Cloud Thinking

Chapter 301: Unspeakable Monster

The cold wind from the north scraped across her face like a blunt knife, and the white breath Helia exhaled condensed into frost in the air.

She rubbed her arms vigorously, and the heavy woolen cloak made a rustling sound - no matter how many times it came, the biting cold was still difficult to adapt to.

"It's already the warmest time of year in the North." White mist drifted from Tarod's lips as he spoke. "If it weren't for the snow-capped mountains, it wouldn't be this cold."

Euros was half hanging on Helia like a boneless cat, and his whole body showed the lethargy of lack of sleep, which made Tarod frown.

They rushed to the North late at night, and before coming here they returned to their alma mater to see Dean Philip.

After all, among the people Hurley knew, only Philip had fought against gods in human form and won, so naturally he came to seek some experience.

When Dean Philip was awakened by a rapid knock on the door, he was wearing a woolen shawl over his nightgown, and it was obvious that he had just been called out of bed.

The old scholar's wrinkled eyes were still stained with sleep, but the moment he heard Helia's request, he woke up like a hawk.

The dean shared all his experiences in fighting against gods without reservation.

When it came to the point, his skinny fingers drew complex formation tracks on the parchment, and the ink glowed faint blue in the morning light.

"If you need support..." the old man said as he was about to stand up and call the professors.

As Helia shook her head, the ends of her hair brushed against the pile of tomes on the dean's desk. "Please arrange for personnel to provide support in Shelley and outside the snowy mountains. If the situation gets out of control..."

"I understand." Philip interrupted her and gently patted the back of her hand with his palm covered with age spots.

The old dean stared at his former student.

The girl in her memory who always failed in academic subjects and was always chased and punished by Mobicius on the training ground, now has to face God alone.

He suddenly realized that true courage does not lie in strength, but in the determination to do something even though you know it is impossible.

……

The footsteps of the three people made a slight creaking sound on the snow-covered mountain road.

Tarod walked silently in front to lead the way, while Helia supported Euros and followed a few steps behind.

She deliberately slowed down her pace and spoke to him in a low voice, the white mist exhaled from her breath intertwined with her words.

This conversation almost becomes Helia's single-person narration.

She soon realized that Yuros was not lazy, but so weak that he even had difficulty responding, and his entire weight unconsciously leaned on her shoulders.

This realization made Helia's heart tighten—she shouldn't have rashly summoned someone for her own plan.

Given Euros's temperament, even if he only had one breath left, he would struggle to come when he heard her call.

"I'm fine, sister." Euros' pale fingertips stroked her tense cheek, trying to smooth out the frown. "Don't make that expression."

The arc of his lips was as fragile as a candle flame swaying in the wind.

Helia's throat tightened.

Those reproaches of "why don't you take care of yourself" turned around on the tip of my tongue for a few times, but I was finally swallowed back.

What position does she have to preach?

The relationship between them is so delicate that even the concern seems unreasonable.

"By the way," Eurus suddenly blinked, trying to change the subject, "I saved my sister's old lover."

There was a childish jealousy in the deliberately drawn-out tone.

"Old lover?" Helia was stunned. "Who? Are you hurt?"

"That guy with silver hair and a stern face all day long." Euros curled his lips, as if saying a very unappetizing word, "Ansel."

As Euros briefly recounted what had happened to Findrich that night, Helia's heart sank.

She had handled every previous action cleanly and efficiently, but left too many traces on the side of the Harris family.

Even if Euros silenced the witness, as long as the house was found and Ansel was implicated, her true identity would be exposed sooner or later.

"You...are you not hurt?" Her voice was hoarse.

"Just those trash?" Yuros snorted, but he couldn't hide the joy that flashed in his eyes. "It was your 'good friend' who was injured." He deliberately emphasized the pronunciation of the name.

Helia's fingers, which were resting on her forehead, trembled slightly.

If she had known this, she would never have dragged Ansel into this vortex.

Faced with the revenge of the magic family, he, an ordinary person who doesn't know magic, is simply unable to resist.

Even with the royal family behind her, she didn't dare to offend the magic family and had to hide her identity to cause trouble, let alone the smaller Tasley.

What's more, the Harris family could start with Ansel, who was so close to them. After all, compared to the royal family far away in the imperial capital, this "accomplice" was obviously an easier target.

Euros looked at Helia, who was worried about the man, and his chest felt like it was stuffed with a ball of vinegar-soaked cotton, so sour and painful.

