Eldritch Horror Theatre

Ever since he formally ascended as the King of the Abandoned Prison, such work injuries had become rare—let alone one that cost him five points at once.

And to Fu Qian, it was hard to attribute this to the kind of special purification effect the Third Follower had used back then.

This was hardly his first time taking a knife from the White-Faced Man. Nothing like this had happened before, even back when he had only been at Tier 2.

In Fu Qian's eyes, the most likely explanation was exactly what he had guessed: His Excellency the Solitary King's power of plunder had finally taken effect.

As for why all those previous stabs hadn't triggered it? Simple. This time, he was the one wielding the blade against himself.

If hacking at himself produced the exact same result as letting some random White-Faced Man do it, the Solitary King would have had no need to go to such lengths.

One could only say he truly lived up to being a player intent on elevating his status through his progeny. He certainly had a few unique tricks up his sleeve.

The moment anyone set foot in this place, the only difference was how heavily they were bathed in the Solitary King's radiance. Here, during an audience with his true body within the Sanctuary, that concept was pushed to its absolute extreme.

It was pushed so far that it genuinely awakened his "White-Faced Man" aspect, forcing a notoriously hard-to-kill character like himself to turn his own hands against himself... with stellar results.

Of course, this still wasn't a major issue. He held back from revealing his true form as the King of the Abandoned Prison primarily because this place simply couldn't withstand it.

His current method of adjusting his Rank was modeled after Master Yuhun. While perhaps not quite as flexible as the master's ability to casually pull out another "self," it served its purpose.

But under these crude, straightforward conditions, the underlying resilience of that final sliver of health was undeniably immense.

Emptying the Health Bar of this Tier 2 body was still a long way from actually killing him. By comparison, the loss of five points of SAN Value was far more alarming.

Fortunately, the harvest was just as substantial.

...

Not only had the Goddess of Sins helped him reboot his research into original sin, but His Excellency the Solitary King had even revealed a glimpse of himself, providing a brand-new case study that allowed Fu Qian to reexamine the nature of SAN Value.

To be honest, up until now, aside from that chaotic troll Patches, he had never encountered another higher entity with an explicit interest in SAN Value.

A certain turncoat Third Follower had long since stopped caring about the attribute entirely, even dismissing it as nothing more than a lifeline tied around one's neck.

Thus, going by common sense, he had always assumed this metric was strictly useful for an outsider—paying the toll to rewrite history, staving off mental corruption, or serving as the fuel to activate certain staggering abilities.

It could almost be treated as an exclusive concept entirely their own.

Yet the case unfolding before his eyes forced him to consider a new possibility: that SAN Value itself was the Solitary King's target for plunder.

In fact, if SAN Value truly was his objective, whether or not he had originally been an outsider was no longer particularly relevant.

Even if the Solitary King really was a predecessor who had gotten trapped in this place for whatever reason—or perhaps simply due to a work injury—his greedy thirst for it now had to have an underlying cause.

Was it psychological trauma left behind by a grueling, high-intensity workload?

Was he desperately grinding for work points even when he no longer had any use for them?

That explanation was a bit too heavily steeped in humanistic sympathy. It completely clashed with the overall tone of this world.

Not to mention the bizarre mutations across different parts of the Solitary King's body. Fu Qian had just deduced that they might be the result of a massive over-accumulation of plundered resources—essentially gorging himself on too many supplements.

That meant the plundered SAN Value wasn't merely a climbing number. It provided genuine, tangible benefits to a higher entity.

And if Fu Qian was simply overthinking things—if His Excellency the Solitary King wasn't a predecessor at all, but a genuine, well-connected local player—then the implication was even more striking.

It was enough to nearly overturn all his previous assumptions and lead to a brand-new conclusion:

SAN Value was universally beneficial. The only reason the gods showed no interest was likely because they hadn't yet realized its value, much like the widespread prejudice the covenant faced when it was first introduced.

The Solitary King, much like the Dragon King, was a pioneer.

So the question remained: what exactly was that benefit?

Nourishing divinity? Curing madness? What profound mystery had His Excellency the Solitary King—a suspected predecessor—uncovered through this relentless slaughter?

That also raised another fascinating question: if one could truly harvest SAN Value by slaughtering Natives like those found where Akons resided...

As remnant souls plunged into the sea of mind, what was the underlying mechanism behind it?

[SAN Value -5]

...

What a pity. The Solitary King offered no answers, simply continuing to radiate his brilliant light.

Fu Qian could feel the blood-forged blade buried in his flesh come alive, relentlessly siphoning away his life force.

But it was glaringly obvious that the Solitary King remained unsatisfied with this result.

The very next moment, the other "self" residing within Fu Qian's body made a new move.

The blood-forged Long Blade plunged even deeper into his flesh before suddenly shattering on its own, erupting into hundreds of Spikes that shot outward in every direction.

Unquestionably bearing the brunt of the blast, Fu Qian instantly received yet another system prompt—but it still wasn't enough.

Vicious as the follow-up attack was, it still wasn't enough to pierce through his ultimate resilience.

Despite his body being riddled with countless holes, Fu Qian's final sliver of health remained unfathomably deep. He showed absolutely no sign of collapsing.

But that wasn't all. Driven by the motion, the incredibly resplendent golden flames surged and intensified once more.

They gushed from every gaping wound on his body. In the blink of an eye, the inferno had raged all the way up to the dome of the Sanctuary, licking against the lavish clusters of flowers overhead.

Inside this greenhouse hand-built by the King of the Abandoned Prison, those delicate, vibrant "flowers" actually ushered in a second blooming.

Tearing apart, elongating, and fluttering along the trails of the roaring flames... in that moment, the phrase "life as brilliant as summer flowers" received its most vivid, literal interpretation.

Whether they were real flowers or just flesh and blood no longer mattered. The sheer, raw allure of life had been pushed to its absolute zenith.

After their frenzied revelry, they detonated into ribbons of blood rain that drifted slowly to the ground.

It truly was a grand wedding.

Fu Qian, the man who had catalyzed this spectacular scene, clicked his tongue in admiration. For a brief moment, he could almost hear the two newlyweds swearing their unwavering vows of devotion to one another.

Of course, it wasn't just the flowers taking their final bow—it was the stones as well.

The Flame of Frenzy was being unleashed at its maximum output for the first time since this mission began. Under such apocalyptic devastation, even the Sanctuary of the Goddess of Sins couldn't withstand the strain. It began to shudder and collapse.

...

He was an undeniable terrorist. Up to this point, the true motive behind all of "Ariel's" grotesque and erratic behavior along the way couldn't be any clearer—he had come specifically to wreck this home.

At the same time, this level of power obviously couldn't belong to a mere Tier 2.

"Ariel" merely served as the Anchor Point to release the flames. While the identity provided him a layer of protection—leaving his battered body teetering on the edge of collapse without ever actually falling—Waaah!

Right in this moment of provoking the wrath of gods and men, amidst the roaring inferno boiling the flowers, the very first voice to express its displeasure was unexpectedly the ear-piercing wail of an infant.

It sounded like a little child who had been repeatedly warned not to cause trouble at a wedding, but who had finally lost control of their emotions because the scene was simply too stimulating.

It made perfect sense. The only slight issue was that the wailing was coming from inside the groom's stomach.

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