There was no helping it.
Even if Saruman possessed Legendary power from the future, it wasn't permanent. He was still just a mortal, and for mortals, Cthulhu was a forbidden existence, a name that was dangerous to even know.
Yet the three of them had done far more than just learn its name. Directly or indirectly, they had all caught a glimpse of Cthulhu's true form as it began to manifest. Even though it was only a fleeting glimpse, separated by an immense distance and thick layers of mist, the image of an Old One's ruler was the most potent poison imaginable, the most terrifying source of memetic corruption.
Their minds, bodies, and souls were inevitably sliding toward collapse and mutation.
"They might not be close to me, but I worked hard to save them. I can't just leave them to die now. Otherwise, wouldn't my earlier act of kindness have been for nothing? Then no one would sing praises about my generosity."
Ian's brow furrowed. The instant his mental force confirmed their condition, a thought took shape.
'Teleport them away?'
With the structure of time and space fluctuating so violently, and the Old One's true will blanketing the area, even Legendary-level teleportation spells had a terrifyingly high chance of failure. They might get thrown into temporal turbulence and torn apart. Or worse, the spatial disturbance might attract Cthulhu's attention and draw down a devastating attack.
"Hmm. Teleportation magic is out."
The old Ian might have gotten a headache over this, but his current trump card wasn't just Legendary power. He also possessed the Authority of the Fire of the Old Ones, a power originating from Cthulhu itself, yet forcibly redefined by Ian.
So he stopped worrying.
This Authority contained the fundamental principles of "Erosion" and "Chaos," vaguely touching upon the boundary between existence and nonexistence, as well as the laws separating this realm from the next. A more decisive, thorough, and under the circumstances, suitable, solution took shape in his mind.
"What if I just banish them?"
Exactly. Not gently sending them back, but forcibly expelling them.
He would tear them away from this anomalous point in space and time, which was heavily contaminated by Cthulhu's power and practically an extension of its domain, and throw them back to the stable, normal coordinates where they originally belonged.
That required precise coordinates. It also required crude but effective interference with the laws of space and time, plus the power to forcibly impose "order" and "belonging" over Cthulhu's lingering influence.
Fortunately, Ian had all of that. His newly acquired Authority, combined with his Legendary will and absolute confidence in his magic control, gave him everything he needed to try.
"Let's do it. That's more my style!"
Ian raised his left hand, not the right hand previously engulfed in flames, but his empty left hand. He spread his fingers toward the three flickering sparks of soul-light trapped in the distant rocky crevice.
There was no incantation. No dazzling, complex magic circle.
Only a brilliant light suddenly ignited in his eyes, a radiance where deep darkness intertwined with a dangerous dark green. Inside him, the Authority of the Fire of the Old Ones, now at 37%, activated at full power.
Yet what it released wasn't the fire of Erosion. Instead, it was a law-based power centered on denial and severance.
At the same time, his Legendary mental force transformed into precision probes and anchors. Crossing space instantly, it locked onto the essence of Saruman, Kag, and Lina's souls. Following the faint karmic threads still connecting them to the space and time they had come from, he traced the connection backward, reinforced it, and locked onto a clear coordinate: deep within the primeval jungle, on the outskirts of the mysterious lake where their group had first discovered clues about the Cthulhu ruins.
"So they're from the African continent too. Even if they're a thousand years apart from the time I arrived... no problem. In the moment of banishment, space and time lose their meaning to me anyway."
"Get lost!"
Ian's voice was low and clear. He didn't speak aloud; instead, his words resonated directly through the chaotic laws of R'lyeh.
"Strip away the alien corruption. Sever all that does not belong. Return!"
The conceptual spell activated instantly.
Inside the rocky crevice, Saruman, Kag, and Lina froze. The mutations spreading across their bodies, the writhing beneath their skin, the creeping patterns, the collapse of their minds, instantly paused.
Then a gentle yet irresistible force appeared. Dark, cold, and sharp, it completely enveloped them.
