Eldritch Horror Theatre

The Corridor, Nightmare, Depth Six.

Fu Qian observed the Small Chapel before him, his mind undergoing enlightenment.

Although its interior was rather pocket-sized, the tight space actually brought a strange, comforting sense of security.

In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say so.

Even though the Witch had brought him straight here, this place was undoubtedly one of the most deeply hidden corners of the Nightmare Corridor.

Damon Moore and the Dark Moon.

It seemed one of the five big shots had not only been corrupted by the former Dark Moon, but had remained completely oblivious to it.

The same applied to The Prisoners.

He based this judgment on the fact that the chapel remained entirely peaceful; no twisted monstrosities had followed them inside.

Even the Rust Mark staining his hands had begun to settle down.”They won’t be able to locate us for a while.”

The Witch beside him confirmed his thoughts, her tone calm and certain.

”But are we truly behind the door?”

Fu Qian nodded, deeply impressed by the miraculous nature of this tiny safe haven.

”Yes. We are currently deeper within the dream. We have already touched upon the essence of this place, and Damon Moore’s will remains active.”

As she spoke, the Witch stepped forward. She navigated a passage so narrow it barely allowed a single person to pass, walking all the way around to the front of the Statue.

The inconvenience wasn’t merely due to the cramped space—it was because the front of the Statue appeared to be its back.

In that brief moment, Fu Qian had gotten a clear look. Although the chapel was small, its structure was complete. At the same time, the Statue placed there seemed originally designed to turn its back on everything.

”I forcefully tore open the barrier they set up, even inflicting some damage on Damon Moore, but it wasn’t enough to strip away his ability to resist.”

Coming to a halt again, the Witch quietly gazed at the Statue’s face and continued her explanation, her tone devoid of emotion.

”Then I discovered this place—it is her.”

...

So his stronghold really had been infiltrated right under his nose? The First Generation Dark Moon truly lived up to her reputation as the one who dared to scheme against the Tyrant.

No one had a better right to speak on the matter. The Witch’s final sentence officially confirmed that the Statue was the target she had been searching for this entire time—the other half that had resonated with her earlier.

Combining this with her description of how they had arrived here, Fu Qian could almost picture a tragic figure who had been ruthlessly trampled by two generations of the Dark Moon.

His Excellency Damon Moore’s will had remained active the entire time, yet he was completely oblivious to how he had been victimized?

In the end, even his very essence had been corrupted, forcibly preserving a lingering trace of the First Generation Dark Moon here?

What an absolute victim.

As for why he assumed The Prisoners hadn’t discovered anything either?

The chronological sequence of events the Witch described was very clear.

Even with the resonance between the two moons, she hadn’t located this Small Chapel first and then broken down the door.

The situation had never been that ideal. She had simply followed her previous line of thought, grasped a tiny thread of a clue, and relied on sheer audacity to make her move.

She hadn’t even bothered to hide her conversation with him from potential eavesdroppers before smashing the barrier.

Therefore, if The Prisoners had noticed this Small Chapel, it was hard to imagine they would have let the Witch find it so easily. They would have at least tried to conceal or relocate it before she broke through.

So, even though that group had sensed the connection between the two moons and actively tried to obscure it, they still failed to locate the source?

The First Generation Dark Moon’s abilities were truly vast.

Of course, the most shocking detail was the bow held in the Statue’s hands.

Was the Blasphemous Embrace the weapon of the First Generation Dark Moon? If so, his first mission into the Painting World was far more bizarre than he had imagined.

...

Disorder. As a mission that had forced him to travel far from home shortly after his career began, Fu Qian remembered it vividly.

And apart from its designation starting with a 1, the anomalies had already shown themselves back then—

For instance, the ’pick one of two’ reward format had never appeared again since that mission.

At the same time, one of those rewards had been a ”perfectly completed advancement ritual,” which would have directly elevated him to a demigod without any prior foundation.

Furthermore, there was the issue that had cropped up later: ”Containment Object not found.”

Exactly. It was very similar to the little trick the Blazing Rainbow had pulled—even though the containment was successful, the corresponding item couldn’t be found in the Warehouse.

In the case of the Blazing Rainbow, that entity was essentially a power Anchor Point. It had exploited the nature of the Warehouse to install a backdoor, waiting for an opportunity to lead the administrators to their doom.

Finally, he couldn’t forget a detail he had verified earlier: Warehouse missions relied heavily on a principle of proximity.

Yet throughout all his containments, aside from Disorder, only the Blazing Rainbow’s Furnace had seemingly transported him to a completely different world.

So was 1-019 a backdoor planted by the First Generation Dark Moon?

Fu Qian hadn’t just developed this suspicion today; after all, the party involved had later proven to possess vast and incredible abilities.

Not only was she involved in numerous hidden secrets, but she could even travel between two worlds.

Given that the relationship between the Nightmare Corridor and the Warehouse always felt a bit delicate, it wouldn’t be strange at all for such a mastermind to have some understanding of the Warehouse and even attempt to exploit it.

But this had remained pure speculation. His previous conversations with the Witch had revealed that she knew very little about it—until he saw this identically shaped bow in the hands of the Dark Moon.

Back then, when faced with the mission rewards, his distrust of the ritual had led him to choose the seemingly useless Blasphemous Embrace instead.

However, what if both of those options had been traps from the very beginning?

If a higher entity had been pulling the strings behind that mission, this scenario wouldn’t be surprising at all.

How could the machinations of a Deity be bypassed simply by ”not being greedy”?

It wasn’t a conspiracy theory. Just look at what happened after he chose the Blasphemous Embrace.

By temporarily sealing the sun, the radiance of the Dark Moon would briefly manifest in the Bookstore World—and the Witch, who was suspected to be the inheritor of her power, could sense him.

As the Pope’s Knight, he had begun his career of traversing between worlds.

...

Could it truly be the result of such painstaking effort reaching alone into untrodden realms?

In that moment, Fu Qian could almost see the countless schemes laid down by a higher entity countless ages ago—

Stirring up chaos in the Bookstore World to successfully assassinate the Tyrant...

Then turning around to weave a False Starry Sky in the Witch World using the Core of Law, creating a barrier to fend off external gods...

And after the barrier shattered and the apocalypse descended, a certain outsider in the Bookstore World—acting through a mission and using the Warehouse as a medium—had arrived in the doomed Painting World...

Even that Painting World was suspected to be a sanctuary she had left behind...

And after the mission was completed, the reward he obtained had been her weapon, an item that forged a connection between the two worlds when used...

A mastermind who had orchestrated schemes across two entire worlds seemed to be standing right before his eyes—

At that moment, Fu Qian really wanted to ask: did His Excellency Warehouse have anything to say about being treated like the village idiot day in and day out?

With these poignant thoughts in mind, Fu Qian followed the Witch around to the front and looked up.