Professor Moriarty Wants to Retire.

Whether Moriarty declared rebellion against his creator or not, Whateley stared at him intently without saying a word.

Not only was it difficult to understand what he was saying, but Whateley had no intention of listening in the first place.

To Whateley, Moriarty was simply an excellent sacrifice that had fortuitously appeared – one who seemed more likely than even his daughter to accept the seed of the Outer Gods.

Would a man who treated even his own daughter as mere sacrificial offering feel anything resembling guilt towards a child he had never met before?

Whateley soon spread his arms, palms facing towards Moriarty.

“…How repulsive.”

And when Moriarty saw Whateley’s palms, he couldn’t help but grimace.

Mouths on the palms, with tongues flicking out.

It symbolized Y’golonac, the Defiler, one of the ancient beings.

How did Whateley, who served the Lurker at the Threshold, become entangled with Y’golonac? Perhaps it was due to his mysterious helper who sent the letter.

Of course, to Moriarty, who knew nothing of Y’golonac, Whateley’s appearance would seem like a horrific physical deformity or the grotesque result of human experimentation.

“Ugh…”

Whateley’s upturned palms spewed forth black, filthy liquid.

From the mire of filth, monstrous life forms gradually took shape and crawled out.

Moriarty thought that this was the most disgusting and repulsive sight he had ever witnessed in his life.

The creatures emerging from the mire vaguely resembled human infants.

The difference was that they were larger than normal babies, and their eyes and mouths were sewn shut.

But precisely because of their resemblance to humans, they were all the more repulsive.

These were the spawn of Y’golonac.

Cursed children who, like their master, spread corruption and rot the world.

!#*!!@%*&$!@

The spawn let out screeches vaguely similar to a baby’s cry but far louder and more grating as they lunged at James Moriarty.

“Tch…!!”

“Eek!?”

The spawn’s charge was only superficially similar to a baby’s crawl, but much faster.

Moriarty quickly grabbed Lavinia Whateley and leaped to the side.

“Slower than the Deep Ones, but…”

In truth, the spawn’s speed itself was much slower than the Deep Ones’. Even an ordinary adult male could outrun them if he sprinted with all his might.

The problem was that the basement area was much smaller than Innsmouth had been.

Considering it was a basement, the space itself wasn’t that small. It was rather large, in fact.

But that was only in comparison to a typical basement. Of course, it was much smaller than the town of Innsmouth. There were also no obstacles to block the spawn’s approach as well.

“Guh…!!”

So Moriarty narrowly avoided the spawn’s grasping hands while searching for a means of resistance. At least judging by appearances, they seemed more manageable than the Deep Ones.

But unlike the Deep Ones, an independent species and sentient beings that worshipped Dagon, the spawn were direct creations of Y’golonac, just as their name implied.

They could be called his children or his avatars. What was certain was that they were not as easy opponents as they appeared.

Moriarty had no chance of victory unless he could demonstrate overwhelming power or exploit their weakness. The former was practically impossible, so the latter was the only option left.

The problem was that Moriarty had neither the opportunity to find that weakness nor any clues that could lead to it. In his hands, that is.

“Gah…!”

As Moriarty was dodging the spawn’s attacks, his foot caught on a table leg.

The flasks on the table rolled off, spilling their contents haphazardly on the floor.

“Get off…?”

Ignoring this, Moriarty tried to regain his balance and flee when he suddenly realized that the spawn charging like wild boars had all stopped simultaneously.

With the table, or more precisely, the contents spilled under the table, between them.

“…..”

After observing this scene momentarily, Moriarty grabbed an intact flask and extended his arm forward.

!@#!$!$

The spawn then shrieked as if facing something terrifying and retreated from Moriarty.

“…It’s mercury.”

Moriarty easily recognized the contents of the flask.

“Is this… these monsters’ weakness?”

And through the spawn’s reaction, he deduced that mercury was their weakness.

While this doesn’t apply to Y’golonac’s main body, the priests and spawns who receive Y’golonac’s power share a common weakness to mercury.

