Eldritch Horror Theatre

The sound of his skull splitting open never came.

He could feel an unnatural stiffness in that finger, as though it were struggling with all its might to resist some bloodthirsty urge.

But this did not mean the crisis was over, because the silent Red Moon had not withdrawn its hand.

Not only that, but soon two fingers were stroking his forehead, almost perfectly replicating the gesture he had used when pressing them closed.

Yet Fu Qian, feeling for the first time that his skull was as fragile as tofu, still did not reject this "caress." Nor did he transform to bolster his resistance, wanting to avoid startling this "Mother" who had finally achieved Transformation.

He did not even move when the moon behind his back slowly unfurled.

Though he didn't turn his head, the image in Fu Qian's perception at that moment was incredibly clear—

Silently, the Red Moon had drawn as close as it possibly could.

The shadows on the surface of the massive sphere—which he had previously judged to be ravines formed by twisted bodies—were now genuinely swelling into clawed tendrils.

They moved with a lighter, more fluid grace than when they had crushed Yasui Tokiyuki into a ball, so much so that the main body connected behind them seemed able to stretch out slightly.

For a brief moment, the Red Moon actually lost its original outline. It revealed an inner aspect that was just as blurry as the face of the figure in the seat, yet contained infinite mystery.

Unfortunately, there was not much time to observe. In the next moment, those clawed, thread-like limbs silently stretched around to his front one by one, then slowly closed in, as if offering a sweet embrace.

Even though he could sense their desperate attempt to be gentle, the areas they enveloped still felt as if magma was flowing over them.

"Heh... hehe..."

This was accompanied by a neurotic chuckle that seemed impossible to suppress.

He didn't dodge, nor did he transform. Fu Qian maintained his casual conversational posture until the claws trembled and intertwined in front of him.

As if fiercely fighting the urge to squeeze tighter, this sweet embrace was finally completed in midair, stopping merely a hand's breadth away from Fu Qian's body.

This lasted for only a split second. As if drained of all their strength, the claws rapidly retracted at a much faster speed than when they had extended.

"Annalise... did not live to see the Long Night."

An incredibly ethereal sentence drifted over right after.

...

Annalise, the Progenitor of the Blood Clan?

Although he might have just endured a moment of grave peril, it did not affect Fu Qian's train of thought in the slightest.

As a professional Blood Clan roleplayer, this name provided by the Red Moon was all too familiar to him.

He and Serana had even paid their respects together to the glory of Her personally designating crimson eyes for the Blood Clan.

And yet, She "did not live to see the Long Night"?

That sentence contained quite a bit of information.

The Long Night went without saying; it was highly likely the cataclysm that had ended the Mythological Era.

And the Blood Clan's Progenitor had already fallen before that?

The problem was that he had discussed this at length with Serana. That vampire, who possessed over five hundred years of life experience and had once devoutly followed in the Progenitor's footsteps, had explicitly revealed the mainstream legend of the Progenitor within the Blood Clan—

She possessed immense strength, roaming the Mythological Era unhindered for many years, and was later wounded during the Long Night while trying to protect the world. As a result, after the Mythological Era ended, She began appearing in the form of the Red Moon.

Although based on his previous explorations and the feedback from the Abyss Notes, he could practically confirm that the Red Moon was not Annalise, and even according to Serana, the Blood Clan's Progenitor had indeed become largely inactive before the Long Night...

But for the latter to not even survive until the cataclysm—that was simply too horrifying.

Who could have done it?

Completely slaying an entity of that caliber was undeniably a monumental undertaking... Could it be related to the Dark Moon?

During this trip to the West Plain, after witnessing the essence of law rapidly flip-flopping between the two worlds, his suspicions regarding the Dark Moon's connection to this world had inevitably grown stronger.

It was a pity. The Witch was clearly much younger than even Serana and did not know as much about certain ancient secrets.

And asking the Red Moon to elaborate seemed unrealistic. The figure in the blood-red dress on the armchair was already gone.

Without even turning his head, Fu Qian knew that all the claws and tendrils had completely retracted. The Red Moon was hanging high in the sky once more.

As expected of a distortion that even a Deity would struggle to resist. The Decree of Return, having attained Sublimation, could only pacify it slightly for now.

The Red Moon's earlier silence was clearly due to its poor condition. After briefly releasing itself with his help, it seemed it would need to rest for another period of time.

Though that didn't mean It hadn't left anything behind—

Fu Qian looked down at his chest. Marks resembling the blood-red spiderwebs from the entity's body were flickering there and spreading across his entire figure.

The outline of those marks was strikingly the shape of the long limbs tightly embracing his chest from behind.

Fu Qian blinked. With a shift in his thoughts, his body grew heavy, and a layer of Armor unexpectedly materialized over him.

...

Do I end up so pathetic every time I come back that it's as if I'm not wearing clothes, so It gave me something sturdy?

Clang, clang!

He knocked his knuckles against his chest. Amid the crisp metallic ringing, Fu Qian was momentarily at a loss for what expression to make.

Dark silver in color and densely covered in slash marks, the full-body Armor that had appeared in the blink of an eye radiated an aura of ancient weathering.

Upon closer inspection, the slightly raised patterns on it perfectly matched the outline of the blood marks that had just spread across his body.

It was as if a body had been smelted directly onto it.

The sweet embrace he had steadfastly refrained from interrupting and allowed to finish had surprisingly brought him a gift from "Mother."

Unlike the usual aesthetic tastes of parents, even in Fu Qian's eyes, the design of this Armor was quite impressive.

Paired with a truly shattered aesthetic and the traces of countless massacres, wearing it in any situation would undoubtedly make him the most eye-catching guy in the crowd.

However, the visual effect was merely its most superficial function.

Fu Qian was quite certain that despite the Armor being riddled with battle scars, it inherently possessed extremely potent self-repair capabilities.

And this wasn't even limited to the Armor itself.

Worn similarly to the Dimensional Poison Gloves, the Armor had already deeply fused with him, causing his recovery abilities to skyrocket once again.

Compared to simply keeping him from streaking bare-bottomed in any situation, this authority was clearly much closer to the essence of the Red Moon.

As for the Armor's design, considering the highly authentic weathering marks, it was hard to call it the Red Moon's impromptu creation.

Combined with the Chair it had previously gifted him, it seemed the entity had digested Yasui Tokiyuki's ability to manifest legends.

While silently admiring the gift, Fu Qian felt his wounds healing at an accelerated rate, and a special sensation suddenly flashed into his mind.

It was as if the divine majesty belonging to the King of the Abandoned Prison had bloomed and vanished in a certain location.

"That was fast..."

Muttering to himself, Fu Qian had already begun heading back the way he came.

Although the sensation was vague, it was still enough for him to confirm the aura on the other end—Shangjing's newly risen genius of the transcendent realm, Eldest Miss Wen, Wen Li.

That bullet had been fired.

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