Eldritch Horror Theatre

A lingering presence of the dead.

Even though it was just a dress, slipping it on had instantly granted her a uniquely eerie aura.

Fu Qian knew this wasn't just his own aesthetic sensitivity. At a glance, even before Excellency Ji Ning had spoken, an expression of subtle unease had crept onto the faces of the onlookers.

Unease not just at how the dress looked on her, but at the very act of her putting it on.

For a start, finding a dress in such a bizarre place under such strange circumstances was jarring enough.

Even playing devil's advocate, behind a curtain was simply no place to hang clothes.

And yet, despite leading a tense fight for survival, Excellency Ji Ning had taken the garment down and slipped it on without a second of hesitation—an unnervingly abnormal level of decisiveness.

Most terrifying of all, it fit her perfectly.

This rapid sequence of reality-bending events left quite an impact.

In this heavy atmosphere, Old Man Li finally stepped up to his role as the person in charge. Looking at the quietly standing Ji Ning, he was the first to ask softly.

"It is indeed what I was looking for, but it's a bit different from what I expected..."

Clearly, there was more to the dress than just its visual effect. For a moment, even Excellency Ji Ning's voice seemed to carry a deathly stillness.

Given her previous behavior, she definitely wasn't playing some sick joke just to scare them.

"...Different how?"

Old Man Li's expression was graver than ever.

"This really is my dress."

...

"Even though I didn't catch that thing earlier, I used a special transcendent item to leave a part of my Imprint on it."

Following that startling revelation, Excellency Ji Ning didn't leave the team to guess, instead explaining her previous actions in more detail.

"The goal, naturally, was to reverse-track it. Ideally, I wanted to trace it back to its source, but the situation is far from ideal..."

She let out a long sigh. Paired with her current attire, the effect was genuinely spine-chilling.

"While I can confirm the Imprint hasn't been erased, my tracking of it has suffered some incomprehensible distortion."

"Like I said before, I couldn't pinpoint its exact location. I could only search for traces around us to piece together some information."

"And now I am absolutely certain this trace is connected to my Imprint. It's just that the form it took is a bit strange."

"The moment I laid eyes on this dress, I knew it belonged to me."

Lightly stroking the dark, layered floral patterns on the fabric, Ji Ning sounded as if she were truly being drawn into death's embrace.

"Putting it on only confirmed it."

...

The target's trace had manifested directly as a piece of clothing?

Excellency Ji Ning's explanation was quite clear. In that moment, the team gained a much more visceral understanding of what she meant by "distortion."

Yet the more they understood, the more baffling it felt.

"I trust your judgment, Excellency, but a trace like this doesn't seem very meaningful?"

As they silently digested this information, Lu Yi was the first to break the silence, unable to hold back his inner concerns.

His lack of composure was entirely justified.

While the signs of erosion on everyone else had worsened along the way, they were nothing compared to the small sapling swaying on Lu Yi's chest.

As the force of its photosynthesis grew stronger, Lu Yi himself was visibly wasting away.

Right now, his need to find a way out was far more desperate than anyone else's.

"That seems to be the case for now."

Unfortunately, Ji Ning offered little comfort in response to his distress, casually acknowledging the despair of their situation.

"Which is why we had better hurry up and find more traces."

...

But if more traces were just like this one, what was the point?

"But..."

Faced with this precarious plan of action, Lu Yi's expression clearly betrayed his frustration.

"You're being too modest, Excellency Ji Ning. In my eyes, this is still a very meaningful discovery."

Just as Lu Yi hesitated, Fu Qian suddenly spoke up from the side, offering a far more optimistic take.

As one of the only two non-High-Tier Transcendents on the team, he clearly lacked the self-awareness to stay quiet and know his place.

"Oh?"

His upbeat demeanor was so out of place that even Ji Ning looked momentarily confused, restoring a bit of life to her otherwise corpse-like face.

"At the very least, it increases the odds that we aren't in reality right now, doesn't it?" Fu Qian countered with a smile.

"That does seem..."

Surprisingly, Lu Yi was the first to react to Fu Qian's statement.

He muttered to himself. Presented with this fresh perspective, his crippling anxiety actually eased quite a bit.

This possibility had been raised earlier, but from Lu Yi's perspective, he certainly hadn't felt it as deeply as the other four.

To him, the entire incident was simple: a newborn with bizarre powers had been disturbed by their purification attempt, leading it to violently distort the onlookers.

And if it truly possessed the power of a Deity, it wasn't hard to imagine that distortion spreading across the entirety of Ehm Palace.

But for an Imprint to directly manifest as a physical dress? No matter how you looked at it, that crossed the line into complete surrealism.

At the very least, it felt far more like they were inside a dreamscape or a mental domain.

...

"But even if that's the case, it's still best we find a way out as quickly as possible."

Having patiently taken in everyone's reactions—including Aike's silence—Old Man Li offered a summary, seemingly agreeing with the theory that they were no longer in reality.

"As you should know, in the transcendent world, even between dreams and reality, there is no absolute barrier."

"Using death to escape should still remain our absolute last resort."

After all, Excellency Ji Ning had already proven that a simple death of the will couldn't secure an escape.

Fu Qian silently appended that thought to the old man's statement.

Perhaps to avoid crushing their morale any further, Old Man Li seemed intent on keeping the results of his earlier test with Ji Ning a secret from Lu Yi.

"I agree. The crying is getting louder again."

Aike, whose gaze had rested on Ji Ning's long dress for quite some time, finally voiced an opinion.

"Based on what Mr. Lu Yi said, we know his situation is worsening too, even though we're now tracking the entity that was originally tracking him."

"Furthermore, there is clearly more than one of these things. Trying to halt the erosion by wiping them out simply isn't an option."

"Alright. Let's keep moving then."

This time, she didn't even consult the person in charge. The moment Aike finished speaking, Ji Ning marched forward without a backward glance.

And she showed absolutely no intention of taking off the Shroud.

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