The moderator’s reaction had the whole stream laughing, breaking some of the tension. It also served as undeniable proof of just how terrifying Eldritch God was to the average viewer.

The bathtub scene was the first major scare in the new chapter. The male lead jolted awake in terror as the water turned to blood—only to find, when he blinked and looked again, that everything was perfectly normal.

The moderator felt a chill crawl down her spine. She exited the stream at record speed, muttering to herself, No wonder the chat was flooded—everyone’s scared to death!

Yet, a few moments later, she found herself rubbing her arms and hesitating. A terrible, nagging curiosity began to take hold.

What kind of Dreamweaver made this?!

Unable to resist, she clicked back into the stream—but this time, she used an alt account.

So many people are watching… It has to be good, right?

What followed was a barrage of eerie, mind-bending horror that shattered her expectations.

Meanwhile, Ao Qingxue couldn’t help but sweat a little—she could see in the backend that the moderator had been glued to her stream. It made her hesitate to crack jokes like usual.

The middle chapter of Eldritch God could be summed up in two words: gory and disturbing.

After noticing something off about the female lead, the male lead didn’t confront her. Instead, he played along, continuing their honeymoon in the ancient castle.

But strange occurrences kept piling up:

– The stray cats in the garden disappeared one by one.

– The castle’s grand piano played eerie melodies when no one was around.

– During their candlelit dinners, the sound of children’s laughter and running footsteps echoed from the upper floor, accompanied by a warped wedding march from an old phonograph—only for nothing to be there when he checked.

– Even though they ate together, the male lead kept hearing her stomach growling. At night, half-asleep, he thought he heard… chewing.

For Shang Jingyan, crafting horror sequences like this was second nature. She took full advantage of the interstellar audience’s lack of experience with traditional gothic horror, showing off her skills with Castle Haunt–level terror.

[If that were me, I’d be having a full-blown nervous breakdown by now…]

[The male lead is braver than I am. Why hasn’t he run yet??]

[Maybe… he just wants to stay and see what’s left of his old love.]

The chat fell into momentary silence. Ao Qingxue thought about it and realized it was complicated. The male lead’s original girlfriend had most likely died in a car accident—her body taken over by the Eldritch God.

And yet, he still held on to that tiny sliver of hope. That was the cruelest part.

[If this were a normal drama, the question would be, ‘Who does the male lead truly love?’ But here…]

[Ahem. ‘Jingyan^[1]literally means means “Startled Wild Goose” or “Shocking the Geese” or simply: Shocking Everyone’ sure is a fitting name for this Dreamweaver…]

[Yeah, she definitely lives up to it—shocked all of us.]

That day, the couple went on a beach date. During the drive, a news report played on the car radio.

“Last month, an undisclosed research facility suffered an unexplained breach. Several experimental animals have escaped. Residents are advised to remain cautious. The creature in question possesses high intelligence, is adept at deception, and preys on small animals…”

Before the report could finish, the female lead smiled and switched the station. “Ugh, why is it always boring news? Let’s listen to some music instead, darling.”

She picked a soft, romantic love song. The speaker’s poor quality made the lyrics waver with static, turning sweet melodies into a ghostly echo.

In storytelling, no detail is meaningless. As the saying goes, if a gun appears in Act One, it must go off by Act Three.

The chat immediately pieced it together—

That “experimental animal” was her. Or at the very least, it had something to do with her.

The female lead’s smile carried an unreadable meaning. The male lead swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He forced a tense nod.

[Ahhh does she already know??]

[Holy crap, this is terrifying. Imagine—your lover, the person you eat, sleep, and live with, has been replaced by something else. And at first, you don’t notice at all. You go on a romantic honeymoon together. Then, when you finally realize something’s wrong, you pretend everything is fine… But now, she knows that you know…]

[I have chills.]

[The background music is just a soft love song, but it’s making my hair stand on end.]

[This is intense! The situation now is: The male lead knows. The female lead knows that he knows. The male lead knows that she knows that he knows. And now they’re both just… acting.]

[Feels like the calm before the storm…]

Without another word, the two arrived at the beach.

The scenery was picturesque—crystal-clear waves, golden sands, seagulls soaring through the sky. Everything looked perfect.

The male lead wandered the shoreline, collecting shells and sea glass. He spotted a particularly striking shell, but before he could pick it up, a wave swallowed it back into the ocean.

A fleeting disappointment crossed his face—one that viewers immediately understood. In earlier scenes, it had been established that his original girlfriend had loved collecting shells.

Then, a voice broke the silence.

“Do you want it?”

