Eldritch Horror Theatre

Whatever the explanation, time seemed incredibly tight.

After all, thirteen tasks amounted to just a little over three weeks of work.

What would happen after that? Would the Sword of Judgment really fall from the sky?

To be honest, it felt a bit like the man of Qi worrying about the sky falling.

Fu Qian had always been a pragmatist, doing his best to avoid treading into mysticism.

Judging solely by the current signs, it was practically impossible to tell what the Warehouse was subtly trying to convey to him through this task.

The only reason he was so sensitive to those dates, and had held certain expectations for the final task summary, was because the underlying implications were simply too severe.

It was a pity. Even with his exploration progress pushed this far, the Warehouse hadn't left behind a single word.

Of course, looking on the bright side, even if there really was a hidden metaphor, perhaps it was just holding out to give him a surprise.

He didn't dwell on the disappointment for long, quickly shifting his attention to the special reward.

Mainly because the name itself was simply too striking.

'Annalise's Lies'—could it be the Progenitor of the Blood Clan?

If so, the tricky nature of this task was about to go up another notch.

[Name: Annalise's Lies]

[Type: Weapon]

[Originating from the true Crimson Moon, the long glove of the Blood Clan Progenitor Annalise.

Black yet noble, it tightly wraps all the way up to the elbow. It is soft to the touch and even carries a trace of warmth.

Once equipped, its use is limited to once per day. By snapping your fingers, a Rose of Lies will bloom in your palm.

Upon choosing a target and gifting it to them, provided they accept, it will successfully convince them they are blessed by your favor, granting them a brief share of your authority. This effect automatically dispels after they sustain fatal damage.

Regardless of how it is dispelled, the target can never be affected by this item again for the rest of their life.]

[Note: Although she had already become a true higher entity, Annalise never abandoned the pursuit of her former faith.

This desire grew increasingly powerful, reaching a point where even slumber could no longer suppress it. So much so that during one midnight nap, she experienced a Deity's first dream.

Surprisingly, she truly found enlightenment within that falsehood. From then on, she began her pursuit of lies, ultimately learning of an astonishing prophecy.

However, having originally been human, she reacted in stark contrast to the Primordial Moon's fear. Instead, she harbored a completely different expectation and began forging her own kin.

They had to possess naturally blood-red eyes. As a result, even though Herbert immediately gouged out his own eyes, he still drifted further and further away from the great existence.

Of course, by leveraging the lies Annalise shared with her kin, you can still confirm that Herbert is her First Apostle, forever infatuated with her glory.]

...

Wasn't this note a bit long?

Reading through the entire description, that was Fu Qian's immediate reaction.

Not only that, the sheer amount of information it contained was staggering.

First, the good news—it really was that Annalise.

The true Crimson Moon, the Progenitor of the Blood Clan... It couldn't have been more blunt. She was exactly the lucky soul the Primordial Moon had designated as its reincarnation.

He could only say that the intense sense of déjà vu connecting the Abyss Notes and the True Word Notebook was well-founded. It turned out the handiwork of the Blood Clan's ancestor was behind it all along.

The note even provided a remarkably detailed explanation as to why she had left this handiwork behind.

Annalise's dream?

He had previously noted that the Sanitarium didn't look entirely orthodox, and it was later proven to be a projection similar to the True Word Notebook.

Now it seemed this projection had even deeper roots, originating from a brief nap taken by this higher entity.

Her motive was crystal clear—it was all born from the pursuit of her former faith.

Even this mentality wasn't hard to understand. 'You say I'm your reincarnation, so doesn't that mean I am you?'

'Then who is Annalise?'

The very concept of reincarnation was simply too uncanny, easily giving rise to all sorts of bizarre thoughts.

Granted, the Progenitor of the Blood Clan hadn't been deceived—she truly had become a higher entity.

But even after becoming the theoretical Moon God, she seemingly still clung to the name Annalise, using it as an Anchor Point to seek answers.

It was just that the process didn't seem to go smoothly—until she had a dream.

Even the description itself was fascinating: a Deity's first dream.

...

Did higher entities dream?

At first glance, it seemed like an obvious question.

Up to this point, he had encountered more than his fair share of messes stirred up by various Deities.

But thinking on it carefully, one could discern a subtle distinction: was it a dream she had crafted, or a dream she was actively dreaming?

The former meant merely using the medium of a dream to casually forge a cage. The latter meant she herself was immersed in it. The nature of the two was worlds apart.

In that context, Annalise's "Deity's first dream" carried a lot of implications.

Was it because she was a human who had ascended to a Deity that she experienced the first Divine Dream?

Didn't that imply that before her, those higher entities never truly dreamt?

It was truly a rather subtle piece of trivia.

The key was how it paired with the subsequent mention of "lies," giving it an even more unique feel.

A dream was a "lie." This notion wasn't actually wrong; dreams were inherently illusory, after all.

Wasn't there also the widely circulated saying that "dreams are the opposite of reality"?

But one couldn't forget there was another famous saying related to Annalise: "Do not sink into lies."

That was the warning the Red Moon had given when it first found him—when it found its "child."

After his previous series of explorations, especially those involving the apocalypse and the crystals, he faintly felt he'd already found the answer to that phrase.

That answer being: the Bookstore World he saw before him was actually just illusions and empty flowers desperately maintained by the Warehouse. In essence, it had already been annihilated nineteen years and three months ago.

And he needed to see the truth clearly, perhaps even figuring out how to rescue the Red Moon from the crystalline apocalypse.

Yet the description before him now threw a wrench into his previous deductions.

Did the lies the Red Moon spoke of truly refer to that?

Could it actually be much more straightforward and have something to do with Annalise's dream?

The note explicitly mentioned that Annalise had found enlightenment within it, believing it to be the will of the Primordial Moon.

It even mentioned her starkly different reaction to a certain major prophecy given by the latter. It wasn't fear, but expectation. And what had Annalise expected? The Long Night.

Yes, the Red Moon had also left him with another phrase: "Annalise did not live to see the Long Night."

From that, one could clearly sense a feeling of expectation, and even regret.

Regarding the disaster that had doomed countless higher entities beyond redemption, Annalise had not only gleaned some concept of it early on from the Primordial Moon, but she had also met it with a completely different attitude.

Even the very creation of the Blood Clan was an arrangement related to this fact.

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