Eldritch Horror Theatre

He was a young hero after all. Even though he had been led astray down the wrong path, Brother Jiang En still seemed to have some resolve left in him.

The roaring echoing in his consciousness naturally wasn’t just nonsense.

The moment he returned just now, multiple indistinct voices had surfaced alongside him.

To be honest, Fu Qian was quite familiar with this situation. After advancing to the Demigod Realm, he had been able to hear Young Master Qin and the others calling out to him in the Real World.

In comparison, the sounds he heard right now were far more muffled.

Regardless, this was the first time such a change had occurred in this world.

The reason wasn’t too difficult to figure out.

Back in Sacred Night Capital, with the help of Blazing Rainbow, he had ultimately chosen the correct traits, donned the Skin of the King of the Abandoned Prison, and ascended as a False God.

The description of his ascension had been perfectly clear: he was now the true King of the Abandoned Prison.

Just like Blazing Rainbow and the rest, receiving prayers addressed to a Deity wasn’t strange at all.Due to the barrier in the Nightmare Corridor, the prayers had manifested as an abstract, blurred collective force. It was entirely logical for them to become clear and specific once he stepped out.

As for why he hadn’t sensed the mumblings of others before this, like he did in the Real World?

Fu Qian’s understanding was that he had ultimately synchronized into this world as an Emissary, which fundamentally distinguished him from native players.

In fact, even now, the voices echoing in his mind weren’t as clear as Young Master Qin and the others. He could only faintly identify the supplicants when he concentrated fully.

As for responding...

Fu Qian pondered for a moment. Using his will, he selected an aura that was screaming intensely while feeling somewhat familiar, attempting to establish a connection just as he did with Young Master Qin’s group.

...

It worked, but the connection was extremely weak.

Fu Qian quickly reached a conclusion.

It was also incredibly blurry. Even though he was the higher entity in this exchange, he could only see a vague silhouette.

But that was enough. Coupled with the figure’s seated posture, Fu Qian instantly confirmed the other party’s identity—Laywoman Tooth-Throat.

As one of the few women among the Greed Worms, her righteous act of offering advice to her opponent on the battlefield had left a deep impression on him.

He had to admit she was recovering quite well. She had previously struggled to even maintain her physical form, yet she appeared to have no major issues now.

This was likely thanks to the special effects of the Greed Worm Pact—something akin to life-sharing.

While marveling at this, Fu Qian maintained his gaze on Laywoman Tooth-Throat to the maximum extent possible through that feeble connection.

Very soon, an orange eye slowly opened.

The Calamity Authority.

Probably because he had established the connection in the name of the King of the Abandoned Prison, this was the only thing he could transmit across for now.

Things like willpower or a telepathic voice clearly wouldn’t work; Fu Qian had already tried them.

Even for the Calamity Authority, the transmission process was agonizingly slow.

Fortunately, Fu Qian didn’t need much force behind it.

The next moment, he directly detonated the Eye of Calamity that had only opened a sliver.

On the other end of the connection, Laywoman Tooth-Throat’s blurry body instantly convulsed as if electrocuted.

Not bad. The force was just right.

Noticing that Laywoman Tooth-Throat could still stand after barely maintaining her form, Fu Qian severed the link.

...

”So we don’t need to waste any more energy keeping an eye on Jiang En?”

While Fu Qian had been ”answering” the prayer, Wen Li was digesting his assessment of Jiang En’s situation.

Although his words were vague, she could see Mr. Fu’s degree of control over the situation.

Jiang En, despite being the focal point of the operation, was essentially confirmed to be nothing more than a pawn.

Seeing that Fu Qian seemed to have finished his contemplation, she broke the silence and voiced this conclusion.

”We don’t.”

Fu Qian nodded, confirming her statement.

”I’ve already sent my thanks.”

His actions toward Laywoman Tooth-Throat just now hadn’t been born out of some sick sense of humor.

Whether a person had resolve or not, the price for taking the wrong path could sometimes be very cruel.

