Yes.
Something was wrong.
Just as Saruman and Kag finally relaxed a little, hoping for Lina's condition to improve, the situation suddenly changed.
The already chaotic Space-Time Rift seemed to come alive.
Not in a physical sense. Just like before, it was the arrival of a will, a crushing concentration of pure malice and madness.
Only this time, it was far stronger.
"BZZZZ...!"
A deep hum that couldn't be heard with the ears struck directly at their souls. It felt like billions of icy steel needles piercing Saruman and Kag's minds at the same time.
It wasn't sound. It was something leaking unconsciously from the enormous, slumbering entity hidden in the deepest reaches of this space.
Impatience?
Annoyance at being disturbed?
Or perhaps it was simply venting its frustration after noticing a tiny bug making incomprehensible moves inside its territory, while temporarily unable to do anything about it.
And yes, that "bug" was obviously Ian.
Against Ian's stable domain, this fragment of displaced anger was no more troublesome than a breeze brushing past a mountain.
But Saruman and Kag were different.
They were already in terrible condition, standing deep inside a corrupted environment. To two ordinary mortals like them, even this tiny spillover of Cthulhu's will was a disaster.
"AHHHHH!"
The strange patches of color writhing around them suddenly accelerated, twisting and deforming as they flashed mind-breaking light and maddening whispers.
The invisible spatial pressure increased tenfold, then a hundredfold.
It felt as though countless cold, slimy hands reached out from every direction, gripping their bodies and squeezing inward, trying to crush them flat and grind them into this world of madness.
"Damn it!"
The whispers filling the air surged in intensity. They were no longer background noise, but clear, blasphemous phrases filled with hatred and temptation. They burrowed into their minds like parasites, gnawing away at the last traces of reason and urging them to stop resisting.
To surrender themselves to that eternal, chaotic dream.
The will surrounding them was filled with rage, intent on crushing Saruman and Kag. It was as if, unable to do anything to Ian, Cthulhu had decided to vent its frustration on Saruman and Kag instead.
"Ghh...AH!"
Kag was hit first.
His magic was already exhausted, his body pushed far beyond its limits, with sheer willpower as the only thing keeping him upright.
Now, under sudden mental and physical pressure far beyond anything he could endure, he heard his bones groan. His vision darkened, his ears rang, and he felt as though his entire body would be crushed apart at any second.
"Damn it! That Cthulhu thing is trying to kill us!"
Thanks to everything Saruman and Ian had explained, Kag had at least gained a basic understanding of Cthulhu by now.
He clenched his teeth until blood seeped from his gums, using the last of his strength to pull Lina tighter against his chest. His own body was trembling and bending uncontrollably. Even his skin began to sink inward in unnatural spots, as though invisible fingers were pressing deep marks into his flesh.
"This is displaced anger!"
Saruman wasn't doing any better. He let out a muffled grunt as his magic shield shattered almost instantly under the terrifying pressure.
The whispers attacking his soul made his head feel as if it were splitting open. Countless insane, blasphemous visions flashed before his eyes.
Worse still, he felt the magic inside his body, and even his soul itself, beginning to slow and thicken, as though the malice of this space was trying to assimilate and freeze him.
He desperately pushed his mental power to its limit and cast protective spell after protective spell, but they barely helped.
He and Kag were like tiny boats trapped in a raging storm, on the verge of being swallowed whole.
This displaced anger from Cthulhu's sleeping consciousness might have been nothing more than an unconscious turn in its sleep, or a slight frown. The power wasn't even aimed at them directly; the ambient hostility of the region had simply spiked.
Yet to Saruman and Kag, it was an unstoppable natural disaster.
"How can something this powerful even exist in this world?!"
"This isn't magic at all!"
"Even dragons would probably just be snacks to a creature like this!"
Only now did they truly understand what Ian had meant when he called this place "extremely dangerous." Just being too close to Cthulhu and causing the slightest shift in the surrounding environment was enough to condemn them to eternal damnation.
'Teacher... Kag... Lina...'
Despair filled Saruman's heart.
He had never imagined that, instead of dying at the hands of a Legendary or beneath the claws of some monster, he would be crushed and driven insane in an unknown rift between worlds, all because the Legendary treating their companion had accidentally triggered an environmental reaction.
Was everything really going to end here?
