Mystery: Survival from the Secret Doll

Chapter 173 172 Illusion
Through his understanding of horror, weirdness, and the grotesque, and following the method of dream divination, after entering a dream in the form of meditation, Tang began to "reread" the novels, movies, and various horror stories he had seen in his previous life.

This caused him to fall into a very deep sleep, and the system also entered the dream along with its host. Each of them held the popcorn made from the dream world, but they did not recall everything at once. Instead, they used it as a way to kill time, watching the complete details of those horrific plots hidden deep in their subconscious.

With a considerable amount of accumulated knowledge of mysticism and the assistance of magical items related to dreams and the spiritual realm, Tang's approach of opening a private cinema on his own spiritual island is very reasonable.

Many things have long been forgotten with the passage of time, but all of their contents have been faithfully recorded in the depths of the subconscious ocean, recorded in the depths of everyone's spiritual body, and can reappear in special ways in the form of dreams, making these things that people thought they had forgotten appear.

The source of dream divination is to dig out the countless images you have seen in the ocean of your subconscious mind and find the specific parts you want to know and understand.

By asking questions to one's own spirit, and having one's own spirit answer the questions, there are always various methods in the world of extraordinary people that can achieve many things that ordinary people can never imagine.

"It's just that people nowadays are limited by their own cognition, and Beyonders obviously wouldn't be so bored as to attempt such a thing."

Emperor Roselle hadn't come down from Sefirah Castle yet, and the age of steam and machinery hadn't arrived either. The system was still curious about things like film and television works, and horror movies like "Final Destination" and "Alien" made it scream and groan with high-pitched electronic sounds.

“Ahhhhh, host—”

Tang used his backhand to hit the ball-like object, causing it to scatter throughout the dream world.

"Don't you know that the scariest thing about watching a movie is when the person next to you suddenly howls?"

Tang put virtual popcorn in his mouth and downed a bottle of fat otaku happy water. Unconcerned about the weight gain and insomnia, he changed into a comfortable position and murmured softly, "Foreign films still emphasize gore and horror. When it comes to revealing the horror in the details... it turns out that we still have to look at domestic films."

But as for the environment of domestic horror movies in my previous life...emm, I can only say that those who understand will understand.

"It looks very interesting."

In the dream world, Amon, who appeared here at some unknown time, suddenly spoke.

There seemed to be something hidden in the monocle He was wearing, revealing a hazy glow.

Amon didn't know how long he had been here, and how long he had been watching movies like this from earlier in the First Age.

As He watched, He couldn't help but chuckle.

“I have to say, sometimes human creativity can always make people’s eyes shine.”

Tang raised his head and looked at the God of Mischief who seemed to be interested in the movie, but he didn't ask how this dirty thing entered his dream.

This 'Amon' is not the same as the Amon outside. The insurance left for him in the future will play a very important role at certain moments...at least that's what Tang's spirituality told him.

"From your tone, it seems you like people?"

"I guess so," Amon leaned his elbow on the sofa, tweaked his monocle, and watched the movie plot where humans kept dying due to various coincidences. "The food you invented is very good, and your ideas are sometimes interesting. Confessing to the Eternal Sun and the Lord of Storms while having an affair in the church, or watching your father and your wife die, just to get something from them that doesn't belong to you..."

"Invention and creation are indeed your strengths. Indeed, most of the time, my pleasure comes from humans, not dragons, elves, giants and other extraordinary creatures. They always only like to reproduce instinctively, making their descendants become more bizarre and extraordinary with each generation."

"Humans have always been a collection of contradictions," Tang replied casually. "Many of those extraordinary creatures you mentioned are the result of humans being infected by extraordinary characteristics, that's why they became what they are, right?"

As for causing the descendants to become a mess from generation to generation... it should not be as bad as stones, plants, and water, which can reproduce one descendant after another who can open a separate family tree.

"Well, that's true." Amon smiled and shrugged, "Compared to humans, these extraordinary creatures are indeed not that interesting."

"The Ancient Gods are crazy and irrational, and truly not very interesting creatures. And now, with so much time still to go before the apocalypse, I think my initial attempts to integrate into the human world have paid off."

"After all, it is quite interesting."

He was referring to the use of a monocle, which had scared countless Beyonders who were trying to steal the path, and countless ordinary people, making everyone who knew Amon wary and terrified of wearing a monocle, fearing that it would replace your friends, your relatives, your lover, and yourself at any time.

Amon is such a fun guy.

Tang rubbed the non-existent goose bumps on his arms, "So, what do you propose?"

"Isn't a monocle good? It's impersonating me, misleading me. I think the clone, now the real one, will be curious about it. Don't you want to capture it? Well, when it tries to capture your marionette, you can turn the tables."

But Amon who didn't fall to Sequence 2 is not a good Amon.

Even if only one Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristic remained, Amon, who was well versed in the meaning of the Time Worm and had mastered the uniqueness of the Thief's Path for so long, would be somewhat more terrifying than those of the same level.

"Do not want to."

Tang turned his attention back to the movie itself. He manipulated his dreams and materialized some of the snacks he had eaten.

This kind of thing can only be eaten in dreams. Even the historical pore images pulled out by yesterday's reproduction spell are slightly different from those in his memory.

"You clearly know yourself better than I do. Even though you knew Tingen was in great danger, you still kept sending clones to test it. I'm afraid it wasn't just because you wanted to find the source of Tingen's anomaly."

"Okay, smart." Amon smiled, "What other ideas do you have? Tell me all of them, so I can use them as a reference, right?"

"It's nothing more than a few points: disrupting vision, misleading the enemy, and focusing their attention on 'Amon's desire to regain the uniqueness of the error and the Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristic.' Your Sequence 1 original body is now focused on other things, such as recovering Sequence 2 and Sequence 3 Beyonders through the same path, including the Fate Horse and deceiving the mentor.

