Eldritch Horror Theatre

Although he successfully advanced to Divine Emissary, the ensuing curse caused his body to collapse. As a result, he was forced to use a mermaid as a vessel, transferring out his pure self and abandoning his physical body to seek a new life.

Fu Qian recalled the story Vivian had described to him.

And looking back on his journey here, many things corroborated this claim.

The eggs expelled from the body through special methods, symbolizing the condensed self, had indeed left similar traces on the fishmen.

And the reaction of the little mermaid princess, Niniane, to him crushing that gradually fading object also proved that it was indeed Vivian's Imprint.

But that raised a crucial question: was the one who made a deal with him truly Vivian?

In other words, was the grotesque frog—who had him gather things through slaughter to eventually reincarnate into his body—truly the pure half, or was it the curse itself?

Rather than believing Vivian had left her younger sister here to undertake a dangerous advancement alone, only to fail and become trapped forever, Fu Qian leaned toward a simpler explanation: something had eaten Vivian after she left home.

The one who had spoken to him was that guy, not Vivian.

The mermaids he lured in were his makeshift method of detoxifying himself.

The same applied to Fu Qian.

He wanted to transfer this burden onto him.

As for what was offered in exchange—the method to advance to Tier 2—he might not have been entirely lying about that.

By the time Fu Qian replaced his current state, he might actually reap some benefits, but there would be no turning back. He would simply have to sit there and wait for the next vessel.

"So this place has existed for many years? Have you always been in here?"

Quickly assessing the probability of another possibility, Fu Qian continued his inquiry.

"Yes."

Niniane's answering format was the model of a perfect student.

"Since we were born, Vivian and I have always been inside here. We have never gone out."

Here since birth, and they never went out... Were they really creatures of the Ash Sea?

But their state of existence was clearly unique.

Fu Qian nodded inwardly.

"But you know how to get out, don't you? Otherwise, you couldn't have released those mermaids."

"Yes. Vivian knows too, but I discovered it first."

With someone to reminisce about the past with, Niniane's tone even became a bit cheerful.

"Then have you never thought about going out to take a look? Although this place is large, it's a completely different concept compared to the ocean."

As he asked this, Fu Qian already had a faint inkling of the answer.

"We can't go out. Vivian told me that if we leave this place, we would likely turn into bubbles and vanish in the blink of an eye."

Niniane's tone was very serious, sounding as though she were repeating her sister's exact words.

"We are not like normal creatures. Regardless of Rank, we are essentially fragments born from the accidental power fluctuations in this sea."

"Our only distinction is our luck. Being born in this Miracle protects us from being washed away by the ash, allowing us to survive indefinitely."

It really was like the legend of the Little Mermaid—was the price of growing legs turning into sea foam?

Fu Qian let out a quiet sigh. The probability that the frog princess wasn't Vivian was now even higher.

If his previous guess was true, then the most immediate issue was that the fishmen outside—acting as discarded medicinal dregs—were meaningless to the frog princess.

This completely negated the "breeding farm" theory. That meant he could simply leave this place, and even the Ash Sea altogether, turning into a sea monster to hunt for prey everywhere.

No matter how he looked at it, that would be far more efficient than squatting in this Fish Trap.

But he hadn't done that.

Now Fu Qian knew that he had used Vivian, an Ash Sea material, for his advancement.

It was like building a house out of snow; if he left this place, perhaps without even exiting the Ash Sea, he risked complete collapse.

That was why he didn't dare to leave.

However, if that were the case, wasn't that guy a little too careless?

Didn't he know that things in the Ash Sea couldn't be eaten indiscriminately?

Fu Qian was quite curious about exactly where the enlightenment that guy had received came from.

"So what exactly is the method you figured out to leave this place?"

Fu Qian continued to question the lucky mermaid princess.

"It's simple. The order."

She answered without holding anything back.

"This place is made up of many fragmented seas. You need to pass through a portion of them one by one in a specific pattern."

"Then you will find yourself falling out of here."

So that was it. Didn't that resemble what had just happened?

Fu Qian naturally recalled the way he had entered earlier.

No wonder Niniane was able to send those fishmen outside without being discovered for so many years.

Essentially, she only provided slight guidance to their routes; it was even theoretically possible for it to happen by sheer chance.

"Impressive. How did you find out?"

Fu Qian did not withhold his praise.

This kind of thing was simple once known, but the process of figuring it out couldn't merely be described as tedious. Were these two mermaids really that bored in here?

"At first, we accidentally noticed that some creatures had disappeared. You have to understand that the creatures in here are just like us; they don't just quietly die off. We were very curious about the cause."

"Why didn't you assume they were killed by other creatures? That's a normal occurrence, isn't it?"

Fu Qian evaluated the rate at which the colors on his body were fading and decided they could chat for a little while longer.

"...You're right. Creatures do get killed, but they don't disappear."

However, this question seemed to suddenly plunge Niniane into a depressed mood.

"My body bears a special curse. All the dead creations in this place inevitably converge on me in the end."

"When we first discovered it, my sister thought I had been corrupted by them. So she carved out this place and killed all the creatures that approached, forbidding them from coming near me..."

"Yet we quickly found that this only made them appear on my body even faster."

"Later, we started thinking of other methods. My sister ran around every day, banning all fighting and even restraining all ferocious entities... Unfortunately, the creatures rapidly became too numerous to control."

"Until one day, we discovered that some creatures would actually vanish for no reason."

"Vivian was overjoyed, believing this was the best way to solve the problem with my body. So, we began a long process of exploration."

So that was how it happened?

Fu Qian glanced at the island behind the mermaid.

It was obvious that during the years she had waited for Vivian, Niniane no longer dared to guide them on a massive scale.

In the end, the accumulation inevitably occurred, turning her into this state.

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