Eldritch Horror Theatre

The Inverted Lake Capital had completely "dried up," yet the play still wasn't over?

Fu Qian spread the script open in his hands once more, examining the marks on the pages as if looking at the work of a screenwriter struggling with a severe block.

Not only had the sixth act failed to appear, but there wasn't a single extra word.

There were still exactly five lines in total, with the titles for the third and fifth acts left completely blank.

Sending off Rom, peering into the apocalypse, tearing apart the armor with his bare hands... even after such a series of intense actions, they stubbornly failed to leave a single new mark on the pages.

Was it completely phoning it in, waiting for him—a character in the play—to fill in the blanks himself?

Even though he had done this sort of thing before, Fu Qian still grumbled internally.

This was clearly different from All Fools' Day. Beyond merely steering the plot's direction, he now had to personally write the summary.

The blank third act was a prime example: no matter how you looked at it, that scene had concluded, yet the title never appeared.

So what exactly did this act represent? A vast expanse wiped completely clean?

A moment later, Fu Qian actually took down the pen and swept his gaze over his surroundings.

It was no exaggeration. Even the historic raid and confiscation of the Jia Residence couldn't have been this thorough.

Not only had the research facility section been wiped completely clean long ago, but even the sprawling whale and The Lake had been distorted beyond recognition by the successive disturbances.

The only thing still retaining a hint of the previous scenes was, surprisingly, A Fei, who had only just reported for duty during the fourth act.

He was even the only existence, much like Fu Qian himself, to remain slightly detached from the "plane" unfolding around them.

What a pity. Even so, A Fei showed no intention of making a sound, turning a blind eye to the changes happening around him.

As a result, there really wasn't much left for him to do.

Short of simply setting his pen to paper, the only other option might be killing off this hardworking pawn to see if it triggered any changes in the environment.

...

He had previously analyzed the true nature of the Etched Intellect.

Aside from the absolute dominance of His Excellency the Fool's script, Fu Qian himself served as the other absolute core.

As for why he could still end up trapped like this, and even lose SAN Value, despite being a core pillar?

It wasn't contradictory in the least. Many people regularly backed themselves into corners over nothing; a significant portion of human suffering inherently stems from oneself.

What was showcased here was precisely the exquisite brilliance of His Excellency the Fool's script—it entangled the very people involved.

In short, aside from the two main pillars, everyone else present was just a guest star forced to make a cameo because they had previously left traces behind.

Such as the Chief Judge and the others, Rom before his grand burial just a moment ago, and even A Fei standing right in front of him...

Yes, regardless of how weak he had appeared at the start, judging by the slight shred of independence he still maintained, A Fei was similarly tied to elements of a higher entity.

In fact, going by Rom's explanation, these traces had to be left by someone with a ridiculously high Rank. After all, Rom's escape plan earlier had been to deceive the script by drastically lowering his Rank, hoping to be deemed unworthy and tossed out.

Fu Qian was still inclined to believe this. If you wanted to trick someone at a critical moment, you had to use the truth. After roaming the jianghu for so many years, His Excellency Rom surely had at least that much experience.

The fact that Rom hadn't followed through and had instead attacked him was merely a choice made in the moment.

It actually made perfect sense. Even if someone was just playing an extra, they still needed a foundation in reality to get any screen time.

To sum it up in gaming terms, when stuck on a level like this, killing A Fei was clearly an interactive option worth trying, and executing it wouldn't be too troublesome.

Even so, Fu Qian didn't actually abandon his pen for the sword.

Instead, he lowered his head to gaze at himself. Tier 2, the Demigod Realm... his Rank rapidly plummeted.

It didn't seem to work. A moment later, Fu Qian let out a soft sigh, and his Rank stopped falling.

As one of the core pillars sustaining the Etched Intellect, it was glaringly obvious that he couldn't use the escape method His Excellency Rom had shared.

His Rank had plunged straight below the Demigod Realm, yet there was absolutely no sign of him being tossed out of the script.

Of course, that was only one of his findings. There was another detail that felt even more like the silent treatment—where was the notification for his SAN Value dropping?

...

One of the effects of Rom unleashing his ultimate move had been drawing in more of the storm, turning the SAN Value drain into a persistent environmental aura.

It was only when he donned the Crystal Tyrant Mecha moments ago that his essence shifted toward the Fool, temporarily shielding his SAN Value from the impact.

But now that he had completely torn off the armor and returned to his true self, his SAN Value wasn't dropping anymore... even after he actively suppressed his Rank.

Yes, his actions just now actually served two purposes.

The first, naturally, was to test His Excellency Rom's escape plan. The second was to conduct a minor experiment out of curiosity regarding this anomaly with his SAN Value.

After all, while the process of tearing it off had been quite brutal and costly, Fu Qian was still confident he had severed his connection to it cleanly.

Thus, one of his hypotheses for why his SAN Value was no longer dropping was that the storm had simply weakened too much—to the point where it couldn't batter someone at the Tyrant's level.

Let's not forget that back in the Burial Ground of the Gods, the storm had arrived in waves.

Yet now, even after lowering his Rank to this extent, there was still no sign of any SAN Value drain. The underlying reason for this was truly terrifying upon deeper reflection.

After all, compared to the theory that the storm was taking a temporary break, there was a much more direct explanation for this situation—was the thing he had just torn in half really the Crystal Tyrant?

The core prerequisite for losing SAN Value was the identity of an outsider.

During that extreme operation just now, was it possible his self-anchoring had deviated slightly, resulting in a monumental error and a completely opposite outcome?

Had he thrown away the baby and kept the placenta? Had his household registration undergone such a fundamental shift that this unique instant-death bar known as the SAN Value had completely disappeared?

"No wonder they say a hard-won muddleheadedness is best..."

Sometimes, overemphasizing logic made it all too easy to reach horrifying conclusions.

Despite his absolute confidence in how he had executed the separation earlier, Fu Qian couldn't help but let out a soft sigh.

Looking down at the whale pieced together from shards of crystal beneath his feet, he didn't step directly onto it. Instead, he carefully skirted around it, eventually stepping onto the original storm path.

Still nothing.

...

The sprawling storm seemed to have suddenly turned pacifist; there was still no new drain on his SAN Value.

Meanwhile, the script in his hands remained hopelessly blocked.

Even such a massive plot twist hadn't been enough to coax a single new word onto the pages.

"Fair enough..."

[Crystallization is the corruption of the Transcendent Tier]

Fu Qian still paid it no mind. With a swift stroke of his pen, he wrote down the very first sentence for the fifth act.

He didn't even bother to put the pen away afterward. Instead, he stared at the small slice of apocalypse before him and took a deep breath.

In the next moment, his Rank skyrocketed. It surged past the Demigod Realm and Tier 2, climbing all the way up to the King of the Abandoned Prison...

And then, shedding all remaining disguises, he entered his Mythical Form.

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