Eldritch Horror Theatre

Confidence really pays off. It finally slipped up!

Amid the system prompt, Fu Qian returned to the Warehouse once more, quite satisfied with how things had played out.

That final push of the lever had been entirely for show.

His actual mission was to eliminate all other Anchor Points. If he really exposed the Holy Grail to the starry sky where some Divine Entity might spot it, the mission would likely fail in an instant.

As it turned out, Old Man Sage and his group didn't mind this in the slightest, as it had been their intended plan all along.

But someone else did.

Back in the Stone Statue Hall, Charlotte had most likely been killed by a concentrated volley of beams from the eyes—undoubtedly the handiwork of the Holy Grail.

But he had seen the three people in the Clock Tower Hall clearly. Their heads had practically fallen off out of nowhere, without a single trace of an attack.

Just what had killed them?

The only difference was that there were no beams this time.

This scene was truly intriguing.

Truth be told, Fu Qian had harbored suspicions ever since that unreasonable, instant kill through his shield during the previous run.

He could certainly chalk it up to the Holy Grail growing desperate and deploying a trump card beyond conventional understanding.

After all, when dealing with the incomprehensible, nothing was out of the question.

But there was one unavoidable question—why was the timing so impossibly perfect, almost as if it were designed to be highly misleading?

His first death made it incredibly easy to assume the beams had simply spiked in power, granting them the ability to pierce his shield.

If he hadn't sensed something amiss and carefully guided the group this time—preventing all five of them from standing beneath the eyes in the Stone Statue Hall simultaneously, thereby pushing their progress one step further—he never would have witnessed that fierce, invisible severing strike.

He could basically conclude by now that the beams weren't what broke his shield back then. It was this exact attack.

Even though it could have instantly killed him outright, it chose to imperceptibly breach his defense, letting him die under the beams instead.

The attack seemed to be deliberately hiding itself. This was a tendency he had never seen in any of the Warehouse's other mechanisms.

[Would you like to play the event replay?]

[Yes.]

Amid his silent musings, Fu Qian directly chose to review the final moments of his death.

As he could see, aside from himself, Sage and the other two were decapitated almost simultaneously, like three stalks of wheat severed by an invisible scythe.

Meanwhile, he—a slightly tougher stalk of wheat—was casually sliced down by a backhand swing of that very same scythe.

...

Truthfully, even by Fu Qian's standards, the protective power of the Golden Shield once fully activated was quite formidable. Yet, it had been treated as if it didn't even exist.

Even an ordinary attack from the Demigod Realm likely wouldn't have been so clean.

If the semi-dormant Holy Grail could still generate such a terrifying, invisible lethal force, Fu Qian found it hard to imagine how any organization could have kept it under their control for centuries.

So, was it possible there truly was a scythe there?

Or even an entity wielding one?

Unperceivable, wandering around.

It was also blocking this team's plans for the Holy Grail, but it instinctively hid itself, only stepping in to resolve matters when the Holy Grail could no longer handle the situation.

It even cleverly made everything look like the Holy Grail's doing.

It was only because he had forced the intensity higher with his maneuvers that it finally exposed a faint trace of itself.

Was this the true meaning behind the prompt, [Your eyes will deceive you]?

Was this why the Warehouse had restricted his powers and Items?

Because if he entered in his normal state, it would instantly recognize him as an extreme threat and strike directly?

This was a judgment that grew terrifying upon deeper reflection. In his past missions, he had even been required to directly confront a Deity, and he had clashed with Divine Emissaries in top condition more than once.

But this time, the Warehouse still believed that if he directly alarmed it, his chances of completing the mission would be slim to none.

Was it really that exaggerated? Or perhaps he should be referring to it as "Him"?

...

Truthfully, Fu Qian really didn't want this theory to be true.

Because that would mean a practically hopeless situation—the prerequisite for blocking the plans regarding the Holy Grail was knowing that the Holy Grail existed.

In other words, this invisible, unblockable, and inescapable existence was very likely one of his mission objectives—an Anchor Point waiting to be eliminated.

And he needed to accomplish this as an ordinary person.

Although it seemed the Warehouse still believed his odds of success were higher this way than as a transcendent, this truly stretched the imagination.

After all, theoretically speaking, if this entity truly existed, there was currently no power within the entire Ruins capable of contending with Him—wait, that wasn't entirely true.

The Holy Grail... naturally tended to escape the perception of all things.

That meant if He knew about the Holy Grail, regardless of His motives, the Holy Grail would still target Him.

Things seemed to have gained a sliver of possibility.

The next question was: how could he help the Holy Grail target Him?

Amid the silence, Fu Qian silently stared at the illusory image in front of him that didn't entirely resemble an eye. The next moment, he stood up and touched it again.

[Expend one point of SAN Value to attempt Containment again?]

[Yes.]

Just now, he had an interesting idea.

[SAN Value -1, entering the Containment Scenario.]

[Current SAN Value: 96]

...

[Current mission updated: solve the puzzle illusion and regroup with team members in the Real World.]

It was the same familiar scene, the same scale, and the same Star.

But this time, Fu Qian still wasn't in a rush to cut off his finger.

Holding the sharp Bone Blade, he used his other hand to feel around the crown of his own head.

Bairluk Town. Inside the home of Veil's aunt, the wealthy Grace, the exact shape of the sliced-off piece of skull replayed with crystal clarity in his mind.

After repeatedly checking it, Fu Qian traced the line and made his first cut.

What was it Madam Grace had said again?

An overly sturdy barrier is both protection and concealment.

Only by liberating the brain can one perceive the true self.

...

The sharpness of this sacrificial Bone Blade was simply beyond imagination.

Even a hard skull was easily sliced open.

Fu Qian meticulously controlled the depth and shape, ensuring it matched his memory without the slightest deviation.

The entire process was lengthy, especially under the ever-intensifying urge to solve the puzzle.

But eventually, Fu Qian successfully extracted that diamond-shaped bone fragment.

Just as he thought!

He wiped the bloody water from the Skull with an animal hide from the table, only to see that right in the center of this slightly curved bone fragment, there was actually another eye.

It was much smaller and far more complex, filled with some kind of translucent material.

It was exactly the pattern that could be seen everywhere outside the secret passage.

This was likely the safest one out of all the known eye shapes.

Through it, the Blind Eye Society could even manage to peer solely into knowledge while completely isolating any reverse influence.

What a pity. Reverse influence was exactly what he needed right now.

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