Eldritch Horror Theatre

"A psychologist hiding out in The Monastery. If word got out, you'd have a hard time earning anyone's trust."

Seeing Kelly sitting there with dull eyes, completely stripped of the sharp shrewdness she had displayed during the previous task, Fu Qian spoke casually as he walked inside.

He was genuinely curious why she was here.

"The fact that I fled here just means I can no longer help anyone else."

Kelly shook her head with a sigh, apparently unbothered by Fu Qian's teasing.

"In the past, I always considered myself a hunter."

"Those bizarre, massive, deeply entangled blights that take root in the human mind—they were my prey."

"I was always very good at it, and I enjoyed the work."

"But recently, for reasons I can't begin to comprehend, my patients have multiplied beyond counting."

"Those shattered, deformed psychological traumas—it's truly hard to imagine what could have possibly caused them."

"They shook my very understanding of reality. I feel like I can no longer recognize this world."

"While taking a walk a few days ago, I saw The Monastery and suddenly felt the urge to come here for some peace."

So that was it.

He had originally thought that, as a professional, she would be less affected. He hadn't expected her to end up bearing the mental burdens of the masses.

Through Kelly's murmurs, Fu Qian finally understood why she was hiding out here.

He wasn't surprised in the least to hear about her recent surge in patients.

Just looking at that museum staff member was enough proof. There were definitely more than a handful of people suffering from psychological breakdowns recently.

And now, even the psychologist had broken down.

"I understand. And your metaphor for your profession is quite fitting."

Fu Qian offered a casual appraisal.

"An anomaly hunter battling monsters."

"Is it?"

Kelly chuckled softly.

"Sometimes, I actually think it would be simpler to be a real hunter, like those transcendents."

"Terrifying or not, at least the enemies they face are visible."

You're overthinking it, ma'am. In our line of work, there are far more invisible enemies, Fu Qian thought.

He didn't burst her beautiful bubble. After all, human joys and sorrows weren't truly shared.

In fact, from his perspective, Kelly was simply stuck in an alternative kind of post-hunt clarity.

After resting for a while, she would most likely dive right back into her exclusive hunts.

Some things were simply addictive.

"By the way, did any of your patients mention the sound of a crying baby?"

A question had suddenly occurred to him.

"How did you know? Yes, they did, and more than just one of them," Kelly said.

She looked slightly surprised.

It seemed the baby's cry he had used for hypnosis during the mission wasn't a pure figment of his imagination; it was actually connected to the Nightmare Corridor.

Fu Qian nodded.

Is it another descent of an evil god progeny?

Are they using Fenghou City's shattered, chaotic state to try and break free from the Nightmare Corridor's restraints?

Unfortunately for them, it doesn't look like they succeeded.

And if that really is the case, I'm quite curious about who managed to bind them in the first place.

Fu Qian stood up to leave as he pondered, not bothering to answer Kelly's question.

He wasn't some psychological counselor. He had only asked out of pure curiosity.

She was a top-tier hunter in her own right, so it was best to just let her sort herself out.

He had faith in her professional expertise.

......

It should be here.

After leaving Kelly's room, Fu Qian quickly found the quarters where Yul had been staying. It looked as though no one had been there for quite some time.

The layout inside the room was no different from anywhere else in the building—a thoroughly ascetic style.

However, after some tapping and knocking, Fu Qian quickly opened a downward passage hidden in a corner.

As soon as he saw the black stone blocks lining the passage, Fu Qian knew his judgment was correct.

The underground excavation at the museum was indeed connected to this place.

Following the passage all the way down, Fu Qian discovered that it connected to a sprawling underground structure, though it appeared to have been abandoned long ago.

The familiar shape of the Golden Cup could be seen everywhere here.

This looks like the secret gathering place of some kind of cult!

Fu Qian offered a silent appraisal as he surveyed his surroundings.

At the same time, he quickly noticed something else.

It was a real Golden Cup resting on a platform not far away. Its shape was identical to the one he had seen before.

It doesn't get any more certain than this.

Fu Qian leaped up onto the platform and quickly spotted several relatively fresh signs of activity around it.

It seems this was very likely Brother Yul's workspace.

However, while the shape was the same, the decorative patterns carved into the surface of this cup were vastly different.

They were no longer vortex patterns. At a glance, they looked like countless overlapping eyes.

These carvings are quite fresh!

After confirming that the cup in front of him held no supernatural properties and was simply an ordinary Golden Cup, Fu Qian reached out, picked it up, and examined it closely.

He could see that the tooling marks on certain parts of the cup were extremely fresh, as if they had just been carved. They completely mismatched the ancient age of this underground ruin.

Is this Yul's handiwork?

Did he find this place, discover a half-finished cup, and then complete it himself?

While gently rubbing the Golden Cup, Fu Qian spotted something resembling a piece of Parchment nearby.

Although it was heavily damaged, he could still clearly see that the illustration on it depicted the exact cup resting before him.

Right next to it was a label that had clearly been added much later: Holy Grail Cult.

The Holy Grail Cult? Is that the name of this organization? I suppose that makes sense.

Judging from the traces, this cult must have existed a very long time ago.

And it wasn't hard to deduce that this type of Golden Cup had been worshipped like a Sacred Relic.

He recalled the scene in the museum's underground excavation.

Did the Holy Grail Cult excavate all over the place just to find specific materials to craft these Golden Cups? The cup I saw back then must have been one of the finished products.

They were doing the exact same thing in the Rotten Forest, only they failed to unearth what they were looking for.

The museum site was different. They actually found their target, but instead of rushing to take it away, they used that cup to temporarily conceal their new discovery.

At the same time, they were crafting new Golden Cups here. It seems the patterns on every single cup were custom-made for specific purposes.

It's a pity their plans were derailed for some unknown reason. Not only was this Golden Cup left unfinished, they didn't even have time to retrieve the completed one.

For Yul to actually complete this, he must have been quite the skilled craftsman himself!

Both the late Mister Luo and Yul had clearly gotten their hands on related information and were intentionally searching for the legacies left behind by this cult.

Unfortunately, both of their sources of information seemed to be incomplete.

Mister Luo had known about the excavations and had even managed to find the Mist of the Abyss, but he hadn't known to use the Golden Cup.

Yul, on the other hand, had known about the Golden Cups and even managed to finish crafting this one, but he completely missed the anomaly hidden underground at the museum.

In the end, neither of them managed to reach their final goal.

Archaeology really isn't easy!

Fu Qian sighed with emotion as he stowed the heavy Golden Cup and the piece of Parchment away.

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