Eldritch Horror Theatre

It was said that a true loss of self rarely happened in a moment of forced change, but rather when one wasn't paying attention.

Because as long as a person remained aware they were being forced, the change had not yet truly taken hold.

Whether this was a spacetime fallacy or not, Fu Qian had always looked forward to what interesting things he might encounter in His Excellency the Fool's handiwork.

However, the current situation was looking a bit too interesting. So much so that as his Rank rapidly climbed, Fu Qian even thought of a certain one-sided old acquaintance.

Annalise, the true Progenitor of the Blood Clan.

That confirmed dead higher entity obviously did not know him, but within the Ancient Reminiscence, he had witnessed her glory... as well as her hesitation.

It was a legendary experience, being handpicked by the very object of her worship to become the next Deity.

So much so that her inner hesitation had been permanently recorded in that form, leaving the suspicion that she periodically entered it just to converse with herself.

Could there have been a point where Annalise could no longer resonate with those original intentions, losing interest and casually tossing it aside as a mundane collectible? He used to think that was perfectly normal, but looking at it now, that was probably not the case.

Generally, this kind of development was often accompanied by possession, rebirth, tanking lightning tribulations, and the like.

Not to mention that according to the First Law of Transcendence derived from his earlier cooperation with Professor Lisa, and even its subsequent corollaries, the original intention of those ancient higher beings in establishing faiths one after another was very likely not to strengthen themselves, but simply to ensure their own safety.

But now, Fu Qian felt this judgment might have truly encountered an exception; Annalise might not have lost those original intentions right up until her death.

Because Red Moon had once said a single sentence: "Annalise did not live to see the Long Night."

Combined with everything he had seen and heard today, that meant when it came to the storms and the crystal curse that could be considered a tribulation even for a higher entity, Annalise—despite having a prior concept of them—not only felt no fear, but had actually looked forward to them.

Why look forward to it?

This was a doubt he had harbored ever since hearing Red Moon speak that sentence.

And it seemed there were merely two possible explanations.

Either Annalise had been deceived and did not know the true face of the Long Night, unaware of the storm tides and the crystal curse that would appear.

Or she knew what it might look like, but did not think it was a bad thing.

The former was easy enough to explain; after all, even a higher entity could possibly be deceived.

As for the latter, no matter how one looked at it, it seemed to slightly deviate from the Rank Annalise later belonged to.

As for why she might have looked forward to it, a single glance around right now seemed to offer a particularly intuitive reason—this ground full of glittering things might just offer a similarly good visual experience to an individual who felt that red eyes looked better.

Casually substituting himself into Annalise's shoes rather than those of the Progenitor of the Blood Clan, Fu Qian arrived at a somewhat abstract reason.

Moreover, the reason he brought this up now was not because he agreed with this aesthetic.

Reason number one: Annalise and he actually shared a fundamental commonality, which was that neither were natural-born higher entities, so they could serve as a slight point of comparison.

Though she also possessed another trait he lacked: she was not an outsider.

That meant Annalise had very likely experienced roaming the sea of mind. Could this be the reason she retained her original intentions?

Reason number two: beyond their slightly similar character settings, just like Annalise, he was clearly facing the same crux at this moment—his view on the apocalypse, and whether he himself would lose his way.

Hoo!

He was already in one hundred percent Mythical Form, more Tyrant than the Tyrant—the Mechanical Remastered King of the Abandoned Prison.

At that moment, Fu Qian took a deep breath, feeling his body operating in bizarre ways just to execute this action.

After all, having draped on the Divine Skin for a while now, this kind of scene was no longer unfamiliar to him at all.

Moreover, the Divine Trait he had used to advance to Tier 2 was a "sun" operating in a similar manner.

A "Crystal Sun" discovered inside the whale's belly, formed by tightly interlocking crystals of varying shapes and colors.

Fu Qian looked down at his own body once more, and even extended his awareness deeper inside.

The individual "parts" making up his body, whose mere outlines were enough to drive people to madness, were undoubtedly pure at this moment, and even gave off an additional sense of crystal clarity...

Just like the crystals beneath his feet.

Or perhaps it should not be called beneath his feet, because with every casual movement, Fu Qian discovered that he, faintly like the blood threads from earlier, could already disrupt the layout of the crystals through some strange law.

It was as if he had truly integrated, becoming a part of the apocalypse.

...

So he really had not been overthinking it?

The design of the Crystal Sun back then was not merely to look cool, but had long since reflected a certain essence.

Heaving a long sigh, Fu Qian once again confirmed the importance of paying attention to details.

The scene before his eyes could undoubtedly be called horrifying.

Not only was he the Mechanical Remastered King of the Abandoned Prison, but he was even a crystalline machine?

Combined with his earlier confusion over why his SAN value had not dropped any further, it seemed very easy to arrive at a conclusion—he had indeed kept the placenta.

The process of tearing apart the armor with his bare hands had indeed gone wrong; the Crystal Tyrant was the ultimate victor.

This was also why he had developed such an affinity with this apocalypse.

He could only say that as expected of His Excellency the Fool, Annalise had not lost her way, but had Professor Fu lost his instead?

It was a very smooth train of thought, yet in that moment, Fu Qian did not rush to make a conclusion, merely examining himself closely and experiencing that bizarre sensation.

He then even grasped at the empty void to disrupt the sprawling expanse of The Lake and the whale, and the effect was prominent.

Very good.

Such a scene undoubtedly verified the claim of affinity once again, although Fu Qian still did not accept it—

Do not panic. Something has indeed gone wrong, but it might not have gone wrong here, but rather even earlier.

No matter how bizarre the situation was, he must not easily doubt himself.

He had previously noted his extreme confidence in the process of tearing apart the armor with his bare hands; there would absolutely be no problem with it.

Then rather than insisting on finding a problem, he might as well assume that was truly the case. How, then, could he explain the situation before his eyes?

Actually, it really was not hard to explain.

For example, during the process just now, the Crystal Tyrant indeed failed to pull off a great shift of heaven and earth.

It was just that because of that convergence, he had gained a sliver of enlightenment, making him realize what his true self was.

As for since when the essence of his self had turned into a crystalline construct?

Very simple. It did not need to change; it had been this way all along.

What was a machine?

A conceptual whole formed by piecing together lifeless components according to specific rules.

Thinking about it carefully, the process of the Apple dissociating into various elemental crystals and then reassembling back into an "Apple"—other than being a bit cruder in comparison, was there any fundamental difference between that and this?

So could it be considered that a machine was the ultimate form of the crystal curse?

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