Eldritch Horror Theatre

Mister Luo reacted instantly. After blocking the strange doll's strike, his uninjured hand shot forward without hesitation.

The counterattack was blindingly fast, yet this seemingly foolproof grab closed on empty air.

To the disbelief of the onlookers, Mister Luo's grab had actually missed, snagging nothing but a handful of air.

Its strike having failed, the blood-colored doll showed no desire to drag out the fight.

Seizing the opening, it blurred into a streak of light and fled.

It moved so fast that the automatically triggered nets failed to ensnare it in time.

"Are you alright?"

The group only snapped out of their daze after the creature had completely disappeared. Miyamoto stepped forward and looked at Mister Luo.

"I'm fine."

After dealing with his injury, he looked down to inspect the corpse on the ground.

A large chunk was missing from the victim's sturdy breastbone, looking as though it had been melted away.

Unlike the ones they had encountered before, this doll seemed to act as a parasite, nesting inside the body to devour flesh and blood.

"This thing is different from the rest. We need to be extra careful tonight."

At his words, the slight sense of relief Delin and the rest of the group had felt vanished, leaving their nerves on edge once more.

Their attention was so completely absorbed by the sudden incident, however, that none of them noticed the camp was already short one person.

...

Fu Qian moved rapidly through the Dense Forest, maintaining a distant lock on the fleeing doll.

The creature's speed wasn't absurd, making it relatively easy to track.

The real trouble lay in carefully controlling his own strength to prevent any large movements from triggering an anomaly.

Thus, Fu Qian refused to expend a single ounce of unnecessary energy, simply trailing it from a distance.

He had already gathered the general gist of the situation.

Regardless of whatever hidden agendas those people harbored, Fu Qian had lost all interest in staying at the camp to play mind games with them.

This red doll was undoubtedly the most unique one he had seen so far. He couldn't rule out the possibility that it was his actual mission target.

Therefore, no matter what, Fu Qian was not going to let this clue slip away.

He tracked it for an unknown amount of time. The Dense Forest seemed endless, and according to Fu Qian's estimates, he was already quite deep inside it.

As he continued forward, the surrounding vegetation grew increasingly dense.

Finally, after he pushed through yet another thick patch of underbrush, the view ahead suddenly opened up.

To his surprise, a densely packed cluster of buildings lay hidden behind the Dense Forest.

Mostly built of stone, they appeared incredibly ancient, with dark green moss creeping over their mottled walls.

And not far away, his target was crouched over a corpse.

The victim seemed to be human, though exceptionally tall, standing well over two meters.

Beneath clothing made from something resembling tree bark lay absurdly robust, thick limbs.

He wasn't the only victim. Several other corpses lay scattered across the ground nearby.

There was also a young girl sitting there blankly, looking completely terrified out of her wits.

To think that people were actually living in a place like this!

Fu Qian marveled inwardly.

Earlier, when he had noticed someone spying on them, his first thought was that a third party might be hiding in the shadows, hoping to swoop in and reap the spoils.

Now, it seemed far more likely that these local Natives had simply been observing the invaders.

At that moment, the blood-colored doll also noticed Fu Qian and nimbly vaulted off the corpse.

Gorged on fresh blood once again, its body took on an increasingly bewitching luster, so vibrant it almost dazzled the eyes.

Fu Qian could clearly feel the creature sizing him up.

Judging from the situation, not only was this thing a lone wolf, but its attacks were completely indiscriminate. It would slaughter and drink the blood of any target it stumbled across.

These unfortunate victims on the ground had simply run into it and ended up as its latest meal.

After studying him for a long moment, the doll hesitated briefly before finally lunging at him.

'It doesn't seem particularly bright!'

Fu Qian silently critiqued.

He could tell that compared to its differently colored brethren, it was a bit smarter, though only by a narrow margin.

Otherwise, it would be fleeing right now instead of attacking.

Fu Qian dodged the ambush with a quick sidestep and raised his right hand.

A Crimson Long Whip materialized out of thin air and lashed out directly at the creature's face.

It was true that he couldn't afford to exert too much power right now, but there were workarounds.

As a special weapon, the Tyrant's Fist only required a tiny sliver of strength to activate, making it perfect for the current situation.

To his surprise, this seemingly guaranteed strike also missed its mark entirely.

'Interesting!'

Fu Qian finally understood why Mister Luo had misfired earlier.

The doll seemed to possess some strange ability to distort the light around it, creating a visual illusion to mislead its attackers.

Such a minor optical illusion could be incredibly effective during a first encounter when the opponent was caught completely off guard.

But countering it was just as easy.

Fu Qian simply closed his eyes, refusing to rely on his vision to lock onto the target.

Smack!

A moment later, the charging doll caught the full force of his whip.

The brutal strike sent the doll tumbling. It flipped through the air several times, and upon hitting the ground, seemed to realize it was outmatched. It immediately turned and fled, quickly vanishing into the Dense Forest.

'It's completely unaffected?'

Now it was Fu Qian's turn to be surprised.

Even though it clearly possessed a consciousness, the mind-shattering effect of the Tyrant's Fist seemed entirely useless against it.

His original plan was to drive it completely mad with a single whip crack so it couldn't flee. He hadn't expected it to bolt so decisively.

No wonder it was treated as a special material. This thing was incredibly bizarre!

Having temporarily lost his target, Fu Qian didn't mind all that much.

He glanced back. The young girl who had been sitting there in a daze earlier had taken advantage of the doll's distraction and made a run for it.

'How decisive and ruthless!'

Fu Qian actually found himself quite appreciative of her choice. Knowing to seize every opportunity to survive instead of simply covering her face and cowering in place was quite impressive given the circumstances.

Turning his attention back to the corpses on the ground, he noticed something shocking. Although each victim looked remarkably muscular, their facial features revealed that they were quite young—some even still bore the distinct traces of puberty.

But even more striking was the fact that every single body bore strange, unnatural patterns to some degree. Vein-like textures resembling plant roots crawled across more than half of their faces.

Naturally, Fu Qian was reminded of the team member whose head had turned into a cauliflower.

It made sense. If these people had lived here for a long time, it stood to reason that they would occasionally come into contact with the seeds.

Being completely clean would be far more abnormal.

In fact, their symptoms could be considered incredibly mild. It looked like little more than a natural tattoo; their heads certainly hadn't exploded.

Thinking back on it, Fu Qian recalled that even the young girl who had been sitting there had faint, dark red lines marring the left half of her face.

'But this makes things a bit harder!'

Fu Qian sighed. He rolled the corpses over and finally selected the one with the least complicated patterns.

He stripped off its clothes and put them on before beginning to pinch and mold his own face to match the corpse's.

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