Since the Beyonder's uniqueness and characteristics have been lost, and Pallez Zoroast, also a Sequence 1, is also in Tingen and cannot be easily dealt with, a certain degree of quantitative change will be generated to compensate for the loss."

"As for why he hasn't tried to send his clones recently, perhaps he's realized his efforts are futile and is currently preparing for a grand performance?"

Amon pinched the top and bottom edges of his monocle. "That makes sense, but you haven't considered that this is also a form of deception. Well, in your terms, it's like, 'I predicted your predictions?'" "During this period of silence, 'He' could be' seeking other ways to accommodate the uniqueness of other paths, or perhaps ascending to the throne of another path, such as... The Fool."

Tang curled his lips. Chatting with such a dirty guy really drained his brain cells.

Can't you just watch the movie without mentioning such dirty stuff?
"Whether you're predicting me or I'm predicting you, that Sequence 1 Amon wants to accommodate the uniqueness of other paths. Unless we find Mr. Men or Antigonus, there's no hope."

Mr. Men was captured by the Fallen Mother Goddess, and Antigonus is now sleeping quietly in the misty town of the Goddess of Night. Both of them are restricted, and the path Amon actually wants to take is far from as easy as this dirty thing said.

"Thinking about it this way, your Sequence 1 body, without changing paths, can only have one goal, and that is the uniqueness of error."

"I think there are few righteous gods who can help you. As for the hidden beings, only the True Creator and Adam can cooperate with you to some extent... In the absence of fundamental conflicts of interest, whether it's the Original Witch, the Hidden Sage, or others, they will probably be skeptical of your character."

"Among these, Adam has the greatest chance of helping you."

After all, Amon is an important link in restraining the birth of the Lord of Mysteries, and Adam cannot help but pay attention to this.

To guard against Adam's invasion of Tingen City's collective subconscious sea, and to guard against the trend of the times set by the writer, the puppets of the audience's path in the Euclidean space have been doing corresponding things.

But so far, he has not found this phenomenon.

"Furthermore, if Adam hasn't become a god yet, as long as I tell the Lord of Storms, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, and the Eternal Blazing Sun that he is the Ancient Sun God, I will immediately gain three more Sequence 0 allies."

"Then we'll see whether Adam's head is stronger or the fists of the three Sequence Zeros are stronger."

-

When I woke up from the dream, the snowflakes outside the window had stopped.

The dark clouds in the sky dissipated, revealing a red moon and countless stars surrounding the red moon.

The sky above Miskatonic University is essentially a fake sky made up of pieces of theater curtains. Although it is synchronized with the outside world, the weather and time here can actually be freely controlled.

Tang looked at the moon in the sky, pondered for a few seconds, then took out a charcoal pencil from the system space and took out his monocle.

"The monocle is the mark imposed by Amon, a manifestation of the unique nature of this erroneous path. Only by thoroughly embracing this uniqueness, and repeatedly revising its own concepts and corresponding symbols, can the erroneous uniqueness appear in a form other than the monocle."

Of course, if it is just an illusion and does not involve the essence, it is easy to solve.

Holding the monocle, Don thought for a moment and first made the monocle turn into a pocket watch.

The pocket watch began to tick, and in the quiet room, it gave people a creepy feeling as if a monster was approaching.

"No way." Tang muttered to himself, "The sound isn't very clear. It's okay in a quiet environment, but if it's noisy...should I just send the corresponding concept directly into the head of the person I want to scare?"

Putting down the monocle, he changed his mind and directly used illusion to create a saw.

"Yeah, Saw."

Weapons are too large and difficult to apply to all marionettes.

He began to constantly change the appearance of the monocle, and through layers of illusion, it transformed back and forth from a saw, an axe, talisman paper, paper money, candles, embroidered shoes or other messy things.

After a long series of transformations, constantly combining the ideas that emerged and were rejected in Tang's mind, Tang took a deep breath and finally temporarily determined a few images.

"Well, cleverly utilizing the uncanny valley effect of humans being afraid of humanoid creatures is also a good choice."

Tang squirmed the spirit worm on his face, found a full-length mirror, put on the red top hat that was transformed by magic, and held a civilization staff with strange thorn stripes in his hand, revealing a face without eyes, nose, or ears, with only a mouth left, and covered with flesh granulations.

He also wore a red suit, paired with a dark red top hat that looked like it was stained with dried blood, a dark red walking stick, and a face without any facial symbols...

Tang's body was slightly stretched by the Faceless Man's ability, and he looked a bit like the slender ghost in urban legends.

But this image still looks too scary and weird, without much novelty, it is just for scaring people.

Tang took off his hat, and after his clothes returned to their original state under the illusion technique, he restored his face.

After thinking for a moment, he fixed his eyes on the top hat in his hand.

With a slight movement of his hand, a talisman that reappeared yesterday appeared in Tang's hand.

As the ancient Hermetic language activated the spell, Tang pulled out a curtain engraved with various symbols from the mist of history.

Tang stuffed the ball of cloth into the top hat, and the next moment, countless fine, illusory lines appeared in the top hat.

This is the extraordinary power gained by deciphering the Book of the Dead, rearranging the occult symbols and symbolic meanings, and using the effects of ritual magic to pray to the Book of the Dead, which is essentially a part of knowledge.

Its function is to reveal some of the extraordinary that should not be discovered by ordinary people.

"Speaking of which, isn't the scariest thing about a secret doll the fact that it's a secret doll?"

Tang put on a new top hat, and illusory transparent black lines appeared on his body, and those countless black lines extended to the highest dome.

(End of this chapter)