Eldritch Horror Theatre

"Ugh—"

Golden flames surged. The last sound Brother Felt Hat made was crushed along with his neck as his head and body tumbled to the ground.

Despite the chaos dividing everyone's attention, the grisly sight still successfully triggered a wave of screams.

"Ah—"

An even louder wave immediately followed.

The two pieces of his corpse were rapidly decomposing, unraveling into fleshy strips that gathered into writhing strands and spread in all directions—just like they had after he was shot to death the last time.

Drawn by the initial screams, the onlookers inevitably witnessed this grisly transformation and instinctively fled, shrieking in terror.

The area beside the Statue, originally the most crowded spot in the entire Church, emptied in an instant, leaving only Fu Qian and the writhing lump of flesh.

As the closest living body, he undoubtedly became its primary target.

Instead of dodging, Fu Qian reached out and caught an especially massive strand.

Unsurprisingly, this provoked another scream from the crowd, with some already fleeing toward the outer edges of the Church.

"A pity."

Yet, looking at how his own flesh rapidly fragmented wherever the strand touched him, Fu Qian actually seemed somewhat disappointed.

It was indeed a power of astonishing Rank, but aside from injuring him, it wasn't enough to induce a true mutation.

Just like the affliction on Sarah, it hadn't grown any stronger compared to the last Healing Dreamscape.

"You can do it, trust me."

Casually flicking away the thing that had already crawled up his wrist, Fu Qian looked toward the Old Lady in the distance.

Unable to hide her panic, she had nevertheless accepted his earlier suggestion. The potion bottle was already uncorked, gripped tightly in her hand.

Although Fu Qian's encouragement was abrupt, it seemed to give her the final push of resolve she needed.

The potion splashed out, filling the air with a watery mist that perfectly reproduced that dreamy, surreal scene.

Exactly as he remembered, the mist quickly converged on the surging stream of insects.

Just like last time, the swarm rapidly turned transparent before melting away entirely.

The Boon Potion was as effective as ever.

"Well done."

Fu Qian was already standing beside the Old Lady, offering his approval.

"So, when did you receive this boon?"

His voice suddenly dropped low.

"Or to put it another way, when did you start reciting that name backward?"

...

The Old Lady's potion was real; he had already verified this earlier.

He had even verified it multiple times. Its effects were powerful enough to banish evil.

But there was a problem: the potion came from Excellency Akons's boon.

And judging by the current state of this place, it seemed certain that something had happened to Excellency Akons a very long time ago.

Yet even now, a small relic that had lost its source of power could still counter an attack of this Rank?

"...On the very first night the responses stopped."

As if her greatest inner secret had been seen through, the Old Lady trembled slightly, despite currently possessing what could be considered the strongest psychological fortitude in all of Akons.

"I was just babbling incoherently to myself. I never expected to actually receive a response."

However, her fear didn't stop her from answering his question after a brief silence.

"And after that?"

"Only that once. I never received a response again."

"Thank you."

Having successfully learned the origin of the potion, Fu Qian had no intention of scaring the Old Lady any further. With a polite thanks, he turned and walked away, ignoring everyone else who remained.

It was time to find the main target of this trip.

Doctor Dorian had gathered so many volunteers; hopefully, Brother White-Faced Man's blade would be a bit sharper this time.

...

To think it really was a boon from that long ago.

It felt as if that Excellency, upon encountering a massive problem, had tried to use that special method to contact his believers during That Long Night.

If he remembered correctly, during the endless night that ended the Mythological Era, more than one person had emphasized that believers lost the responses of their gods.

Gazing at the pitch-black night sky before him, a certain speculation naturally surfaced in Fu Qian's mind.

A Transcendent Tier progression system centered around faith, and believers abandoned after a single night... did Akons really come from thousands of years ago?

But the outsiders who had just gathered in the Church clearly belonged to different eras.

In what exact form did it exist? And how did the outsiders end up here?

There was also his very first time visiting as an outsider... the Full Moon Garden.

That place, that doctor Old Man holding a scythe—did he also exist "authentically" in a similar manner?

A thought he'd harbored since the very beginning of this mission reappeared, accompanied by the memory of admiring the moon in that garden.

It was just a pity that the night scenery here wasn't as beautiful. The only comfort was that at least he wasn't lonely.

Clang!

With a crisp ring of metal, Fu Qian slapped a Long Blade away with his bare palm, stopping it from slicing his heart in half for a second time.

It wasn't that the strike had gotten weaker, allowing him to easily block it because he was on guard.

On the contrary, it was so powerful that he had absolutely no choice but to block it.

Fu Qian was certain that if the blade connected, it would inflict far more than just a physical wound.

He truly hadn't been let down.

The same round hat, the same white face, the same blade.

The sudden attacker didn't seem to have changed at all in appearance.

But Fu Qian was well aware that the entity standing before him was now fundamentally different.

...

Was this the power of a growth-type character?

Living up to his expectations, Brother White-Faced Man once again displayed his uniqueness.

Having failed to kill him in a single strike, the assailant settled into a familiar standoff posture, not rushing to attack again.

Fu Qian took the opportunity to observe the figure in front of him.

This was his true goal for this Healing Dreamscape.

Just as he had deduced earlier, the White-Faced Man's original weakness formed a stark contrast with the other active powers in Akons.

And after filtering him out based on that, figuring out how to use him to influence the real Akons was undoubtedly a difficult problem.

The first thing Fu Qian did was try to complete their previously unfinished communication, even going so far as to coerce Doctor Dorian into reopening the dreamscape and exhausting all his resources just to survive.

The results proved his theory: with so many outsiders providing Anchor Points and believing in the White-Faced Man's existence in the dark night, the entity truly did appear in a much more formidable state.

Looking purely at Rank, even Yasui Tokiyuki was only at this level when he first became a New God.

Fu Qian glanced at the hand that had just slapped the blade away.

The increase in Rank hadn't made the opponent's attacks too fast to react to; the blade hadn't even injured him.

However, upon contact, a special yet seemingly familiar change began to spread across his hand—color loss.

It was the same feeling of his connection to the world weakening after using the Blasphemous Embrace.

If his heart was split by another strike now, he feared he truly would be sent off.

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