Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 125 - 120: Black Omen

My nights gradually became agonizing as the black figure crept closer to me.

So unfamiliar, so towering. I tossed and turned, unable to sleep; it stood at the foot of my bed, silently watching me.

Three days ago, I had already asked Mr. Garrett for leave because this black shadow had begun to interfere with my life. While at work, I always felt it lurking in the corners. The work in the basement came to a complete halt. I began to fear the darkness because it would make its silhouette overwhelmingly vast, vast enough to occupy my mind.

Noticing my distraction, Shuishui and Medusa tried everything to catch my attention these past few days. What Mr. Scholar called a normal phenomenon was making me start to feel abnormal. I stared at the water surface, not seeing that emaciated figure, my appearance; it was becoming more and more similar to that dark shadow, as if about to merge into one.

A fear took hold in my mind, an ominous feeling, a premonition that tonight’s empowering ritual would not go as I desired.

But I had to start the ritual before this illusion drove me mad.

As usual, the blood moon hung in the sky as I entered Mr. Scholar’s gloomy room.

Silver chains coiled around this teacher like a python strangling its prey. He still wore that ancient, bizarre blue mask. Why had I never noticed how eerie this mask was?

"Are you ready? Plague Doctor," it was like asking a condemned prisoner on the execution ground.

"Yes, sir," I began the ritual with trepidation.

.....

Mr. Scholar’s Treasured Jade returned to his chest, and the chains bound Lyle’s limbs, connecting the two. Shuishui entered the Array, and Lyle was on the other side.

The chanting of the spells was like scripture, with the chains conducting the blue magic.

It stung, but was bearable. Lyle’s body swelled slightly as he felt the tide-like waves of magic. This abundance surpassed anything he had experienced before; compared to it, his own magic was like grains of sand among the stars.

Lyle watched the black figure, but the fear was reduced, the abundant power instilling confidence that perhaps he could resolve this illusion himself.

"Try to control the pace of the illusion, Plague Doctor. Although he is very unfamiliar, in reality, he is also a part of you; control him, bring him closer faster,"

As Lyle willed, the black illusion in his eyes moved.

Waving hands, moving left and right, bending the knees.

Indeed, it obeyed him; this sense of control swept away worries, and perhaps I had been making a mountain out of a molehill.

No longer toying with the black figure, he controlled it to come closer, accelerating the completion of the ritual.

That layer of haziness finally dissipated.

Lyle saw his own form.

Atop his head was a black bud, its layered petals marked with clear veins, like both leaves and blood vessels. Beneath the bud was darkness, with black tentacles covered in mucus swaying like willow branches, alive, each tentacle etched with curling patterns, merely looking at them induced discomfort. These swaying tentacles, though loose, prevented one from seeing the concealed body within. One would realize there was no so-called body for this figure, resembling a cephalopod, like an octopus, with only the budded head and tentacles. But the bizarre limbs would bring you new confusion. His limbs resembled withered branches, an odd evil tree with tumors, each malformed nodule on the shriveled branches appearing bloated and unappealing. Such branch-like limbs extended into the cluster of tentacles, connecting to an unknowable place.

It was hard to look at, but made sense.

The black bud on his head was what Shuishui looked like when she was first born; as for the tentacles and the strange nodules, that was his past life’s obsession with aspects of the Cthulhu mythos, a peculiar indulgence of Lyle’s that I hadn’t expected to be so visibly displayed.

"Lyle, imagine it changing into the form you want,"

Lyle gave it one last look, a monster of his own creation. But to give you life, I apologize, I was merely a man who professed love for dragons without truly wanting them to appear.

Become the shape I like.

The tentacles began to fall off, the withered limbs filled out, and the petals on his head dropped away, revealing black hair. He donned a uniform of public security, and that face with hints of youth and softness — his own face.

Lyle shaped himself, but was this really all there was to it?

A bold idea took hold, transforming Shuishui into the likeness of Alianna.

With an inexplicable sense of expectation, Lyle once again manipulated the transformation.

[I’ve found you, Lyle.]

An abrupt voice shattered all his delusions, turning the beautiful into suffering, pleasure into torment.

"This is not what you wanted, this is." His black doppelgänger said with a smile, a terrifying and dangerous smile. Black tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, his lips began to vomit blood, his body was riddled with holes, and his chest and abdomen kept producing horrific wounds. Lyle watched as his own image before him was subjected to terrible torment, mirroring the fear spilling from his heart.

Skin fell away, petals growing from the facial features reformed into buds, black tentacles squeezed out from the body’s fissures, tearing the flesh into chunks, casting them into the pitch-black lake, limbs fell off like components, and from within the black tentacles, new knobby branches grew, supporting the monster before him.

Accompanied by a progressively maddened and twisted laughter, the flower bloomed.

The inverted petals resembled a bizarre necklace.

Lyle saw it, that familiar face.

The spiral horns, the white bone mask with only two hollow holes, the void within seemed capable of devouring everything.

The holes gazed at Lyle, and an indescribable fear climbed up his spine.

This was definitely not himself, something must have gone wrong with the ritual.

This time, there was no Sea of Holy Light to block Its terror.

It was expressionless, but Lyle knew, It was smiling.

Just like himself, smiling.

......

Mr. Scholar initially did not pay much attention; Shuishui’s significant transformation was one manifestation of the power granted by the Array.

He felt a vibration, his own chains trembling, following the source, he saw the Plague Doctor’s shaking body.

And the bizarre laughter that he produced.

There was a problem with the experiment.

The Scholar began to call for the Plague Doctor, but he was indifferent to Mr. Scholar, who was within arm’s reach, like a puppet being swung about at someone’s whim.

Drip-drop, drip-drop.

Black liquid dripped onto the floor, emanating from within the Plague Doctor’s robe.

Without further regard for Andrey’s requirements for disguise, the Scholar removed the Plague Doctor’s mask.

A human?

Black liquid fell from the corners of his eyes as Lyle, smiling, was gradually submerged by the blackness.

Within the Array, Shuishui also transformed into his image, as if on either side of a mirror.

Lyle muttered madness to himself.

"We, will become what we want, become It."