He turned to see the female lead watching him.

She smiled. “I allow it.”

In the livestream, Ao Qingxue instinctively half-covered her face, bracing for another scare. But what happened next left even her stunned.

The female lead snapped her fingers.

The ocean obeyed.

Waves surged and parted, splitting down the middle like a modern-day miracle. White foam cascaded as the sea receded in a perfect line, revealing the ocean floor beneath. Seagulls circled above, crying out in the salty breeze.

And there, embedded in the sand, was the missing shell.

The male lead was frozen in shock. The female lead took his hand and guided him forward, picking up the shell and placing it in his palm.

“You can have anything you want,” she murmured, eyes gleaming. “As long as I allow it.”

[?? Whoa, what just happened? I did NOT expect to be hit with romance out of nowhere.]

[Stop trying to trick me into falling for an Eldritch God!]

[Guys, get a grip! She’s a terrifying monster!]

[I was fully prepared for horror, and then suddenly—it’s sweet??]

[Damn it! With powers like that, why isn’t she starring in a proper romance drama?!]

[I don’t think this is a good sign… Did you hear what she just said? “As long as I allow it.” Would she ever allow him to be free…?]

The male lead was shaken. Ao Qingxue could practically picture what was going through his mind: What if—just maybe—the Eldritch God wasn’t actually that bad?

But the very next moment, his naive thoughts were shattered.

Under the beach umbrella, the two of them sat down for a meal.

The female lead had brought a homemade cake, but now the male lead’s hallucinations weren’t just limited to the castle. The moment his knife cut into the cake, it transformed—turning into a bloody, pulsating mass of raw flesh, still twitching. Feathers, white as snow, clung to the surface.

He immediately threw up.

[Holy crap! I just realized—where did all those seagulls go?!]

[Wait, yeah! They were there a second ago! When did they disappear?!]

[Not sure… We’ll have to rewind later, but one thing’s for certain: they’re inside the female lead’s stomach now.]

[Oh god… does that mean everything the male lead’s been eating was also…?]

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

From his perspective, the female lead was smiling as she spoke—while casually stabbing a bird’s severed head with her fork and popping it into her mouth. A grotesque crunch echoed as she chewed, fresh blood trailing down her lips before she dabbed it away with a pristine white napkin.

“You! How did you even get in here? A tsunami is coming! All tourists must leave the beach immediately!”

A patrolling security NPC, modeled by default, strode over to them.

The male lead shot to his feet, face pale. It was the perfect excuse to not eat that cake—though, in his vision, it had already returned to normal.

“Tsunami, huh…” The female lead gazed at the distant horizon, her voice carrying a wistful, almost longing tone.

The security NPC frowned, wondering how the couple had even gotten past the restricted area. But Ao Qingxue suddenly remembered something: “Oh! The female lead has some kind of ability to mess with people’s minds. Earlier, she just gave the patrol and ticket sellers a glance, and they let them in without question…”

She had a gut feeling that the plot was about to escalate—and sure enough, that night, the female lead suddenly sat upright in bed.

Everything about her felt different from before.

Her eyes snapped open, revealing layers of overlapping pupils packed tightly into the whites of her eyes—like a mass of insectoid compound eyes staring into the void.

She turned her head, inch by inch, her ghostly pale fingers trailing over the throat of the sleeping male lead.

Was this it? Was she finally going to make her move?

The audience held their breath.

Outside the castle, the storm raged, thunder crashing as the distant sea roared.

But after a long moment, the female lead withdrew her hand.

She seemed… confused, as if even she couldn’t quite understand why she hadn’t killed him. She stared at her own palm, silent. Then, suddenly, a knowing smile crept across her lips.

Rising from bed, she left the room.

Wearing only a thin white dress, she pushed open the castle doors and stepped into the storm. The wind howled, rain lashing against her skin.

The sea wasn’t far.

Barefoot, she walked toward the waves—

–

Meanwhile, on the Evergreen Streaming, votes for Married to an Eldritch God were skyrocketing, pushing it past rank 90.

Rank 100 was a crucial threshold.

Earlier, trending at number one was just a brief surge—it faded after two hours.

But breaking into the top 100 was different.

For competitions of this scale, hitting the top 100 meant independent sites might start sending contract offers. And if a creator consistently performed well in events like these, even major platforms like StarNet would take notice.

Shang Jingyan, the wildcard Dreamweaver who had jumped into the competition halfway through, was finally starting to attract serious attention.

V061 Star, in the Exile Star System.

“Professor, I recently came across a new Dreamweaver’s work. It’s… really something. Want to take a look?”