Death

"Is this Sothoth Star? This is... fucking awesome!"

Morty and AI Rick traveled through space for about half an hour using the super-super-super-light-speed engine.

They had finally arrived at Sothoth Star.

Being located near Taurus was already impressive enough.

Then there was the incredibly cool binary star system.

And it even formed an iron triangle of a star system with two more distant planets.

Morty could not help feeling that Sothoth Star was stacking buffs on itself.

On top of that, not only was this Cthulhu's hometown, it was also the home of Tsathoggua, the great toad, as well as Cthulhu's ex-wife, Idh-yaa—who had yet to move to Earth.

One planet, two great ones, and one queen.

Its life had not been in vain.

"Alright, now that we're here, we can't just keep flying forward. We have to let the owner of this place—Idh-yaa—know first."

After AI Rick said that, he stared straight at Morty, making it very clear that he was handing the communication job to him.

Knowing just how disliked Rick was by the Cthulhus in this world, Morty took on the task and tried to communicate with Idh-yaa. But perhaps it was her sleeping period at the moment.

Morty gave it a try. Whether through telepathy or simply using the spaceship's loudspeaker, he seemed unable to wake her.

Left with no choice, Morty and AI Rick could only land on the planet.

As they broke through the atmosphere and drew closer and closer to the ground, Morty spotted a gigantic white worm amid the snow-covered mountains in the distance...

Dead!

"Fuck! Is that transparent liquid blood? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Can somebody tell me what the hell happened here?!"

"Fuck!!! An Old One was killed?"

Neither of them had expected that this little detour—coming to Sothoth Star to pick up some local specialties before heading home—would begin with such a thrilling first note.

After exchanging a glance, they immediately fled back into outer space.

Sitting in the spaceship's seats,

the two remained silent for a long while. Morty patted AI Rick on the shoulder and said earnestly, "Comrade Old AI Cthulhu Rick, you've worked so hard for Cthulhu Rick all these years, and now you've finally obtained a physical body. Don't I deserve some credit for that?"

The moment Morty said that, AI Rick knew he was up to no good. He sneered. "I thank your ancestors for eighteen generations! But aside from thanking you, don't expect me to go to Sothoth Star for you!"

"So you mean you're not going?"

"If you've got the guts, summon any Old One over here and see how many of them will want to kill us!"

The situation immediately turned into a zero-sum game.

For the moment, Morty had no way to deal with AI Rick.

If he summoned the Old Ones from Cthulhu's side, then he and AI Rick would definitely have their souls extracted and suffer torture for hundreds of billions of billions of billions of years.

After all, someone's wife had died under such suspicious circumstances.

And the two of them just happened to be here.

They also possessed the power to kill Cthulhu and the others.

If it wasn't their fault, then whose fault was it?

As for the Elder Gods and Outer Gods...

The former hated Cthulhu, while the latter were omniscient and omnipotent beings.

Neither cared in the slightest whether tiny humans like them lived or died.

Old Cthulhu and his lot really were more down-to-earth!

Down-to-earth as they might be,

the incident had already happened, so what should the two of them do?

Should they take advantage of the fact that perhaps no one knew yet, sneak into Sothoth Star, obtain what they needed, quickly brew the potion at light speed, solve Cthylla's problem, and finally run home?

Or should they call Cthulhu with a prayer and tell him that his ex-wife had been murdered?

"Enough! Stop agonizing over it! Let's go down, pull off a quick job, and sneak away!"

AI Rick cast his vote for running away.

Morty, who did not want to stir up more trouble, hesitated for several seconds before deciding not to tell Cthulhu the heartbreaking news of her death for now.

The two returned to the surface once more.

Using the spaceship's built-in scanner, they identified where the raw materials they needed were located.

The moment they got off the ship, they used tools to dig through the soil until their faces had gone full JoJo. In just two minutes, they hauled a pile of bizarre plants aboard the ship and then tore through the sea of stars.

Sitting in the co-pilot's seat, Morty still had not calmed down. Watching the planets flash past outside the window, he took a deep breath.

Silently, he gave AI Rick a thumbs-up.

As expected of a counterfeit Rick. Settling things quickly and avoiding getting tangled up in trivial matters—he had mastered both to the extreme.

After the two returned to Earth and used the spaceship to find all the remaining raw materials needed for the potion,

AI Rick threw himself into the time-sensitive process of brewing it.

Since the two had returned to Arkham Town, Morty waited outside the spaceship for a while and noticed that dawn had already broken.

After the entire town woke up, aside from a few people with nothing better to do, everyone headed toward their workplaces with curious expressions.

The priest, who had risen early, found Morty.

He looked preoccupied, and there was a trace of panic in his eyes.

"Morty, a deity calling himself Ulthar wants to see you. He's in... the church. Can you... get there quickly?"

Ulthar...

Morty, who had recently been seriously reading the Cthulhu Mythos, felt his heart jolt at the name.

This guy was a Watcher among the Elder Gods.

His abilities were unknown, but he seemed capable of monitoring every Old One on Earth.

Considering that he could watch all the Old Ones by himself, his strength surely was not weak.

But at this critical moment of potion brewing,

an Elder God wanted to meet him in Cthulhu's church.

No matter how he looked at it, something about this was strange.

After signaling the priest to remain calm, Morty walked to the spaceship door, told AI Rick inside about the matter, and urged him to speed up even more.

Then, holding the Silent Sword in his right hand and the Book of Eibon in his left, he set off for the church.

The journey went smoothly. There were barely any pedestrians around, as though the priest had cleared them out beforehand.

When he arrived before the church doors,

Morty had not even pushed them open

when the wooden doors before him swung open slowly in his direction without any wind.

A faceless, unclothed humanoid creature stood before the Cthulhu statue in the church. The color of its body... was the Milky Way!

At the position of its chest was the Earth Morty had seen from outer space.

"Hello, outsider who intruded into this world without permission."

"Ulthar..."

The other party's calm tone gave Morty the illusion that it was friendly.

But the moment he spoke its name, the previously tranquil atmosphere was shattered by a furious roar!

"It's because of you and that stinking old man who already ran away that this world is now facing an unprecedented disaster!!!"