Eldritch Horror Theatre

This... was actually quite hard to deny.

The academic leader’s wildly imaginative, on-the-spot process of elimination had clearly delivered a profound shock to the young tutor.

Fortunately, he didn’t deny her a chance to catch her breath. Eyes fixed ahead as he delivered his commentary, he had already leaped down with effortless grace.

”A place where the dead live. Are you trying to tell me this is actually the Underworld from all the legends?”

Such trust was certainly comforting, but after jumping down after him, Professor Lisa couldn’t help but ask.

”What? Do you think it’s impossible, or do you just not like the idea?”

Fu Qian didn’t even turn his head, casually surveying his surroundings as he walked forward.

And it wasn’t just beneath their feet. At a glance, every surface in sight was built from the same massive stones, forming an intensely gloomy passage.

Even though there appeared to be no Lighting Equipment, everything still seemed bathed in a dim, spectral glow.

Furthermore, a faint fragrance—one that wasn’t at all unpleasant—drifted through the space in wispy threads.It really did look the part...

Faced with this scene and Fu Qian’s counter-question, Lisa fell silent for a moment.

That group of special entities dancing in the Mist possessed incredible perception.

When the two of them had come down just now, they had still been vaguely noticed despite making almost no sound.

Specifically, a creature with a snow-white shell, resembling a giant beetle, had suddenly halted its crawl through the Mist to ”gaze” at them from afar.

Compared to the giant bat from last time, its mood was much more stable.

It neither attacked nor tried to summon its kind.

Yet it was exactly this posture, combined with the echoing of their footsteps, that gave them the distinct feeling of being watched as they set foot on the tomb path of a mausoleum.

”It’s not about liking or disliking it, it’s just genuinely hard to believe.”

A moment later, however, when a downward flight of stairs actually appeared before them, Lisa—having regained a bit of confidence due to the reliable intel—finally voiced her thoughts with caution.

”The destination after death is a subject that spans countless ages, and the depictions in various legends are largely the same...”

She paused.

”But even with the backing of Transcendent power, it seems no true spirit has ever clearly delivered this message back from the world after death.”

...

That was indeed a fairly sound piece of logic.

The downward path was not steep, and even the occasional steps were similarly gradual, as if designed to ensure a young child could step over them.

While appreciating this touch of humane design, Fu Qian also approved of Lisa’s reasoning.

If the concept of an afterlife were true, and the Underworld or the Yellow Springs truly existed, it was conceivable that the living and the dead would be forever separated in a non-transcendent world, confined by dimensional boundaries that no information could cross.

But in this world running rampant with all sorts of mighty forces, it was hard to imagine the existence of such an unbreakable boundary.

Not to mention that throughout history, among the many fallen wills, there had been no shortage of entities possessing divinity.

Yet they still failed to help people confirm what came after, and the Underworld remained a legend.

There was even ready-made evidence for this current state of affairs.

”Well said. In fact, not long ago, a young person really did ask me this.”

Giving a slight nod, Fu Qian was naturally talking about Sophia, whom he had sent to the Unseen Hill.

Under the terror of death, only being able to place beautiful hopes on that possibility was already quite telling.

”So how did you answer?”

Seeming already accustomed to Fu Qian’s world-weary tone, Lisa stared into his aged, wise eyes.

”Hard to say.”

Fu Qian’s answer remained honest.

”...And now?”

”Looks like there is.”

Facing Lisa’s pressing question, Fu Qian pointed to the side.

...

As expected of the passage chosen after multiple explorations by the Spirit Ash Institute, the path the two were taking faintly felt like a main traffic artery.

Although it twisted and turned, the advantage was that their Depth never reversed.

As they gradually descended, the sight before them finally broke away from that of an utterly monotonous tomb path and abruptly opened up.

Of course, what appeared before their eyes was far different from any commonly understood architecture, whether above ground or in the Underground.

Lisa’s description of it being as chaotic as a maze was no exaggeration.

It wasn’t just the layout; at a glance, this place was simply a conglomerate of bizarre spaces.

Stone pillars, a Rotunda, rooms with disproportionate lengths and widths, dark chambers with only a sliver of an opening, and even a dried-up riverbed...

Indeed, right beneath their feet at this moment, they could clearly see a long, infinitely desolate trench brazenly winding its way through the numerous structures. At its edge, one could even see the pillars beneath the corner of a house, propping it up away from where the water would have been.

All in all, a single glance revealed a profound sense of quietude and decay.

It was truly bizarre, but thinking about it carefully, there was really no better description for this place than the world after death.

Guided by Fu Qian, Professor Lisa clearly had a vague sense of this as well.

”Then the question lies right here: where are the dead?”

She was a true academic at heart, unable to flatly deny the evidence.

However, after gazing at this scene for a few seconds, Lisa didn’t blindly agree, and instead raised an incredibly sharp question.

”You just said it yourself: those things outside aren’t the residents here. So where did the spirits go, the ones who were supposed to be enjoying true peace here? Could they have somehow died again in a place like this?”

Gesturing toward the empty path with her eyes, Lisa stopped in her tracks, a slight sneer on her face.

”A very insightful guess, and even quite specific.”

The aggressiveness of her rhetorical question was palpable. Yet, not only did Fu Qian take no offense, he even seemed to find it deeply amusing, as if realizing something.

”Are there really corpses further down?”

...

She clearly wanted to deny it, but Lisa ultimately averted her gaze on instinct, startled by his sharpness.

”Linghui’s investigation reports do mention that it isn’t entirely empty in here. There are corpses—in a very special state.”

The next moment, she sighed and admitted to Fu Qian’s guess.

So that was it...

”Corpses in the Domain of the Dead” was indeed a special concept.

Fu Qian listened earnestly for a moment before studying her with a faint, knowing smile.

”To deliver such crucial information as a joke, even baiting me into denying it... it seems Professor Lisa handles the legendary invasion of death with relative ease after all.”

”Not that easily...”

Lisa undoubtedly felt somewhat unnatural under his gaze, but she ultimately gave a stubborn hmph, freely confessing to her little scheme.

”I just wanted to see how you’d react upon seeing that scene, after all your analyzing.”