The Uncertain Trident

Morning sunlight shone into Ke Meng's room. He slowly opened his eyes, waited a while, then realized he was back.

After spending several hours in the sea, using Synesthesia to sense other people's dreams while responding to the stone men's sacrifice, he was back in bed and felt reluctant to move.

Being Great Cthulhu and being human felt entirely different.

To be specific, as Great Cthulhu, he could perceive far more things, and his mind could think about far more things at once.

It was like a computer suddenly switching from a four-core, eight-thread processor to a thirty-two-core, sixty-four-thread processor, multiplying its parallel processing capacity.

No, that comparison fell far short. The sensation was far more extraordinary, far more expansive.

Once he returned to his normal human body, the gulf in power left Ke Meng feeling terribly empty, as though he had lost so much. He could hardly wait to sleep again and regain that overwhelming strength.

Ke Meng shook his head. That was a dangerous thought. Getting hooked on being Great Cthulhu carried risks. He was an Evil God Boss, and prolonged immersion might quietly assimilate his human way of thinking.

"Woof!" Tangyuan gave a soft bark in the room, asking for some tangyuan to eat.

Ke Meng got out of bed and saw a black trident lying on the floor.

It did not resemble the tridents among the Koi Continent's ancient weapons. Instead, it looked just like the fishing spears commonly used by seafaring fishermen-the kind of three-pronged spear specifically meant for spearing fish.

There was some rust on its surface. It looked quite old, with the weathered air of an artifact that had endured the passage of time.

A strange black fish was impaled on the trident's middle prong. Black blood seeped from its body, and its eyes bulged wide. It seemed to be dead, without any sign of life.

The strange fish was about thirty centimeters long, with peculiar scales patterned like ripples on water.

After looking for a while, Ke Meng grew somewhat dazed. He seemed to see his own face on the fish.

The longer he looked, the more horrified he became, chills racing down his back.

He tried to move away, but his body had frozen stiff. He could not move at all.

He wanted to open his mouth and speak, but the muscles around his vocal cords seemed drained of strength. He could not utter a word.

It was as though his face had been pressed onto the dead fish's scales, leaving Ke Meng unable to move.

He knew he was in serious trouble. There had clearly been no fish on the trident when it fell into the puddle, yet now it held an unidentified fish from another world. Offerings sacrificed by nonbelievers carried far too many uncertainties. Sure enough, a single glance had caught him in its effect.

He forced his gaze aside, away from the scales.

The chill down his back remained, but once he stopped looking at the scales, his mouth suddenly became less stiff. His muscles could move a little.

"Tangyuan!"

He called out in a muffled voice. It was very quiet, but their bond was close, and Tangyuan understood immediately.

Tangyuan rolled over and stopped between his master and the trident, blocking his view.

The moment that line of sight broke, Ke Meng's body finally stopped being stiff, and the scalp-prickling horror rapidly faded.

Resistance +0.1

This meant Ke Meng had just suffered another instance of mental interference.

Ke Meng's resistance had risen to 2.3.

Previously, he had not known how effective resistance was. Now he understood: 2.3 resistance seemed quite powerful. Otherwise, he might not even have been able to look away.

Ke Meng first had Tangyuan block his view, then fed the cat some dried fish while gazing into Big-Faced Cat's huge, round eyes.

Fifteen seconds later, he gained some strange knowledge.

Unnamed Fish: When you see its scales, your fish head (face) will be reflected on them. Those with low mental resistance often lose track of their own fish heads as a result, believing the fish has stolen their faces. As long as they do not look directly at its scales, they will remember their own faces again.

Besides information about the Unnamed Fish, knowledge about the weapon also poured into his mind.

Uncertain Trident: Thrust it in any direction, and an impaled animal will inexplicably appear on its middle prong. The greater the force of the thrust, the larger the animal.

The Uncertain Trident constantly emits weak fluctuations that affect the mind. Long-term users will grow fond of thrusting motions.

There were only three pieces of knowledge-not many, but they contained a great deal of information.

Before receiving the offering, Ke Meng had known nothing about how the stone men had obtained this trident. All of it had been unknown.

Only after receiving that strange knowledge from Big-Faced Cat did he learn the trident's ability and the circumstances behind the Unnamed Fish's gruesome death.

No matter which direction it was thrust in, it would inexplicably impale an animal, conjuring it out of nothing.

When this steel spear fell into the puddle, perhaps the Stone Man Monster's throwing motion had triggered a thrust, impaling a fish from another world that then traveled into the real world along with the trident.

It was fantastical, and horrifying too.

Fortunately, Tangyuan's resistance was higher than his, and he had obediently rolled over to break his line of sight.

Even if Ke Meng's resistance had been insufficient, Tangyuan would have realized something was wrong after waiting long enough, then rolled over to save his master.

Ke Meng first found a piece of cloth and had Tangyuan drape the white cloth over the black fish's scales.

"Woof." Tangyuan indicated that he had covered it.

Ke Meng turned to look. With the white cloth covering the fish, he finally no longer felt that horrifying, full-body stiffness.

This thing really was dangerous.

Ke Meng had already considered that gifts from an evil god's followers would not always be safe.

This accident had proven him right. An item with no malicious intent had, through its special ability, incidentally impaled a strange fish swimming somewhere unknown. One glance had immediately caught him in its effect. It was deeply uncanny.

Being immobilized this time also made the resistance granted by the system seem even more precious.

Without sufficiently high resistance, he would not stand a chance later on.

Ke Meng first brought up his task list and checked the progress bar.

Views: 21,000.

Almost there. He needed another nine thousand views to finish this normal task, at which point his resistance would increase by another two points.

But Ke Meng felt that this was not a sufficiently reliable approach.

Two points at a time-how was that going to be enough?

If only there were a way to gain a dozen or even a hundred points in one go.

Please send some votes.