Eldritch Horror Theatre

The corpse hadn't even been frozen. Judging by the blood flow, the skull had been opened while he was still alive.

Aside from his dark brown hair matching the description, his face was impossible to identify. His skull had been forcefully peeled back.

The exposed interior was even stranger. The usual red and yellow matter was gone, replaced by layers of thin, grayish-white, scale-like tissue.

It grew directly from the skull, extending inward layer by layer and interlocking into a complex structure.

From a certain angle, it even looked a bit like a Pinecone.

Unfortunately, this Pinecone was already shattered, leaving behind nothing but empty cavities.

A very unusual mutation. Had Ivan done this?

Ignoring Brother Peeker behind him, Fu Qian stepped forward for a closer look.

Though visually striking, this was, after all, a world with confirmed Transcendent powers. Even compared to Brother Peeker nearby, this mutation wasn't too outrageous.

A natural deduction, then, was that he had only ended up like this after arriving here.

So the next question was: who did it?

Who had turned him into this?

The Old Hunter was undoubtedly a prime suspect. Fu Qian highly doubted an opponent bearing such a title was any sort of saint.

Even Brother Peeker managing to eat "Ivan" earlier was likely connected to him.

The setup down here was clearly Ivan's doing, yet he had ended up dead and scavenged. There had to be a reason for that.

The most probable scenario was that the Old Hunter had chased him down and killed him. Brother Peeker had then followed the scent, acting as a Scavenger for the murder scene.

Even so, Fu Qian still leaned toward Ivan as the prime suspect for the scene right in front of him—and a moment later, he picked up the limp arm resting to the side.

It was no exaggeration. To the touch, the entire arm didn't feel like it belonged to a living person, or even a corpse.

Every single bone inside had been evenly and meticulously crushed. No spot had been spared. It was as thorough as someone fishing through a pocket for loose change—or perhaps looking for a Key?

Indeed. Regardless of Ivan's goal, Fu Qian suspected this specific act was the work of his competitor. The Old Hunter had been probing the boy's body, searching for anything that could be considered a Key.

Crucially, the lingering traces indicated this violence had occurred post-mortem; it hadn't happened at the same time the skull was opened.

This very discrepancy in time made it less likely that he was also responsible for opening the skull.

...

Just what was the purpose of the setup down here? That had been a lingering question from the start.

Ivan had clearly been attempting something highly specific, even going so far as to allegedly steal corpses from medical facilities to do it.

Now, Fu Qian faintly felt he had an answer.

Sure enough, there was no need to dismiss his own imagination so easily. What if it really was a Pinecone inside the skull? Or some conceptual equivalent of a fruit.

All the way down, the surroundings had repeatedly evoked a sense of déjà vu regarding the Formless Tree.

Yet, no matter how strong the resemblance, there had fundamentally been no physical manifestation of it.

It was just like the paintings he had seen in the Tower—merely depicted indirectly through unconventional means.

But that boundary seemed to have been broken here.

This spherical space wasn't just notably roomy.

Dropping the arm, Fu Qian leaned in closer and took a sniff.

Sure enough, that peculiar "fragrance" was thickest inside the opened skull.

By placing human flesh and blood—living or dead—in a place like this, could some boundary be broken, allowing the true fruit of the Formless Tree to grow inside?

Fascinating.

If that were the case, he was genuinely curious how Brother Ivan had come up with such a creative idea.

Regardless, working off that premise, the current situation could be roughly summarized—

Through various means, Ivan had acquired human bodies, dead or alive, to use this method to truly touch the Formless Tree and harvest the fruit that grew inside their heads.

The two youths who had stumbled into this place by mistake were undoubtedly sheep walking straight into the tiger's den.

The boy had quickly become fertile soil, his skull opened while he was still alive so the "fruit" inside could be harvested.

What Ivan hadn't expected, however, was that while the two youths were powerless to resist, they had brought an Old Hunter chasing the White Key straight to him.

With his target right in front of him, the latter's methods had been shockingly brutal, carving a path of slaughter all the way down.

Unfortunately, one of the missing persons—the boy—had still met a brutal end, eliminating any chance of communication. Left with no other option, the Old Hunter had to manually "search" him.

His earlier assessment had been right; his opponent was highly proactive.

Under these circumstances, what would his next move be?

There were simply too many possibilities to easily deduce.

After all, Fu Qian didn't know if the girl who had been eaten was the other missing person, but the Old Hunter likely did.

Of course, looking on the bright side, his own next move was glaringly obvious.

Haaah—

Amid his thoughts, a bizarre, low growl echoed, and liquid dripped from overhead to land directly on the pale corpse.

Fu Qian didn't even need to look up to know that the sound and the murky secretions both came from Brother Peeker.

Though Brother Peeker had remained perfectly silent behind him during the examination, it didn't mean he had been doing nothing.

Amid the faint rustling, it was easy to picture Brother Peeker turning into a gecko once more and crawling directly overhead.

As for why he was acting on such an impulse?

That was simple. He had already mentioned being drawn in by a peculiar "fragrance" earlier, and now the very source of that fragrance was right here.

With such temptation laid out before him, the fact that he had held back this long was already impressive.

With these movements, it was easy to see that the tightrope-walking truce they had maintained was now truly crumbling. That burning desire had driven him to the brink of madness—Bang!

So what? Madness was exactly what this seat specialized in beating down.

At the crack of the gunshot, the face Brother Peeker was using to peer down from above took a solid hit.

Let's see if Your Excellency still has a chance to make a greater contribution.

Of course, he wasn't genuinely preparing to kill him. It had already been proven that his bullets lacked the necessary lethality.

But the moment the bullet sent blood flying, slamming Brother Peeker's head back against the ceiling, Fu Qian didn't hesitate. He smashed his oil lamp directly into the boy's open skull.

Fwoosh!

Living up to the Pinecone comparison, the inside of the skull proved highly flammable. In an instant, it was completely engulfed in flames.

Feeling rather pleased, Fu Qian even grabbed the severed half of the skull and tossed it into the fire.

The mouth-watering fragrance that Brother Peeker had been drooling over rapidly warped into something eerie.

Roar—

A bestial roar echoed from overhead. Clearly, Brother Peeker found this sight completely unacceptable.

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