Eldritch Horror Theatre

His Excellency Arakiel was clearly in a hurry.

Back when he established the connection with the Pope, Fu Qian had thrown his right eye out as a coordinate to increase the probability of a lock-on.

Right now, just like his Left Hand, it was missing its fundamental essence and had yet to be restored.

Because of that, his arm turning into a worm and his eye ending up like this wasn't all that surprising.

Still, it showed that this higher entity refused to overlook even the slightest vulnerability.

By comparison, however, the right eye had its own unique traits.

Unlike the incredibly stiff worm-arm, it not only tracked nimbly alongside his remaining eye, but also diligently transmitted visual signals back to him.

It was quite miraculous, but considering the worm he had yanked out of his neck when he first entered the Nightmare Corridor, this kind of sensory link made sense.

Because of this, even Wen Li hadn't noticed anything wrong during their second meeting.

The moment he entered The Corridor and realized his field of vision had widened slightly, he compared it to the worm-arm, guessed this possibility, and decided to leave things as they were.

After all, in his current situation, it wasn't exactly a bad thing.

Gouging it out for real might have slightly slowed down the corruption rate, but that clearly wouldn't make for a good cooperative posture, and it would easily scare the kids in the dream.

What just happened was a perfect example.

Without the jarring shock of this anomaly—one far greater than the worm-arm—Eldest Miss Wen likely would have needed a lot more effort to get out.

It was a twisted sort of "everything has its use."

If that hadn't worked, Fu Qian had even considered tossing her the Head Cage to see if it would help.

Furthermore, after the dream shattered, why did things seem slightly different from before?

...

Stroking his empty eye socket, Fu Qian fell into deep thought as he surveyed the scene before him.

It was also a corridor, but the aesthetic was completely different from the Nightmare Corridor.

Compared to the eerie sublimity of the latter, this place had a far more everyday, lived-in feel. It looked like... the kind of hotel someone went to after picking up a drunk at a bar?

Exactly. The color scheme and decor of this corridor weren't just familiar—they looked exactly like the place he had seen when Taylor dropped by. Most importantly—

Fu Qian turned to a slightly ajar door nearby and casually pushed it open.

A human head on a bug's body, its abdomen dragging on the floor—who else could the horrified figure staring back at him be but his old friend, the Persuader?

Even the figure lying on the bed in the distance hadn't shifted her sprawling posture in the slightest.

"What are you trying to pull now?"

The Persuader didn't even wait for Fu Qian to step inside. Frowning, he looked the man up and down, showing absolutely no joy at someone arriving to relieve him of his shift.

Clearly, given Fu Qian's past behavior, he had given up on expecting any sort of proactive help.

"I thought it was an illusion. Weren't you too disdainful to come in before? Why the sudden change of heart?"

His gaze inevitably landed on the bloody hollow in Fu Qian's face. The Persuader made no effort to hide his schadenfreude.

After all, no matter how one looked at it, this was the price of messing around and suffering the consequences.

"Good question. I'd like to know that myself."

Fu Qian's expression remained perfectly normal, completely unfazed by the mockery.

As he spoke, he even pushed his right eyebrow up with a finger, accompanying the gesture with an expression of deep thought.

Since the eye had been gouged out, the surrounding muscles had been slightly affected, leaving them a bit stiff.

...

"Logically speaking, I should be taking a stroll in The Corridor right now."

Walking over to where he had been sitting earlier, Fu Qian took a seat and finally shook his head with a sigh.

"It seems His Excellency Arakiel had some objections to my previous work and forced some guidance on me."

"You're being unusually honest for once."

This explanation undoubtedly resonated with the Persuader.

In his judgment, it seemed this was the only possibility.

After all, it was hard to imagine that the mere loss of an eye could make this lunatic change his mind.

"It looks like His power has recovered even better than expected. Shouldn't you use this opportunity to correct your escape plan?"

"Actually, I think His current actions are entirely out of goodwill. He simply doesn't want you to continue wasting your intrinsic value."

Unsurprisingly, while he didn't quite smile proudly, the Persuader's posture once again radiated a shared sense of honor.

It was indeed even more "ideal" than he imagined.

Knowing the true extent of the awakening, Fu Qian shook his head inwardly. He didn't say anything to provoke the creature, opting instead to look around.

"Why does everything look exactly the same? Did you do absolutely nothing all this time?"

"...Because keeping everything the same is exactly what I did."

Unfortunately, even this technical discussion managed to hit a nerve with the Persuader.

"To minimize the dreamwalker's resistance later, it is best to keep the residual dream state completely identical to when they left."

Having his hard work wildly misinterpreted, he coldly explained the next second, vowing to do himself justice.

"If I hadn't carefully maintained it, that woman on the bed would have woken up long ago."

"So that's how it works!"

Fu Qian was quite agreeable. Instead of questioning it, he put on the appearance of having learned something new.

"It's nothing too difficult. As long as you carefully feel things out while controlling the dream, you can quickly grasp the trick to it."

It was hard to believe Fu Qian was actually taking his teachings to heart, but the Persuader clearly wanted to hand off his shift, so he bit the bullet and guided him anyway.

"If you hadn't left just now, you most likely would have reaped this harvest instead of losing an eye."

"Who said I gained nothing?"

Expert Fu grew slightly displeased at that remark. He immediately paused to recall, then sketched a symbol in the air.

"What is that?"

The Persuader stared at it intently, but unfortunately, he couldn't grasp its meaning.

He didn't even know the logo for the hair salon—pah, The Corridor—yet he still acted all high and mighty here every day?

"Are you joking?"

Muttering inwardly, Fu Qian made no effort to hide his disdain.

"I have no interest in knowing what that thing is... So, this is your entire harvest?"

The Persuader, who had just been educating the newcomer, clearly couldn't stand the attitude. After a moment of silent reflection, he finally declared that he didn't care.

...

It seemed his previous judgment had been correct. Replacing the Emblem of the King of the Abandoned Prison with this symbol was primarily aimed at obstructing him.

Sitting opposite him, Fu Qian gave a slight nod, coming to a conclusion.

If even the top dog who had mingled here for so long had no idea what this symbol was, it meant this method was rarely used in previous attempts.

Logically speaking, a concept pointing so directly to the essence should have been a sharp tool for breaking out of prison; it shouldn't have been neglected like this.

The most likely explanation was that this symbol representing the essence, just like the Deity's dream behind the door, was also specifically targeted.

If that was true, even though he had shown it to Lotte earlier, it was hard to say whether she would even remember it when she woke up.

As expected of the Innate Transcendent Insulation Sacred Body.

The bright side was that he had even less reason to worry about her being corrupted.

Sighing inwardly, Fu Qian nonchalantly shook his head, finally answering the Persuader's question.

"I also went to find someone to call out to Taylor."

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