“Tatatatata…”

Two helicopters cut through the sky above the South China Sea.

Gui Bin sat in one of these and looked at the tablet device in his hands. On its screen played another video that had captivated his interest. After the recording of the dragon in the Amazon, it was the next video to become viral online. It was titled ‘Cthulhu’s Resurrection’.

The video started with a ship coasting through the ocean quite peacefully. The waters were initially calm and the sky clear, but the surrounding air began to warp. The once pristine horizon dimmed and blurred as the sky and sea began to smudge. All too soon the ship appeared to be cut off from the rest of its surroundings. It seemed as though it had been transported to a completely different location.

It did not take long for chaos to erupt on the freighter. Screams of terror and gunfire echoed as the crew cursed and ran. But there seemed to be an order to the chaos. Everyone was fleeing from or paralyzed while facing towards a particular direction. With janky movements, the cameraman shooting the video turned the recording device to the area of interest.

Right at the stern of the ship towered a humongous octopoid monstrosity.

The titanic cephalopod seemed to test the very limits of human sanity. Its grotesque appearance seemed to reach beyond the computer screens of all viewers and grasp their hearts within a cold, viselike grip of terror. One could only imagine how the crewmates onboard the ship felt.

Soon the cameraman began to speak.

“I swear. Everything you see here is real. I swear to God! Everything I’m filming right now is real! I am a crew member on the Neversnar. We were sailing in the Pacific, and then we encountered this...this thing! This monster! For some reason, it began targeting our ship. Jesus Christ! I think it's crawling on board...No...Nonononononononono!!!!!! ”

“The monster...I think it’s trying to speak to me. It’s almost like I can hear its thoughts. Am I going crazy?”

“You might be wondering why I’m still filming even though almost everyone else has already run away,” the cameraman took a deep breath and seemed to calm down a little, “It’s for the money. My daughter is very ill, and her health insurance can’t cover her bills. So, please, please believe everything you see in this video! It is 100% the truth!” At this point, the octopus monster let out a high-pitched scream that raked at the eardrums. It snapped whatever composure the cameraman had left.

“Don’t worry Chloe, daddy will make sure you get the best treatment possible! And fuck you Medicare!”

In the midst of the pandemonium on deck, one of the cameraman’s crewmates yelled, “Hail Cthulhu!!”

“Look, friends, someone has already… Hahaha. Someone has already gone crazy. Hail Cthulhu!”

---------------------------------------------------

“Hail Cthulhu!”

“Crap, so this is Cthulhu! It’s very similar to how I imagined it!”

“It’s like it’s distributing candy. Quickly grab them!”

“Fatherly love is truly worthy of admiration. Just for his daughter, he’s braving this kind of danger.”

“This strange blurry space in the middle of the ocean must be the legendary city of R’lyeh.”

“Where exactly in the Pacific Ocean is it?1 I want to go see the great Cthulhu as well!”

“Too terrifying. Not long ago, a dragon had appeared, and now there’s Cthulhu? Am I really on Earth? Could it be that I have been transported into a parallel world similar to Earth?”

“I will remain in doubt of everything. If this is really Cthulhu, then the Earth is finished!”

“Hail Cthulhu! Hail Cthulhu!”

“...”

The pop-ups that flooded the video made Gui Bin watch it a second time before closing the screen.

He looked out the helicopter curiously and talked to the team leader beside him, “This is my first time on a helicopter. Where are we going?”

“You will know in a moment. For now, you can just relax. Do you have any thoughts on the video?”

The fat middle-aged man next to Gui Bin looked towards him and asked.

Gui Bin slightly pondered and decided not to speak about the monster’s appearance for now.

“Leader, did you notice it? That monster seemed to be uninterested in humans. Those casualties in that video were all caused by themselves or accidents. Instead of hunting the humans, the monster seemed to be more interested in the contents of the freighter. As for its contents, I am not aware of it.”

“After the video was released, many experts analyzed it. They also came to the same conclusion as you. I did not expect you to notice that after watching it a few times.

The team leader always thought of Gui Bin as a quick thinker, logical, and good at work.

When he brought Gui Bin into the department, he thought he had found someone good to do his work for him, while he could relax.

“Do you think that is really Cthulhu?” the team leader asked with deep worry.

The team leader did not know much about Cthulhu mythology, but after seeing the video, he quickly built up a basic understanding of the stories surrounding it. After watching and reading some materials related to Lovecraftian mythology, he only had one thought - the Earth is going to be finished!

The main thrust of Lovecraft’s stories was that humans were alone in a cold and dark universe populated by mysterious and powerful beings who could annihilate the entire race in a flash. All who tried to delve into the mysteries associated with these entities would lose their minds if they were lucky. And if they weren’t… Well, death would be a reprieve.

“It is Cthulhu, but not Cthulhu!” Gui Bin said after thinking for a while.

“Why do you say so?”

The team leader felt his nicotine cravings acting up again. But as it was against the flight regulations of the helicopter they were in, he refrained from pulling out a cigarette.

“Cthulhu was a monster created by Lovecraft. However, there are also many derivative works and parodies created by later generations.”

He continued after a short pause, “Let us assume that Lovecraft was exposed to Cthulhu and contaminated by it to create such a novel. Let us also assume that other people had also been contaminated when they created other works. But leader, you must know that these created works were made by humans, and what do humans do best? Exaggerate.”

“Just think about those cults out there. They always boast their beliefs that evil is the truth of the universe but look at reality. Leaving aside whether the evil gods are real or not, those people must have found some books and just used their names to make the people believe, but those names were only small-time creatures!”

The team leader recorded Gui Bin’s words, “Are you trying to say that the evil gods in the Lovecraftian mythology may really exist, but are not as incomprehensible as they are accounted for in books? That they were only described that way due to human exaggeration?”

“Exactly. You should also know that names like ‘Azathoth’ are linguistic gibberish. I am more inclined to think that the names were just made up by humans by merging names together and that these monsters are just from the same race. Of course, it's fair to call these monsters evil gods because of their mysterious powers.”

“I have carefully observed the people’s expressions in the video. I can tell that they were not faked, but the fear seems somewhat exaggerated, so I can only guess that humans do get their wills twisted by such evil gods.”

The leader wrote down everything Gui Bin had said and placed his pen down.

"Your idea was quite logical and might be true. Cthulhu and the other evil gods might exist, but they were not the kind of supreme gods involved with the mysteries of the origin of the universe. Rather they were a group of twisted monsters with inflated reputations."

“Their existence might also be a warning to us - to anyone who wants to explore the secrets of the world. Warning us that we have to pay a price in the end.”

“Gui Bin, do you think that humans could defeat these beings?”

“I don’t know,” Gui Bin shook his head.

“When Cthulhu appeared, there were American destroyers on the site. One of the captains of the destroyer seemed to have been contaminated by Cthulhu’s spirit and attacked friendly forces.”

The team leader’s words surprised Gui Bin because this kind of thing should be categorized as the United States classified information.

“You are surprised why I know something that only the American government knows, right? The answer is right there!”

The leader smiled and pointed with his finger.