Eldritch Horror Theatre

A celebrated prodigy of Shangjing, quietly paying a visit to the Abandoned Prison?

It was a minor detail discovered by chance, but digging deeper revealed something startling.

For his part, Fu Qian hadn't interacted much with the young man and held no real opinion of him.

A former boy genius who had gradually become a case of mourning the wasted prodigy, he had been reduced to a laughingstock and was ultimately abandoned by his family.

Even after such a fall, he had maintained a baseline of decency. He even possessed a sharp sense of danger, refusing to be easily seduced by the Greed Worms.

After returning to Shangjing alone, he had even attempted to practice the Muscle-Tendon Changing Classic in reverse. With a will that was stubborn yet fragile, he tried to forcefully control whatever had awakened inside his body.

That persistence eventually earned him a genuine stroke of luck. First, he discovered the secret artifact, the Toothed Throat, at an underground auction. Then, despite repeated setbacks, he gritted his teeth and refused to let his lofty ambitions fall.

Finally, pushed near his physical and mental limits, he triggered the secret hidden within the artifact. This allowed him to forge a completely new path and advance to the Mid Tier.

Regardless of how much of this had been calculated by others, or what the actual truth was, saying "do not bully a young person for being poor" was a perfectly fitting summary.

Seeing him suddenly appear here was bound to be a bit of a pleasant surprise.

So why did he appear? The answer was actually quite simple.

Regardless of his own attitude, Brother Jiang En knew of the King of the Abandoned Prison and His Emblem.

Indeed, the moment Fu Qian faintly recognized that outline, a certain deduction automatically formed.

That was the advantage of having so few interactions—the related variables were just as scarce.

He might have been unwilling or even completely oblivious, but Jiang En was ultimately still one of the Greed Worms.

And that entire flock of the Dominator of Death's retainers had long since been seduced by the King of the Abandoned Prison.

Furthermore, during his first time trapped in the Nightmare Corridor, his rival Taylor had explicitly revealed the King of the Abandoned Prison's honorific name and Emblem to him.

As long as those two matched up, anyone could use them to call upon the King of the Abandoned Prison, just as the other Greed Worms had done.

The humanoid outline currently before him was the physical manifestation of that call.

As for why he hadn't noticed him among the previous seventy-nine flames?

That was even simpler: Jiang En just hadn't made the call yet. Fate truly was wondrous like that.

Wait. With his Transcendent Perception currently missing, he shouldn't be able to hear the Greed Worms even if they screamed themselves hoarse.

That was what made this interesting. Deducing that Jiang En had appeared here was easy; deducing how he was able to appear here required a bit more mental effort.

Fortunately, as previously noted, having fewer variables made the process of elimination a breeze: it was because this was the Abandoned Prison.

...

The Abandoned Prison, and the King of the Abandoned Prison. It went without saying how closely connected the two were.

Just like the Realm of Bliss and the former Lord of the Bliss Realm.

As the mechanically rebuilt Tyrant, Fu Qian was undoubtedly the absolute governing will over the authority related to Calamity.

So, what did the Abandoned Prison represent?

In Fu Qian's view, this question could be perfectly answered by drawing an analogy to the currently ownerless Realm of Bliss, or even The Abyss, which seemed to have never had a master.

The pillars of the world, the physical manifestations of authority, the absolute symbols within a given domain, the vessels for the laws of the universe...

Reaching this point, the relationship between it and the King of the Abandoned Prison also became clear.

The King of the Abandoned Prison was the controller of Calamity, and the Abandoned Prison was Calamity itself.

The two did not contradict each other; in fact, it aligned with Old Man Cass's previous description—

[A so-called New God is nothing more than one who has gained complete control over a certain authority.]

Even if one could not find the Abandoned Prison, one could still be the King of the Abandoned Prison.

Because one held both the claim and the actual power.

The significance of the Abandoned Prison lay in how it established the existence of a title like the King of the Abandoned Prison.

For example, if he had merely draped the Tyrant's Godskin over himself back in the Sacred Night Capital.

And if Master Yuhun hadn't generously helped him locate the Abandoned Prison.

Then his current corresponding status would have been that of a New God. He would still be the master of that authority, just temporarily unable to find his own divine kingdom.

There was, of course, a gap between the two. Even when projecting back into the Night of Regicide and reliving that history, he had clearly felt like a fish in water.

If he had fought the Dark Moon and the others in the outside world, it likely wouldn't have been so effortless.

Taking it a step further, after extinguishing the Flame of Frenzy that had burned for a millennium, that mighty power had supplemented his own body, rendering the Mechanical King of the Abandoned Prison even more complete.

And this seemed to answer why those ancient entities were so hard to kill.

It was indeed close to his previous theories: those old-timers didn't just hold the orthodox claims, they had even left the marks of their own wills upon the essence of that authority.

In other words, they had most likely all found their own "Abandoned Prisons" and achieved deep integration with them.

As for Blazing Rainbow scheming to seize The Abyss?

That looked like an attempt at the exact opposite approach.

Without necessarily being the master of The Abyss, He had chosen to first leave His own mark on The Abyss, and seek the claim afterward.

All of this deduction boiled down to the point that there should be a mark of the King of the Abandoned Prison inside the Abandoned Prison.

The latter might have lost his Transcendent Perception, but as a "pillar of the world," could the Abandoned Prison receive prayers on his behalf?

Yes. The Abandoned Prison was currently acting as a signal relay station, and through its resonance with the King of the Abandoned Prison, it had physically materialized the faint signals it received.

...

So everyone was a displaced one? It wasn't just special prejudice against him for being an outsider?

He instantly felt much more balanced about the whole situation.

Having easily deduced a plausible explanation, Fu Qian actually felt a deep sense of gratification.

Naturally, given that this might involve the transition between old and new deities—or even concepts like subordinate gods—the reality was likely far more complicated.

Still, substituting himself into this homesickness gave him a deeper understanding of just how harsh the ecology of higher entities was across the entire Bookstore World.

No wonder the transcendent system was so chaotic now. Even a place like the Abandoned Prison had burned continuously for a thousand years; there was no telling how many similar places existed.

It also explained why, during that previous mission, the Warehouse's evaluation of The Abyss had been: "Due to its fundamentally chaotic and frenzied nature, it has paradoxically maintained a relatively intact state."

...

"Good afternoon."

Lacking the means to respond normally was one thing, but as the majestic King of the Abandoned Prison, how could he be one to keep people at a distance?

While his mind raced through these deductions, Fu Qian looked at the increasingly distinct outline of "Northern Jiang En" and offered a smiling greeting.

Mmm...

And then, a truly heartening scene unfolded.

Through this unexpected stroke of fate, it seemed the petitioner could actually receive snippets of information this way.

Faced with the sound of his greeting, that head composed entirely of blood-red hues slowly lifted.

"I am not well."

A voice actually echoed out from within it.

"I have been cursed."

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