Chapter 257: The Kindness of Foreign Gods

"Who are you?"

"Great Hastur!"

"Few people say they are great."

"…Hasta."

"...where is this?"

"The land of great Hastur's favor!"

"But you said before that this is my hell?"

"For greedy souls, this is a real hell. For those with firm faith, this is just a wilderness. Only those who lack neither sense nor luck can get out of this illusion."

Zheng Qing stood under the huge bronze door, and the man in yellow wearing a white mask stood in front of him. The two of them asked and answered questions, much like the interaction between a scholar and a teacher.

If it weren't for the wriggling tentacles hidden behind the mist.

Zheng Qing caught a glimpse of those wriggling shadows from the corner of his eyes, and his eyes immediately felt a stinging sensation, as if facing the biting cold wind in winter. He immediately withdrew his sight and focused on the man in front of him who called himself 'Hasta'. exist on the body.

Zheng Qing knew the name 'Hasta'. Ever since he killed a descendant of Sathoggua in the Silent River, and then successively dealt with Nicholas and the hounds of Tindalos, the young public student has accumulated some forbidden knowledge about the depths of the starry sky, and is familiar with the secrets of many outer gods. name.

Hastur is one of them.

He is more commonly known as the 'King in Yellow' and the 'Lord of the Deep Space Star Sea'. It is said that Cthulhu is his brother and Shub Nicholas is his spouse. Mortals who see him will inevitably suffer evil consequences. Either madness or death.

Regarding the last point, Zheng Qing remains skeptical, but will never ignore it.

He touched several amulets hanging on his body again, feeling the warmth conveyed by the amulets, and felt a little comfort in his heart: "It sounds a bit complicated... But you, are you really Hastur? According to me As we know, His Highness Hastur belongs to the stars.”

This sentence vaguely reminds the other party that there is a long distance between the starry sky and the real world, and there is also a powerful magic agreement blocking it. The Alliance will not allow an alien god to appear in this world.

But as soon as the words came out of his mouth, Zheng Qing immediately regretted them.

Because these are two questions.

As he said these words, two of the golden beans in his hand immediately disappeared. Together with the two gems that disappeared before, Zheng Qing suddenly felt heartbroken.

"I am Hastur, but the great Hastur is not me." The King in Yellow first corrected a slight error in the young wizard's understanding, and then added: "Moreover, this is a dreamland, not the real world, not the real world. Not Phuket.”

Zheng Qing was heartbroken, but also felt a little enlightened in his heart.

"Both is and is not" is a very clear statement to the wizards - the other party is an incarnation of the great His Highness Hastur.

Although the existences wandering deep in the starry sky cannot come to the present world, it does not mean that they have no connection with reality. They may have descendants who need to be taken care of; they may have believers who worship them; they may also need to trade magic materials with the great wizards on the ground to get what they need.

The agreement between the wizard and the stars clearly limits their arrival.

Hence the incarnation.

Coming to the world as a projection, incarnation or even a descendant has become the safest choice for many foreign gods. The descendant of Tsathoggua entrenched in the Silent River Bend, the black goat cub that once appeared in the northern area of ​​Beta Town, and the person in yellow robes in front of him all belong to this choice.

With this sudden realization, Zheng Qing also recalled more things about Hastur's incarnation - about this, Zheng Qing saw two completely different statements in the book.

One theory is that Hastur originated from the sea, so his true form has some characteristics of an octopus. He is an aquatic creature with huge tentacles. When he comes, he is accompanied by an evil purple light that seems not to belong to this world. His incarnation is called the 'Far Reveler', a wrinkled black flying creature with claws and tentacles.

Most of the images in the wizarding world about the existence deep in the starry sky are similar to this, and their reliability is questionable.

Another theory says that Hastur is a kind-hearted shepherd god, dressed in rags and quick but with an unearthly grace. In this form, He sometimes takes the form of a mysterious saint dressed in shimmering green tattered robes, known as the Emerald Lama.

Yellow robes, lamas and gods, these elements of belief combined, Zheng Qing can only think of one word, Atlas. He strongly suspected that there was some mysterious connection between Hastur and Atlas Academy.

But he is not a student of Atlas Academy, and he is not good at building relationships.

The young wizard raised his head and looked around - if this is really the place blessed by the great Hastur, then why did he bring him in?

"You said before," he calculated the number of gems and golden beans in his hand, carefully glanced at the white soft mask under the hood of the man in yellow, and said cautiously, "I can take Zhu Si away safely. Dreamland?"

He emphasized the word 'safe' very seriously.

Hastur's incarnation did not answer immediately.

He lowered his head and looked at Zheng Qing for a long time. The wizard was covered in hair and cold sweat ran down his back before he spoke again: "If you accept my gift."

"Gift?" The wizard repeated the word uneasily.

Gifts originating from the depths of the starry sky are the gifts that wizards most desire and fear.

The desire is that the gifts in the depths of the starry sky are very valuable, allowing a wizard with ordinary qualifications to easily become a great wizard, and even allowing a great wizard to break through the bottleneck of legend.

Fear is because 'all the gifts given by fate have been secretly marked with a price'. The more you gain, the more you lose - similar to Mundell's paradox in the law of transformation. When a wizard accepts the power from the stars, he will pay the price of appearance, form, reason, and even himself.

"Do I have any other choice?" The young wizard asked with a hint of luck, and at the same time reminded: "My husband is very powerful, even more powerful than the ancient wizards!"

A strange laugh came from under the soft white mask.

"This is a lawless place. Even Azathoth, who is the source of all things, cannot touch it." The voice of Hastur's incarnation became very gentle: "Your husband may be very powerful, but it is difficult to find this place for a moment. …And precisely because He is so powerful, you should feel more at ease with this gift, right?”

Zheng Qing suddenly felt that what the man in yellow was saying made sense.

Since Mr. can reverse time and space and practice death and resurrection, it should be easy to eliminate the pollution from the depths of the starry sky.

and.

From the corner of his eye, Zheng Qing glanced at the huge tentacles spreading on the edge of the mist and surrounding him. Seeing their looming rolling and threatening appearance, Zheng Qing smiled bitterly in his heart.

He really had no other choice.