Eldritch Horror Theatre

Sure enough, as long as one had an ulterior motive, they could find a bug in anything.

Sand slipped between his fingers at an even pace. Under his precise control, even the exact number of free-falling grains remained constant.

Yet, within this stable system, the hazy colors reflecting inside it shifted constantly. Coupled with how incredibly faint they were, they were nearly impossible to track.

Crimson Frenzy.

Fortunately, as a seasoned villain, his nose for certain things had always been sharp.

Fu Qian easily recognized it the moment it appeared—it was the filthy power he had dealt with many times before.

As a widespread curse, this thing had quite a high profile among the transcendents of the Bookstore World.

Even the very first time he saw it, it was when some fearless player had tried to use it as a deterrent.

That fool ended up dead on the job, giving Fu Qian a firsthand look at what a Scarlet Angel truly was.

Masses of the stuff had burst right out of bodies, even harboring a scheme for the return of the Holy Infant Calamity Star.

Not long after that, he had seemingly witnessed the very birth of this curse—the regicidal blade in the Long Night.

On that night of assassination, under the cover of the Dark Moon, the Mourning God had delivered a sneak attack.

Aside from being laced with the Dragon King Dimensional Poison, that blade had carried a special corruption.

Almost instantly, the Tyrant he was playing as developed a curse identical to the one before his eyes.

In short, it was a special power he had a deep history with—and one over which the Tyrant arguably held the intellectual property rights.

However, after he had officially transformed into the Remastered version earlier, this curse hadn't returned its mighty power to him like the Flame of Frenzy did.

Why?

It was a natural question to have.

It seemed that diligent effort pays off, and it had finally appeared this time—though the same question remained: why?

...

Because he had brought the Umbilical Cord with him this time.

The answer to the second question was remarkably simple.

As he had noted earlier, he didn't even need to loop it around his neck. The moment he entered, the anomaly had already begun.

Compared to the possibility that the Abandoned Prison had spent the last few days saving up a surprise for him, Fu Qian clearly leaned toward his bug-exploiting behavior having actually worked.

Being the Mechanical Remastered King of the Abandoned Prison while simultaneously holding the Ancient Higher Being tag provided by the Umbilical Cord had ultimately triggered this special reaction from the Abandoned Prison—even though, in theory, there shouldn't have been a reaction at all.

Back when he first donned the Divine Skin, the Warehouse had explicitly stated that he was "Him."

Later, with Master Yuhun's help, he had achieved a 120 percent Tyrant Form.

Because of that, shouldn't the Ancient Higher Being attribute be something he inherently possessed regardless?

One could only say that under these circumstances, a slightly more rational player likely wouldn't have bothered running such a test.

But as a self-proclaimed academic, how could he have the bad habit of making assumptions? He had even just lectured Professor Lisa about this very thing.

As an item explicitly tied to the concept of a higher entity and incredibly easy to test, the Umbilical Cord was entirely worth bringing inside for a quick look.

To his pleasant surprise, it hadn't let him down. With this somewhat unreasonable discovery appearing, combined with his previous "why," the situation suddenly became quite delicate.

Before seeing this thing, it would have been a fairly reasonable explanation to assume that his current form was a pure version, and that a damage-based corruption like Crimson Frenzy had been automatically purged.

But what did it mean for it to suddenly pop up now? Was he impure just because he brought this Umbilical Cord?

Granted, in the Warehouse's introduction at the time, the Umbilical Cord was indeed not a very clean item, to the point of being strictly forbidden from missions.

But even if he reluctantly accepted that explanation, another question immediately followed: how had the curse gotten in here?

This was a place akin to the divine kingdom of the King of the Abandoned Prison. Could something just wander in casually? And so swiftly at that?

Fu Qian was absolutely certain that the reaction had started the moment he arrived, and it was only intensifying.

He scooped up another handful of sand from the ground. This time, instead of letting it slip through his fingers evenly, he tossed it directly into the air.

As the grains cascaded down, the crimson hue became even clearer, its lingering radiance seemingly writhing in midair.

...

Scarlet Angel.

The very thing he had seen before, and had even tasted.

Though it was fleeting, Fu Qian still spotted the familiar elements within it.

It was exactly that kind of "creature" that used flesh and blood as a petri dish before finally being extracted.

The curse looked to be growing increasingly active, and—just like how a random handful of sand had an effect—it was omnipresent. So had it actually been in the Abandoned Prison all along? Only awakened because of his actions this time?

That conclusion formed so naturally in that moment that the desolation before his eyes seemed to diminish slightly.

He had to admit, it was somewhat reasonable. Don't forget that the Record of Recollection had previously stated that the sand itself contained the remains of those displaced ones who had been scorched for a millennium.

And after the Tyrant fell, it wasn't just the Frenzied Flame that lost control; the curse he bore had also dissipated, eventually melding into everything else... Such a change seemed highly logical as well.

After all, even among the transcendents on the outside, many left behind a ground full of corruption after they died.

Furthermore, the crimson rising before his eyes was clearly centered on him—oh?

Gazing thoughtfully ahead, Fu Qian didn't even bother grabbing another handful of sand this time.

In the blink of an eye, something was already tumbling above the sand, its manifestation strikingly clear.

It was also blatantly obvious that the phenomena grew denser the closer it was to him.

Yet, if he assumed that Crimson Frenzy had been here all along, that previous question seemingly had to be answered.

Namely, exactly how dirty was the Umbilical Cord, and on what grounds could it trigger this curse?

Or—was it not the Umbilical Cord that was dirty, but himself?

Looking down at himself in that moment, Fu Qian unceremoniously arrived at another terrifying possibility.

Simple impurity alone wouldn't necessarily be guaranteed to induce the curse.

Since Crimson Frenzy had managed to lie dormant here all along, it meant it was fundamentally accepted by the Abandoned Prison.

Therefore, the strongest catalyst for its reaction should still be his identity as the King of the Abandoned Prison.

So could the core reason the Umbilical Cord triggered this reaction still boil down to the "Ancient Higher Being" tag?

It was because this tag was added that the Crimson Frenzy was triggered.

And why could it be triggered? Because it originally belonged to the Ancient Tyrant.

So... there really was a difference between the ancient and the modern after all?

Frowning slightly, Fu Qian reached out and crushed a cluster of crimson that swarmed toward him.

Accompanying this slightly brutal gesture, another surge of brutality rose from the depths of his heart.

A bloodlust that didn't seem to belong to him.

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