Eldritch Horror Theatre

Etched Intellect.

He had just noted the lack of unusual disturbances on the ship, and here it was.

Fu Qian was already quite accustomed to this sort of experience. The Angels, the jellyfish, the drop point... all of it had been nothing but a yellow millet dream, and now he had awakened.

As for how he felt about it, he had to admit—fantastic.

Was it all for nothing? Far from it. The experience he had just gone through had been incredibly rich.

When he chose to consume that lump of Divine Flesh, wasn't it for exactly this moment?

He had risked the negative side effects to add some color to this trip into the Ash Sea, maximizing the information he could gather.

It didn't even matter whether what he saw was real or fake.

Judging by his past experiences, this cross-temporal fusion of a historical fallacy was wildly unconstrained, making its credibility a massive issue.

Not to mention it felt like a completely free ride. The tearing, the wounds, the bodily deformations—the moment he woke up, they all completely ceased to exist.

It seemed the Burial Scroll's duration hadn't even been depleted—wait, perhaps it wasn't quite that much of a free ride.

Over the course of a quick self-inspection, Fu Qian realized that not everything had reverted to its original state.

With Transcendent Perception active, he could check his remaining SAN Value at any time.

196 points.

It was still a respectable number, but Fu Qian remembered very clearly that after returning from the Unseen Hill last time, his total SAN Value had been 234. He was short by nearly 40 points.

Everything else remained exactly the same, save for the loss he incurred at the "drop point" at the very end—which had been carried out without a single discount?

That was the equivalent of his earnings from two entire containment scenarios. Truly—

Fantastic!

...

If the loss was real, didn't that mean the authenticity of everything he had seen also increased?

He certainly wouldn't engage in anything as pointless as self-deception. To Fu Qian, the loss didn't matter in the slightest, so long as the rewards were worth it.

And in his eyes, those 38 points of SAN Value were well worth the price.

Conclusion one: one's SAN Value could still drop while under the influence of Etched Intellect, and it didn't guarantee a sudden awakening.

Conclusion two: compared to simply losing SAN Value, taking matters into his own hands seemed to be a much easier way to shatter the Etched Intellect.

There was a reason he had maintained such an even temper all along toward the Stars and their underhanded meddling.

Until anything was proven true, it could all very well be false.

The moment the massive Ruins had appeared, apart from suspecting it was a reaction triggered by his overflowing inspiration, Fu Qian considered an active flare-up of his Etched Intellect to be a possibility he couldn't ignore.

Considering how wonderfully spectacular the ensuing sights and experiences had been, Fu Qian had wanted to keep his actions as conservative as possible, being careful not to cause any disturbances that might bring it all to a premature end.

The facts proved this caution correct. The eventual termination of the Etched Intellect seemed to have occurred precisely because his reverse gaze had frightened the Stars.

Had he done that earlier, he likely wouldn't have had the chance to reach the drop point at all.

And conclusion three was directly related to the drop point itself.

He had already logically reasoned out just how exaggerated the concept of a place had to be if it could cause the King of the Abandoned Prison to lose SAN Value at such a rapid pace.

Now that this loss had even been carried into the outside world, that level of exaggeration had undoubtedly increased even further.

This consequently brought up a whole host of concepts stemming from the drop point—such as the origin of the Ash Sea, its connection to the concept of the outsider, the reason behind the loss of SAN Value, and why even true higher entities couldn't be immune to it...

All of these questions would serve as the focus of his continued exploration in the Ash Sea.

With such a bountiful harvest, what were thirty-odd points of SAN Value?

Not to mention, it had allowed a fleeting life to survive for several more seconds up to this point.

Fu Qian lowered his head and glanced at the mount beneath his feet.

This leviathan of the Ash Sea wasn't baring its fangs and flaunting its ferocity this time around.

Despite having its skull torn open, the creature hadn't raised any more of its fins to take aim at him. Instead, it was honestly and obediently holding its position to welcome the Tyrant's arrival.

"Getting a second lease on life is quite the rare blessing," he murmured in admiration.

The bloody threads extending from his feet rapidly retracted from the massive body.

Having returned the creature's freedom, he didn't linger for even a second, taking a single step out over the vast expanse of ash.

For clues to simply manifest right at his fingertips—such a coincidence was ultimately just an illusion.

With no time to waste on regrets, his next step was naturally to carry on with his previous plan: using the precious duration of the Burial Scroll to scour the areas he had circled earlier.

...

Sure enough, excessively grand beginnings rarely ever lasted.

A short while later, Fu Qian stood quietly upon a modest Floating Island, sighing at the realities of life.

Empty. This Floating Island was undoubtedly one of the most common types found in the Ash Sea. There wasn't a single trace of life to be seen, let alone any conversational jellyfish.

And yet, after scouring every last one of his circled locations during the Burial Scroll's entire active duration, this was actually the most unique spot he had found.

Peaking right out of the gate. His encounter within the Etched Intellect was evidently the greatest harvest he was going to get from activating the scroll this time.

He hadn't seen the Ruins, the Angels, or the drop point... Even the Stars overhead remained in a state of utter, deathly silence the entire time. Let alone engaging in any further tug-of-war, they hadn't so much as blinked twice.

That even applied to some old friends.

Surprisingly, his extremely unusual actions hadn't drawn a single familiar gaze throughout the entire journey—such as that of Excellency Blazing Rainbow.

Aside from interfering with his operations last time, he was almost positive that Senior Goto Hi coming all this way to ambush the mermaid had also involved His subtle manipulations.

Blazing Rainbow clearly seemed to possess a great deal of control over a place like the Ash Sea.

Yet right now, He had completely and utterly vanished without a trace.

Was He terrified of the Tyrant's despotic might?

It was certainly understandable, but after their several interactions—especially their face-to-face conversation in the Sacred Night Capital—hadn't he shown himself to be quite open to communication?

Or was that entity actually frightened to the point where He didn't dare show His face anywhere outside of a containment scenario?

He could only conclude that not only had the exploration yielded subpar results, but it was also difficult to pin down the exact reason for His absence.

Regardless, facing this sort of cold shoulder combined with the very literal deathly silence of his surroundings could be considered the ultimate peak of loneliness.

Fortunately, a player like him wasn't overly bound by the constraints of space and time to begin with.

If the Stargazers represented by those jellyfish had truly once been active around here, what must they have felt when they gazed up at the starry sky in the dark?

...

It was essentially an alternative form of self-isolation. It was quite normal for the Wisdom of the Deity to be born from such conditions.

As he visualized the scenes of ancient humans seeking out wisdom, Fu Qian even attempted to strike a pose like The Thinker.

Empathizing with the ancients aside, the primary focus of his contemplations remained firmly rooted in the present.

He had found absolutely nothing at the coordinates. Where was he supposed to go next?

Did Brother Ji Feng's message and recording involve some sort of deception? Was there any way to verify it?

The situation seemed to have hit a dead end, leaving him nowhere to start—but that wasn't entirely true. In reality, a certain method had been laid out right in front of him all along.

He hadn't found the drop point. Wouldn't it be fine to just create another one?

There was no need to rigidly insist on falling from the sky. He could simply discard the physical form while capturing the essence. By unleashing the Resplendent Tyrant to churn the seawater, wouldn't that serve as an alternative source of chaos?

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