Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

Time seemed to freeze at that very moment.

The people here—whether Banshees, Transcendents, or Mortals—all perceived a certain colossal will.

As if connected by a shared intuition, they all closed their eyes at the same time.

Inside the church, the Church Guard subconsciously pressed their hands against the Holy Text.

Inside the factories, the workers who had been arguing with the boilers also halted their movements; both the Machine Souls and the workers fell silent.

The entire Castel, tens of thousands of people, all sensed a certain immense will, and soon after, they too joined in.

Everyone—every Machine Soul, every will of all existing things—merged into one at this very moment.

This newborn will was much like the Banshees’ Mind Resonance: a convergence of everyone’s will, jointly acknowledged by all.

And because of that, people felt a natural closeness and familiarity toward it.

After only a brief moment, people slowly opened their eyes again, yet in their perception, it felt as though many years had already passed.

They looked at one another, all feeling that there seemed to be an extra layer of familiarity between them.

“Just now… what happened?”

“I don’t know, but it feels like I suddenly know a lot more.”

“Did you feel it just now—”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t even said what it was.”

“But I know.”

Such conversations appeared all over the island. Different people experienced the same wondrous event; at least at that moment, their wills had been identical.

Meanwhile, the Banshees’ Mind Link erupted into chaos.

『Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!』

『For a split second just now, I felt like there were several thousand more of our kind!』

『That was terrifyingly overwhelming—an will so vast it’s completely indescribable!』

『Come to think of it, human souls don’t seem that different from ours.』

『Can we do it again? I want to try it once more!』

『That might be difficult. Mind Resonance requires us to actively link in—humans don’t have that ability.』

『Then how did we link up just now?』

『No idea.』

The Banshees excitedly discussed it, treating everything as some kind of coincidence or an irreproducible miracle. Only Nini cast a strange glance toward Hughes, who was standing nearby.

“Lord?”

“…What is it?”

“Is it just my imagination, or do you seem to be worried about something?”

Hughes’ expression was uncertain and gloomy. After hesitating for a moment, he took a deep breath and said softly:

“I have a feeling that the will we sensed just now didn’t leave.”

“Didn’t leave?” Nini blinked in confusion. “What do you mean, didn’t leave? Mind Resonance is essentially about fully opening our souls to one another and merging our wills into one. That means the will that appeared in that instant was actually just ourselves. Now that the ritual is over, wouldn’t that will have dispersed back into each of us?”

“That’s exactly the part that feels wrong to me. I keep feeling that, in the instant when the entire Castel was linked together, what appeared wasn’t merely a collection of our wills, but something closer to… us having created a new will altogether!”

Nini froze. When she finally reacted, she couldn’t help but draw in a sharp breath.

“T-That’s impossible! Mind Resonance has never had that kind of function!”

“Not necessarily. This world itself can be altered by wills that are too intense. And the will of everyone in Castel—hm, plus the Machine Souls—that’s such a massive will. Don’t you think it could influence the world?”

Nini fell silent. She lowered her head and sank into thought, clearly shaken.

“And at most, how many Banshees do you have?”

“I don’t know. Most of our people died in the battles to break free from murloc slavery. There should be… several hundred?”

“Even if you had a thousand, Castel’s population now exceeds ten thousand. The convergence of a hundred wills might only trigger Cognitive Interference, but what if it’s ten thousand?”

“Can the will of ten thousand people create an existence out of nothing? A collective entity formed from our wills?”

“Ah!?”

This time, Nini completely lost her composure. “Th-Then we should do something about it, right? Ten thousand people’s wills… that could just conjure up a Heretical God out of thin air! We should strike first! All our Banshee battle groups are here, and I even brought a Dragon’s Breath Cannon with me—perfect for on-the-spot battlefield materials!”

The more Nini spoke, the more excited she became. “And if it’s a Heretical God, maybe we can burn it a bit! Castel already has the Sea God’s protection, but Blood Harbor is seriously lacking a power source. I could even write a few editions of reports while I’m at it—”

“That’s not really necessary…”

Hughes felt a bit helpless; he even thought Nini was being a little too extreme.

Whether that will even existed was still uncertain, and even if it did exist, it might not necessarily be an enemy.

After all, this would be the manifestation of Castel’s collective will. Hughes was relatively at ease about Castel’s people. Although they worshiped explosive yield, constantly preached crooked theories like “bigger is better” and “more is better,” and some even worshiped him as a god, they were still fairly united when it came to pursuing knowledge.

…Wait. Why was this starting to sound more and more like a Heretical God?

Did that mean every Castel citizen had the potential to become a Heretical God?

Impossible, absolutely impossible! Hughes quickly shook his head, forcing that terrifying thought out of his mind.

“Lord, how were you able to sense that the existence hadn’t dissipated?”

“That’s because—” Hughes began to answer instinctively, then suddenly froze as realization struck him.

“That’s right… why was I able to sense it? Could it have something to do with me?”

Hughes carefully recalled the entire process of the Mind Resonance from beginning to end, and he soon discovered that there really had been something different.

He had played a very special role in the Mind Resonance.

At the very start, it was his words that had touched the hearts of the nearby people, causing them to form the same thoughts.

Those thoughts then converged into a will, striking against the high wall of reality.

Then the Banshees’ Mind Link spread Hughes’ words and will to all the Banshees. The Banshees were inherently creatures of the mind, and they were connected through the Symbiotic Contract. Stirred by Hughes’ words, this triggered the Banshees’ Mind Resonance.

Here lay the first interesting point—Hughes was not a Banshee and did not possess the innate ability for Mind Resonance. In theory, he should not have been able to enter it at all.

Yet he did enter it—and with his will as the dominant force.

Upon closer thought, this was not actually that strange. The Banshees had entered Mind Resonance under the influence of his speech, and Hughes himself possessed Mind Link. At that moment, the wills of the Banshees and Hughes were aligned.

Moreover, Hughes was bound to the Banshees through the Symbiotic Contract, faintly connected through the Sea of Unawareness. Being able to cross that barrier did not seem all that surprising.

But what followed was different.

The Mind Resonance had drawn the entire Castel into it.