Eldritch Horror Theatre

This was indeed outside the Brotherhood's incense hall. Even though he had been blindfolded during his last trip here from the Church, the route he had mapped in his head was enough to confirm his general location.

Not to mention that one glance ahead revealed it was heavily guarded.

It was hard to say what the incense hall looked like inside, but the chaos likely wasn't over yet.

Now came the problem: how was he going to get inside?

Although this body's Combat Power was arguably the best he had possessed since entering the Realm of Bliss, and it even came equipped with a weapon, charging straight in would still be incredibly difficult.

Not to mention it would alert everyone inside.

So this was where Brother Godot's help was needed.

"Huh?"

The rapid shift in attitude clearly left the man dumbfounded, leaving him struggling for a moment to voice his confusion.

Fu Qian sounded quite dedicated.

He hadn't forgotten the contents of that child's play of a covenant game.

The poor bastard whose body he currently occupied was originally supposed to complete a staggering challenge.

Considering the Brotherhood's power in the City of Sin, and with the incense hall being one of their key locations, brute-forcing his way in would be impossible even if he wasn't worried about being beaten to death.

"Right... there is a secret path."

Snapping out of his daze, Godot suddenly realized something and immediately gestured toward a spot not far away.

"Good. Lead the way."

Although Fu Qian didn't think Godot had genuinely forgotten—leaning more toward the idea that he had intentionally kept quiet—he still didn't mind.

A person had to be reasonable. With something as momentous as ascending to a higher realm, wanting to test the waters a bit more was only a natural human reaction.

...

It seemed very quiet.

A moment later, Fu Qian listened closely, confirming that no sounds were coming from the space above.

Sure enough, the intelligence work hadn't been for nothing. While it was hard to say why there was actually a secret passage beneath the buildings of the City of Bliss, it was undoubtedly very useful.

Their destination was right above their heads. Godot, worried about being dragged along, had already bolted like a man escaping a life-and-death ordeal the moment he received permission to leave.

As for his own condition, it was far from optimistic.

His exhaled breath was gradually heating up, and closing his eyes made it seem as though he could directly see the shape of desire.

Deep down, it was as if his dark side had come alive, telling him that his past perception of "self" had only been an illusion, and that this current version of him was the true one...

This was undoubtedly not a good feeling. A single slip of the mind, and the definition of his self would shift to a new Anchor Point.

At the same time, this terrible feeling somehow managed to produce a masochistic sort of sweetness.

As expected of someone who had received an Invitation Letter. Right now, he and Brother Honma were cut from the same cloth.

If his willpower hadn't been thoroughly tempered, he would have likely already lost the strength to carry out his mission.

Even so, the time left to him was ultimately limited.

Creak—

Amid a faint scrape of friction, Fu Qian pushed open the cover panel above him.

...

The incense was burning vigorously, but it was a bit of a mess—more than half of the burners must have been knocked to the ground.

The intel had been spot-on. Right above him was the Brotherhood's incense burner Great Hall that he had visited before.

Compared to when he had left last time, the scene was undoubtedly far more chaotic.

More than half of the incense burners in sight had been tipped over. Some were still smoking, while others had simply spilled their ashes all over the floor in a dark red spread.

Yes, it was indeed red.

On the originally smooth, clean floor, massive pools of blood flowed unchecked. A slaughterhouse would have looked no different.

As for the source of the blood...

Fu Qian followed the trail, passing no fewer than ten corpses strewn haphazardly along the way, before finally spotting a living face.

A face he had once used himself.

Brother Repentance was actually still alive. He sat quietly leaning against a corner, completely unresponsive to Fu Qian's arrival.

Could it be that the Brotherhood's higher-ups were all already here?

Fu Qian wasn't in a hurry to disturb him. Instead, he inspected the surrounding corpses again and successfully found Thick Eyebrows, who had escorted him here, as well as Old Man Yin-Yang Hair, who had angrily smashed his incense burner.

Aside from them, the other corpses also wore rather imposing attire.

When he had woken up in the Second Heaven earlier, had Brother Repentance's consciousness finally recovered?

And then, because of the monstrous crimes committed with his body, had he faced the collective punishment of the Brotherhood's higher-ups?

It was clear that the wounds on his body were far more numerous than what Fu Qian had sustained at the time, and some didn't look like they were left from a fight.

Perhaps the Mind Beast Punishment hadn't worked, so they had switched to physical means—only for him to turn the tables and kill them all.

"Who are you?"

Amid Fu Qian's silent evaluation, Brother Repentance finally noticed the commotion and slowly raised his head to look over.

"I am me."

As the theoretical culprit behind the man's current predicament, Fu Qian's tone and expression were strange, and the words coming from his mouth didn't even sound human.

...

"I... don't seem to be me..."

However, facts proved that brevity was effective; that cryptic phrase actually struck a chord.

"I don't know. I never thought of killing them... I have no idea why it turned out like this..."

Brother Repentance's eyes, which had just brightened a little, instantly grew hazy as he muttered to himself.

Additionally, it was hard to say if it was merely out of habit, but despite his lack of emotional control, half of a standard Realm of Bliss smile still lingered on his face.

Coupled with the specks of blood, the visual effect was unbelievably eerie.

"I believe you."

Unfortunately, there wasn't much time to admire it. The next moment, Fu Qian looked further upward and casually interrupted him.

With too many incense burners lost, the originally magnificent mirage had finally been affected, its shape shrinking considerably.

This was likely the reason why Brother Repentance, despite having lost his own incense burner, was able to withstand the pressure of the Mind Beast Punishment and remain inside the incense hall without leaving.

As for Fu Qian himself, the sensation was even more negligible.

He had thought it surreal before, but now he understood. This special pattern formed by the gathered smoke likely represented, to some extent, the Burden of Causality that the Tombkeepers spoke of.

The Brotherhood's ideology was actually effective, albeit in a reverse manner.

Because of this method, they developed a deeper entanglement with the First Heaven, thus lowering their probability of ascending to a higher realm, which ultimately manifested in this form.

And the Mind Beast Punishment suffered by traitors was, in essence, the correct guidance—similar to the Black Lotus—that one saw after violently breaking away from this collective.

He had to admit, there was a certain dark humor to it.

As for believing Brother Repentance, it wasn't just idle talk.

Killing so many people alone—he obviously didn't have the skill for that.

Although the scene was chaotic, as one of the instigators, it wasn't hard for Fu Qian to deduce the sequence of events.

First, he had occupied Brother Repentance's body, wreaked havoc in the incense hall, and gone to the Second Heaven. Then, upon waking up, Repentance had faced the wrath of the Brotherhood's higher-ups and endured torture.

During that torture, a certain will that had fallen alongside Fu Qian earlier possessed the body once again. In order to escape the current predicament and hurry back, that will carried out this violent massacre.

Then, after that person left, Brother Repentance woke up again, only to find his sins had grown even heavier.

That being was a big shot from the Ninth Heaven, so applying a little high-dimensional influence like before made fighting against the odds significantly easier.

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