Eldritch Horror Theatre

Abandoned displaced ones? An interesting title.

In that time-stagnant desolation, the figure on the throne finally stretched, then went right back to sprawling there with imposing dominance.

His mind had been perfectly lucid the entire time. Precisely because of this, Fu Qian kept a low profile for a while, ruminating on past events.

He had to admit, his previous praise for the Record of Recollection was well deserved. It maintained its literary quality while automatically fleshing out details to rationalize the narrative.

At the end of the Record of Recollection, his original version had consisted of only a few brief strokes, yet it had been forcibly expanded into a short essay.

It wasn't just a pile of empty words, either; it actually had substance.

First, it seemed the assassination truly took place during the Long Night. Meanwhile, those human figures who had groveled underground from beginning to end were called the displaced ones.

Abandoned by the gods. That wasn't hard to understand. He had learned long ago that humanity had lost the gods' responses during the Long Night.

Abandoned by themselves. That sounded a bit awkward, but a moment of empathy made it easy to grasp.

That night he had traveled with Su Gao, the child whose family had sealed them in a coffin—praying that darkness or death might offer a sliver of shelter—perfectly illustrated this point.

This also explained why the Abandoned Prison had seemed so lively back then.

After all, the perks of worshipping the Tyrant wouldn't attract anyone under normal circumstances.

Unfortunately, the flesh they managed to preserve still couldn't escape the fate of being burned—a fate that lasted a thousand years.

The gravel beneath his feet was evidently a very unique substance. If he had to describe it, it reminded him of the pool of "water" beneath the temple of a certain Nameless Divine Entity.

Flesh, pollution, curses... even sheer terror, all forcibly smelted together.

But it was indeed just as the Record of Recollection stated; facing the return of the King of the Abandoned Prison, there was also a surging, overflowing joy.

...

So what shared interests had actually driven that assassination?

The killer had refused to speak, and the Record of Recollection didn't mention it either.

Seeking revenge under the cover of a dark, windy night?

Or did they believe the King of the Abandoned Prison was the mastermind behind the Long Night?

After all, an authority symbolizing Calamity would be far more adaptable to that kind of mutation, and might even have grown stronger from it.

Or perhaps it was a case of: Even if I don't want them anymore, you still deserve to die ten thousand times for daring to steal my believers?

That reasoning felt just a bit too dark.

Amid his reflections, Fu Qian glanced at his hand. The paper cup had finally vanished.

It wasn't surprising. As a disposable item, even though the Frenzied Flame was no more, it still couldn't maintain its physical form in such a place once its transcendent efficacy expired—although it had still been there right after the recollection ended.

The entire process of the Book of Ages had actually been quite efficient.

While idealists might defy all logic when pushing things forward, the way their situations collapsed was equally exaggerated.

Back in the Sacred Night Capital, the state of Eternity he had briefly achieved by swallowing the bird's blood served as an absolute trump card in a deathmatch like this.

Although his Rank remained low enough that he wasn't completely immune to the effects, no matter what sort of distortion he suffered, a portion of core power would always return him to his initial state without any cost.

And Fu Qian had always been very confident in Master Yuhun's perception.

There was no need for a drawn-out, life-and-death struggle. He was confident his opponent would recognize this true immortality.

Under the traits of the Record of Recollection, this consensus would only continue to drive that reality forward.

And Master Yuhun had dispatched exactly five such combatants, causing the situation to crumble away like dead wood.

As for why Master Yuhun had cooperated to such an extent, deliberately making them all Tier 2 instead of gathering all that mighty power into one body to let Melia suppress him with her Rank?

Fu Qian didn't doubt that Master Yuhun could achieve that. In fact, under those circumstances, a single avatar's resistance to burning wouldn't have been much worse than the five clones'—but its resistance to being gutted wouldn't necessarily be the same.

The vast majesty of a monarch was no mere empty talk.

Fu Qian believed that ever since this deathmatch began, his distinct communication style had already left a deep impression on his opponent.

Even if Master Yuhun was somewhat confident that Fu Qian couldn't sustain his Mythical Form any longer, he still had to worry that the Tyrant would muster his remaining ferocity and force him to suffer the exact same treatment as the Dragon King.

Consequently, taking the limited power that had just infiltrated and breaking it apart to increase the margin for error was an easy choice to make.

Psychological manipulation wasn't just a technical skill; it was a systematic project. Doing it well always required a big-picture mindset.

As soon as he recognized the true nature of the deathmatch, Fu Qian had treated the Record of Recollection as a tool that might come in handy.

And after bringing it out of the Warehouse, given its usage restrictions, the brutal stubbornness of an inner demon definitely had to be played up. That would force the opponent to focus more on survival, ultimately striving to overcome hardness with softness.

Of course, even if his opponent ultimately proved too foolish to accept the manipulation, Fu Qian remained confident that he could execute a higher-Rank Melia once and force the issue.

As for now, he wasn't sure what state Master Yuhun's true body was in while hiding behind the "telephone line," but the chains of the deathmatch had evidently snapped for good.

As for the winner's harvest—

Fu Qian continued to look down at his palm. Soon, a light yellow, unpatterned paper cup with a capacity of about two hundred milliliters reappeared.

...

It wasn't the original, of course. It was merely a construct adhering to the will of the King of the Abandoned Prison.

Now that the recollections of those fleeting years had settled, the answer as to who the true master here was had already been decided. And that included the Frenzied Flame—

The next moment, a golden light flared from the hand Fu Qian used to hold the paper cup.

However, the very flames that had once completely melted down the Abandoned Prison didn't harm the paper cup in the slightest.

Just as the Record of Recollection stated, with the official return of the King of the Abandoned Prison, this Flame of Ill Omen had also been purified. It returned to the Tyrant's domain of mighty power, ending its thousand-year masterless state.

So much so that, although he hadn't verified it yet, Fu Qian was quite certain Old Man Stoss had just lost a certain ability.

As for Excellency Nepheli, her Tyrant's Boon Miracle might not become completely meaningless, but it would probably require his permission to take effect now.

Although the aesthetics of this Frenzied Flame seemed a little strange...

Facing that excessively sharp, bursting radiance, Fu Qian frowned slightly and looked into the distance.

As he gazed out, stone walls instantly erupted from the ground within his vision, and tiled terraces piled high. The original grand scenery of the Abandoned Prison was actually rapidly restoring itself—Crash!

The recreated buildings quickly collapsed all over again.

The good news was that he had kept his Mythical Form fully active from just now until this very moment, and it hadn't cost him an ounce of energy.

Now that his mighty power was made whole, it seemed he had directly evolved into the complete Mechanical Tyrant.

If they had to fight again, he might just be able to tear the Dragon King apart with his bare hands, even in his original form.

Becoming a higher entity in a single step... wasn't this harvest a bit too exaggerated?

After all, his Tier 1 rituals, traits, and even his title had been completely blank before this.

The bad news was that his Transcendent Perception had vanished from his body. Utterly and completely.

Even here in the Land of Self-Abandonment, those reconstructed buildings from just now had actually only existed within his direct line of sight.

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