Ian could "see" an invisible passage temporarily carved into existence by his will and Authority. The three marked souls were wrapped inside like cannonballs and hurled through a fold in space and time, landing violently yet precisely at the target coordinates.
"Aaaah! What's happening?! What happened?!"
There was no earth-shattering spectacle. Their figures simply grew transparent, as if erased from existence. Then, with a soft 'pop', they vanished completely from the rocky crevice of madness and destruction.
Only a few rapidly fading specks of light remained behind, lingering traces of Ian's power and remnants of their struggle.
Almost immediately, a cold, tangible mental force filled with rage and curiosity swept across the area. It paused briefly, noticing the unusual spatial disturbance, and the aura it hated above all else.
The aura of Ian, the thief.
Cthulhu had no interest in the lives that had been banished. It only cared about Ian, and the power he had stolen. Its mental force surged with fury, crashing toward Ian like a violent tsunami.
---
Deep within the African tropical rainforest, night had fallen.
The humid, stifling air was thick with the smell of rotting vegetation and animal waste. Insects chirped and frogs croaked incessantly, while scattered starlight filtered through the dense canopy.
It was the very clearing they had explored days earlier with a mix of anticipation and unease, the area just outside the lake that concealed the entrance to their nightmare.
Space suddenly twisted like ripples across water.
'Thud! Thud! Thud!'
Three figures tumbled out of midair, slamming heavily onto the soft, leaf-littered ground and sending dead branches flying.
"Cough! Cough, cough!"
Saruman was the first to struggle upright. He coughed violently, spitting out mud mixed with something foul that tasted like rust.
His injuries were severe, and the Erosion affecting his body had been just as bad. But he didn't have time to inspect his wounds. The first thing he did was tremblingly raise his left arm, the one that had shown clear signs of mutation earlier.
The skin was smooth. There were plenty of scrapes and bruises, but the horrifying sensation of something writhing under his skin was completely gone.
"Finally... finally, we're free of that horrible nightmare!"
Saruman inhaled the relatively fresh air of the jungle night. It was still hot, humid, and foul-smelling, but compared to R'lyeh's suffocating atmosphere and madness-filled mist, it felt like heaven.
He looked much older now. His cloudy eyes shone with disbelief and the wild joy of survival, only for both to be replaced by a deeper, lingering terror.
"I should never have gone exploring in the first place!"
Having the memories of his future self from a thousand years later, Saruman was the only one who truly understood the terrible price of this adventure.
"We... got out?"
Kag shook his massive head and sat up, wiping blood from his face. Most of it had leaked from his ears, though the bleeding had stopped. Realizing he wasn't dead, Kag's expression brightened. He slapped his face hard, then viciously pinched his thigh. The sharp pain made him grimace.
Then he broke into a grin that looked worse than crying.
"We really got out! It's not an illusion! Hahaha, cough, cough!"
The laughter aggravated his internal injuries, causing the warrior to cough up bloody foam. Still, it wasn't anything lethal.
The two men turned toward their remaining companion.
Lina was the last to come to. She lay on the ground, chest heaving as she greedily gulped in air.
"Huff... huff... Thank goodness..."
Her unfocused eyes gradually cleared. The first thing she saw was the real night sky, broken into patches by the dense canopy overhead, not R'lyeh's twisted green sky filled with writhing shadows.
Tears welled up and spilled down her face, mixing with the dirt. "That lord truly is merciful! He helped us escape and healed us again!"
She raised her arm in gratitude. The dark-green patterns that had once flowed across her skin like living things were completely gone. Her skin was back to its original color, pale and covered in scratches, but unharmed otherwise.
A wave of exhaustion and overwhelming relief swept over her. She wanted nothing more than to lie there forever.
"Yes... it was that lord."
Saruman's breathing steadily calmed. He turned his sharp gaze toward the lake where the entrance to the R'lyeh ruins had been. Right now, it looked like nothing more than a calm, black expanse of water.
