Eldritch Horror Theatre

Tilanqi. Could that be the true name of that ”Mother”?

It proved once again that conspiracies only ran deeper the further you dug. In that moment, Fu Qian even connected it to his past experiences.

Admittedly, there was a massive chronological discrepancy. The Red Moon had appeared far later than Annalise. With the First Generation Dark Moon standing between them in history, it was hard to see how they could have ever crossed paths.

But the principle was always to hypothesize boldly and verify carefully.

In fact, once he adopted this assumption, certain peculiar little details finally started to make sense.

For example, the most obvious point: why was the Red Moon red? As red as blood.

Meanwhile, Annalise—the Progenitor of the Blood Clan who had explicitly stated her fondness for red eyes—was still symbolized by a normal white moon according to Blood Clan lore.

Wasn’t that a little backward?

No matter how you looked at it, the symbol of the Red Moon seemed far more fitting for the Progenitor of the Blood Clan.

Could this inverted symbolism have been caused by the sentence right in front of him?Because ”Tilanqi is Annalise,” the former was not only bound into becoming a moon, but specifically the Scarlet Moon.

Meanwhile, because Annalise was the reincarnation of the Moon God, she outwardly tried to emulate the latter as much as possible.

There was also another question—how did the Red Moon know that Annalise was anticipating the Long Night?

As previously established, the two higher entities were separated by generations. How could she know such intimate details about Annalise?

And even though she had gone nearly mad, she still kept this firmly in mind, sharing it with him as a vital piece of information.

A relationship between her and Annalise definitely seemed bizarre, but a lack of one left things equally hard to explain.

To Fu Qian, this was a paradox he had been curious about for a long time.

Now, however, the scales seemed to be tipping in one direction—

It all stemmed from this single sentence, which had forged a connection between the two names.

So much so that long after Annalise’s fall, Tilanqi suffered an undeserved calamity because of it, becoming bound by the concept of the Scarlet Moon and forcibly molded into a sphere.

As for why it happened years later? Because the Long Night had arrived, throwing everything into turmoil.

The madness was also easy to understand. Whether she was Annalise or Tilanqi, a forcibly added self was not easy to process.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely without its benefits. This unique mental state had allowed the Red Moon to successfully receive certain ancient secrets and subsequently share them with him.

He could only say that under this bold assumption, many things surprisingly fell into place.

Of course, once the scales tipped, another question inevitably arose—why?

If this sentence was Annalise’s doing, why would she do such a thing?

...

As a dignified higher entity, she couldn’t possibly be unaware of the immense implications of such words.

Yet Annalise was still suspected of leaving this in the notebook. What was her motive?

Did she make a mistake?

There was a very simple guess here, one that connected to what had already been established: Annalise’s curiosity about the First Moon.

Namely, she genuinely believed that was the First Moon’s name and was using this method to verify it.

As for how it passed the True Word Notebook’s verification?

That was simple too. The essence of the True Word Notebook was a ”Lie,” as the Warehouse had personally stated earlier.

Perhaps the full meaning of this description couldn’t be fully understood right now, but since it was a Lie, allowing something incorrect to pass verification seemed perfectly logical.

As for other interpretations, they were likely much darker.

For instance, perhaps the entry wasn’t a standard mistake, but had been deliberately induced to pass verification—possibly even induced by the First Moon.

The mission summary had explicitly stated that Annalise really had found what she was looking for in God’s first dream.

Therefore, it was very hard to rule out the First Moon’s traces on that True Word Notebook.

Could all of this have been that entity’s arrangement? To intentionally mislead Annalise with an ulterior motive?

Or, taking an even darker angle, perhaps Annalise actually knew it wasn’t the First Moon’s name and wasn’t doing it to verify anything.

Instead, she actively wrote it to utilize certain effects of the True Word Notebook.

All to achieve some hidden purpose.

In that scenario, the Red Moon’s experience was undoubtedly even more tragic—she was purely a victim of calculation.

What a pity. There was no more information to help confirm which guess was more likely.

Sighing softly, Fu Qian, who had taken that clump of material out of the box to examine it closely, shook his head and put it back.

It had completely rotted together; there was nothing else left.

The Warehouse obviously wouldn’t allow him to swallow it for Insight.

The only thing slightly unique was probably the puddle of water underneath it.

A black puddle of water, very much resembling a certain sea of mind.

...

Dregs from the sea of mind.

Aside from dreams and lies, how could Fu Qian forget the other element?

The mission summary was extremely clear, defining the ”darkness” in the hearts of the people at the Sanitarium as something related to the sea of mind.

This was actually a crucial piece of information, as it implied an interaction between the sea of mind and the notebook, and consequently, an interaction between the sea of mind and Annalise.

Regardless of whether they were outsiders or not, a higher entity could not enter the sea of mind.

Even the minions who had formed covenants with them would find it difficult to interact after entering the sea of mind.

To Fu Qian, this was a precious conclusion drawn from numerous previous explorations and tests; there was absolutely no reason to discard it lightly.

Yet a counterexample seemed to have appeared here.

It looked as though the Ancient Higher Being Annalise was actually capable of relatively deep communication with that place.

Had she mastered some secret technique, or was it a special constitution from when she was human?

To Fu Qian, this was an incredibly massive project. Just like Judgment Day, he had always hoped the Warehouse would reveal a little information about it.

Unfortunately, under the current circumstances, apart from vaguely proving there was indeed a connection, he was left with only a few possible elements to guess at—God’s first dream, a Lie, and even the moon.

Fortunately, there was another small gain aside from that: concerning Lasik.

As to why she was thrown into a place like the Sanitarium, there seemed to be a guess for that question now too, which could even conveniently explain another paradox—

The True Word Notebook said Lasik couldn’t leave the Sanitarium, yet the Warehouse clearly stated that Servis had indeed sent her away.

Why would this happen? Did something go wrong?

He shouldn’t be so rigid in his thinking. Was the one sent away really Lasik, or was it just a ”thing” named Lasik?

Could the relationship between it and the Lasik who wrote that line be similar to that between Annalise and Tilanqi?

Even Servis had mentioned that when they finally deemed her useless and chose to release Lasik, the person was basically already ruined.

Was her mental state somewhat similar to the Red Moon’s?

And after undergoing such modifications, could Lasik, who was originally a normal human, still return to the sea of mind?

Indeed, this series of operations hadn’t just driven her mad; it had turned Lasik into a sort of ready-made meal, allowing madness to effortlessly erupt on Virtue’s end.

It was even suspected that through this obscure method, they had quietly canceled her household registration.

To make her easier to control?

It was hard to say, but regardless, the entity capable of pulling off such a thing had truly impressive methods.

Clack!

Amid his sighs, Fu Qian casually closed the square box, put it back in its place, and directly put on the Emissary.