The reason is unknown. In fact, mercury might be harmful to Y’golonac’s main body as well, but either his power is so strong that it doesn’t affect him, or conversely, Y’golonac’s power weakens as it passes through humans, creating this weakness to mercury.

“….?”

Seeing the spawn terrified by just waving a flask of mercury, Moriarty turned his gaze to Whateley.

But Whateley showed no reaction to the spawn’s fear.

“What’s going on?”

Rather, he was staring blankly at the ceiling with his mouth open in a suspiciously odd manner.

“…First, let’s back away-”

At that moment, as Moriarty felt an inexplicable unease and tried to escape the basement with Lavinia-

He came.

…..

The door opened.

――

For a while, James Moriarty couldn’t understand what had happened to him or what had happened in this place.

“Ms. Moriarty? Why are your eyes suddenly…”

“Keep them tightly shut. You must never open your eyes, absolutely never.”

Only one thing was clear – he must never open his eyes.

Black forms that could be tree roots or tentacles, it was impossible to tell.

Those forms were pointing upwards. Not towards the ceiling, but further up.

The spawn of Y’golonac, caught by the tentacles, and Whateley, who had been staring upwards, were all pulled up by the tentacles.

And – Moriarty’s gaze, too, was drawn upwards.

Even though his instincts screamed countless times that he must never look up.

A temptation that overwhelmed instinct made him tilt his head upwards.

And up there was-

4

The cosmos.

There was an eye like the cosmos, a cosmos like an eye.

There was a wonder that humanity had never reached, an ecstasy that no one could contain.

“….Ah.”

A small gasp.

Whether it came from his own mouth, or from someone else’s.

Or whether it was even uttered aloud at all, or just a refrain in his head, Moriarty couldn’t distinguish.

And – that ecstasy pulled at Moriarty.

Black tentacles, grown from the cosmos down to earth to feed on its nutrients, guided Moriarty to their home.

Stars, the Milky Way. The lights adorning the universe.

A beauty unbearable for humans beckoned to Moriarty. Like a woman.

“Ms… Ms. Moriarty!? Ms. Mori-”

He thought he heard a voice, but it didn’t reach Moriarty’s ears.

Something seemed to grab his hand, but it couldn’t stop Moriarty.

“….!!”

And so, in the brief moment, he closed and opened his eyes.

Moriarty was in the cosmos.

Should we say he was standing or floating?

In fact, it probably doesn’t matter. With his power, neither standing nor floating would be possible.

The reason he could exist like this in the cosmos was because some other power had intervened.

“―!!!”

The power of an omniscient and omnipotent god existing beyond the universe.

5

That being was suddenly before Moriarty.

Or perhaps Moriarty had suddenly approached that being.

It was beyond a massive star, it was a galaxy unto itself.

A monster that had swallowed the universe, and a human as insignificant as a single ant.

It was a God and not a God.

The Key and The Gate, the Beyond One.

The All-In-One, the One-In-All.

The All Encompassing, and the One Who Returns All Things to One

Worship the leader of the Outer Gods.

Stand in awe of the master of the void and the void itself.

Revere the brilliant rainbow.

Before you is everything in this world.

“…..”

Moriarty’s thoughts had already stopped the moment he faced that being.

No matter that he had come to know the existence of the Author, no matter that he had been reborn by the hand of an Outer God.

That being was not something that could be handled to that extent. No, perhaps it was because of that series of events that his head had not yet burst.

Moriarty could not speak. He could not think.

His physical body stopped, unable to die or live, the moment it saw the gatekeeper. A tidal wave of knowledge unbearable to the human mind swept over poor Moriarty.

Ah, poor Moriarty.

His mind would soon scatter into pieces, eternally drifting to the far reaches of the universe.

“….Ah-”

Shhhh…

But that can’t happen.

Close your eyes. My hand will cover them.

I can’t let you be destroyed so meaninglessly.

This child is the one I’m raising.

I don’t desire such a trivial death.

So… shall we talk for a moment?