Eldritch Horror Theatre

Was this a live demonstration of the legendary nirvana?

In a sudden burst of speed, Fu Qian shifted sideways, dodging the successive rays of light while keeping his eyes fixed on the skeleton curling into a tight ball.

Although its anatomy was different, it had deliberately assumed the exact same posture as the juvenile.

Even more miraculously, flesh and blood seemed to filter straight out of the lake water, rapidly filling the gaps in the white skeleton.

It was actually happening?

Compared to the legendary rebirth from ashes, however, this was far too grotesque!

A Flesh Phoenix?

Wait... something was wrong.

Keeping his eyes on the transformation, Fu Qian suddenly accelerated again, putting more distance between them.

As the flesh replenished, the entity's body rapidly grew unstable.

The most obvious sign was its distorting silhouette. The newly regenerated flesh had begun to grow in utterly illogical ways.

In the blink of an eye, the creature that had curled itself into an egg could no longer even be called an oval.

Even so, long feathers of alternating gold and red sprouted from the mass like flickering flames.

However, it lacked any semblance of beauty. The chaotic, counterintuitive mess looked more like a rolling mound of sludge inside a chicken coop.

Boom!

Just as Fu Qian finished dodging the barrage of rays and successfully widened the gap, a shockwave swept over him.

This time, there was an actual sound. Amidst a muffled boom, the chaotic mass shattered entirely. Not even its bones survived; it simply exploded into fine powder.

The concussive force of the blast was so massive that even Fu Qian, who had retreated to a safe distance, struggled to stabilize himself.

Had he been even slightly closer, his body would likely have been torn apart by the fine powder.

However, that was only the first blast.

Within his line of sight, one skeleton after another exhausted its flesh and curled into a tight ball.

At a glance, he could tell that not a single one was going to succeed in its nirvana.

"What a spectacle."

Fu Qian praised, though he had no interest in sticking around to watch.

The main problem was that this flock of Flesh Phoenixes clearly understood the beauty of wave tactics; they were undergoing nirvana one after another in a continuous chain.

A quick estimate told him that if he waited for them all to finish exploding, he would likely be blown into a similar mess.

It was time to pull some chestnuts from the fire.

The moment he made his decision, Fu Qian locked onto the juvenile deep within the chaos.

The creature had proven to be remarkably resilient. Simply put, it hadn't been blown to smithereens; fueled by that metallic-colored blood, it was rapidly regenerating.

He had to admit that compared to the rest, this one actually looked like it was undergoing a true nirvana.

But that was as far as it went.

The next moment, Fu Qian's already slightly deformed body shifted again under his will, morphing into a form perfectly suited for underwater movement.

Rather than swimming straight toward his target, he quickly mapped out a route based on the sequence in which the surrounding skeletons were curling into eggs.

...

The Rank of these creatures was clearly quite high, but they genuinely seemed devoid of intelligence.

Very soon, playing a game of dodgeball, Fu Qian closed in on his target.

From this angle, he could see that the fragmented egg in the juvenile's embrace was displaying astonishing durability. Despite the continuous shockwaves, it hadn't suffered the slightest scratch.

Just as resilient was the originally cheerful Insect Swarm.

Delighting in the consumption of flesh, the swarm undoubtedly took the brunt of the explosive shockwaves during this drastic upheaval.

Clumps of them were blasted away and torn to shreds.

Among them were plenty of the specific insects that had given Fu Qian a peculiar feeling earlier.

He wondered—if his guess was correct, how would the Night Watchers react to receiving such an intense alarm?

Ultimately, the insects' physical bodies weren't durable enough to withstand the concussive blasts of the phoenixes' nirvanas. Relying on their overwhelming numbers, however, they managed to maintain a lively presence, even swimming alongside Fu Qian.

Having already shed who knew how many layers of skin, Fu Qian naturally paid them no mind. Finding his opening, he reached straight for the egg.

Wait...

A split second before his fingers touched the shell, however, Fu Qian abruptly shifted, dodging a cluster of insects swept toward him by a shockwave.

The very next moment, one specific insect within that cluster suddenly expanded, shooting out hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fine threads much longer than its own body that whipped toward him like lightning to entangle him.

Such a sudden ambush was incredibly hard to predict. Fortunately, having preemptively created some distance, another quick shift of his body allowed Fu Qian to evade the threads by a hair's breadth.

...

Now that was professionalism!

Narrowly dodging the strike, Fu Qian snorted coldly in his mind. His extended arm abruptly lengthened, snatching the egg securely into his grasp.

His suspicions regarding the Night Watchers' pre-laid countermeasures hadn't been overthinking it after all.

He had suddenly sensed something amiss because among the cluster of insects swept toward him by the shockwave, one was glaringly different from the rest.

Though identical in outward appearance—having clearly undergone incredibly clever camouflage—if he hadn't activated his Pseudo-God Incarnation, he probably wouldn't have noticed it.

But Fu Qian had distinctly sensed that this particular entity was fundamentally different even from the ones suspected of being alarms.

This discovery prompted him to decisively dodge, even though triggering an alarm no longer mattered.

As it turned out, not only had someone set up alarms, they had planted an outright trap right here.

Right next to the exact item he was looking for.

Having failed to snare its prey, the bizarre insect was still thrashing wildly in an attempt to entangle him.

But he could see that the other end of its body had plunged deep downward, embedding itself into the flesh-like construct at the bottom of the lake to anchor it in place.

If he hadn't evaded that ambush, he would currently be pinned there alongside it, quietly waiting for what was very likely the arrival of the Night Watchers.

Although this insect's Rank wasn't high, it felt incredibly peculiar. From Fu Qian's perspective, once trapped by it, even most experts in the Demigod Realm would need a significant amount of time to break free.

Of course, none of that was his problem anymore.

Thanks to a resolute strategy and sharp Insight, the 10 points of SAN value he had expended—while failing to uncover any trace of the Blazing Rainbow—had successfully allowed him to evade the Night Watchers' trap.

As for now...

Fu Qian looked down at his hand.

The egg was far lighter than he had imagined. The moment he took hold of it, some unique equilibrium seemed to shatter.

The phoenix juvenile, which had still been bitterly struggling moments ago, seemed to finally exhaust its last shred of vitality, rapidly decaying.

The intricate network of veins woven from metallic blood slowly retracted, withdrawing back into the eggshell.

"Not bad. It even comes with its own container."

Weighing his harvest in his hand, Fu Qian was deeply satisfied with this outcome.

The concussive blasts continued to roar in his ears, but he didn't linger for another second, rapidly swimming toward the surface.

When he finally breached the surface of the lake, he could see that under the continuous shockwaves, the water was no longer as serene as before.

However, the Gate of Thorns still stood there in perfect silence.

Fu Qian didn't hesitate. With a single bound, he leapt up to the doorway and stepped inside.

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