Eldritch Horror Theatre

It took only a few words to say, but doing it was far from easy.

After all, Fu Qian was the one being swallowed. What he was doing right now was tantamount to making his opponent commit suicide.

It was also akin to committing suicide himself. "The blending of selves" wasn't just a figure of speech; one careless mistake, and the Anchor Point of his self-awareness would drift.

In that moment, he even recalled the Dean's earnest advice before his departure.

Was Cass's state of internal struggle similar to this feeling?

He could only say the Dean truly lived up to his title. Even if he hadn't delved deeply into certain matters, he had still managed to provide guidance and a demonstration in a manner that seemed ordained by heaven.

Of course, the hardest part was casting aside his curiosity.

A spectacle like this was something one could only encounter by chance, never by design. Every extra glance was a profit.

But once his sense of self returned, that shared perception would be gone.

Behind that seemingly effortless tear was the perfect culmination of strength, will, and operational experience, fully factoring in the cost—cough, cough!

Ever since manifesting as the Mechanical King of the Abandoned Prison, Fu Qian had rarely coughed.

It felt like unleashing a Visceral Attack on himself. For a moment, he could barely stand.

As for his body, it looked even more mangled. To put it simply, if Brother A Fei still had his wits about him, a single glance would convince him that the torment he had suffered earlier as a mere tool wasn't worth fussing over anymore.

Fortunately, the results bought by this price were remarkable. The other Tyrant, having been torn in two, was now thoroughly merging with the crystals beneath his feet.

Rationally speaking, though it did look troublesome, if he hadn't been worried about smashing the place to pieces, jumping straight into a fight the moment they met would have been somewhat easier than this.

As it stood now, he could only say the cost was worth it.

Although the Holy Infant Calamity Star was no longer visible, the scene from a moment ago provided the perfect entry point to integrate his Fruit and Sugar Theory into the grand framework of the apocalypse.

And the many questions he had harbored all along seemed to have finally found their answers.

For instance, the one question that baffled so many senior experts: was this reality truly the afterglow of the apocalypse?

The answer was not very optimistic.

Because a phrase Fu Qian cared about much more could now be interpreted: "Do not drown in lies."

...

In that intense warning from the Red Moon, what exactly did "lies" refer to?

All along, Fu Qian had been trying to formulate an answer.

For example, it could have referred to the actions of the Warehouse, indiscriminately painting over and modifying history.

That was, after all, the main focus of his own job.

And since the Red Moon didn't want him to be used as a pawn, offering a well-intentioned warning made perfect sense.

Another possibility was the special curse afflicted upon her.

All current signs indicated that the Red Moon wasn't actually a true moon at all; she had been twisted into one.

To forcefully mold a higher entity—one possibly completely unrelated to the moon—into a sphere, and to continue using her as an object of worship for the Blood Clan...

Just thinking about it conveyed the astonishing magnitude of that power.

And this wasn't even the only case. Another higher entity, Hamadus, had been directly molded into a ship.

Therefore, regarding the Red Moon's purpose for seeking him out, Fu Qian had long wondered if she wanted him to see through the lies and rescue her.

However, looking at the situation now, there seemed to be a third explanation: if someone extracted all the various elements of an Apple and then immediately squashed them back together, was it still an Apple?

Was that not also a kind of lie?

Take the Holy Infant Calamity Star he had seen a moment ago. The crystallization of the Order of Blood was only the First Step. What if all its remaining parts completed their transformation and then swarmed back together, just like Moore in his vision?

There was good reason to suspect that this was the very future Rom was desperately trying to avoid.

And the Inverted Lake and Whale, which seemingly represented the Fool, was already a successful precedent.

...

It was known that the Ash Sea was born during That Long Night, and the Fool appeared to be an Ancient Higher Being no matter how one looked at it. Thus, the scene of enduring the storm with a physical body must have already taken place during That Long Night.

As for how exactly that ensuing storm came to be, there was no concrete explanation yet, but it seemed highly related to the crystal curse.

The Fool's actions had merely ensured that the material world remained as unaffected as possible.

Upon the gods, who were more deeply entangled with the Transcendent Tier, the traces of crystallization were even heavier.

Eroded step by step, congealed, and twisted into something specious—in the end, was the being called a God still the God it used to be?

He could only say that this whole situation was incredibly sinister.

Furthermore, this didn't even seem to be the most tragic outcome. Some hadn't even managed to complete the re-aggregation process. The "sugar" ran out of their bodies, directly transforming into the Heavenly Dao.

Their remaining broken husks either collapsed completely or sought out substitutes, leading to the existence of so many bizarrely shaped higher entities.

But at the same time, though the Red Moon's mental state wasn't great, her power seemed relatively intact.

So much so that there was even a second explanation for the curse on her body: had she truly been "forced" into that shape?

Was it possible that this was a way to evade the storm? By hiding behind the concept of the moon?

Concepts held power. Throughout all his research, this statement had been proven true time and time again.

To stay safe from the ceaseless scouring of the storm, to avoid the crystals that specifically eroded the Transcendent Tier, wouldn't these higher entities need some sort of firewall?

Starting from this point, even the actions of the Blazing Rainbow could be explained.

Staying low-profile behind the scenes for thousands of years, absolutely never showing up unless necessary—was it because they didn't want to be battered by the storm?

Even their past words, "The night and the Nightmare are both too long," sounded incredibly fitting for the plight of the higher entities.

After all, for ordinary humans—perhaps thanks to the Fool's protection—the apocalypse had only arrived nineteen years ago.

But for the gods, one could say That Long Night had never ended, for the storm had never ceased, the erosion had never stopped, and they could only struggle endlessly to find a way out.

He only had to think about it for a moment for a grim atmosphere to immediately set in.

In short, if that was truly the case, there was finally a logical and reasonable explanation for why everything related to the Transcendent Tier was in such chaos.

At the same time, the seemingly peaceful material world had actually been built atop a Volcano all along.

The Mother of Gospel and her group of higher entities didn't even need to harbor much malice nineteen years ago; the mere act of breaching the barrier might have been enough to shatter the balance, causing the Fool to completely lose the ability to hold it up.

This was also why he had earlier noted that the situation didn't look optimistic. It was simply too fragile.

Of course, even if this was the reality, there was still one core question that needed answering—

Suppose there really was an overly resilient barrier in place, and its restrictions were bidirectional, trapping these struggling higher entities so they couldn't get out.

Then, considering this place was in such a state, what exactly was the mindset of the Mother of Gospel and the others outside the barrier over the years that made them insist on rushing in to eat shit?

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