Eldritch Horror Theatre

Dreams are the shortest distance to the human heart.

He hadn’t expected this saying to gain some recognition even in the circles of higher entities.

Listening to the ancient secrets spilling from the deceiver’s mouth undoubtedly stirred up quite a few emotions in Fu Qian.

In that case, Excellency King of Nightmares must have been considerably polluted by the human heart as well, right?

And this naturally provoked even more curiosity about that particular higher entity.

The veterans were deeply interested in the sea of mind—that was a fact verified time and again.

Not just in the Bookstore World, but on the Witch’s side as well.

So it was completely imaginable that during the Mythological Era, when higher entities flourished, attempts like Excellency Annalise’s must have been quite frequent.

Yet even under those circumstances, the King of Nightmares’ presence remained so thin that hardly anyone noticed him.

If it wasn’t just his nature, he had definitely been corrupted by human concepts like ”taking things as they come,” ”suffering is a blessing,” and ”cuckoldry.”But setting his persona aside, once this variable was added, a certain question became incredibly delicate: where exactly did the divine oracle Annalise heard in her dream come from?

Based on their findings from the previous mission, one could deduce that Annalise’s purpose for entering the dream might have differed from that of the other higher entities.

Directly designated as the reincarnation of the Moon God, she had always harbored some confusion over it and desperately hoped for more guidance.

And as quite possibly the very first human to ascend to a God, according to the Warehouse, she had dreamed a God’s first dream, and through it, heard the voice of the Primordial Moon.

Then she became somewhat addicted to it, obtaining quite a bit of incredible information—such as the coming of the Long Night.

Even the birth of the Blood Clan originated from this; to prepare for the impending Long Night, she began creating her own kin.

In short, it was obvious that dreams were an absolutely essential element in the Chronicles of the Moon.

As for where the divine oracle came from, there was a very direct answer: the notebook.

Demon Mountain was also a Divine Dream, and the True Word Notebook was the foundation of its existence.

This was a relatively clear conclusion reached after the previous mission.

After analyzing the entire affair at the time, Fu Qian’s understanding leaned toward Annalise having seen through certain dream mechanisms and using her divine power to create the True Word Notebook, thereby forging this place of ”hearing the Dao in the morning.”

The whole process seemed natural enough, but there was one unsolvable core issue: why was the True Word Notebook able to determine truth from falsehood?

Was it due to some connection with the sea of mind?

That would be a bit of dark humor.

Would a dignified higher entity really need mortal wisdom to point the way through her confusion?

Furthermore, the sea of mind could hardly be called a crystallization of wisdom; it was well known that the convergence of human nature often resulted in sheer ignorance.

And now, this intractable problem seemed to suddenly have two possible answers. The first, naturally, was the King of Nightmares, and the suspicion around him looked enormous at first glance.

This entity, long known for his incompetence, who let others do whatever they pleased on his turf, was actually trying to stop Herbert?

He couldn’t beat the Progenitor of the Blood Clan, but could he not even beat the First Apostle? Was he just finding a weakling to bully after being stifled for so long?

It was a fairly normal train of thought.

But don’t forget a very crucial point here: what was Herbert here to do?

After discovering that his former fellow believer and current object of worship, Annalise, was addicted to the dream, he was here to wake her up no matter how one looked at it.

If Annalise stopped sleeping, wouldn’t the King of Nightmares suffer a bit less humiliation?

He couldn’t be addicted to being a victim and resenting Herbert for being a busybody, right?

If it wasn’t for such an abstract reason, then his motive was highly suspicious.

As for the second suspect—even the Primordial Moon was once addicted to dreams?

This piece of information provided by Patches was undoubtedly very important.

Perhaps at first glance, this intelligence made the King of Nightmares seem even more suspicious, but when layered with another piece of information, things took on a different flavor—while the other higher entities were using various methods to consolidate themselves, the Primordial Moon pulled a unique stunt, directly designating a certain believer as her own reincarnation.

Later on, this believer even truly became a higher entity.

Even Professor Fu, who was dedicated to Transcendent Tier research, could be said to still lack a very good explanation for this behavior up to now.

In the summary of the previous mission, the Warehouse mentioned that the Primordial Moon, upon foreseeing the Long Night, felt some fear toward what was about to happen.

But to abandon even her Divine Station just out of fear? It was worth noting that Annalise seemed to have maintained her humanity quite well; there was absolutely no sign of her body being hijacked.

So much so that the Primordial Moon’s behavior was akin to hearing of an impending execution and deciding to just pass away on the spot.

It was hard to imagine that a will that had once stood at the pinnacle of the world would make such a choice on an issue like this.

Then, could all these behaviors indicate that she had made a different choice?

Yes—”lies” could actually be interpreted in many ways.

Aside from someone impersonating the Primordial Moon, it could also mean that the Primordial Moon herself was lying.

Exactly. What if Annalise’s feelings weren’t wrong? The enlightenment she received truly did come from the Primordial Moon, except the latter was conducting some malicious guidance.

Facing the impending terrifying threat, the Primordial Moon did not choose to pass away, but instead began acting as a shadow emperor from behind the scenes.

Knowing trouble was coming, she decided to lay low first, casually grabbed a scapegoat to act as the figurehead, and simply shoved all the problems onto that lucky winner.

Analyzed from this angle, didn’t the motive suddenly become a lot more reasonable?

Not only was there no need to assume a dignified higher entity had mush for brains, but even the King of Nightmares didn’t need to suddenly grow a spine—he could just continue being a victim and a tool.

Of course, this made the role Herbert played even more tragic.

Gouging out his own eyes was truly just an appetizer.

For the sake of a promise he once made, he refused to give up even after being tortured to madness by an earlier object of worship; his title as the First Apostle was truly well-deserved.

He just didn’t know whether Herbert actually realized that the entity tormenting him might be the Primordial Moon.

”Uh—heh—”

”Uh—urgh—”

”Huu—where is this?”

Even Excellency Patches hadn’t lied; after a period of agonized struggle, the commotion over there was unexpectedly growing familiar.

”It really does sound like a memory playing on a loop.”

Fu Qian could naturally hear the reason for the familiarity—these were the sounds Herbert had made right at the beginning.

That lump of flesh had fought with all its might, but it looked as if it merely served as a cassette tape.

”Hehe—it’s already a fairly clever approach.”

Naturally, Patches wouldn’t harbor any ”You actually didn’t believe me” resentment; he merely offered a rare compliment.

”It is indeed fairly clever.”

Fu Qian sighed.

”How could words ever be as persuasive as the wounds on one’s body?”