Eldritch Horror Theatre

'I knew it. I had a nagging suspicion earlier!'

Fu Qian stared at the hole beneath the stairs.

The whole place was dilapidated. A thick layer of dust blanketed everything, masking most traces, which had subconsciously led him to assume the floor had simply caved in from years of disrepair.

But thinking back, when he walked down earlier, there hadn't been any floorboards or debris scattered across the steps.

So was it possible that whatever used to cover this hole had actually been pried open?

Recalling his discovery down below, an image flashed in Fu Qian's mind: countless writhing, transparent bugs hooking and tangling together to form one massive body.

And this entity, invisible to the naked eye, had dragged itself up the stairs step by step before finally shoving away the barrier at the top.

Click!

Fu Qian snapped his flashlight off. The building plunged into gloom.

Had it left the museum to spread the "virus" everywhere?

That was certainly one possibility.

But he couldn't forget that the entity was completely invisible.

Meaning even if it hadn't left, he wouldn't be able to see it right now anyway.

Which was exactly why he had shut off the flashlight.

Just because he couldn't see it didn't mean it couldn't see him. He needed to minimize his exposure.

Holding his breath, Fu Qian strained to listen for the slightest movement around him.

Individual bugs might crawl silently, but surely a massive lump of them mushed together would make at least some noise?

In the dead silence where a dropped needle could be heard, putting aside the sporadic crying echoing deep in his consciousness, Fu Qian actually picked up an incredibly faint sound.

It was a bizarre noise, like something stretching under an unbearable weight. And it was coming from above—directly over his head.

'Shit!'

With no time to marvel at its incredible aim, Fu Qian threw himself two steps to the side.

Less than half a second later, a dull thud echoed. Something heavy had slammed right where he had just been standing.

'I knew something was there!'

Without a moment's hesitation, Fu Qian hurled the Dagger in his hand.

The antique weapon flew a few meters before suddenly halting in midair, suspended in the void.

Whether the entity had been hanging there the entire time or had quietly crept over after spotting him was impossible to say.

The only thing Fu Qian knew for sure was that it was definitely not friendly.

The space still looked completely empty, but the Dagger hovering in midair was slowly moving, acting as a perfect marker.

One glance was enough to tell that the creature was charging relentlessly toward him.

Although its speed was honestly a bit on the slow side—'Shit!'

Just as the thought crossed his mind, the Dagger suddenly launched into the air.

Its arc perfectly traced the movement of a transparent body with a blade stuck in it, pushing off the ground to leap high and lunge straight at him.

'This thing actually knows how to feign weakness?'

Fu Qian couldn't help but feel impressed. Fortunately, he had a good habit of always staying on high alert, allowing him to dodge the invisible but audible pounce.

Clang!

Although the creature missed, the violent movement knocked the suspended Dagger loose. It wavered in the air before clattering to the floor.

'Great. Now even my marker is gone.'

'What a pain in the ass!'

Fu Qian clicked his tongue. He didn't bother trying to throw any more daggers. He just turned on his heel and ran.

As everyone knew, the best way to deal with a pain in the ass was to simply not deal with it at all.

After all, in terms of searching for clues, he had successfully accomplished his objective. The proper move now was to head back and see how those two reacted.

As a professional task runner, he needed to slice through problems with the precision of a scalpel. He could never allow a target to affect his emotions.

Having already scoped out the area twice, Fu Qian knew the museum's layout like the back of his hand. Without even needing to watch his step, he sprinted for the exit along the shortest possible route.

Judging by the noise trailing behind him, the creature possessed a relentless spirit. Dropping all pretenses of stealth, it gave chase.

Twisting and weaving, he narrowly avoided two more pounces before bursting through the museum's main doors and slamming them shut behind him.

Unsurprisingly, the outside world was just as dilapidated as the interior.

A muffled crash echoed behind him as something slammed heavily against the doors, making them shudder.

Fu Qian didn't bother finding anything to barricade the exit. He wasn't naive enough to think a set of doors could keep that thing contained.

He had only closed them to see if it would break out and continue the pursuit.

As it turned out, the doors remained tightly shut even as the museum disappeared around the corner. The creature seemed to have given up.

'I might have made a slight miscalculation.'

Without slowing his pace, Fu Qian realized a severe problem: he had no idea how to get back.

Based on Kelly's experience, would he automatically wake up if he just stayed in here long enough?

Or was she going to stop playing the crying sound at a specific time and try to wake him up?

Come to think of it, he did have one other option. He could let that creature catch him.

After all, theoretically speaking, he was currently trapped in some kind of Nightmare illusion. If he actually got killed here, he should just wake up back in the Interrogation Room.

But that was just a theory.

Setting aside the sheer bizarre nature of this place, Fu Qian really didn't appreciate the idea of suffocating to death with a giant maggot smothered over his face.

So he might as well take this time to look around.

If Kelly was telling the truth, she certainly wouldn't let him stay in a state of passive slowdown forever.

In fact, speaking of that, Fu Qian had a lingering question. If using the crying sound to enter this place simply recreated the scene of the accident... then between the world he was in now and the world where he had just been eating fried eggs, which one was real?

Theoretically speaking, there was little doubt that this place had a higher probability of being fake.

After all, both times he had entered this world, he had used someone else's cognitive collapse as a catalyst. The whole thing just felt inherently off.

It was easy enough to explain: he could just assume that watching a bunch of people go crazy had overstimulated him and formed this illusion.

But there was a flaw in that logic. Out of all the people he had met in that other world—whether it was Kelly or that married couple—none of them seemed normal either. Shen Yuan had even shown up to work carrying her own head.

Could all of that have been his own hallucination too? If so, he had clearly gone completely off the deep end!

With that in mind, Fu Qian came up with a vague idea of how to test it.

'Huh.'

A short while later, Fu Qian finally stopped in his tracks and stared at the sight before him.

After his long trek, he now stood right in front of the hospital he had visited previously.

The outpatient building, still missing a massive chunk of its structure, towered before him. It looked exactly the same as the last time he was here.

'An illusory world shouldn't have such strong continuity, right?'

'Could this actually be the real world? And while I was wandering around in it, I just hallucinated those scenes of eating breakfast?'

As a barrage of thoughts raced through his mind, Fu Qian suddenly realized that the baby's crying deep in his head had stopped.

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