Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

”I have a bold idea.”

Hughes blinked. Chloe’s words interrupted his thoughts.

She had already sat up, stopping her movements, and was looking over with some hesitation.

A trace of fresh blood still lingered at the corner of her lips, slowly sliding downward before dripping onto her black nun’s habit with a soft splat.

”Ah, it’s stained.”

She lowered her head in slight annoyance. Her orange-red hair was a bit messy, like a bundle of fire.

”How was the effect of drinking blood just now?”

”Not very effective.” Chloe tried to rub the bloodstain away but only smudged it further. ”Well, I don’t want to discourage you, but honestly, it had no effect at all.”

”That’s really unfortunate. It seems my blood can’t dispel pollution.” Hughes looked down at his fingers. The wound Chloe had just bitten was small and would soon heal.

”No, not necessarily. I just thought of something, drinking blood doesn’t actually mean it has entered the body.””What do you mean?”

”For example, when pollution appears inside my ’body,’ it can occur in almost any part, except for the stomach. It seems that the definition of ’inside’ and ’outside’ for pollution is different from our common sense.”

That… seemed somewhat reasonable.

Hughes had also experienced persistent internal pollution before, and indeed, it had never appeared in his stomach.

Speaking of which, pollution was incredibly precise.

Even when he kept moving, it still manifested within his flesh with pinpoint accuracy, as if it didn’t come from an external source but instead originated from his very soul.

”So drinking blood doesn’t work, not because your blood can’t purify, but because the method of ’drinking’ is incorrect. It’s like performing a ritual: even if all the materials are correct, deviating slightly from the procedure prevents it from achieving its intended effect.”

Chloe’s eyes shone brightly. She seemed to have thought of something.

”So, I have an idea… maybe a bit too bold. I’m not sure if you can accept it.”

”You can say it first. Whether I can accept it or not, I’ll decide after hearing it.” Hughes thought for a moment and looked into her eyes. ”By the way, I have a question, why do your eyes light up when you get excited?”

”My eyes light up?”

Chloe was startled and shook her head. ”I don’t think my eyes light up. Maybe it’s too dark in here, and you saw it wrong?”

She looked over, puzzled, tilting her head and blinking. In the dim room, her eyes glowed like twin candles.

Hughes frowned slightly. He had always assumed this was some side effect of her extraordinary abilities, like her eyes getting brighter with heightened emotions. But she didn’t know about it?

Then it had nothing to do with her abilities.

Could it be his own ability?

Perhaps the Symbiotic Contract had granted him new powers, like directly perceiving others’ emotions.

Hughes studied Chloe’s eyes carefully. Her pupils were also orange-red, matching her hair.

The glow they emitted wasn’t harsh but rather like a cat’s eyes in the night, shimmering with fluorescence.

”Forget it. Let’s not dwell on that. Tell me your idea first.”

Then, Hughes saw Chloe’s orange-red pupils instantly brighten by two levels.

”Alright, but let me say this first, I’m an extraordinary being, so I won’t be hurt by this. Just don’t get scared later.” She bit her lip. ”I want you to put your hand, truly, inside my body and see what happens.”

Hughes’ eyes widened.

”I am a ’Chrysalis,’ an exclusive extraordinary path of the Moths Chasing Fire. Its primary abilities are concealment and escape, and it also grants keen perception. But very few people know that this path has a unique power.”

Chloe lay back on the table, fingers interlocked over her chest.

She looked at Hughes, who stood beside her, encouragingly. ”Come on, don’t worry. You won’t hurt me.”

”Are you sure? This is way too strange.”

Hughes’ expression was complicated, full of hesitation and doubt.

”Come on, let me continue explaining.” Chloe’s voice was firm, her eyes wide open, unblinking.

Hughes took a deep breath, calming the hesitation in his heart. He placed his hand on the girl’s face.

Chloe smiled slightly, the corners of her eyes curving.

Her eyes were already large, and now, up close, they looked like two deep lakes with an orange-red seabed beneath the surface.

Hughes gritted his teeth and reached his fingers into those lakes.

”The ability of the ’Chrysalis’ is limb reconstruction.”

”My internal structure is completely different from that of a human. What you see isn’t real.”

There was little resistance, his fingers sank in easily. Hughes felt as if he were dipping his hand into jelly. He didn’t dare move recklessly and hesitated, stopping his actions.

Suddenly, his wrist felt warm. Looking up, he saw that Chloe had placed her hand on his arm, guiding him deeper inside her body.

”Relax, relax. It’s perfectly fine. Even if you smash my head to pieces, I won’t die. At most, I just won’t have a mouth to talk to you with.”

Hughes’ fingers had almost entirely entered Chloe’s eye socket.

The warm, smooth sensation assured him that this wasn’t an illusion.

It was truly bizarre. His fingers had gone in through her pupils, yet they hadn’t displaced her eyeballs, as if those orange pupils were merely painted on, and the girl before him was only wearing a human skin, while her insides were something completely different.

”This ability of yours is way too eerie. I’m starting to doubt whether you’re even human.” Hughes couldn’t help but sigh. He felt his worldview being shaken.

”It’s just a small price to pay. That’s what being an extraordinary being means, enduring curses, gaining power, and gradually drifting away from humanity.”

Chloe spoke indifferently, as if she truly felt nothing about it.

But Hughes believed that, even though she was a Moth Chasing Fire and had wholly devoted herself to the truth, abandoning her human form couldn’t have been so easy.

”Nora doesn’t seem to have changed much.”

”Her? Hmph.” Chloe let out a light chuckle. ”The extraordinary beings of the Silent Sanctum are… quite pitiful. She’s a ’Burier,’ right? Has she ever told you that she won’t die?”

”She has. I was really shocked when I first heard that immortality was so simple.”

”Immortality? Yes, it is immortality. The Silent Sanctum’s curse of immortality is quite famous.”

Hughes frowned. ”Isn’t immortality a good thing? So many people crave it. To be honest, I’m very curious, why don’t the nobles secretly become extraordinary beings to gain immortality?”

”Who told you they haven’t?” Chloe sneered. ”You should take a look at the choir in their sanctum. The walls are covered with heads that wail day and night, their suffering never ends.”

Hughes’ movements froze, his eyes slowly widening.

”It’s said that in the farthest north, in the pure white land that no one can reach, there stands a peak made of diamonds, the pillar that holds up the sky.”

“Climbing it takes a year, and circling around it takes another year. Every hundred years, a tiny two-headed sparrow visits, rubs its beak on the peak twice, and then flies away.”

“When this diamond mountain is finally worn down to flat ground, the pillar collapses, the sky falls, only then will the first second of eternity have passed.”

”Now… do you still like immortality?”