Eldritch Horror Theatre

Just as expected of His Excellency Rom. Seven strikes were all it took to apparently breach some critical threshold.

If they had spent that same effort chasing down the Tyrant, it was hard to imagine it accomplishing much.

In the blink of an eye, one could admire the entire process from bud to full bloom.

Facing the sky full of bloody streaks, Fu Qian still took a moment to praise his opponent.

This was exactly their logic—not a single ounce of effort wasted.

Even now, His Excellency Rom hadn't lost their reason. Unwilling to leave anything to chance, they maximized every card at their disposal.

For instance, their intimate familiarity with this place, and their perfect understanding of the administrator's vulnerabilities...

[SAN Value -1]

Even though he had perfectly dodged the spreading crystals, a new prompt still chimed in Fu Qian's ears.

With the fall of that seventh strike, the specialized power targeting the administrator's SAN Value had fully integrated into the space's foundational attributes. It was unavoidable.

Unlike native transcendents, an outsider—regardless of Rank—theoretically possessed an extra instant-death bar.

Rom, fully aware of this, had clearly factored it in from the start.

The King of the Abandoned Prison in peak condition? Possessing a theoretical advantage in Combat Power? Known for an immense Health Bar?

Not only will I hide where you can't hit me, but I'll also trigger a map-wide, unavoidable, never-ending instant-death ultimate that's already channeling.

And since you've already bought into the play, the script pins you down. You have nowhere to hide.

...

He really couldn't underestimate a veteran.

Seamlessly putting himself in his opponent's shoes, Fu Qian didn't sugarcoat his own predicament.

The threat to his SAN Value was entirely real. Curious as he might have been in the past, he had no intention of testing what would happen if it actually hit zero right now.

What should have been a satisfying beatdown of a weaker foe had abruptly flipped. In the blink of an eye, the situation reeked of a death trap.

Such scheming was truly admirable.

His Excellency Rom's past behavior had always given the impression of someone who loathed head-on confrontations.

Setting aside their currently horrific condition, even at full strength, they likely wouldn't have been willing to trade blows with the Tyrant.

Yet, despite being locked into The Octagon and forced into the severe disadvantage of close-quarters combat, they had still precisely manipulated the resources on hand to find a winning condition.

Taking the brainstorm a step further, it wasn't even a stretch to drift into conspiracy territory—

A home turf featuring a specialized attack against SAN Value, the shattered remnants of a possession target, and a King of the Abandoned Prison lacking Transcendent Perception who had just swallowed cursed flesh...

Combine these elements, and the entire narrative could instantly flip. It could be seen as His Excellency Rom entering the game as a piece, laying a trap to utterly annihilate their most troublesome opponent—and perhaps snagging a sufficiently powerful body in the process.

After all, in this state, who else could they possibly defeat besides an outsider burdened with an extra instant-death bar?

And said opponent had even willingly walked into this place—the one arena uniquely equipped to exploit that very weakness.

It was practically the legendary scenario where everything is the best arrangement.

[SAN Value -1]

Amid his admiration, the prompts continued to chime.

And the spreading crystals were rapidly becoming impossible to dodge.

Even the research facility beneath his feet was annihilating in massive chunks, exposing the whale embedded within it.

Naturally, Fu Qian didn't waste the opportunity. He turned his head, finally getting his first clear look at its entirety.

Sure enough, it was split between two extremes: one end of flesh and blood, the other of bare white bone.

Right now, that colossal body was encircled by streak after streak of blood-red crystals.

At a glance, they looked like a dense clustering of wounds, yet also like excessively vibrant feathers—just like this one.

Fu Qian lowered his head and held up a palm-sized statuette.

Four distinctly shaped arms, a beautiful face... and most importantly, draped in a vivid red feather cloak.

That's right—the Fool's Idol.

...

Whales generally didn't grow feathers.

Earlier, when guessing the relationship between the whale and His Excellency the Fool, this was the one detail that had struck Fu Qian as slightly incongruous.

Granted, for a higher entity, physical appearance was a rather arbitrary choice, so it didn't prove much.

But whether it was the reward in his hands or the Containment Object from that All Fools' Day task, both heavily featured vivid red feathers. It felt like they should be a highly representative element of the Fool.

Seeing the sight before him now, however, made him feel that a feathered whale wouldn't look too bad. Thus, he had decided to pull out the Fool's Idol to join the fun.

As for where he had grabbed it from? The Warehouse, of course.

Most things came with both pros and cons.

The seamless connection between Etched Intellect and the Warehouse might have made this play seem impossible to escape, but looking on the bright side—it made grabbing items from over there much more convenient, didn't it?

So he hadn't even brought it in beforehand. He had simply gone back and grabbed it the moment he noticed the "feathers" on the whale.

Contrasting the two right now once again proved the importance of imagination.

They were starkly different; saying they bore even a spiritual resemblance would be a stretch.

Yet, the moment they were placed side by side, there was an inexplicable sense of harmony.

Granted, that was a bit of a stream-of-consciousness take, hardly convincing.

So at that moment, Fu Qian opted to simply place the Fool's Idol directly onto a crystal in front of him—the crystal formed by the "first strike" plunged straight into the whale's eye socket.

Almost instantaneously, a distinct reaction occurred.

...

Oh?

The thought of testing out the Fool's Idol had actually occurred to him even before he saw the whale's complete body.

Having occupied the center of the long table in the Warehouse the entire time, this item was, to a large extent, prepared specifically for the concept of the Fool.

Now that he had suddenly uncovered traces—traces suspected of being tied to the apocalypse, no less—how could he let the opportunity slip?

Compared to searching for a hiding spot or observing the Warehouse's reactions, being able to pull this item out was arguably the greatest benefit of the seamless link between the script and the Warehouse.

And it seemed it hadn't disappointed him. Fu Qian could already recognize what that sound was—the Doomsday Ditty.

It didn't come to life and start slaughtering everything in sight. The palm-sized statuette simply sat atop the thin crystal, completely motionless.

But in that moment, a unique resonance echoed between the statuette and the whale, using the crystal as a bridge.

So it really was His Excellency the Fool? Sealing away the Transcendent Terminus in such a posture?

What an honor, then.

He hadn't harbored any wild hopes that the Fool's Idol would spit out exaggerated amounts of information. This sudden shift, like background music kicking in, already meant a great deal in Fu Qian's eyes.

And if it truly was such a self-sacrificing storyline, then as a player who had once impersonated the Fool, he felt quite honored to share in the glory.

Though someone else clearly disagreed—Crack!

In the very next moment, a brand-new crystal spike pierced right through the spot where the Fool's Idol sat.

His Excellency Rom, who had stayed completely motionless after delivering the seventh strike, actually took decisive action against a Small Doll that did nothing but play music.

Excellent. Everything else prior paled in comparison to the power of this validation.

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