Eldritch Horror Theatre

Serana ended up acting as an accomplice once again.

Not because her life was being threatened, but precisely because the other party couldn’t even be bothered to threaten it.

Since her life or death made no difference to him whatsoever, holding out until the very end to see what he was trying to do was the best possible choice from the perspective of the entire Blood Clan.

As for why she wasn’t just standing by, and was instead helping out with almost excessive enthusiasm?

With every minute that dragged on, she was losing ownership of this dream.

She didn’t even need him to remind her of that; she could feel it for herself.

So no matter how much she resisted it inside, helping push the process forward was, in theory, the more rational choice.

And so the re-manifested apostle fell once more into that seemingly inescapable two-dimensional plane—and once more broke free.

Right as it sank to the exact same scale, it vanished into thin air the moment the glove came off.

Fu Qian’s movements were practiced, as if he had already rehearsed ending a world in a similar fashion back in some special realm.In truth, directly ordering the apostle to wrench itself free was also an option, and not necessarily an impossible one.

To his mind, however, that process was still far too mild. To achieve the greatest impact, this sort of abrupt, jarring method was the way to go.

”That’s...”

The results were gratifying.

The fourth time he pulled the glove off, even Serana seemed to notice that something was amiss.

Under the repeated tearing, the blood scab’s response finally seemed a touch less sharp.

Though the extra sect patriarch, Herbert, vanished again in that instant, the rose about to take shape closed back up a fraction slower.

Crack—

Midway through the process, one of the petals even shattered into crumbs on the spot, hanging suspended in the air without falling.

Crack, crack—

And that was only the beginning. Like the first drop of a coagulating toxin falling in, that sense of fracturing quickly spread.

The Blood Clan bloodline was rapidly losing its resilience, even as its color grew ever more vivid.

”Continue—”

It was truly a remarkable sight, though unfortunately Fu Qian didn’t give Serana much time to admire it. Slipping the glove back on, he urged her on coldly.

By now, it didn’t even seem to require much of Serana’s ”luring” anymore; the apostle was already adept enough to throw itself into the two-dimensional plane on its own.

Only this time, while the rose vines still responded, the whole thing moved like surging shards of broken glass.

And the glass was so sharp that when the branch belonging to the apostle split off once more, it seemed unable to stop itself, stretching out to an unprecedented scale—Snap!

That runaway blooming seemed to place an immense strain on its supply of nourishment.

So much so that, starting from the crown where the three flowers gathered, the cracks finally spread across.

Ahhhh—

Amid the screams of the Seranas, the fissures covered the entire building in the blink of an eye.

...

This was the bottom layer of the dream?

It certainly ought to be.

Entering a deeper layer of a dream really did feel different from jolting awake. Although the entire surface of the building had shattered in that instant—faintly bearing out his guesses about the ”wound vessel” and the ”dream barrier”—

It hadn’t caused the whole dream to burst like a bubble, nor had it left him sitting up in bed or anything of the sort.

The building hadn’t even collapsed because of it.

The ”surface” remained right where it was; the shattering had merely turned it transparent, letting him see what lay behind it—himself?

Standing there in that moment, Fu Qian quietly sized up the silent figure opposite him, as well as the flower-covered church, feeling time itself seem to stand still.

Indeed, that was why he figured he had reached a deeper layer of the dream.

Not only had the ”Rose Church” not shattered, he wasn’t even inside it anymore.

Everything he had just experienced had entered a peculiar frozen state, turning into an image behind a shattered mirror.

Having experienced a dream within a dream in reality before, he found this shift in perspective deeply familiar.

As for what this ”shattered mirror” was all about?

Fu Qian extended a finger and tapped lightly against half a broken stone pillar beside him.

It was simple: this entire place was in pieces. Bricks, tiles, rubble, broken walls, and ruined eaves of every style and color were piled up together, packed as tightly as a scrapyard.

He was standing amid layer upon layer of refuse, and even the ground beneath his feet was slanted.

Truth be told, the bleak atmosphere was there, yet it seemed to lack a bit of the presence one would expect from the bottom layer of a dream.

After all, the overall level of abstraction didn’t even feel as high as it had been in the second-deepest layer over there, did it?

Aside from that... Fu Qian glanced down at his feet and easily spotted patch after patch of thick, fresh blood.

Even the shapes were downright gruesome, as if a humanoid blood sac had been smashed apart right on that spot.

Serana?

Fu Qian noted that he had seen a very similar sight not long ago.

And right now, that paragon of filial piety in the Blood Clan was nowhere to be seen.

Naturally, Fu Qian wasn’t worried that she had fallen behind.

Flexing his hands and feet and confirming that even Annalise’s Lies was still on his hand, Fu Qian cast one last glance into the shattered mirror.

Inside the ”Rose” Church, not a single Serana was anywhere to be seen either.

...

Just how many things had been torn down and dumped in here?

In no hurry to fret over the whereabouts of his tool, Fu Qian chose to stroll through the rubbish heap first and take in the local character of the dream’s bottom layer.

At first glance, beneath the fog as thick as stagnant water, there wasn’t even a path to speak of.

It was as though the very ground he stood and walked upon had been pieced together purely out of these fragments.

There was no shortage of macabre touches among them either—dark, bluish-black stone oozing like corpse oil to fill the gaps between the shards.

This place... looked rather familiar.

Fu Qian naturally felt not the slightest trace of discomfort; on the contrary, after taking only a few steps, he let out a quiet sigh inside.

Yes, he had visited ruins packed to such an absurd density a long time ago, and had even been back once not long ago—the Furnace.

The site of the Angel of Comfort mission, and the place where Feng Yunhong, the Academy’s dean before last, had secluded himself for cultivation.

Aside from the absence of those abstract creatures crawling all over the place, the overall look and feel was uncannily similar. Back then, he had even wondered the exact same thing: where on earth had all this construction debris come from?

Even after it was later proven that the power of the ”Other Shore” was contained within it, there was still no explanation for the shattered remnants littering the ground.

Looking at it now, could that also have been connected to Excellency Annalise?

To think his paths had crossed with the Progenitor of the Blood Clan so early on—no, even earlier than that.

Fu Qian, who had just been lamenting the lack of vitality in this place, bent down and picked up a slightly curled petal.

It wasn’t large, but its shape was quite distinct, and even though it was badly withered, one could still imagine how pure and white it must have been when it bloomed upon the flower.

Especially under the gentle caress of the moonlight.

Yes, this was the flower from the Full Moon Garden—the place where everything had begun.