Eldritch Horror Theatre

Metaphysics had always been the realm people turned to when progress hit a bottleneck.

As a result, it often had a powerful way of reshaping a person's worldview.

Take Ais, for example. Even with her boundless initiative, she was finally experiencing a flash of self-doubt. The shock she had just received was clearly massive.

Fortunately for her, she didn't have much time to question her reality.

Just as she fixed Fu Qian with a vigilant stare, a bizarre sound suddenly erupted from the corpse worm.

Given Ais's sharp crisis awareness, her primary focus on guarding against Fu Qian didn't stop her from keeping an eye on the other two threats in her peripheral vision. Yet this change happened far too quickly.

The previously slow-moving corpse worm didn't suddenly leap into the air; it just kept crawling forward with steady determination.

Instead, the mass that could barely pass for its head suddenly tore open into several jagged flaps.

A twisted, knotted spear—looking as if it were spliced together from countless broken bones—shot across the remaining distance and stabbed straight toward her chest.

She was, of course, wearing the Golden Breastplate across her chest as her core equipment.

But just as Fu Qian had noted in his earlier quip about Amazon warriors, the breastplate—which supposedly matched her aura perfectly—only covered one side, slanting from her left shoulder down to her right waist.

And the attack had aimed perfectly for the unprotected side.

Blood sprayed as the stark white bone spear pierced cleanly through the right side of her chest.

The sheer force of the impact slammed Ais flat against the wall behind her.

Crack!

But her reflexes were razor-sharp. In the very instant she was struck, her right hand—clad in its Armguard—chopped down viciously onto the bone spear.

With a sharp snap, the spear broke in two, and Ais dropped to the floor.

...

"Ugh—"

Only then did the cry of pain come. Without a moment's hesitation, Ais grabbed the bone spear backhanded and ripped it free, ignoring the tearing of flesh as she tossed it to the ground.

At a glance, the bone spear seemed to possess no special lethal properties beyond its terrifying piercing power.

Even so, against a flesh-and-blood body that was still fundamentally human, the strike had left a gaping puncture wound.

Yet Ais herself was clearly in no rush to tend to it. The instant she threw the broken bone aside, her gaze snapped right back to Fu Qian.

Seeing him standing there like a mere spectator, showing absolutely no intent to exploit her injury for a sneak attack, a look of deep incomprehension crossed her face. Still, she finally seemed to force herself to accept his earlier claim about answering the call of destiny, turning her attention toward her actual attacker.

The snapped bone spear had already retracted into its mouth. Now, the corpse worm that had formed it was displaying an animalistic nature rather than that of a living corpse.

It didn't launch a frantic follow-up attack regardless of its own damage. Even its steady, unrelenting advance stalled out slightly.

In another corner, the reborn Sophia remained completely silent, her gaze locked onto Ais without making any offensive moves.

Swiftly taking all of this in, Ais also remained entirely still.

As she stood with her back against the wall, struggling to steady her breathing, the very breastplate that had failed to protect her chest was now radiating faint, invisible ripples.

The range was minute, confined almost entirely to the area right around her body.

Yet the effect was miraculous. Bathed in those invisible ripples, the torn flesh of her wound instantly synchronized with the rhythm, pulsing as if swaying to a beat.

Countless tiny tendrils of flesh rapidly sprouted from the edges of the injury. Swaying together, they latched onto one another and swiftly sealed the gaping wound.

...

A healing effect, just as I thought.

Playing the part of the spectator to the hilt, Fu Qian watched closely. He naturally caught every detail, verifying a theory he had formed quite a while ago.

The abilities granted by the Weapon Ais wore were clearly healing-oriented, and highly effective at that.

That made perfect sense. Scrooge providing ranged energy beams, Charlotte delivering physical damage, and Ais acting as a healer—it perfectly fit his earlier speculations on the exploration team's composition.

Outside of the Sage himself, these three were undoubtedly the absolute core of the squad. Exploration efficiency aside, it was an incredibly practical configuration for maintaining team order.

This level of survivability also went a long way toward explaining how Ais had made it out of that earlier peril alive, preserving a precious ember of hope for her organization.

Furthermore, though she hadn't participated much in the actual combat thus far, her reaction after taking a sudden, grievous wound was definitely worthy of praise.

Her first instinct had been to verify that the spectator wouldn't enter the fray, and her second was to ensure her attacker wasn't following up. Only then did she begin healing herself.

Since she lacked data on her attacker's attributes—like its resilience to physical blows—she smartly avoided launching a reckless all-out counterattack in hopes of a quick kill.

All in all, she was practically brimming with the will to survive.

Which was exactly what Fu Qian wanted.

Just as he had noted earlier that Ais didn't realize Sophia's true value, Ais also had no idea of her own true worth.

His purpose in molding these two vengeful spirits had never been a twisted hobby; it was a matter of rigorous academic necessity.

The test phase involving the trio and Sophia was already complete. Right now, struggling to survive, Ais was undoubtedly the final test subject.

"Very nice."

Amidst Fu Qian's praise, Sophia suddenly took a step forward, advancing on Ais just as the hole in her chest finished sealing over.

...

From the very beginning, the mission target—the Vacuum Flower—had been inside this container. And its former Anchor Point had already been wiped out by Fu Qian.

Theoretically speaking, finishing the mission from here was as easy as smashing the box to pieces.

If he did that, the Vacuum Flower would most likely rapidly vanish into nothingness, just as Old Man Sage had predicted.

But, as he had noted before, an opportunity for such close contact with an existence like this was incredibly rare.

And earlier experiments had already proven that by serving as the Anchor Point for the Vacuum Flower, a subject's consciousness really could observe some incredibly precious information.

Ais, of course, was already serving as that Anchor Point.

Because outside the dream realm, her physical body had already been exposed to the Vacuum Flower for more than a minute.

The only reason she hadn't felt the effects was because her consciousness resided within the Lucid Dream—which meant she was under his protection.

It was a delicate balance. Essentially, acting in his capacity as the Dream Dominator, he was helping her fend off that influence.

Thus, as long as he maintained the dream realm's stability to the maximum extent, he could potentially obtain a fully lucid, extreme-limit perspective through her consciousness—a lens through which he could observe the Vacuum Flower's true form of existence.

This was especially true given the subject's highly satisfactory will to live.

For example, the moment Sophia began to stir, the invisible ripples radiating from Ais's breastplate instantly stopped.

And naturally, as Ais dropped into a vigilant stance once again, the corpse worm's grotesque head in the other direction bloomed open like petals once more.

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