Based on past experience, looking at Jiang En’s current situation, there was almost no turning back once a covenant was established.

Touching the Fool’s Idol a bit longer and trying to revert into an ordinary human might work, but he wouldn’t necessarily be willing to do that.

And besides that, there was an even greater problem—Jiang En was the newest link in the Greed Worm Pact.

As an extremely special covenant, judging by the pact-forming ritual, developing new members likely had to be done link by link in a pyramid scheme fashion. There was no way to skip steps.

Take Daneta and Jiang En, for instance.

If that were truly the case, it meant the heavily damaged Greed Worms could only rely on the latter if they wanted to recuperate and expand their group.

And Jiang En obviously wouldn’t be willing to cooperate.

When the time came, the only options left for Laywoman Tooth-Throat and the others would be to use every trick in the book to manipulate and deceive him, just like at the auction before, or to kill Jiang En directly so he would no longer be the final link.

In comparison, the second option clearly looked far more feasible.

Having expanded to such an extent, Fu Qian believed they definitely possessed some sort of self-purging method like this.

Therefore, even though Jiang En had escaped the legal sanctions of the corpse-looting incident, his situation was actually still quite grim.

Meanwhile, his response to Laywoman Tooth-Throat just now might have been a little harsh, but it was a response nonetheless—one from a Deity.

As long as they possessed even a sliver of optimism, they most likely wouldn’t view this as a bad thing. Not to mention, a harsh response was nowhere near the level of divine punishment.

With a breakthrough like this, the Greed Worms likely wouldn’t be in a rush to kill off ”one of their own.”

Jiang En’s safety index would increase significantly as a result.

Of course, in exchange, Fu Qian would be facing more harassment.

But that was fine. The connection was already weak to begin with, and he had plenty of anti-interference experience from the Real World.

There might even be special occasions where these people could come in handy again.

...

”What about Taylor’s side?”

Even though she couldn’t figure out how Mr. Fu, having only just escaped, had expressed his thanks to Jiang En, Wen Li didn’t dwell on the details. Instead, she shifted her focus to another matter.

”We don’t need to worry about him either.”

Fu Qian’s response was equally brisk.

”If I’m not mistaken, Brother Taylor is likely being berated severely by Grantham right now, strictly ordered to rein in his wild imagination, or perhaps even directly restricted from entering dreams entirely.”

After discovering Jiang En’s ”anomaly,” it was almost a given that Taylor would seek out the elders of the Gulade Family to report this shocking secret—the ”truth” supposedly being covered up by the Night Watchers.

And anyone could guess with their toes that Grantham’s reaction would be wishing he could cleave Taylor to death with a single palm.

With the Night Watchers taking such an ambiguous stance on this matter, how could Grantham possibly not notice?

But expecting him to believe a conspiracy theory with leaps of logic spanning the galaxy—one where he couldn’t even see a single possible motive for the Night Watchers—was ridiculous. It was obviously far more reasonable to assume that some evil entity behind the nightmare was bewitching people.

Taylor could forget about regaining his freedom anytime soon, including the freedom to dream.

Of course, what the Gulade Family didn’t know was that they actually didn’t need to be so cautious. Taylor’s remnant dreams had long since collapsed when the Persuader abandoned his post.

”I can almost picture the scene.”

Seeing that Mr. Fu really had taken everything into account, Wen Li breathed a sigh of relief, and what little worry she originally had completely evaporated.

”Next up, I still need to express my thanks to you,”

Fu Qian continued, staring at her smiling face.

”Ah—there’s really no need for that!”

Wen Li’s first reaction was to hurriedly wave her hands, her expression dead serious.

”I’ve already been helped far too much. Being able to offer just a little bit of assistance feels really good to me.”

”If you insist on repaying me, it’s going to ruin that sense of happiness.”

”Don’t worry, it’ll only ruin it a tiny bit, because it’s just a small token of gratitude.”

Waving his hand to signal her not to be so nervous, Fu Qian looked Wen Li up and down.

”Did you bring a weapon?”