, and then fight them until the threat of the Outer Gods is eliminated." "But have you considered, and then what?"

"Why did Nyarlathotep do this, and what benefit would it bring Him?"

At this point, the swollen woman couldn't help but sigh, "We are all pitiful pawns being fooled by fate."

"So-called truth is a curse. Some things are not something an individual can face. For example, why does humanity begin to be greatly lost around the time of Meme 2, and why are they called mythical creatures? Or why have the old gods been asleep for so long, yet not a single Meme 1 angel has been promoted to the new gods?"

"Is it really that they cannot obtain divinity?"

Looking up at the supernatural creature writhing on the ground and the mythical creature in front of it, the swollen woman finally couldn't help but laugh wildly, but there was also a hint of desolation in her laughter.

"You've all been fooled. The Extraordinary is a complete scam."

He went to Ria's side.

"You now have two choices. I can find a way to get you back to your original world, where spacetime will be fixed, and you will never experience any supernatural distortions again, nor will you have to worry about any supernatural infiltration."

You will see your original friends, parents, and relatives in your original world, and experience birth, aging, illness, and death just like any other person.

At this point, He tilted His head slightly, dodging the sudden attack from the mythical creature: "Of course, you have a second option."

"Accept the help of the mythical creature before you, accept the truth, and accept your fate as a pawn."

"What would you choose, Ria Kelcha?"

As Ria looked at the mythical creature before him, though it no longer resembled the former Swarth and was completely different from the Swarth he knew, Ria still extended a fleshy tendril toward it.

The fleshy tendril slowly approached the mythical creature's "hand" until finally, the mythical creature's five fingers closed, pulling him up from the ground.

At that very moment, the writhing fleshy tendrils were completely merged into the black mist, becoming indistinguishable from one another. The youth's body reappeared, then was shrouded in a cloak filled with golden eyes and surging black mist. The wide hood covered the upper half of his face, and a huge golden eye pattern appeared on its top.

"Rather than live a foolish life of ignorance, I would rather be a pawn for the sake of the truth."

"But can a chess player truly have complete control over the pieces?"

Ria stretched out her hand, and her palm and arm were a black like the starry sky, as if they truly contained the stars.

He turned to look at the swollen woman and said, "I accept the truth, regardless of the cost."

The swollen woman was taken aback at first, then her smile became almost arrogant: "That's truly... praise for trade. I respect and praise all your choices, my great Lord of Trade."

“You don’t even understand what your actions mean, nor do you understand the true identity of the mythical creature, but you still did it—accepting Him and coexisting with Him despite warnings from countless people.”

"so what?"

So what...

Lia said it casually, as if it were a trivial matter.

"I lack a sense of security in my anchor point and am prone to anxiety and fear of loss. Several independent experiments have ultimately ended in failure."

"Parasites cannot survive without a host."

"It cannot survive without me."

(End of this chapter)