Eldritch Horror Theatre

Dreams were a theme park for the self.

Just as he never minded sleeping, Fu Qian never objected to this particular mental activity, regardless of whether its contents were pleasant or not.

It was just a pity that this Lucid Dream was far too lucid.

Fu Qian surveyed his entirely unchanging surroundings and shook his head.

In theory, he possessed some rather convenient self-hypnosis techniques, but the contents of his dreams were always entirely too realistic.

Unless he made specific alterations, they would always be a direct reflection of his immediate surroundings.

Not that magical or unnatural creations couldn't appear. As long as he willed it, he could conjure as many as he liked.

But that was exactly the problem—he had to consciously "think" them into existence.

Everything existed according to his will; he was a Sovereign in the truest sense.

And the realism didn't stop there. His mental state followed suit.

The typical loss of control and sluggishness that came with dreaming simply didn't apply to him, even after he adjusted his mental focus to deepen the dream state to its absolute limit.

Unfortunately, his rationality remained with him the entire time, never wavering for a moment. It was a fundamental departure from the state of past victims.

Come to think of it, despite having built up considerable proficiency, this was still one of the rare times he had crafted an exclusive dream purely for himself.

Amidst his reflections, Fu Qian finally stood up and walked step by step toward the Amber Wall before him.

The next moment, accompanied by an almost imperceptible ripple, the wall melted like gelatin, forming a small archway directly in front of him.

Fu Qian didn't break stride and walked straight through.

...

A Lucid Dream had boundaries; he had tested that early on.

If one walked all the way to the edge of the dream, they would find only chaos shrouded in Mist.

Though Fu Qian didn't think that necessarily applied to him.

As its core and the Dream Dominator, the dream extending wherever he walked wasn't an outlandish possibility.

As for how it extended, he could refer to his previous theory on realism: without deliberate control, it would simply recreate the real-world scenery.

Now came the question: if he walked right out of the top of the Tower, what would happen?

The earlier scope of the dream had been very clear—it was limited entirely to the Tower's interior.

Under these circumstances, he only needed to take a few steps to easily reach its boundary.

What would happen if he stepped through the wall and kept going outside without consciously controlling it?

Would the boundary expand? That seemed highly likely.

And then would he step into thin air and plummet?

From a purely realistic standpoint, that was exactly what should happen. Unfortunately...

Fu Qian lowered his gaze and studied the Amber Hanging Ladder beneath his feet—something he had never seen before.

It was as if the top of the Tower had melted into syrup, flowing all the way down to form it.

To think it actually went to this extent?

The hanging ladder was thin and translucent, providing a spectacular visual effect as he peered down.

Sadly, Fu Qian had zero interest in admiring the view. He only sighed to himself as he descended.

This scene appeared completely out of thin air, certainly showcasing the wondrous nature of the dream. In his eyes, however, it was a far more tedious development than if he had just plummeted headfirst.

A fall would at least follow "reality" in some small way, while this automatic path was the ultimate manifestation of a self-centered world.

Wherever he went, a path forged itself.

He truly was the Sovereign reigning above all this.

He didn't even need to exert his subjective will; the dream automatically bent to accommodate him.

But this also meant the possibility of exploring the unknown through this medium was infinitely compressed.

Venturing further out, flying into the sky, or digging into the Underground—none of it held much point as an experiment.

This was purely a toy. All he would get out of it were stories he spun for himself.

For the Dream Dominator to be completely unable to truly dream—it was an amusing irony.

Snap!

Fu Qian snapped his fingers, abruptly ending the first test.

The moment he returned to the top of the Tower, he pulled off the Emissary Mask.

...

"I wonder if my newly acquired proof of identity will have any effect..."

Back in the Warehouse, Fu Qian picked up the Bread-Shaped Umbilical Cord from the table and muttered to himself.

Holding this item made one an Ancient Higher Being. Would this identity alter his circumstances in the dream?

Armed with his modified second plan, he donned his mask once more and returned.

It didn't look promising.

With the Umbilical Cord in one hand and the Lucid Dream activated, Fu Qian stood atop the Laboratory once again. He looked at the seemingly unchanged scenery before him and frowned.

It wasn't that there were truly no changes. In fact, the moment he entered the dream, a seemingly familiar sound echoed in his consciousness—the cry of an infant, exactly like the one in Akons.

It rapidly grew louder, carrying a sheer sense of twisted malice no less intense than before. It felt so real he could practically sense the wall in front of him secretly conceiving a foul spawn.

Although it could no longer put much pressure on him, if he were to invite a guest in right now, the resulting scene would be hard to predict.

Not to mention the crying wasn't the only anomaly. As the Dream Dominator, Fu Qian could clearly sense a teeming assembly of monstrosities, just like the one in Akons.

If he dug into the floorboards beneath his feet a little longer, it wouldn't be strange at all to pull out some peerless divine sword or something of the sort.

Even out in the Mist beyond the edges of the dream, a twisted power seemed to be brewing. It was no longer a total void.

This was a mutual attraction. The crying, just like himself, was a fundamental component of the dream.

Of course, he was still the one in control. If he truly wanted to, he could silence the crying with a mere thought.

But he couldn't make it "not exist."

Even that action in itself was a way of defining Them.

He suddenly felt he could somewhat understand what his unseen opponent in Akons had felt while "purifying" that place.

With this sense of kindred spirits cherishing each other, Fu Qian shook his head and looked down at his feet.

On one hand, he hadn't actually done anything to silence the crying. On the other, he didn't waste any time either, simply repeating his previous trick and stepping through the wall once again.

As it turned out, an Ancient Higher Being still couldn't plummet from the building. Even the style of the hanging ladder beneath his feet was roughly the same.

Although its appearance was a little more horrifying this time.

It had a pinkish-white surface slick with mucus, while the layer underneath was a blood-engorged dark red. Walking on it felt exactly like treading upon a living organism.

What a pity. That didn't change its fundamental nature at all.

If his original dream had merely been a self-directed toy, then this simply added a touch of the grotesque into the mix.

Moreover, just like in Akons, these elements showed absolutely no sign of helping him break through into a higher dimension—at least, not from the perspective of the Dream Dominator.

His second plan was also a failure. His identity as an Ancient Higher Being hadn't triggered any fundamental changes to the dream.

As an outsider to this world, it seemed there truly was an invisible membrane preventing him from touching the Mind World.

This membrane... what exactly did it represent at the Transcendent Tier?

And what did it have to do with his SAN Value?

Pondering in silence, Fu Qian snapped his fingers and activated his Mythical Form.

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