Eldritch Horror Theatre

Seven days inside the boat, a thousand years in the world.

Fully embodying the spirit of the golden mean, Fu Qian was the third person to step through the entrance and board the ship.

He fell in behind the two Night Watchers, Stoss and Aike, neither pushing ahead nor deliberately waiting to be the last one in, perfectly playing the part of an armed technical specialist.

The moment his feet touched the wooden deck and he took in the scene before him, a natural sense of wonder welled up inside him.

This was the right place. It was indeed The Ark he had visited before.

However, there seemed to be a slight issue with their boarding point. Even though Su Gao’s sword had struck the exact same position as last time, the space before him was not the solitary cabin where they had first boarded.

Instead, there was a thickly accumulated layer of Feathers, with more than one emaciated body sprawling across it—bodies possessing structures that resembled both fish fins and flying wings.

Gray Feathers covered their bodies in a deeply unsettling pattern, yet still failed to conceal their webbed hands and feet, or their marine-like gills.

Indeed, these were the special creatures he had dealt with before: Feather and Fish.

Classmate Su Gao truly lived up to her reputation. A single sword strike had locked directly onto Layer 1 where the Prison Archangel had fallen, perfectly embodying the word ”precision.”Watching the undisturbed Feather and Fish, which looked as though they had been sprawling there for countless ages, he could still feel The Ark’s transcendence over space and time—even though their last visit had proven that the time dilation between the inside and the outside wasn’t actually that exaggerated.

It was like catching a fleeting glimpse only after traversing endless years.

”Truly miraculous!”

Right at that moment, Professor Ah Kai, the unarmed technical specialist following closely behind, let out a soft sigh of awe.

This single sight alone seemed to make him feel the trip had already been worthwhile.

”It’s just like what you saw when you came in last time.”

Ignoring him entirely, and not even minding that he had spoken up, Excellency Stoss looked at Su Gao—the last one to enter—and remarked casually.

It was clear that Su Gao’s report had detailed their previous findings quite thoroughly.

And right from the very start of this second operation, the authenticity of her account was proven.

”It is the same. Normally, there should be even more of them hidden among the Feathers.”

Still calm and composed, Su Gao confirmed his assessment while offering a reminder.

...

”Their Rank isn’t high. Before they were transformed into this, they were most likely ordinary people.”

Not expecting Su Gao to react to his validation anyway, Stoss gave a slight nod. His gaze fell upon the Feather and Fish once more as he offered a casual assessment.

He evidently agreed that these beings had not been born this way.

”Is this the Second Layer? Also, do the Feathers on their bodies look dimmer compared to when you left?”

Finally unwilling to let the quietly observing operations advisor off the hook, Stoss turned and posed a question to Fu Qian.

”It’s very simple. The previous changes in the luster of their Feathers don’t necessarily prove that they are undergoing some kind of transformation.”

How could Fu Qian possibly embarrass Demigod Su? He replied without a shred of hesitation.

Oh?

His answer had come quickly, but it somewhat defied common sense.

”Then what exactly does it mean? Judging from your previous experiences, it doesn’t seem like they’re launching an attack, either.”

Before Excellency Stoss could say anything, Demigod Aike frowned slightly beside him.

...

Even though her participation was most likely just a friendly favor, her professional attitude was impeccable.

Glancing at the woman he had dealt with several times before, Fu Qian silently appraised her.

Aike’s presence here could certainly be interpreted as setting aside her current projects to lend a hand due to the high stakes involved.

It was a reasonable explanation, but in Fu Qian’s eyes, she hadn’t necessarily set those projects aside at all.

During the Ecstasy incident Aike was in charge of, the fierce addition of the golden flame he had thrown into the mix last time was one of the very things that had prompted Excellency Stoss to rush over.

Therefore, just as he suspected the Old Man’s motives were impure, she most likely also had one eye fixed on him, caring far more about the Flame of Frenzy than The Ark.

But even so, Aike had clearly read the report Classmate Su Gao had submitted earlier very carefully.

Worthy of being an elite Night Watcher—she truly didn’t cut corners in her work.

”They certainly aren’t, but if you observe closely, you’ll realize that the brightness of the light here is also different from what we described at the end of our report.”

His internal praise didn’t delay his answer at all. As he spoke, he pointed at their surroundings.

Unlike the brilliant winter sunlight outside, the interior of The Ark currently appeared quite dim, with less than ideal visibility.

Yet, back when he and Su Gao had left, it had literally been as bright as day.

”Isn’t that because, even though this is an enclosed space, it still adheres to the concepts of day and night?”

Her surprise growing deeper, Excellency Aike’s first reaction was to wonder how the two scenarios could even be compared.

”And every time we enter, it just happens to be the exact moment before dawn?”

Handling this kind of logic was naturally no problem for Fu Qian. Smiling with a faint sense of intellectual superiority, he casually threw the question back.

...

That did seem to be the case.

In that moment, not only was Aike slightly stunned, but even Old Man Stoss’s expression shifted faintly, as if he had just grasped a certain idea.

”Actually, neither the Feathers nor the lighting have changed. The ones who changed are us.”

He was merely showing off his intellectual posture a little. At a time like this, Fu Qian wouldn’t be so obtuse as to keep them in suspense.

Before the others could make wild guesses, he directly shared the insights he had gathered from his musings over the past two days.

”Because of that imperceptible corrosion, our level of synchronization with this ship has increased, which is why everything looks brighter to us.”

As he spoke, he gestured to his own eyes.

”Of course, this synchronization and distortion might not be a perfectly linear relationship, but during our subsequent actions, it can still serve as an important metric for judging the level of risk.”

Not having to write a report didn’t mean he wouldn’t review what had happened.

On the contrary, Fu Qian was quite interested in his experiences inside The Ark, and he had come up with more than one explanation for some of the peculiar changes.

Coupled with what they were seeing again upon entering today, those possible explanations were starting to lean heavily in a specific direction.

The process of shifting from dark to light that he and Su Gao had experienced back then, and even those gradually brightening Feathers—could it be that ”neither the wind moves nor the banner moves, but the mind moves”?

He couldn’t forget that aside from those two factors, there had been another wildly accumulating variable at the time: the corrosion of The Ark.

This effectively explained the ”coincidence” of both visits having the exact same lighting upon entry.

The only problem was that, theoretically speaking, he should have been immune to that corrosion. Yet he had also witnessed the transition from dark to light, which seemingly created a contradiction in his deduction.

But that didn’t matter. This was just how an armchair operations advisor operated—throwing out a possible explanation first no matter what, and leaving the rest for the involved parties to verify and decide for themselves.

”It really is getting brighter. Did you guys see that?”

In fact, right at that very moment, Professor Ah Kai provided the first verification of his theory.