Eldritch Horror Theatre

'Did he really... transform?'

In the blink of an eye, his previously unremarkable face and body seemed to become a convergence of the darkest dregs, blurring his very features.

Watching this transformation and sensing a depth she felt she might drown in with a single misstep, Ais clearly found her own feelings difficult to describe.

"When did you get this?"

Her tone even suggested that, rather than him harboring malicious intent, she subconsciously hoped he really was answering the call of destiny.

"Right before I gave myself the title Lord of the Rings, of course."

Unfortunately, Fu Qian didn't pay her much mind. The next moment, a claw formed of converged darkness swept over the dying Sophia like lightning.

The sheer ferocity of the strike instantly drained the color from Ais's face.

However, somewhat surprisingly, the claw strike—which looked capable of tearing through steel—didn't shred Sophia to pieces.

In a single breath, that already indescribable entity turned into a pile of ashes without uttering a single sound.

"Very impressive... but I don't understand the point of doing that."

Seeming to sense a deathly stillness that had completely returned to nothingness, Ais forced her gaze away from the ashes, choosing to combat her rising fear with a question.

"Killing her in the end doesn't quite match your claim that waking up is just a Nightmare."

"Are you trying to tell me that Sophia will wake up from that pile of ashes?"

"You're actually worrying about that right now?"

Unfortunately, even when it came to deflecting attention, she was simply no match for him.

Returning to normal in the blink of an eye, Fu Qian blinked back at her and reminded her of their current priority.

...

Dead silence.

For Ais, another agonizingly long minute stretched on.

Though she loathed being led by the nose, and the current situation looked incredibly wrong, his point was simply irrefutable.

Sophia had been reduced to dust. All that remained was the last sliver of hope—that the Vacuum Flower was indeed hidden inside her and had now been released.

Moreover, even if the claim of it being "omnipresent" was outrageously absurd, Sophia's earlier claim that she could sense the Vacuum Flower was still somewhat good news.

Especially judging by the Lord of the Rings' reaction; he seemed inclined to believe it as well.

The only problem was that, no matter how long it felt, that minute eventually reached its end.

Ais, who had kept her eyes fixed on Fu Qian the entire time, instantly adopted an expression so gloomy it could practically drip water.

"It seems Sophia died for nothing."

While not a direct question, her icy words were extremely aggressive. Translated, they meant: you just got someone killed for nothing.

Of course, considering her own past actions, making such a remark clearly required an unusually thick skin.

Fu Qian's skin was naturally thick enough. However, faced with this emotional outburst, he didn't snap back; instead, he just wore a strange expression.

"What is it?"

Though he remained silent, this shift in his demeanor instantly sparked Ais's alertness like an electric shock.

"Still can't sense it?"

Fu Qian slowly shook his head and raised a hand.

Small, round fingernails were slowly blooming from his palm—on his other hand, unlike before.

...

At that moment, Ais's breathing seemed to stop altogether.

"You thought you could play me again!"

However, upon recovering her wits, her first reaction was to let out a cold sneer, indicating she wouldn't fall for it a second time.

"You obviously possess some kind of flesh-altering ability. From the very beginning, everything that just happened was clearly your own doing."

She was completely right.

Fu Qian immediately confirmed this judgment in his mind.

It was just a pity that clinging to Truth was much harder than occasionally brushing against it.

He didn't argue. The next moment, as if drawn by a sound, he simply turned his head toward a nearby corner.

There really was a sound.

Unconsciously following his gaze, Ais was horrified to see a white bone violently striking the floor.

Behind it, the mass of shredded flesh was actually moving again. In an instant, it wriggled into a strip, using the white bone as a makeshift foot to try and crawl forward.

"Impossible! You're the one controlling them!"

Faced with yet another piece of evidence that the Vacuum Flower had truly returned—which only she remained unable to sense—Ais's emotional instability spiked once more. Gritting her teeth, she looked toward the other corner.

"Unless Sophia can fulfill her wish—"

She had only half-described the Miracle when her words came to an abrupt halt.

A slender wrist suddenly thrust out from that pile of ashes.

...

Of course, Sophia hadn't awoken from a Nightmare and returned from the dead.

Fu Qian's earlier claw strike had merely been a tentative attempt to send her to Unseen Hill.

That's right; his transformation was naturally due to him activating the Ash-Bestowing Ring, which allowed him to embody The Deep.

The title Lord of the Rings was certainly no empty boast.

And from his experiences at Unseen Hill, more than one of the Natives had said that Death was not the end—that they would eventually awaken in some form, at some point in time.

In Fu Qian's eyes, Sophia—who had only a lingering wisp of consciousness left—fit those requirements quite well. He considered it a reward for her active cooperation.

Of course, this also fell into the category of making one's own luck. Everything hinged on Sophia struggling to keep her final shred of consciousness from collapsing.

As for the hand emerging just now, and the trio-turned-insect in the corner, the reason was exceedingly simple: the moment Sophia was swallowed by The Deep, the Lord of the Rings had already used another Ring—Lucid Dream.

As a Dream Dominator, conjuring such minor scenes was practically second nature.

Of course, the scale of the scene was already expanding. A body completely coated in ash was slowly standing up, long hair fluttering.

It wasn't that Fu Qian had some sick sense of humor and was deliberately coating Sophia in grime.

For one thing, having her clothes be reborn alongside her didn't make much sense, and this method offered some protection for her modesty.

Most importantly, because she had been completely mangled before, he actually had no idea what she looked like. A thick layer of ash made the bluff much easier to pull off.

"Is It... really here?"

Witnessing this, Ais began to question reality once again.

"It really is."

Fu Qian kept a straight face, showing zero shame in lying.

Part of it was his naturally thick skin, as mentioned earlier, but the other part was that he hadn't actually lied: the Vacuum Flower had indeed returned.

The reason he had unhesitatingly sent Sophia away was because he had clearly sensed it. Under the influence of the Decree of Return, at some point, something had finally been added to this box.

Lofty and obscure.

Even for him, and even within such a confined space, it remained incredibly difficult to grasp.

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