Eldritch Horror Theatre

A sweet dream was calling.

It felt somewhat like his experience in the Nightmare Corridor, yet not quite the same.

Back then, he had sensed a call he could answer whenever he wished to enter the dream. This time, the step of answering had been skipped altogether.

In that moment, Fu Qian realized his earlier assessment had been spot on: in theory, this skill really was a debuff.

His ability to block out spam calls hadn’t merely weakened—it was gone entirely.

It felt as if a spam call had gone straight through on its own, pulling a portion of his will directly into another place.

His true body remained inside the Church. That much was crystal clear, and it was why he could still converse with Yuan Shan and the others.

Yet the dream on the other end was vying fiercely for his attention, driven by a sense of ”hunger.”

Indeed, that was why he called it a sweet dream.

The sensation was even clearer than it had been back in the Archipelago. The instant the spam call connected on its own, Fu Qian felt a distinct craving to corrupt that dream.It wasn’t a mental urge, but something on a far more abstract, conceptual level.

And for that very reason, the craving was impossible to suppress. Recognizing all this, he had decisively cut short his observation time and asked the Old Man and the others to keep an eye on things for a while.

As for the scene on this side—now in his Night Demon form, Fu Qian surveyed his surroundings and found it much livelier here than back in the Church.

Even though this place was a Church, too.

Rather than shifting to some overly bizarre setting, this dream of advancement had taken a very grounded approach and worked with what was right at hand.

Before his eyes stood the exact same Church from moments ago.

The exact same layout, the exact same position.

Fu Qian found himself standing once again atop the high platform.

At a glance, the only people missing around him were Yuan Shan and her master.

At the same time, however, plenty of new figures had appeared.

Sitting or standing, a double-digit crowd now occupied the previously empty audience seats below.

That was why he considered it much livelier.

There was one minor flaw, though: these extra figures looked suspiciously like corner-cutting. A single sweep of his eyes revealed that every last one of them shared the exact same character model—Serana.

Yes, every single person down there was the protagonist of this dream. At first glance, it looked like the work of an ultra-budget game studio that had reused its assets to death.

Of course, what it resembled even more closely was the scene he had witnessed not long ago on the Half-Step Moon.

Sure enough, the drawbacks of an unstable mental state were starting to show.

He didn’t need to think twice to know this lively turnout had everything to do with the Red Moon.

Forcing a point-to-point connection between the two via the Seed of Writhing had certainly broken through the Red Moon’s rejection of Serana, allowing her to link with the ”Progenitor” and carry on with her advancement ritual.

Yet that connection had also opened a smooth, shared channel for certain forms of corruption.

Such as the ever-multiplying number of ”selves.”

Beyond the crowd, there was another very visual reason this place felt so lively—the color red.

Aside from the Seranas, everything in sight was saturated in a crimson so thick and rich it looked coagulated from fresh blood.

A blood-colored Church in the truest sense.

...Blood Crusade?

To Fu Qian, this overwhelmingly bloody, oppressive scene wasn’t even unfamiliar.

Almost immediately, he recalled the gift he had received from the Red Moon.

When the first effect of the Favor Ring—Blood Crusade—was activated, it pulled him into an alternate dimension just like this one.

Everything there was drenched in crimson, with blood mist rising even from his own body.

And because that dimension sat above the Real World, it allowed him to move through space in impossible ways.

Right now, blood wasn’t spraying from his body, nor could he see the Real World from here, yet the visual style was unmistakable.

Strictly speaking, of course, that description wasn’t entirely accurate.

From another angle, he could still see the Real World right now.

After all, his true body was still back there, naturally giving him a second perspective. It felt like having two eyes looking in completely different directions at once.

He could easily see Chief Yuan standing on high alert, as well as her master, who had turned right back into a cat and was dozing off beside him.

So was that how the Red Moon’s gift worked? Was ”traveling through another dimension” essentially a different kind of dream?

Put that way, it really was fascinating—though he wasn’t sure whether a setting like this met the standard requirements of an advancement ritual for Excellency Serana.

Or whether, much like her splitting into a double-digit crowd before his eyes, it was simply a side effect of seeking the Red Moon’s help.

”Quite a turnout here.”

When curious, one need only ask—especially with the person in question standing right here, and in bulk at that.

After looking around for only a few moments, Fu Qian stepped briskly down from the high platform to mingle with the audience.

Hmm—

A pity she didn’t seem pleased to see him.

The Serana he had chosen—the one closest to him—acted as if she had only just noticed his presence and gave a violent start.

Her instinctive step back sent a ripple through the crowd, just like the Red Moon had back on the Half-Step Moon.

More than one Serana retreated along with her. Since they were all wearing identical outfits, it looked for a moment as if class had just been dismissed.

He had only chased her into her dream to squeeze a bit more work out of her—surely this seat wasn’t that terrifying?

Her reaction was unmistakably distant, as though inside her own dream, Serana was finally no longer suppressing her fear of a certain ruthless tycoon—

Wait, was this another effect of Night Demon?

[The original owner of the dream cannot recognize you as the object of their longing.]

Fortunately, Fu Qian always thought highly of himself, so he immediately found the cause in someone else.

...

This ”inability to recognize” was probably more complicated than old acquaintances failing to know each other on sight.

Fu Qian was certain his appearance hadn’t changed, and he didn’t consider Serana particularly timid, either.

Yet not only did she show zero willingness to talk, her reaction practically radiated pure fear.

It seemed his identity as a ”Hunter of Longing” had a rather peculiar quality to it—something akin to a Law Grade cognitive block.

Her ”longing” had pulled him into her dream, yet there was no way she could recognize him once he arrived?

However he looked at it, that sounded pretty torturous. No wonder the skill description claimed it would leave the target ”altered beyond recognition.” At this rate, whether he wanted to squeeze more labor out of her or lend a hand, things were going to be a bit trickier to pull off.

Take the simplest problem: he still had no idea what the specific contents of the Blood Clan’s Tier 2 ritual actually were—wait a second.

Under the wary gaze of the crowd, Fu Qian didn’t rush to continue his greeting. Instead, he reached out and picked up a small booklet from a table.

The Serana who had backed away in fright had left it behind, and a single glance showed that every one of them held an identical copy, like notes taken at a lecture.

When he opened it, he found only a single sentence written inside.

[Guided by the Starry Rose, find the Blood Nova at the very bottom of the dream.]