This inexplicable anger actually cheered him up, and his pale cheeks flushed unnaturally.

But he knew better than anyone how important Ansel was to Helia.

"Don't worry about him, sister," Yuros curled his lips, his voice as sour as lemon juice, "I have people watching him, he won't die."

"Who?" Helia turned her head suddenly, and the tip of her hair brushed against the tip of Euros' nose.

"Who else could it be? Ian Hill." Euros played with a lock of her red hair. "That guy is so bored that he's almost growing mushrooms."

The corners of Helia's mouth twitched - asking a dignified envoy of God to be a bodyguard was a bit too extravagant.

"And your two friends," Euros put his head back on her shoulder, like a lazy cat, "after staying up all night, they said they had to go back and figure out a solution."

He twirled his fingertips around her hair, "Sister, you should learn to let others share some of the burden."

Didn't Helia want to?

But every bit of weight shared means one more person being dragged into the dangerous vortex.

She would rather bear it herself than see important people get hurt because of her.

"Your shoulders are only this broad." Yuros suddenly grasped her thin shoulders, the warmth of his palms coming through the fabric. "Some things need to be let go."

Helia placed her hand on the back of his hand, a warm feeling welling up in her heart.

She knew this was Euros's concern—the purest worry expressed in an awkward way.

"Okay, I understand—"

The earth-shaking roar cut off the words.

The entire snowy mountain seemed like a blanket being lifted by a giant, and the three of them staggered almost off the ground.

Amidst the deafening sound of collapse, there was some kind of inhuman roar, and the sound alone was enough to make people's internal organs tremble.

The snow waves poured down like the Milky Way, pressing down like a tidal wave.

The torrential snow curtain was reflected in Helia's pupils. The moment she turned her head to look at Tarod—

"boom!"

A huge purple-black arm emerged from the snow like a demon crawling out of hell, its rotting skin glaring against the white snow.

"He broke free!" Tarod's shout was almost torn apart by the wind and snow.

"We can't let him go down the mountain!" Helia said firmly.

The twinkling lights at the foot of the hill flashed through her mind—those defenseless civilians, those rooftops from which smoke rose.

The avalanche is right in front of them, but they have to go upstream.

This is not only a confrontation with the gods, but also a confrontation with the power of heaven.

No matter how powerful a magician is, he is nothing but an ant before the wrath of nature.

Unless... with the help of God's power.

"Sister, stand back!"

The movement of Euros removing his cloak blew a chill wind, and the heavy cloth fell like black wings over Helia's head.

Her vision darkened, and she was immediately pulled backwards by an irresistible force.

The young man's thin back walked forward in the snow, and with every step he took, his appearance changed subtly - frosty white lines appeared among his black hair, his thin shoulders stretched like butterfly wings, and golden light surged in his blood-red pupils.

When he raised his arms, the violent avalanche seemed to hit an invisible barrier, and the surging snow waves stagnated in the void into strange surges.

Fine ice crystals were suspended around Euros, making him look like an ice sculpture of a god.

"I'll block it...you guys...go quickly!" The boy squeezed out the words from between his teeth with a trembling voice.

The blood boiling in his throat made him bite his lower lip tightly - he must not let his sister see the scarlet staining through his teeth, and he couldn't let her worry anymore.

"Go!" Tarod grabbed Helia's wrist with his iron-like grip and dragged her towards the top of the mountain.

The residual heat from the cloak burned her fingertips through the fabric, and the familiar cold fragrance mixed with the smell of blood lingered around her nose.

Helia forced herself to stare at the purple-black shadow that was getting closer and closer, letting the whistling cold wind make her eyes hurt.

When the full size of the monster finally came into view, Helia heard Tarod gasp.

It was a living mountain made of rotten flesh and blood, its purple-black skin covered with tumor-like protrusions, and a distorted human face was embedded in the surface of each tumor.

The faces rotated at strange angles, sometimes sobbing like babies, and sometimes bursting into crazy laughter.

The most horrifying thing is that all the tumors are arranged according to a strange pattern - seven faces form a circle, and each circle is made up of seven smaller tumors.

Some limbs pierced out from the tumor, like branches twisted into a twist by invisible hands, and the joints still retained the twitching they had in life.

In the center of countless wriggling tumors, Osinoto's head hung high like a rotten moon.