"He saved us. Even in that situation, he managed to find us and send us out."
The young wizard, prematurely aged by stress, spoke with undisguised shock and a complex sense of awe.
Only then did Kag realize what had happened. His wide eyes stretched even further.
"My lord? You mean... that black-robed gentleman? Who exactly is he? He pulled us out of that monster's domain?"
He recalled the power that had enveloped them at the very end. Cold. Powerful. Carrying unquestionable authority. And beneath it all... a trace of something that made him tremble. An aura that shared its origin with that green monster, yet was fundamentally different.
Saruman glanced at Kag, speaking with absolute certainty as if stating an obvious fact: "He is Raven."
"Raven?"
Kag froze. The codename, something that had circulated through certain ancient circles and forbidden legends, suddenly connected with fragments buried deep in his memory.
He remembered exploring the ruins of distant civilizations. On some of the oldest, most damaged murals and stone monuments, he had occasionally spotted similar images. They were never clear. Sometimes it was an abstract bird-like symbol; other times, the towering silhouette of a figure shrouded in shadow, wearing a bird-headed crown. Beside them were vague inscriptions associated with words like 'End', 'Guidance', and 'Order in the Darkness'.
Those ruins were so ancient their age couldn't even be calculated, leading some to doubt whether they belonged to this era at all. Among explorers, those symbols were revered as representations of the Ancient Supremes.
Kag, Saruman, and Lina's team had investigated those ruins more deeply than almost anyone, and Saruman knew more about Raven than any of them.
"What?!" Kag's voice suddenly spiked. "He's... he's Raven? The Ancient Supreme whose damaged statue we saw in the ruins of the Wall of Sighs? The one known as the End of All Things? H-How is that possible?! Isn't that just a legend? That would mean he's from several eras ago…"
Kag had assumed Ian was merely a powerful genius from ancient times. He never imagined the man was the ruler of such geniuses, the Lord of Destiny.
"Legends often come from truths that have been forgotten," Saruman interrupted, his gaze fixed on the lake as if he could look through the water and across dimensions to the figure confronting the Old One's ruler. "I suspected it long ago. The nature of his power, how he acts, especially when he so easily neutralized the Soul Devour Curse and granted Lina the status of Raven Seer... Other than that ancient existence holding Authority over Ending and Guidance, who else could do such things?"
Saruman had realized it long ago, and so had Lina. Kag was the only one kept in the dark.
"Saruman is right," Lina said, pushing herself up into a sitting position.
Tear tracks still streaked her face, but her eyes had regained their focus, filled with a quiet, intense devotion. She gently touched her chest. Physically, there was nothing there, yet she could feel a faint, cold connection sharing the same origin as the power that had saved them.
It was the mark Ian had left behind when he saved her and named her a Raven Seer. Now, it pulsed with a faint warmth, like a distant but unwavering beacon.
"That man is Raven's incarnation, walking among mortals," Lina said. Her voice was hoarse, but her tone was strangely calm and confident. "I can sense the Divine Lord's condition."
She closed her eyes, focusing on the faint connection. "Even though the distance is unimaginably vast and that place is consumed by madness, the Divine Lord's aura remains stable and powerful. It's even... growing stronger." She paused, a trace of hesitation entering her voice. "He should... be able to handle it, right?"
After all, they had just witnessed the world-ending terror of Cthulhu merely revealing its true form. It wasn't a lack of faith, but pure survival instinct speaking.
Kag took a sharp breath. Looking at Saruman's conviction and the mixture of worry and faith on Lina's face, he swallowed the rest of his questions.
"This world has gone completely insane today."
He grabbed a handful of wet soil and squeezed it tightly. The solid, grounding texture reminded him that they were alive, that a figure out of myth had just yanked them from a hopeless nightmare.
Raven.
An Ancient Supreme of legend... was actually walking among mortals.
(End Of This Chapter)
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