Just as Saruman's consciousness began to fade beneath the overwhelming physical and mental pressure, and Kag reached the edge of collapse...
Something changed again.
This time, it came from Saruman himself.
Deep within his soul, the part that had fused with his younger self, the portion that had remained dormant all this time, carrying a thousand years of wisdom, experience, and a deep connection to the power of the Raven, was suddenly stirred awake.
The malicious, maddening pressure of Cthulhu's will, combined with Saruman's desperate situation, acted like two keys turning in a hidden lock buried within his soul.
In that instant, Saruman's silver eyes, which had gone dull from pain and despair, suddenly lit up with something completely different. A gaze as deep as the stars, ancient and weathered, like a bottomless well.
At the same time, an immense yet restrained surge of magic erupted from the deepest part of his body, carrying a strange aura of both time and the Raven.
This wasn't the power of the young Saruman. This belonged to the Saruman from a thousand years in the future, the blind Legendary Wizard who had grown deeply entangled with the power of the Raven.
It was the inheritance brought back through their soul fusion, power his younger self had yet to fully digest or control.
Stimulated by the threat of death.
Catalyzed by the pressure of Cthulhu's will.
And faintly resonating with the Raven power being used to treat Lina...
The will and power of the elder Saruman briefly...
logged into the account.
"Hmph."
A low, aged snort came from Saruman's mouth, carrying unquestionable authority. It was clearly still his voice, yet it held the weight of someone who had lived for a thousand years.
Saruman's entire presence shifted.
He straightened a spine that had nearly been forced to bend, completely ignoring the space crushing in around him and the whispers gnawing at his soul.
The wizard who would one day become a Legendary didn't cast a complicated spell. He simply raised his right hand, palm up, and made a small lifting motion.
As Saruman moved, rings of translucent force spread outward from his body. Dark silver light flowed through them, woven from countless tiny, clock-like runes and faint images of raven wings.
The field wasn't particularly powerful; in fact, it looked unstable enough to collapse at any moment. But it possessed some very unusual properties. It subtly interfered with the flow of time, naturally resisted the encroachment of madness, and carried a faint resonance with the Raven power Ian was using, even if weakened countless times over.
Yet that thin barrier, fragile as it looked, somehow held. Like the toughest soap bubble imaginable, it temporarily blocked most of the terrifying pressure from outside, shielding Saruman, Kag, and Lina from the crushing space and maddening will around them.
The pressure on Kag abruptly eased, sending him into a violent coughing fit. When he finally looked up, he stared at Saruman in shock.
"Saruman? You...?"
Saruman didn't answer. Or rather, the older Saruman currently in control didn't even look at his long-time friend.
His deep silver eyes swept warily over the raging malice outside the barrier, his brow furrowing.
He knew exactly what was happening. This power had been forcibly awakened by the fusion of his two selves and the crisis around them. It didn't truly belong to his present body, and he wouldn't be able to maintain it for long.
Worse, using it placed an enormous strain on his already unstable fused soul.
Still... for now, it was enough.
His gaze briefly shifted toward Ian, who remained completely immersed in treating Lina, seemingly oblivious to the chaos erupting around them.
Saruman smiled bitterly to himself.
'My Lord really does make a bigger mess every single time...'
Even his way of addressing Ian had shifted to something more respectful.
At this point, their only hope was for Ian to finish treating Lina as soon as possible and find a way to get them out of this cursed place.
Through the older Saruman's senses, he could clearly feel the hostility and activity in the surrounding space continuing to rise as Cthulhu's irritated will lingered.
But he wasn't especially worried. He had spent a thousand years studying this. Compared to his younger self, there was probably no one alive who understood Cthulhu better than the man he would eventually become.
"Saruman? What... what happened to you? Did you break through?"
Kag stared at his friend, whose presence had transformed in an instant. Saruman somehow seemed older and deeper now, as though countless years had suddenly settled into him. Even the magical fluctuations radiating from his body felt unfamiliar enough to make Kag's heart race.
That was what made them such good friends, Kag noticed the change in Saruman almost immediately, even with a brain as slow as his.
The light in Saruman's silver eyes was no longer the sharp intelligence of a young man. There was endless weariness there now. Age. The heaviness of someone who had learned far too many secrets.
