Eldritch Horror Theatre

The symptoms were getting worse.

Despite the brief interlude, the research hadn’t ground to a halt just because her attention had wandered. At first glance, that was reassuring.

A closer look told a very different story.

She hadn’t even realized she was still working. The discord within this Swarm was showing through more clearly than ever.

As noted earlier by way of comparison, the Red Moon would never have a problem like this.

”This is all trial and error anyway. Expecting progress in every single direction isn’t realistic.”

In that moment, Fu Qian could almost feel the restless unease churning among the Seranas, though he had no intention of calling it out. Instead, he pulled the conversation straight back on track, tossing out a casual word of comfort as he went.

Nor was he disappointed that searching for the roots had turned up nothing.

Back when he had first given Serana pointers, the whole point had been to have her throw every possible element at the wall and see what she could bait a reaction out of.

Given how little time had passed—and her somewhat dull aptitude—getting even one hit was plenty good enough.Better yet, the failed attempt served as a useful counterexample.

The Starry Rose was the passage guiding people to the bottom layer of the dream, so how exactly did it guide them? Tracing it back to its source was an obvious first thought.

Could the rose vines be rooted directly in the bottom layer of the dream? And if you followed their path backward the way they came, would you reach that place?

After failing to comprehend the roses directly, Serana had gone straight to digging for their roots, clearly following that exact line of thought.

Unfortunately, after everything she had tried, that approach looked like a dead end too.

Not only could she not dig them out, even drawing them on did nothing. Once again, they were out of leads on how to reach the deeper layers of the dream—or were they?

The rose vines grew right out of the flat surfaces of the architecture, yet digging for their roots led nowhere. Taken together with the building-block nature of this dream, did that mean their thinking needed to be more abstract?

It was already known that the entire surface of the building held a strange pull over the Blood Clan, drawing them to ”fall” into it.

And the rose vines, as a manifestation of the Blood Clan’s bloodline, seeped out from within that very surface...

Could that mean the surface of the building was itself the barrier between the sub-deep layer and the bottom layer of the dream?

It blocked what lay beyond, but not completely.

Certain elements from the bottom layer of the dream had seeped through, turning the Starry Rose into what it was now.

At first glance that might sound overly abstract, but bringing in one more piece of the puzzle made it much easier to grasp—the Starry Rose was very likely the Vacuum Flower, and the Vacuum Flower was a wound upon the world. A wound always needed a medium to rest on, and he had previously assumed that medium was this space itself.

Now, given Serana’s peculiar discovery, could the ”surface” actually be the medium?

This dream was an abstract combination of concepts.

One was a barrier, the other a wound.

A wound had grown across the barrier, letting what lay behind it seep through and shaping the wound into this distinctive form.

Didn’t that make the whole picture much more concrete right away?

In the end, it came back to what he had said earlier: plenty of times, it wasn’t that there was no way forward—you were just boxed in by your own perspective.

Excellency Serana had hit a mental dead end because she was severely lacking in two areas—

First, an understanding of the true nature of the dream.

Shortcuts could sometimes stunt a person’s growth.

Because of her Blood Clan bloodline, she could spot the true nature of the rose vines right away and sense that peculiar pull with relative ease.

As a result, she didn’t need to analyze how the dream as a whole operated all that logically. Second was a matter of the Progenitor. Excellency Annalise’s embellishment of the Vacuum Flower was breathtaking, certainly, but it also left her Offspring completely in the dark about the true nature of the ”wound”.

Lacking both, Serana could only blunder around blindly even with all these clues laid out right in front of her.

Still, her blundering had turned up a few things. Carving into the dome, for instance, proved that simply smashing the walls apart wouldn’t break through the barrier.

Which raised the question: how were they supposed to break such an abstract barrier?

”Have you ever thought about just burning the rose vines to see what happens?”

A string of thoughts flashed past, his reasoning falling neatly into place as Fu Qian turned a warm, pleasant smile on the bewildered Serana.

She had contributed, after all, and her job as a tool wasn’t over yet—getting into the bottom layer of the dream was only the first step.

”Didn’t we already try snapping them earlier? What difference would burning them make?”

As it turned out, she wasn’t completely hopeless. Serana asked the question in surprise, proving she still had a shred of logical thinking in her.

”Fair point. Let me see if there’s another way, then.”

Giving a slight nod, Fu Qian didn’t press the issue, simply gesturing that he would step in himself.

Even as he spoke, he pulled out a long glove and slipped it on. ...

He even brought protective work gear?

Reaching all the way up to his upper arm, the black glove looked like it offered solid protection.

Paired with his tone and demeanor, he looked every bit the consummate professional.

Still, as noted earlier, Excellency Serana had complicated feelings about exploring this dream.

She wanted results—both for her own sense of accomplishment and out of filial devotion—yet at the same time she worried she might be inviting a wolf into the house and bringing even greater disaster down upon the Blood Clan.

”I’m sorry, I have to stop you.”

Seeing Fu Qian step up looking so thoroughly prepared clearly ratcheted up her nerves, to the point where she started talking nonsense.

”I can appreciate the sentiment, but do you really think you can?”

Fu Qian gave her an odd look and offered a cold reminder of reality.

...

She really couldn’t, it seemed...

Judging by Serana’s reaction, what had happened just moments ago had come rushing back to her.

Even when she had held every advantage of timing and terrain and sprung a surprise trap, he had dismantled it effortlessly. What bargaining chips did she have left to stop him now?

”No matter what, this is my responsibility.”

Her hesitation lasted only an instant. Serana quickly steeled herself, and in that moment, every single one of her came to a halt and locked onto Fu Qian.

”What is that—”

Her heroic pose didn’t even last a second. Almost immediately, her gaze snapped to Fu Qian’s glove, as if she had spotted something unthinkable.

Now that was more like it. Even someone like Herbert, whose red eyes had been acquired later in life, had recognized it; if true Offspring like them hadn’t reacted at all, it would have been sorely disappointing.

The glove was, of course, ”Annalise’s Lies”, and Serana had clearly recognized something about it.

Fu Qian was naturally quite pleased with that reaction.

When your tool was ready to blow herself up just to take you down with her, how did you talk her into keeping up the hard work?

Compared to brute-force suppression earlier, this was decidedly trickier. Fortunately, Fu Qian had planned ahead, casually pulling out a certain anti-Blood Clan treasure.

”What... what are you really after?”

The effect was instantaneous. Staring fixedly at Fu Qian, Serana spoke in a tone beyond description.

What was he after?

In response to her question, Fu Qian merely offered an enigmatic smile.

”Have you forgotten the name of the club?”