Eldritch Horror Theatre

It carried a majestic momentum, like the weeping of the sea and the keening of whales.

He hadn't heard it many times, but Fu Qian was entirely confident in his judgment.

It truly did resemble the roar of a giant dragon, albeit a bit more tragic.

Moreover, looking around, there wasn't a single dragon scale in sight.

The surging scarlet had indeed revealed quite a few things, but the sight was so filthy and chaotic it seemed entirely divorced from any such legendary creature.

For instance, even the aforementioned throne appeared to be soaking in a pool of blood, more than half of it covered in writhing, fleshy tendrils.

To be honest, the scene even felt a little familiar.

All the while, the gaping maw on his chest was still frantically tearing at the scarlet.

Squinting forward, Fu Qian marveled inwardly, almost able to feel a sticky slickness beneath his feet and a foul stench in his nose.

As it turned out, one should never take anything for granted.

Savored to its absolute limit, the Crimson Frenzy—the corruption suspected to belong to the Ancient Tyrant—had actually yielded an incredibly bizarre answer.

The Burial Ground of the Gods. That Blood Lake where he had once experienced "Eternity." The very trap the Blazing Rainbow had set for him.

True, although the deformed pillars were not yet visible, Fu Qian felt he could already smell that familiar stench of decay.

It even brought back memories of those pale, plump nematodes writhing and gorging themselves inside his flesh.

...

Was that place the true source of the Crimson Frenzy?

He had to admit, purely in terms of aesthetics, the consistency was surprisingly high.

Logically speaking, however, it seemed far too bizarre.

This corruption—irrevocably tied to the Tyrant—actually originated from a place he had visited long ago, rather than being condensed into the molten sand. Actually, it wasn't bizarre at all. On the contrary, the truth of the phrase "you can ignore science, but you must respect logic" was only growing more apparent.

Gorging on this mouthful had never been solely to verify that single guess.

He couldn't forget that his final deduction just moments ago had yielded an inexplicable contradiction.

Namely: under such a thorough scheme, how could the Tyrant have managed to leave behind even a sliver of will?

If that were true, not only did the motives become murky, but the lingering will of a higher entity like the Tyrant would hold an even greater influence over the entire transcendent system.

For Fu Qian, resolving this paradox was the core objective behind his accelerated absorption.

And as it turned out, the paradox really could be explained from a different angle: the Tyrant was indeed completely dead. Something else had simply caused a misdirection.

The increasingly clear scene before him proved one thing first and foremost: there was no undigested corruption lingering within the Abandoned Prison. The source of the corruption wasn't here.

At the same time, his earlier deductions still held true. Because he had brought along the Umbilical Cord, a connection had formed between that place and here.

Why?

It was a question impossible to ignore, yet the answer seemed remarkably simple—that place was the Burial Ground of the Gods, and a piece of the Tyrant was buried there.

He hadn't forgotten that out of the Tyrant's royal remains, he had only found the left and right hands.

But that brought up a new question: why would the Tyrant be buried there?

The Bone Burial Ground was undoubtedly an incredibly unique location. It existed in a bizarre, two-dimensional state, like a cluster of bubbles squeezed tightly together.

Its Rank was astonishing, and the dangers lurking within were countless.

It was even a territory the Warehouse struggled to reach—a place his predecessor, Liliana, had once used to dodge mandatory assignments.

But no matter how he looked at it, the Tyrant had definitely died in the Abandoned Prison. How could his corpse end up in that place?

Had it been thrown in? Or did this reflect some fundamental law of the transcendent world, where any fallen higher entity would automatically plummet into that realm?

Without fully understanding the true nature of the Bone Burial Ground, it was undoubtedly difficult to say.

Fortunately, there was a point of reference right in front of him.

That corrupted throne. Although he hadn't seen it during his two previous explorations of the Blood Lake, it still looked familiar—he even felt like he had sat on it before.

Silently calculating the time, Fu Qian allowed the giant maw on his chest to open even wider. The scarlet transformed into an even more savage torrent, sharpening the established connection with increasing efficiency...

It was unmistakable. Beneath the decay lay familiar geometric lines.

Minimalist yet profound. It only needed a fresh coat of paint to perfectly match the Golden Throne he had sat upon as a True King at the Wasteland Dragon Peak.

As everyone knew, that was the seat of the Dragon King—the very Dragon King who had faked his own scales.

Furthermore, Fu Qian had personally witnessed that the Dragon King had participated in the Tyrant's downfall, and had very likely been beaten half to death in the process.

Yet, despite everything, a thousand years later He still retained enough strength to lure in Covenanters.

So, when the Tyrant was being dismembered, His condition must have been at least slightly better, right?

Therefore... had He eaten a piece of it?

Exactly. The Abandoned Prison, the Bone Burial Ground, the Golden Throne... these elements seemed entirely disconnected, but linking them together wasn't actually that difficult.

This, for instance, was a beautifully brutal and simple possibility.

Not only did it explain why traces of the Dragon King had appeared, but it also explained why he had seen Sunny when he activated the Burial Scroll today.

The Ancient Tyrant was indeed dead, but the Dragon King's actions had forged a certain connection with that concept.

It had been Him, clinging to His last breath, who had been "staring" at Fu Qian at the time.

...

Was He really not bothered by the filth?

If this guess held true, the Dragon King's actions were tantamount to gorging on arsenic. His abysmal condition over the years suddenly made perfect sense.

One might ask: if that were the case, why choose to eat arsenic in the first place?

The answer was simple. As mentioned before, higher entities only ever banded together for mutual benefit.

As long as He didn't expose any weakness, He would be fine. But severely wounded and on the verge of death, He wouldn't have had many options left—if only to prevent the others from finishing Him off.

Ultimately, if the Dragon King was still as naive as He had seemed in that past encounter, the odds of Him falling into such a predicament were quite high.

He couldn't even rule out the possibility that the Dark Moon and the others had tacitly approved of it as a way to dispose of the Tyrant.

Even with His spirit utterly annihilated, every piece of His flesh had to be dismembered and desecrated. The Tyrant's Fist alone was a testament to that sheer ruthlessness.

Otherwise, given the Dark Moon's excellent condition, They would have had plenty of ways to intervene if They had wanted to.

...

Indeed, knowledge had to be sought amidst danger. The events that had transpired during the Long Night seemed to have gained a few more vivid details.

Gazing at the still-empty throne, Fu Qian felt the brutal reality of that catastrophe all the more deeply.

Furthermore, there were two other intriguing details regarding that Blood Lake.

First, if the main body really was the Dragon King's remains, why was it continuously gestating a Phoenix?

Was it aiming for the auspicious pairing of the dragon and phoenix? It certainly fit the occasion.

Second, if that place really was connected to the Tyrant, then the trap the Blazing Rainbow had previously set around "Eternity" suddenly reeked of a higher entity's knack for achieving multiple benefits with one move.

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