Eldritch Horror Theatre

The West District Church stood towering and silent beneath the night sky.

Since he was still using the Wing Template from the Angel Dungeon, the glide left much to be desired.

Fu Qian ultimately plummeted from the sky in a manner only slightly removed from a free fall, touching down with stylish grace.

Yet even this conspicuous entrance failed to draw any attention.

Hardly surprising. The tall-hatted elder he had severely wounded was bound to be discovered sooner or later.

Many saints of The Order were likely conducting a blanket search right now within the Overlapping Realm established by the Blood Clan.

Fu Qian wasted no time after landing. He snapped his fingers, triggering Blood Crusade, and when he reappeared, he stood directly in the line of sight of a cuddling couple.

The pair even looked vaguely familiar—they were the same two who had been here yesterday.

Such energetic youths. Natural sunset or not, they reliably ventured out the moment visibility dropped.

Just like yesterday, the couple remained oblivious to what they had seen even long after he was gone.

...

As expected, the security wasn't particularly tight.

His destination for this night shift was, naturally, the Art Gallery where he currently worked.

As he had guessed, only a handful of dedicated sentries surrounded the completely sealed building, which didn't leak a single sliver of light.

It didn't even look like a single saint was holding down the fort.

As a result, Fu Qian reached a familiar corner in just twenty seconds.

Perfect. It was still there.

Gazing at his own handiwork, Fu Qian took two steps forward, assuming the exact posture he'd held when he first appeared here.

...

The Sanctuary Amidst Time's Decay was also a creation of Ancient Law.

Over the past two days, the true nature of this once-hidden painting had gained an increasingly definitive explanation.

Whether it was The Order that had received the Apocalypse, or the Blood Clan who proclaimed themselves the Divine Child, they unanimously agreed that it had lost its magic.

As experts on the Law, their judgment—combined with those earlier claims—carried obvious authority.

It seemed that after all his searching, he had ultimately found nothing more than a lingering trace of what once was.

Even the Witch had expressed the same sentiment when he left last time.

Decay was an inevitable end; she was simply deeply gratified that the process had become more natural.

Therefore, there was no Nightmare of an inverted world. Walking through the embers left after time's decay, he was destined never to touch the world inside the painting again.

His gaze fell upon the blood-red Imprint. Fu Qian extended the right hand that had originally left it there and snapped his fingers.

A Lucid Dream instantly enveloped his surroundings.

Reality might be cruel, but it clearly didn't understand the Dream Dominator well enough yet.

If I say you're a Nightmare, then you'd best be one.

...

Both inside and outside the dream, everything remained perfectly still, save for the faint rustling of insects and rats scurrying within the walls.

Given the conditions, even the Art Gallery's hygiene standards left something to be desired.

Fu Qian kept the scope of this Lucid Dream exceptionally tight, limiting it to just this small corner.

The core of the dream was, without a doubt, himself.

Unsurprisingly, the painting within the dream displayed nothing unusual.

Whether it was the Church or the Blood Clan, they had likely tried similar methods long ago.

Not to mention that its physical form inherently remained in the Real World.

Without wasting a single millisecond on disappointment, Fu Qian's body shifted once more beneath his cloak.

This time, however, it was not the Tyrant—which possessed a targeted effect against the Law—but the true avatar of Calamity: the King of the Abandoned Prison.

Faced with the descent of an ancient Divine Entity for the first time, even the Lucid Dream he personally controlled rippled in waves, seemingly on the verge of collapsing under the strain.

Fully activating Mythical Form for the second time in a single night, Fu Qian could almost feel his body creaking under the load. It was hard to say whether he or the dream would give out first.

So he had best hurry.

Stabilizing the dream, Fu Qian shifted once again into the perspective of an authority wielder.

The painting and the frame, the floor and the walls.

Every blade of grass and leaf in the painting, the partially wiped footprints on the floor.

Even the Stars outside the building, which, though not shining directly, cast a distant, looming presence.

Countless abstract concepts surfaced in his mind, divided into dream and reality versions.

From this perspective, the immutable nature of reality was far easier to grasp.

...

It was still slightly blurry.

Sifting through the various concepts, Fu Qian took out the Fine Vintage and downed his hard-earned medical reward in a single gulp.

The Crimson Fine Wine was thick and mellow.

The taste of this small vial truly lived up to Bali's claims of exquisite flavor.

Although its slight intoxication barely affected the King of the Abandoned Prison, once the liquid hit his stomach, Fu Qian better understood why the Blood Clan flaunted the superiority of the Divine Child.

It was a wondrous sensation. The Stars felt right before his eyes, and even the supreme Law surging within their twinkling seemed entirely within reach.

But it only seemed that way.

Fu Qian could clearly feel the Law repelling him.

It was like Mercury on glass—they could touch, but they would never blend.

He didn't attribute this to a side effect of the King of the Abandoned Prison; he was more inclined to believe it stemmed from his own essence.

Having forced his way here while bearing the side effects of the Nightmare Corridor, it was completely normal for him to harbor fundamental differences from the Natives.

Because of this, even after securing this reward, Fu Qian had never entertained the fanciful idea of drinking it just to exploit a close connection with the Stars and learn eight or ten Taboo Commandments.

The same held true now.

For Fu Qian, having the Stars right before his eyes was more than enough.

Aside from the highly beneficial discussions during his exchange with the Blood Clan, Fu Qian was equally intrigued by the trump cards they had been forced to play to maintain their prestige despite the escalating difficulty.

A freely accessible, overlapping layer parallel to reality.

Under similar circumstances, what if the Stars of reality mutated?

At this moment, whether within the Lucid Dream or its corresponding reality, the Stars were undeniably normal.

He could even feel both drawing closer to him—the so-called Stars shining into the dream.

The claim that the Law of this world was omnipresent was not merely empty talk.

Amid his musings, utilizing the perspective of the King of the Abandoned Prison's Calamity Authority, Fu Qian pinpointed a specific concept: "the starry sky corresponding to the reality within the dream's scope."

Considering the starry sky wasn't even shining directly upon him, this concept was incredibly abstract, forged from a mixture of the Stars and the twinkling concepts of the Law.

This was exactly why Fu Qian had noted it was a bit blurry earlier.

But with the assistance of the Fine Vintage, it became vastly easier. This enhanced proximity shaved off at least a few seconds of targeting time.

Having accurately locked onto the concept, an orange, pupil-less eye symbolizing Calamity slowly opened under Fu Qian's gaze.

It was slow, but it was enough.

Silently calculating the time, Fu Qian waited with immense patience for the eye to expand to its absolute limit.

The instant the Calamity detonated, the Stars in the deep blue night sky abruptly ceased twinkling.

The very next moment, a brilliance several times brighter flared from every single one of them. Then, they streaked across the sky in utter chaos, transforming into a sky full of Meteors.

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