The once handsome face was now elongated and deformed, with earthworm-like blood vessels winding under the grayish-white skin.

New goat horns pierced out from the temples, and sticky black liquid continued to seep out from between the spiral lines.

The most terrifying thing is his eyes - they are made up entirely of densely packed miniature human faces, each of which repeats the expression at the moment of death.

There was a bronze clock embedded in the center of her forehead, but there were only seven numbers on the dial, 1-7. At this moment, the pointer stopped at the 7 position directly above and had not moved yet. However, Helia felt uneasy when she saw it.

The twisted limbs presented a sickening sense of "art": three bodies linked end to end to form a perpetual motion ring, five hands blossomed like flowers at the spine, and seven spines coiled together to resemble sacrificial pillars...

Every detail reveals his morbid fascination with odd numbers and cycles.

As He moved, incoherent prayers gushed out simultaneously from countless mouths, as if performing some kind of blasphemous chorus of the dead.

Helia's stomach churned. The sight before her was a torture to her eyes.

She clenched her back teeth tightly, her knuckles turning white from excessive force. The flaming sickle rustled in the cold wind, and the surging flames instantly vaporized the falling snowflakes.

Osinoto's rotting body was like a wriggling mountain of flesh, and his head, embedded among countless tumors, was obscured from view by layers of hyperplastic tissue.

It was not until Helia flapped her wings and took off, her white feathers cutting through the wind and snow as she swooped down, that the distorted face suddenly turned towards her.

The corners of His mouth were torn to His ears, and the smile He revealed looked like it was carved with a knife.

"Despicable thief!" His voice was like millions of ants crawling inside his skull, and every syllable was filled with corrosive malice.

Helia's temples throbbed, and her ears felt like they were being stabbed with red-hot iron sticks.

The moment the sickle split the tumor on the left side, black and yellow pus spurted out like a high-pressure water gun.

The torn faces let out high-pitched screams, and the remaining limbs twisted in the snow like severed earthworms, still stubbornly crawling towards their bodies.

Helia quickly rose to a safe altitude and shook her head vigorously to try to dispel the buzzing in her head.

Even with Watersise's protection, facing this existence still made her spirit feel as if it was rubbed by sandpaper.

Osinoto's strange eyes were fixed on Helia, and one could almost see the anger burning in them.

This heir of the royal bloodline was born with authority that was beyond his reach throughout his life.

What’s even more hateful is that the bishops who were supposed to serve Him actually conspired to graft the godhead onto this greedy princess!

His body swelled violently due to rage, and several tumors burst open with a "pop".

Once upon a time, He mocked the royal power with twelve corpses twisted into works of art; but now, He himself has become the most despicable monster, the person He least wants to be.

His silence and his concession became the knife that pierced his heart for the betrayers, and encouraged the despicable ones to become more and more aggressive.

This shame, this pain of betrayal, should all be washed away with Helia's blood!

Hundreds of dark red strips of flesh shot out from the tumor like poisonous snakes emerging from their holes, their surface covered with rugged keratinous protrusions, resembling the mutated tentacles of a deep-sea monster.

These terrifying limbs twisted and coiled in the air, blocking all of Helia's angles of escape—Osinotto vowed to mince these annoying flying insects.

Helia darted nimbly through the blood-red cage, each flutter of her wings precisely avoiding the sticky tentacles.

She squinted her eyes to observe the movement of the strips of meat: each tentacle was covered with dense barbs, oozing turbid yellow-green pus, and glowing with a strange oily sheen in the moonlight.

If it gets entangled, it will probably turn into a bloody sieve in an instant.

"Shh-"

The flint knife drew a red arc of light, cutting off the tentacles approaching his face.

When the severed limb fell to the ground, it twitched violently like a fish out of water, and a corrosive liquid with green smoke spurted out from the wound, corroding the snow into honeycomb-like holes.

Even more problematic were the faces embedded in the tumors.

They twisted their lips at angles that defied human anatomy and chanted blasphemous prayers.

These sounds are not transmitted through the eardrum, but explode directly in the cerebral cortex - like countless ants with hot steel needles, piercing the scalp frantically.

Amidst the maddening noise, a crisp "click" was particularly harsh.

Helia turned her head suddenly and saw the rusty bronze clock in the center of Osinoto's forehead, the hour hand of which was tremblingly pointing to the number "1".

There was a sound of gears meshing inside the dial, as if some deadly mechanism had begun to operate.