In the starry sky.
A mass of twisted blue lightning, like cloud, rain, and mist charged with thunder, slowly descended, rapidly approaching the planet.
Whoosh. A massive dark-blue claw slowly extended from within the blue lightning. At the center of its palm, a round pearl churned.
It was as though flames burned within the pearl.
"Tremble in the name of the great Water Mother, you lowly motes of dust!"
The burning pearl abruptly turned red, growing brighter and brighter.
Screech!!
In an instant, a crack split open at the pearl's center, shooting a pillar of black smoke down toward the planet below.
Puff! The smoke pillar suddenly exploded in midair above the planet, splitting into five thin streams that shot toward five different locations.
One of them streaked toward Miskatonic University.
Miska.
Maradona silently flipped through the documents on his desk. After casually scanning the data, he rose to his feet and looked out through the window, just in time to see that black smoke shooting toward this direction.
"This is not a place for you to run wild."
Maradona removed a white metal ring from his finger and tossed it outside.
Crack.
A bolt of lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, and within it passed the shadow of a gigantic bird.
The black smoke and the lightning vanished at the same time, leaving behind no trace of the earlier disturbance.
Maradona stood before the window, his expression dark.
"What was that? An advance warning?" He raised his head toward the sky, as though he could see through the heavens to that enormous cloud of lightning in the starry void.
Crack.
Lightning flashed, and the oppressive sensation from before abruptly disappeared.
Lu Sheng stood inside the research institute and drew a deep breath. Only after a long while did