Eldritch Horror Theatre

He might not be the quickest thinker, but Reginald was at least a man of action.

Wasting no more time on pointless threats, he took two immediate steps back. A moment later, glowing patterns flashed across his body.

Amira, meanwhile, moved closer to Fu Qian. Her intention was obvious enough—keep a close eye on this eccentric individual to prevent any unexpected moves.

Unfortunately, she quickly realized that the anomaly wasn’t coming from him at all. Instead...

”You two?”

Before them, the patterns on Reginald’s body swiftly intertwined into a distinct ring, rippling outward as it dispersed into the vast gray Mist.

Reginald took a deep breath, but when he opened his eyes and found the two of them standing exactly where they had been, the sheer shock made him draw in another sharp breath.

”I get it now. We actually just crossed from the Nightmare into reality.”

Unfortunately, before Reginald could voice his thoughts, Fu Qian suddenly clapped his hands together, adopting the tone of someone who had just experienced a profound epiphany.

”We are the few who managed to break free. Now we just have to figure out how to get to Laerdin and save the others.””That’s impossible!”

The two members of The Order obviously couldn’t accept such an explanation. But if they didn’t, how else were they supposed to explain this?

”Nothing can confound the power of the Star Law or prevent us from breaking out of a Nightmare...”

Muttering to himself, Reginald suddenly remembered something and snapped his head up to stare at Fu Qian.

This guy had just mentioned that the two of them might not be able to get out either. It hadn’t been nonsense after all... How did he know?

”What if it’s another Law?”

Faced with that thirst for knowledge, the shepherd didn’t hold back, offering up a theory.

”Impossible. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Reginald denied it almost instantly, looking even more incredulous than before.

”Hmph. The mysteries of the Stars are far beyond anything you could ever imagine!”

Fu Qian’s expression was utterly arrogant. Anyone who didn’t know better would have thought he was the member of The Order.

...

Fu Qian was fairly satisfied with how things were unfolding in front of him.

He certainly wasn’t bored enough to care about how these two members of The Order would get back, nor did he have any interest in trampling on their faith.

The reason he had strung them along and provoked them into trying to escape was simple: he wanted to test the ”intensity” of this Nightmare.

As it turned out, it was far more troublesome for these two members of The Order than their usual night shifts.

Furthermore, his suggestion of ”another Law” hadn’t been pure nonsense either.

Given the strange mission assigned to Amira and the others, the probability that this Nightmare wasn’t orchestrated by The Order was, in Fu Qian’s eyes, practically zero.

It wouldn’t be surprising if they could pull this off. Fu Qian still had a deep impression of that bizarrely shaped Brain Fork from last night.

The only question was: why?

...

The events of this morning were actually quite simple in retrospect.

After Amira submitted her report, The Order had clearly taken the situation at Dega Olinter seriously, but there had also been some disagreements.

The Hunter Faction backing Simon undoubtedly held a much harsher attitude toward him.

By showing up a step early, if they had detected any obvious contamination on him at the exact moment of sunrise, he likely wouldn’t have been treated very politely.

Under the Pope’s protection, however, he had easily passed the inspection, which gave Amira and Reginald their chance to take the stage.

Their objective was equally clear. They had coordinated with Simon the entire way, observing Fu Qian’s reactions to the Mist.

Once they had somewhat confirmed that he had nothing to do with the discarded pieces, he was finally brought to their destination—the old Church in the ruins—and subsequently entered a Nightmare.

...

Although the scenery was bizarre, the stability of this Nightmare was undoubtedly quite high.

So high, in fact, that even Amira and Reginald had no way of breaking free on their own.

Taking all of this into account, there seemed to be a very simple explanation: the test wasn’t over yet.

The Order had deliberately sent him into this Nightmare to imprison him and wait, hoping to confirm something.

...

There was actually another previously mentioned reason why he made this deduction: Fu Qian had always been able to ”see” his physical self in the real world.

He was standing right near the ruins of that unfindable house.

The same was true for Amira, Reginald, and Simon, though they naturally lacked the awareness to realize it.

Beyond that, Fu Qian even knew that there were eyes watching him, but they clearly had no intention of taking the opportunity to launch a sneak attack.

It was a truly marvelous sensation. Fu Qian was referring to the temporal Dislocation between the two sides.

The claim about timing it was, of course, entirely true. Fu Qian even knew that for the first minute after entering the Nightmare, the flow of time in ”reality” remained exactly the same.

However, the very instant that one-minute mark was reached, the outside world froze.

It was as if someone had pressed a pause button. Unless they woke from the Nightmare, the next second would never arrive.

Fu Qian couldn’t help but wonder for a moment—if his previous guess was true, did Laerdin look just like this from the Pope’s perspective?

Of course, that was a tangent for now. The key issue at hand was—what were they waiting for?

He still had far too little information to make a judgment, but the upside was that as long as he played along, the answer would seemingly reveal itself.

Or... he could urge things along just a little bit.

”Where are you going?”

In the next moment, Reginald, who was deeply questioning his entire worldview due to Fu Qian’s speech about the mysteries of the Stars, couldn’t help but shout after him.

For before him, the Dark Moon Apostle had turned around and was walking away, looking as though he had absolutely zero interest in continuing their conversation.

”Going back, of course. We’ve already achieved our purpose for coming here, haven’t we? You two have already proven your incompetence.”

Halting his steps, Fu Qian glanced at him expressionlessly and casually offered his scathing critique.

”...Go back where?”

In theory, this logic was genuinely hard to refute. Their initial reason for coming here was because this guy had claimed the two of them wouldn’t be able to get out either, and that point had just been profoundly proven.

But he was leaving far too decisively. Amira finally couldn’t hold back her own question.

”The Church. Wasn’t your mission to bring me there?”

Fu Qian’s tone suggested this was the most natural thing in the world.

”If you feel lost later on, you’re welcome to come to my Church.”

How did it suddenly become your Church?

While the two invitees were silently cursing him in their heads, their eyes widened in terror the next second, and they staggered back two paces in unison.

The Dark Moon Apostle, who clearly thought far too highly of himself, had suddenly raised both hands in a lifting gesture as his body abruptly expanded.

In an instant, a towering figure that inherently commanded people to avert their gaze manifested within this chaotic fog.

Yet that wasn’t even the main point. What was truly unbelievable was that the dense fog—which had remained stubbornly impenetrable and stagnant their entire journey—suddenly looked as though it were being ripped apart.

Confronted with this imagination-defying scene, the two of them finally froze in place, entirely powerless to voice a single thought.

Their stress tolerance is pretty strong. Not bad.

The target of their gazes, however, paid them no mind. Feeling the resistance of the dreamscape as the Resplendent Tyrant tore into it, he kept his pace steady, casually walking off into the distance.