Eldritch Horror Theatre

[Mission Evaluation: Prisoner of the Shepherd God]

When the concept of "self" reemerged, Fu Qian was already sitting in the Warehouse.

As he listened to the mission summary, he silently evaluated this fresh sensation.

It really did feel like blacking out from a hangover. He couldn't even find a mission completion prompt in his consciousness.

But those were trivial details. Clearly, this hangover had been a massive success.

He had literally woken up to yet another victory!

[Your eyes will deceive you, for you have not found the true eyes.

Mortals, too, held their own views regarding that long, dark night.

To prove this, Laurence, who first proposed the concept, not only opened the cage binding his mind but personally gouged out his useless eyeballs.

However, the echo of knowledge just as recklessly distorted his limbs and even his very self.

Laurence did not regret this. Amid his endless struggles, before his name dissipated entirely, he found the correct eyes and shared them with all the scholars.

The scholars did not disappoint him. They quickly designed a method to house his remains so that, in the long years to come, he could continue to thirst for and share knowledge in a special form.

That was until one day, a taboo from beyond the starry sky corrupted him, halting this centuries-long research.

The surviving scholars departed, passing down differing philosophies to their respective students.

But apart from the most conservative faction, all of them invariably began to believe that the application of knowledge was just as important as its pursuit, and they each withered away in this new exploration.

Years later, the long-lost history of the Holy Grail resurfaced in the delirious dreams of a genius student.

Overjoyed by this discovery, he decided to use the name of the Sage to restore the glory of The Society to the world.

Unfortunately, he did not know what kind of monster the heretics he had discarded had summoned over those long years.

This joyous pursuit was destined to be halted by the blade of the Pure White Angel.

Omniscient through ignorance, the Pure White Angel is unknowable, invisible, unstoppable, and beyond life and death.

It is the void walking upon the earth, operating solely on the instinct to remain unperceived. The changes in the Holy Grail disturbed it, so the Holy Grail had to slumber once more.

And this time, the special paradox involving the Pure White Angel would cause the Holy Grail to collapse during its slumber, resulting in an irreversible tragedy.

This was an almost unsolvable dilemma. Fortunately, after realizing this through you, the Holy Grail utilized forbidden knowledge to make the best choice.]

[Kills: None]

[Rewards: SAN Value +20, Blindsight]

[Current SAN Value: 116, Current inspiration: 99]

[Play event recap?]

With this entirely new approach to missions, it really was easy to have kills stolen.

That unseen thing was called the Pure White Angel? Judging from the summary, it seemed more like a walking transcendent item than a living creature.

Omniscient through ignorance, unstoppable, beyond life and death... Did that mean because it kept its eyes closed, it was invincible, and it was the only one allowed to cut people down?

How could such a bugged existence even be real!

Also, the heretics who had summoned it—could that be referring to the See Me Faction?

Faced with this rather detailed mission summary, Fu Qian clicked his tongue in wonder.

However, he somewhat understood why the Warehouse had suggested he use his wits.

No matter how well he could fight, facing an opponent who could cut people down without even having a Health Bar meant his chances of winning were not exactly high.

Even that eight-word hint might have been related to the unknowable nature of the Pure White Angel.

So the question remained: how did the Holy Grail pull it off?

Without rushing to check his rewards, Fu Qian directly selected the event recap to see what he had been up to during his "hangover."

Honestly, the sensation was incredibly strange. It was like watching a movie where he was the main character, but crucially, he had no memory of filming it.

...

Including Old Man Sage, the reactions of the team members were not far off from what he had expected.

And with him acting as a tool, the Holy Grail's strategy was indeed much more aggressive.

It had actually arranged for him to point out Snake Foot the exact moment the man left the team.

Fu Qian meticulously observed every step of the development after gouging out his own eyes, right up to the scene where he and the Holy Grail disappeared together.

Unlike the Mind Calamity on the Glove, the team member codenamed Snake Foot, whose ability also dealt mental devastation, clearly suffered its backlash upon his own flesh and blood.

It was precisely because of this that when facing the "pursuit" of the team members undergoing living-corpse transformation, forcibly using his ability to counterattack had directly turned him into a pile of rotting meat, making it difficult to discern if he had truly been corrupted.

Next, under the dual misdirection of the fake imagery and Fu Qian himself, Scrooge struck even more decisively than before.

What a brilliant calculation.

Speaking of which, the personnel composition of this team was truly meticulous.

Among the cannon fodder who had taken action so far, shockingly, not a single one possessed a direct lethal skill.

Putting aside Brother Round Shield's defensive barrier, the effects of his own Mind Calamity and Snake Foot's ability both resulted in mental devastation.

The abilities to destroy and heal the physical body all rested with the VIP trio, and they had even specifically undergone mental resistance training.

Even the risks originating from within the team had been minimized to the utmost!

Fu Qian felt a moment of deep admiration.

Conversely, the Holy Grail's arrangements were incredibly precise. Despite Scrooge never having revealed his abilities, he was the one being misled every single time.

Could it be that, even though it could not directly copy an unused ability, it could decipher the meaning of the patterns on his equipment to deduce the nature of his abilities?

Furthermore, the biggest variable in this patient, lethal setup was the addition of himself as a second layer of insurance.

The Sage, who had briefly cheated Death, was instantly killed by him once again.

Without the Sage—an existence that granted the group immunity to illusions—the only fate awaiting this team was death, had it not been for what happened later.

Of course, it was not Charlotte and the other person directly punching through his defensive barrier; he had already seen that scene three times.

It was clearly the Pure White Angel taking the opportunity to strike, cleverly allowing him, the Holy Grail's tool, to die during the counterattack.

Although it still followed its instinct to hide itself, it did not wait until he entered the Clock Tower Hall and prepared to expose the Holy Grail to the Stars to make its move, unlike before.

Why?

In truth, this was the crux of the entire event, and it was the only priority conflict Fu Qian had worried about before turning into a tool.

As expected, some different variables had increased the Pure White Angel's urgency to kill him—such as the addition of a tool accelerating the Holy Grail's awakening?

After all, watching the entire sequence, the lines he used surprisingly suited his personal style.

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