Eldritch Horror Theatre

This was very gospel.

Enlightening spirituality and accumulating madness was the inherent effect of the Authority of the Mother of Gospel.

The fleeting clarity in the Old Man's eyes, followed immediately by his collapse, perfectly mirrored those two steps.

To Fu Qian, it looked as though the Old Man had transcended mere instinct in his final moments and regained his wisdom.

He was no longer a pure Reflection of Death; instead, he had used his own will to cast Insight upon Death for a single glance.

But the price was enormous—comparable to the idiom, "hear the Dao in the morning and die content in the evening." In the very next moment, his existence rapidly collapsed thousands of times faster than before.

"What exactly are you doing?"

Unfortunately, that romanticized view belonged only to Fu Qian as the operator. The bystander clearly didn't share the sentiment. Excellency Serana finally broke her silence to question him.

"Destroying any chance of him speaking again? He's clearly collapsing even faster—"

Laurie's upper body had almost completely collapsed. What spilled out from beneath his skin wasn't just the same eerie, jade-green light from before; free of its physical restraints, the light unfurled and writhed into a bizarre pattern.

"I'm trying to get him to tell us more."

Fu Qian finally gave a casual reply.

...

Making a corpse speak directly without words?

He had to admit, it truly carried a bit of necromantic flair.

Realizing what Fu Qian meant, it became clear he had never intended to stabilize the man's mental state for interrogation. Instead, he had simply blown him up like a firework to observe what would emerge.

This ruthless interrogation technique clearly left Serana in shock.

Following his lead, she stared at the shifting shape of the eerie light, afraid of missing a single detail.

Unfortunately, it was still far too abstract.

It resembled some sort of creature, complete with a human-shaped head and a body speckled with scattered white bones, but its overall appearance was deeply unsettling.

Behind its head stretched an abnormally long neck, to the point that it was hard to distinguish from the body.

Misshapen, sharp claws were faintly visible, and even wings—Rip!

As the Old Man's lower body completely collapsed, a single wing flapped silently, and the bizarre body actually took to the air.

It had already expanded to several times its original size, and fully unfurled, it could no longer fit inside the office. A moment later, the bird phased straight through the ceiling overhead, and even the very top of the building.

Given its phantom-like texture, its ability to phase through walls wasn't all that surprising.

The only problem was that it was a true physical breach.

The building, though old, had seemed relatively sturdy, yet beneath that long wing of eerie light, it proved as fragile as frost.

It offered zero resistance. Wherever the bird touched, the structure simply melted away.

In an instant, the quiet office was exposed to the storm.

Fierce winds howled and rain cascaded down like a waterfall, rendering the room unrecognizable.

Amidst this sudden clamor, the phantom entity soared gracefully overhead, completely unbothered by the storm. For a brief moment, the sight almost felt sacred.

"So, did you get any answers?"

Serana didn't mind being unexpectedly exposed to the wind and rain again. Looking up at the spectacle, she coldly pressed Fu Qian on the results of his unique interrogation method.

"I did. Doesn't it seem pretty conspicuous?"

Looking up alongside her, Fu Qian gave an affirmative reply.

"And then?"

"And then, assuming Solendil doesn't already have a clear target, he should be delivering himself right to our doorstep very soon."

...

This was his idea of getting an answer?

Not only was the interrogation method completely unorthodox, but the answer itself was too?

Serana remained silent, but one could almost empathize with the shock she felt.

He hadn't even tried to decipher anything from Laurie's final burst of light—he had just used this method to lure the man over?

It had to be said, this did technically answer the question of where Solendil was, even if the thought process behind it was incredibly bizarre...

"Didn't you want to avoid clashing with him?"

Having no desire to empathize with his thought process, Serana asked a much more pragmatic question.

"No, you wanted to avoid him."

Fu Qian didn't look worried in the slightest. Keeping his gaze fixed upward, he calmly admired the soaring, single-winged bird.

He had just been thinking how familiar it looked.

Solendil obviously wasn't the real prize here; this was.

Excellency Serana might have no concept of it, but he had seen something similar before. These were the primary subjects of Professor Lisa's research—the unique creatures from the Bone Spirit Realm.

It was the same combination of eerie light and white bones, and the same quiet elegance.

So he hadn't guessed wrong back then. Was that place really some dead Underworld?

Everything seemed to connect.

...

The Gospel Shockwave had been used specifically to create this very scene.

As early as when he noticed that unique luster spilling from the Old Man's cracks, Fu Qian had already begun to form a theory.

Using a slightly drastic method to deal with him meant the results would undoubtedly be worth looking forward to.

And the Old Man hadn't disappointed him.

"It's just unnecessary. I have no reason to go out of my way to avoid him."

Facing Fu Qian's piercing critique, Serana had no intention of being scared off, making it clear that even if Solendil showed up, it wouldn't be a big deal.

"Understood."

Fu Qian nodded in response, turning his gaze toward Brother Shulan nearby.

You...

The atmosphere instantly froze, but before Serana could even react, Fu Qian took a deep breath, locked on, and blasted out another Gospel Shockwave.

Crack—

Although his aptitude was poor, enlightenment from the King of the Abandoned Prison was nothing to scoff at. In that moment, the sound of something shattering echoed out.

Next came the familiar eerie, jade-green light. It seeped out from Brother Shulan's body strand by strand, its shape looking all too familiar.

Taking no longer than it had for Laurie, another single-winged bird took to the air, blending into the wind and rain.

"...Now Solendil has no choice but to come."

Without a second thought, he had unexpectedly delivered another one of them. Looking at him, Serana finally seemed convinced that the man standing before her didn't care about Siren in the slightest.

As for her previous reminder, it clearly wasn't wrong.

If Laurie's display had only posed a risk of attracting Solendil, two nearly identical birds waltzing in the sky was undeniably excessive.

As long as Solendil didn't have an incredibly specific target elsewhere, he would undoubtedly come to confirm the situation behind a commotion like this and eliminate the risk.

"Of course."

Readily agreeing with that assessment, Fu Qian shifted his lock-on to the front desk.

Boom—

Without hesitation, his third Gospel Shockwave struck its mark.

"What exactly are you trying to do?"

If his previous actions could be understood as uninhibited, Serana was now truly struggling to understand him.

Was there any point in taking things this far?—Yes, he absolutely had to take things this far.

Watching yet another single-winged bird take to the sky, Fu Qian compared every single detail among the three of them, showing absolutely no intention of leaving.

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