The crew of the Neversnar, wrought as they were by madness and terror, were too focused on the Lovecraftian sea monster to notice the golden dragon pulsing through the sea behind them.

“Looks like things went well…” 

With a satisfied chuckle, Louie sighed in relief.

By leveraging on Professor Johnson’s contacts and position, Louie had managed to obtain the information necessary to intercept this ship. As a distinguished academic, the elderly man possessed in the US a status analogous to that of a professor of Tsinghua University in China. This meant that he had numerous great scholars and captains of industry on his contact list.

Following the theory of six degrees of separation, an individual as eminent as Professor Johnson didn’t even need to go through five people before being able to get what he wanted. Just one or two was good enough.

Louie estimated Dragon City’s remaining population to be 100,000. Feeding this number of people would be difficult, especially if it was to be a continuous thing. Even if he tried to hide somewhere and control someone with access to the necessary food, their movements would still be easily traceable. And it would likely take far more time than he would like anyways.

And so he had ultimately decided to hijack a freighter carrying grains in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It would be easy to hide his traces here too. Nevertheless, though sinking a large vessel was pretty easy, hijacking one and stealing its cargo was a very technical job, and Louie did not possess the expertise necessary to do so. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose all of the food he had worked so hard to get so far.

Louie had used two high-rank spells, [Labyrinth] and [True Illusion]. He had spent a significant amount of time thinking before choosing them out.

[Labyrinth] was a spell just like its name. It could create a maze and twist the surrounding space. In this way, trapped parties would be at the mercy of the caster. 

This spell was usually used to trap an enemy or to protect an important treasure. Because the space itself was twisted, any teleportation spell would be ineffective inside the labyrinth.

After separating the ship from the rest of the world, all he had to do was drive the crew into a panic and have them jump off of it. Then he’d have a vessel with high quality and large amounts of food.

The labyrinth spell seemed to be working well in the current case. The space inside it had been twisted and warped, preventing any signals from coming in. If humans developed quantum communication technology, they might be able to break through the shackles of space, but electromagnetic waves were unable to do so.

After confining the ship in space, Louie used the spell [True Illusion] to create a fake Cthulhu. That’s right, the octopus monster that the crew was seeing was in fact an illusion. Its presence was purely fictitious albeit hyper-realistic. Thanks to the spell, any action applied to the illusion would also reflect properly.

“If I used the powers of a demigod dragon… and used the Emerald Dreamland to turn illusion into reality, then I might be able to create a real Cthulhu.”

Louie had thought about this, but it was a waste of his divine power. Since he only needed a good illusion, this Cthulhu was enough as an actor.

When the information of the sea monster’s appearance spread all over the world, the world’s attention would be diverted from him. Moreover, if he were to ‘create’ more monsters to give the Earthlings an illusion that mythical creatures were being reborn, then he, as a dragon, would just be one of the many mythical creatures. This would increase his safety.

This was Louie’s plan to kill several birds with one stone.

Louie continued to follow the freighter. It was unable to escape the labyrinth and could only circle in space.

The [Aura of Fear] of the Crown of Dominance was continuously active because the illusion of Cthulhu alone was not enough to make people break down completely.

But under the [Aura of Fear], and the [Group Suggestion] spell, Louie made the crew members experience an indescribable terror. With the addition of the distorted image of a really big octopus, no ordinary people could resist it. Their minds, hearing, and vision were all dominated, causing them to think that Cthulhu had really appeared!

Now, the terrifying ‘Great Old One’ was ready to bring them to his city and turn them into sustenance!

“Run. Run. Under the indescribable terror, the only thing you could do is run away…”

Louie followed the ‘Cthulhu’, controlling it to inflict great fear on the crew.

At the same time, a few dozen nautical miles away from the freighter, two American destroyers were on a routine patrol.

“Captain, an ocean freighter’s signal has suddenly disappeared from the radar. They have also lost contact with us!”

A communications officer reported to the destroyer’s captain.

The captain frowned and issued an order, “Let’s go to the area where the freighter lost its signal. Also, notify the Gordon to go forward with us.”

“Yes, Captain!”