Eldritch Horror Theatre

I'd call that an instant kill.

Seeing Brother Ah You's face turn ashen at One-Eye Scrooge's question, unable to force out a single word, Fu Qian silently applauded.

Anyone with a functioning nose could tell what that strange smell in the air was, yet Scrooge had asked anyway. The malice was palpable.

Of course, considering there were four other people awake besides Scrooge, landing such a precise counterattack meant the guy had likely woken up much earlier than he let on.

Judging by how grim his expression was, Brother Ah You had probably realized that too.

"Scrooge, aren't you a bit too energetic? You even have time to bicker with Charlotte."

Seeing the atmosphere turn so stiff, Ais broke the tension. She rested a hand against her forehead, looking like she couldn't stand him.

"Don't tell me you were deliberately slacking off in there?"

"You think far too highly of me."

"I've always had plenty of self-knowledge. Just now, I was mostly a bit afraid of the pain."

It seemed the contents of most of the puzzles weren't exactly pleasant.

Forced to watch this petty palace drama, Fu Qian finally managed to extract some meaningful information from that sentence.

Meanwhile, the clatter of metal striking the ground rang out.

Old Man Saint, who had been resting, walked over and crouched down to examine the team member who had met with an accident.

He carefully examined the man's now-peaceful features as the wings on his scepter spun at a speed far exceeding before. A few seconds later, he shook his head at Ais and the others.

"We lost him. He made too many mistakes in the Holy Grail's puzzle."

"What a pity."

Despite her words, Ais's face showed no trace of emotion.

"Sorry to trouble you with the cleanup."

"Alright."

Old Man Saint didn't say anything more. He simply reached out and searched the dead man's waist.

Click!

With a soft click, the Golden Belt on the team member's body was unfastened.

"I actually quite like this style."

Ais stepped closer and took the unfastened belt. She examined it for a moment, a look of regret crossing her face.

"It's a pity it doesn't match my breastplate."

"It's a bit heavy. Left Hand, be a dear and carry it for us."

After that lament, she handed the belt right to him.

So the social hierarchy really was that deeply ingrained? This whole situation reeked of attendants escorting a crown prince on a hunt.

Ais and the other two were clearly very familiar with one another. When it came to the team member who had died right out of the gate, neither she nor Scrooge seemed to care much.

Aside from the special respect they held for Old Man Saint, the rest of the team members were likely nothing more than disposable pawns to those three.

Of course, that didn't mean those three were incompetent. Judging by how quickly they had broken free from their illusions, they were definitively formidable figures.

None of that had much to do with him, though. The important thing was what Old Man Saint had just said.

The Holy Grail's puzzle—it seemed everyone's goal on this expedition was actually aligned.

That realization left Fu Qian feeling rather satisfied, and he gladly accepted the belt, which wasn't actually that heavy.

Before tucking it into his bag, he even gave it a deliberate inspection, as if taking Ais's critique to heart.

...

In that brief moment, another person woke up.

Ais and the others naturally had their attention drawn away, giving Fu Qian the perfect opportunity to smoothly step back and continue studying his Glove.

But this time was different.

Slowly turning it from the back of the hand to the palm, Fu Qian committed every faint imprint on its surface to memory.

He hadn't ambled over there earlier just because he was interested in stirring the pot.

It was the perfect chance to study the Golden Saint Robe up close and rediscover the functions he had supposedly "forgotten." How could he possibly pass that up?

Prompted by Ais's words, his final observation of the belt had already led him to a possible theory.

Every piece of this personalized gear featured interconnected symbol Imprints similar to the ones on Ais's breastplate, just not quite as obvious.

Furthermore, the pure gold material, the mission objective being named the Holy Grail, and the props from that illusion just now... it made it incredibly easy to think of the two collectible cups he had once owned.

The Holy Grail Cult—could this be related to them?

If that theory was true, then based on his past encounters, the key to the power of the Holy Grail Cult's Golden Cups lay in two factors: the traits they absorbed, and the exact symbols corresponding to them.

Assuming the Glove truly shared properties with the Golden Cups, starting with its symbolic imprints was a perfectly viable approach.

"Round Shield, how are you holding up?"

After making sure he had perfectly memorized the interconnected Imprints on the Glove's surface, Fu Qian looked up.

In his line of sight, Brother Charlotte was checking on the newly awakened team member.

The fifth to wake up was the man codenamed Round Shield. He was the most heavily built among them all, and his equipment was undoubtedly the heaviest.

A thick, heavy round shield strapped to his arm.

And on the face of that shield, the interconnected symbolic imprints faintly formed the shape of a face.

"I just need to rest a bit."

Faced with Charlotte's inquiry, the man didn't try to hide his haggard mental state, replying with obvious effort.

"Alright, focus on recovering your strength."

Charlotte nodded at his response, gesturing straightforwardly for him to save his breath.

Round Shield immediately leaned back into the corner and closed his eyes, working hard to steady his breathing.

If this really was the work of the Holy Grail Cult, Fu Qian was growing more and more curious about how exactly they had come up with these symbols.

Glancing at the Golden Shield propped up in front of Round Shield, Fu Qian offered a silent lament before looking away. In his mind, he quickly began sketching the pattern he had memorized from his Glove.

There was no reaction.

Even though his mental recreation was virtually perfect, nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Fu Qian wasn't in a rush. This was only the First Step. If simply replicating a pattern was enough to form a telepathic connection, then using this artifact would be far too simple.

Even true Saints had to awaken their seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth senses to master their cosmos!

A moment later, the pattern replicated in his mind rapidly warped and disassembled as he searched for its purest, most essential attribute.

It wasn't an easy process, but fortunately, Fu Qian had plenty of patience.

Throughout his constant trial and error, more team members woke up. Of course, there were also those who didn't wake up at all. Old Man Saint moved among them, constantly checking and screening their conditions.

In the midst of that grim atmosphere, a new, increasingly simplified symbol turned over and revealed itself within Fu Qian's mind.

At almost that exact moment, the Glove on his left hand suddenly grew a fraction lighter, and a clear realization dawned in his mind.

It seemed he had finally gotten it right.

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