Eldritch Horror Theatre

Eyes like torches. She was indeed worthy of being a three-in-one Saint.

Seeing that dark red ray and its terrifying power silently slice through the corpse in the corner, Fu Qian deeply admired this reappearance of Brother Scrooge's Supreme Art of the Old Days in the jianghu.

As expected, none of the three pieces of equipment on her body were just for show. Ais had inherited this ripple perfectly.

Even at this moment, her execution was flawless.

As the surging rays swept back and forth, the originally massive corpse was carved into numerous fragments, spilling a sour, putrid stench into the air.

By the time she stopped, it was hard to imagine anything could still use that puddle of gore as a hiding place.

Cough, cough...

This reckless output of power had clearly placed a considerable strain on Ais. The moment the dark red faded, she immediately curled in on herself, breaking into a violent fit of coughing.

Of course, this didn't stop her from staring at Fu Qian the entire time, maintaining a constant defensive posture.

Receiving such high regard, Fu Qian naturally appreciated the gesture. He smiled and nodded.

"Why would I do that?"

Having managed to catch her breath slightly, Ais met this remark with a tone full of disbelief.

"Thanks to your inspiration, I'm finally no longer a clown in a farce and have turned to face fate directly... With you achieving such great merit, I couldn't possibly reward you fast enough."

As if to demonstrate her sincerity, she displayed top-tier expression management as she spoke, forming a perfectly natural smile.

"It is truly wonderful that Your Excellency thinks this way!"

Met with such enthusiasm, Fu Qian sounded quite immersed in the atmosphere.

"But isn't it a bit early? We'd better wait another minute."

At the same time, his attitude was incredibly serious as he gestured toward the remains in the corner.

"Indeed, very rigorous..."

This remark clearly resonated with Ais, who had been preparing to hand out rewards for his merits. She slowly nodded in agreement.

The meaning behind waiting a minute was simple: the absolute limit a flesh-and-blood body could withstand facing the Vacuum Flower was exactly that long.

In a minute at most, it would be enough to verify the final result—whether or not the Vacuum Flower had been successfully brought back to the Workshop.

...

In the silent space, aside from Sophia struggling in the corner, there was only the sound of Ais forcibly calming her breathing.

Realizing that Fu Qian had truly stayed behind of his own accord to see the outcome, she said nothing more.

However, time flew by, and within this unsettling silence, Ais's breathing quickly became uncontrollable again.

A minute had undoubtedly passed, but—

"It doesn't seem to have affected me."

Ais first looked down at her own body, then stared fixedly at Fu Qian, her expression incredibly grim.

"Indeed."

Fu Qian's expression showed no sign of abnormality as he agreed with her observation.

"Don't you want to explain?"

Unfortunately, Ais clearly didn't want her sensation to be true. Faced with Fu Qian's agreement, not only was she unappreciative, she gritted her teeth and interrogated him.

"I'm currently thinking of how to explain it."

The organization's higher-up who had just wanted to reward him had suddenly pulled a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and wanted to hold him accountable.

Regarding this heartbreaking shift, Fu Qian was undoubtedly not heartbroken at all. Instead, he rubbed his chin with his nail-covered hand, deep in thought.

At this moment, the mutation on his hand had also stopped.

Of course, this was entirely due to his own control. It was just a casual visual effect he had created to boost Ais's subjective initiative.

Now that the materials needed to solve the problem had efficiently gathered here, it was time for testing and verification.

Though the situation did indeed look bleak.

...

From just now until this moment, not a single trace of the mission target, the Vacuum Flower, had been seen.

It was easy to think of the worst-case scenario: that the target had already gone wandering to the ends of the earth, wild and free.

If that were really the case, lacking clues and tracking methods would undoubtedly mean that only a blind search remained.

If necessary, Fu Qian wouldn't mind carrying out that kind of low-skill operation, even reducing this Underground building to ruins, but what if that wasn't the case?

Just as he had said before, one shouldn't make the mistake of taking things for granted and easily ruling out seemingly impossible possibilities.

Fu Qian had always recognized Old Man Sage's professionalism.

And regarding the Vacuum Flower, from what he could gather so far, the old man had emphasized two key points.

First, the Vacuum Flower was unstable and would easily and rapidly vanish once it left this box.

Second, living flesh and blood had a strict limit on how long it could stay in contact with it.

Combining the two, Fu Qian's view was actually quite close to Ais's optimistic expectations: the Vacuum Flower's current state of existence was still related to these two masses of mutated flesh.

This kept it from fading away after leaving this place, which was why his mission hadn't automatically completed.

And the most obvious possibility among them was exactly what Ais had thought earlier—the Vacuum Flower was still lurking within the flesh, remaining in some sort of relatively hidden state.

Under these circumstances, using someone else for close-range contact and observing the changes to deduce the truth was indeed a reasonable attempt.

Unfortunately, as of right now, there hadn't been any changes.

Although inheriting the honorific name of the King of the Abandoned Prison naturally made him immune to ordinary flesh-and-blood distortions, this didn't hinder Fu Qian's perception of similar effects in the slightest.

Whether it was the living or the dead victims, he was absolutely certain that no such power was seeping out of them, nor could he perceive any abnormality inside them.

However, for a scholar, how could a negative conclusion be reached so easily?

In response to this situation, Fu Qian's first reaction was that he needed to consider even harsher possibilities.

For instance, the Vacuum Flower was indeed hiding within the flesh and blood, but it would only exhibit its influence on the outside world when inside this container, bolstered by its special material.

Of course, this possibility seemed to have almost been falsified by now.

On one hand, there was Ais's act of shredding the corpse; on the other, after entering this place, his perception still caught no abnormalities from Sophia and the others.

Given this, the level of harshness had to be upgraded further.

Fu Qian looked at Sophia in the other corner.

For example, perhaps it wasn't hiding on their bodies, but rather through some more abstract connection.

"So, have you thought of an explanation?"

At the same time, Ais's pressing question arrived.

The reason her timing was so impeccable was simple: Ais had been paying attention to Sophia even earlier.

"I have indeed thought of a possibility."

Answering casually, Fu Qian already looked completely uninterested in her reaction. The next moment, he crouched down beside the struggling Sophia.

With a soft click, he effortlessly removed the Golden Belt radiating heat.

Ugh—

The body that had been writhing in pain seemed to gain instant relief, stretching out.

However, accompanying this, her life force was also rapidly dissipating.

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