When the Evil God's scream pierced their ears, everyone felt themselves being touched by Corruption. Their eyes, ears, and noses betrayed them with visions and sounds that weren't there.
In a daze, they saw a blue Ocean and the vast city of R'lyeh. Countless hideous creatures knelt before an Altar. Before it stood the enormous Evil God Cthulhu Fhtagn, watching them with malice.
Cthulhu Fhtagn opened its mouth.
"Aah!"
They all heard a song that went on and on.
It sounded as though countless maddened, fallen men, women, elders, and children were chanting together in shrill voices.
"...In his house at R'lyeh, awakened Cthulhu awaits you in dreams."
The words came in waves, echoing without end.
"Cough!"
Everyone began coughing at once, vomiting wet green sludge.
Sickly green tentacles sprouted from their ears, noses, and eyes. Their tips writhed like loaches swimming through water.
When they looked down, they saw masses of seaweed climbing from beneath their feet, winding around their legs, their arms, their—
They opened their mouths, and seawater poured in.
"Aah!"
Another dreadful scream rang out. Cthulhu Fhtagn shifted its monstrous body, stepped out from behind the Altar, and appeared in reality once more.
"It's completely unharmed."
Inside the Prime Minister's residence, Tagawa Masamune felt his scalp prickle. The terrifying Great Sun Tathagata Purification Mantra had struck the Evil God, yet it had not suffered at all.
"High Priestess Reiko, the Evil God survived?"
"Can the monks keep fighting?"
"High Priestess, what should we do?"
Beneath the Sacred Tree, the priests and shrine heads were terrified. That had been the Great Sun Tathagata.
It had only been a phantom, not the real Buddha, but for the Evil God to emerge without a scratch was still absurd.
Reiko ignored them. She looked gravely at the monks and mages,