More importantly, the level of magic radiating from him had changed completely. It was still nowhere near Ian Prince's unfathomable power, but it had already gone far beyond merely "touching the threshold of Legendary."
This was the real thing. The Legendary Domain.
And somehow, it didn't even feel like the power of someone who had only just entered that realm.
Kag and Saruman had spent their entire lives chasing the Legendary level. They had also seen Ian, a genuine Legendary, up close. Kag naturally had some idea of how to judge whether someone had truly reached that level. Warriors weren't actually slow learners, especially when it came to judging strength.
"Kag. It's been a long time."
Saruman finally turned toward him. The look in his eyes was impossibly complicated. There was the emotion of seeing an old friend alive again after a thousand years, the bitterness of knowing what fate awaited them, quiet worry about what was still to come, and a trace of excitement he was trying hard to suppress.
It was the kind of expression no actor could fake.
He still didn't answer Kag's question directly. Explaining soul fusion, temporal paradoxes, and everything else involved would take far too long, and this was hardly the time.
Saruman shook his head slightly, then gave a small nod.
"You could say that. But not entirely." His voice was low and steady, roughened by the passage of time. "For now... I've borrowed some power."
His gaze passed over the fragile barrier around them, its dark silver light threaded with clock runes, as Cthulhu's endless malice continued crashing against it like waves.
After a moment's hesitation, Saruman added, "For the next few hours, I will be Legendary."
Then his eyes sharpened. "And I'm a Legendary who has specifically studied how to deal with that thing."
His tone was calm, but it carried an unquestionable confidence built over countless years. It wasn't arrogance. It came from a thousand years of studying Cthulhu and its corruption, from endless failures, calculations, experiments, and hard-earned understanding.
"Good! Good! I knew you could do it! You've always been the best!"
Kag only understood about half of what Saruman said, but the word 'Legendary' was more than enough. Combined with the very real power now holding back the nightmare around them, hope burned in his chest once more.
Whatever miracle had happened to Saruman could be explained later. As long as they survived, as long as Lina came back, everything else could wait.
"Watch out!" Kag suddenly shouted.
Outside Saruman's barrier, several translucent dark-purple tentacles burst from the twisted masses of color. Formed entirely from chaotic energy and pure malice, they lashed toward the barrier like sharks smelling blood.
"CRACK! CRACK!"
The force field rippled violently, its dark silver light flickering as if ready to shatter at any second.
Saruman merely snorted.
Without any obvious movement from the rest of his body, he raised his left hand, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and rapidly drew several extraordinarily complex dark-red runes in the air. Their structure was strangely asymmetrical, almost blasphemous in the way they twisted conventional geometry.
"This time, history has already changed."
The runes faintly resembled the maddening aura of Cthulhu surrounding them, but unlike the chaos outside, they were constrained by something cold and precise. Order. Analysis.
Originally, Kag was supposed to die here. But the older Saruman would never allow that. His presence had already changed history, and that realization filled him with even greater confidence.
"Fight madness with madness. Break chaos through analysis... Cognitive Deflection!"
Saruman murmured the incantation and pointed forward.
The dark-red runes shot from his fingertips and struck the malicious tentacles with perfect accuracy.
Then something strange happened.
The tentacles seemed to become... confused. Their attacks faltered for a brief instant, their movements slipping into disorder. The concentrated malicious energy inside them seemed to be disrupted and redirected by the runes. Instead of focusing on a single point, the energy scattered chaotically in every direction.
The pressure against the barrier dropped immediately.
"What kind of magic is that...?" Kag stared in disbelief. He had never even heard of anything like it.
"Cthulhu's power is fundamentally based on chaos, madness, and an overwhelming flood of incomprehensible information." Saruman maintained the barrier while speaking quickly, almost as though giving a lecture. "If you try to confront it directly with pure order, you'll waste enormous effort for very little result. The best method isn't to resist it."
His eyes narrowed. "It's to mislead it. Redirect it. I'm identifying unstable nodes in its structure and interfering with them."
There was no denying it: after so many years spent researching Cthulhu, Saruman understood its nature incredibly well.
Knowledge never betrayed a wizard, and all those years of study hadn't been wasted. He had created a great deal of specialized magic specifically designed to deal with Cthulhu.
And right now, it was proving extremely useful.
(End of this chapter)
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