Eldritch Horror Theatre

So this kind of thing was actually possible?

Fu Qian naturally knew what that prompt meant, just as he knew the reflection in the mirror wasn't his own.

It was something that, simply by wearing his face, could replicate its own wounds onto his body.

Bizarre, but it wasn't as if he had never seen anything like it. Brother Proxy from the Fallen's Nightmare, for example.

An entity that could force his SAN value to drop directly?

Terrifying, certainly, but he had seen far worse.

But for it to know about SAN values, to speak the standard term out loud, and to even have its words carry absolute law to forcibly deduct a point from him—the implications of that were terrifying upon deeper reflection.

This trip truly hadn't been in vain.

"What should I call you?"

"Hehehe..."

Unfortunately, the figure in the mirror clearly retained the bad habit of playing the mysterious ghost.

Not only did it ignore Fu Qian's question, but a moment later, it raised its right hand horizontally, bringing it almost flush against the glass.

"You don't need these, do you?"

Resting in its palm were two round orbs, still attached to their optic nerves. As the hand moved, they rolled slightly, turning just enough to stare right back at him.

The resolution wasn't very high, but this handiwork was still far too rough.

Fu Qian lowered his head, meeting its gaze as he silently offered his critique.

Just like its previous self-mutilation, this act of gouging out its eyes hadn't ripped out Fu Qian's corresponding eyes, but it wasn't completely without effect.

The moment they were torn out, his own optic nerves seemed to lose power.

Even now, his tenacious healing abilities only allowed his visual signals to flicker on and off, the image constantly dissolving into bursts of static.

Of course, even with that impairment, nothing could stop Fu Qian from noticing the sheer sloppiness of the job.

The angle and force had clearly been poorly controlled. Not only were there visible signs of damage on the eyeballs themselves, but the optic nerves were also a tangled, disorganized mess.

Naturally, confronted with such a glaring lack of basic craftsmanship, Fu Qian couldn't be bothered to offer any constructive guidance.

"Don't know how to speak human, huh?"

He snorted coldly. A moment later, a pale golden, strangely shaped short staff—about the length of a forearm and covered in scars—appeared in his right hand. He raised it horizontally, mimicking the entity's pose.

It looked as though he was about to swing it a second later and smash the Flawless Mirror right before his eyes.

But how could Fu Qian stoop to doing something as vulgar as his counterpart?

He didn't swing it. Instead, he kept it raised—

"Avada Kedavra—"

Amidst the vicious-sounding incantation, a Frost Spear ten times colder than the surrounding chill howled through the air.

...

Ice crystals bloomed.

In that moment, only those words could describe the sight before him.

Launched by a Frost Demigod, a pious charlatan, and a fate diviner, unleashed personally through the bell transformed into a staff by the legendary Excellency Grimshaw, and augmented by an ancient incantation—this forbidden strike blasted the figure in the mirror almost instantly.

Just as expected, the mirror wasn't formless and intangible, but rather impenetrable.

The seemingly fragile mirror surface didn't so much as tremble as it withstood the terrifying blow.

Upon contact, the icy spear shattered inch by inch, unleashing a wave of Death and freezing chill that swept across the surroundings.

Hmph!

Standing with his hands behind his back, the heavily injured Fu Qian struck an elegant pose. He stopped after launching just that single attack, keeping his eyes fixed on the scene beneath the white frost.

Even though he could no longer see that reflection of himself, which now literally had eyes but no pupils, he still had no intention of leaving.

"You really... have absolutely no sense of humor..."

He was not disappointed. A few breaths later, the figure draped in a gold-and-white surcoat stepped forward, as if crossing over from an infinite distance in just a few strides to appear right in front of him again.

Still tall, still unhurried. But unlike before, its aura of radiant majesty had erupted once more, reaching an unfathomable level.

Even for the current Fu Qian, it was enough to trigger a mental shock.

It wasn't even just a purely psychological sensation.

Accompanied by a gentle, ethereal voice that no longer deliberately mimicked his own, he could clearly see that behind the tall figure, a glorious aura was churning and coalescing. It formed a pair of wings of light spanning several meters—just like a Saint favored by a Deity.

And that wasn't the only change. Beneath the heavy, solemn hood, not only had his stolen face vanished, but now there was no face at all. There was only that same unfathomable radiance.

"A mouth full of lies, a sky brimming with sin!"

Yet, facing that blinding, unfathomable visage, Fu Qian actually raised the Bell Staff again and pointed it squarely at the entity's head, using practical action to respond to the absurd accusation about his lack of humor.

"Hehe... you will soon realize that you are no different, except that you are much more fragile..."

What answered him was another cold sneer, along with a profoundly meaningful remark.

"SAN value minus—"

Without even giving him more time to think, the entity actually spat out that familiar phrase again a second later. At the same time, it straightened its arm, its five fingers making a grasping motion at empty air right toward Fu Qian's head.

"One plus one."

What was different this time, however, was a slight innovation—it was actually doing addition.

[SAN value minus 2]

As it turned out, Fu Qian was also exceptionally fast at providing the answer.

The moment those words fell, perfectly synced with the closing of that phantom grasp, the familiar notification genuinely chimed in his ear.

By the time the prompt ended, the figure beneath the dissipating white frost had vanished once again.

...

More fragile... It really hadn't been wrong earlier. This trip had been quite fruitful.

The math pop-quiz had come to an abrupt halt, but Fu Qian didn't look disappointed in the slightest. Instead, he finally lowered the Bell Staff in his hand, savoring the entity's final words.

The Saint in the Mirror seemed to only have two methods of testing his fragility—slicing its own flesh and dropping his SAN value.

Considering that the former clearly yielded minimal results, it was already quite obvious what this so-called "more fragile" referred to.

Not to mention that when the latter was activated, the entity had voiced the prompt with perfect enunciation twice in a row.

It was hard not to draw a certain conclusion: that Saint knew about the existence of the administrator, and knew it in considerable detail.

Another predecessor?

If that were true, this form of existence was far more ostentatious by comparison, practically oozing the vibe of a convert to the High Heavens.

At the same time, that radiant aura made it very hard not to think of his own Commandment Residue.

Which further proved that all these anomalies were indeed heavily connected to that tree.

However, regardless of what history the other party had with the tree, its earlier posture had already been made crystal clear: it was staunchly hostile.

And it seemed the existence of his SAN value gave it an additional method of attack, one with words carrying absolute law that was incredibly difficult to resist.

As for why the situation looked so dire while he remained completely unpanicked—

What was one plus one? If it was so capable, it should hit him with addition and subtraction over ten.

If it was stuck messing around at a preschool math level, what was there to worry about?

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