Eldritch Horror Theatre

At this point, His Excellency Rom shouldn't have the leisure to deliberately interfere with academic research, right?

Conducting scientific research required learning to eliminate confounding variables. And given His Excellency Rom's style, he was absolutely an expert at causing trouble.

If you wanted Him to cooperate in verifying something, a passive slowdown would be considered a good outcome; feeding you a bunch of gibberish wouldn't be unusual at all.

Fu Qian naturally understood all this. Unfortunately, the title of academic leader was never earned just by running fast to snatch a project—it relied on true professionalism.

Passive slowdown? There would always come a time when you were forced to be proactive, when you absolutely had to expend that effort.

Spitting out gibberish? There would always be situations where you had to save every ounce of strength, not daring to waste a single bit.

Like right now.

Granted, after all that analysis, it seemed he was suddenly the one at a disadvantage. But that still didn't stop Fu Qian from continuing to unearth scientific value.

His Excellency Rom was fighting for his life with everything he had, so the clarity in his eyes right now had to be incredibly high.

He could only say that the Fool's Idol, as an item carrying high hopes, truly hadn't disappointed him.

So what specific reason could force His Excellency Rom to try and destroy it?

Piqued by curiosity, Fu Qian now stood in the middle of the whale's body, gently stroking the doll in his hand.

Naturally, the eighth strike didn't land.

His Excellency Rom's reaction was one of the observation targets to begin with, so how could Fu Qian not be on guard against extreme behavior?

Of course, conducting an experiment wasn't playing house. The test subject had no obligation to follow the script.

Dodging the previous few strikes could be attributed to seeing through His Excellency Rom's lethal rhythm—a mutual telepathic understanding plus a little luck.

But during such a crucial test right now, the doll's durability didn't look particularly high, and the slightest accident could easily damage it. So how could he still dodge so perfectly?

Simple. Experimental margin of error.

It wasn't that His Excellency Rom's strike had coordinated perfectly, but rather that it had hit somewhere else.

On Fu Qian's right arm, a hideous wound stretched from top to bottom, extending all the way down to the back of his hand.

No blood flowed out. Instead, it was replaced by a multicolored glaze and a massive reduction in SAN Value.

This hand had just blocked the path, acting as a shield to secure a slightly higher chance for the doll to retreat unscathed.

So much so that, from His Excellency Rom's perspective, it didn't even seem like a loss. After all, from the beginning until now, this was the first time he had actually hit the target.

...

Rule number two of a higher entity's code of conduct: there was only a difference between winning big and winning small.

The defensive action just now must have been seen, so might this not have been His Excellency Rom's secondary goal?

Even if he couldn't hit the doll, he could still hit his opponent.

Everything came with a price. A slight increase in experimental safety was often backed by a massive consumption of resources. Specifically here, it meant the Tyrant had been forced to sacrifice his agility.

Although he was still cowering and hiding, His Excellency Rom had managed to grasp the semblance of an open scheme.

Of course, in theory, one could also lean into a conspiracy: that the doll wasn't actually important, and this was all just to exploit the Tyrant's psychology to land this strike.

He could even incidentally mislead his opponent about the doll's importance—killing two birds with one stone.

It sounded nice in theory, but careful thought revealed that its feasibility was quite low.

What if the Tyrant was also reverse-exploiting this psychology?

Never caring about the experimental results, but merely aiming to lure you into wasting another strike to accelerate your exhaustion.

Compared to a situation where one stood in an invincible position just by hiding, that was absolutely not a good thing.

People who liked to scheme were often the ones most afraid of schemes.

Considering His Excellency Rom's current situation, he likely didn't have the courage to gamble.

Ultimately, it came down to the extreme resource oppression mentioned earlier, which deprived the other party of any room to maneuver.

In summary, the verified outcome of His Excellency Rom's eighth strike had a fairly high credibility: the doll really was deeply connected to this place.

In that case...

Fu Qian reached out again, placing the doll directly onto the whale's back.

He even deformed his arm, looping it around to enclose the doll.

It was still convenient for the opponent to strike him, but the chances of destroying the doll were now miniscule.

...

Amidst the anticipation, His Excellency Rom seemed unwilling to take advantage of his precarious state, still refusing to unleash a ninth strike.

Naturally, such a trivial emotion wouldn't exist. This reaction basically proved one thing: striking the doll was more important than striking the Tyrant.

Even knowing it would incidentally shave off a massive chunk of SAN Value, His Excellency Rom still felt that wasting energy on an extra strike wasn't worth it.

Fair enough. It was constantly dropping anyway; it was merely a matter of waiting a little longer.

But looking at it this way, the doll's significance was far too massive.

So massive that a higher entity—who could currently be considered the one most familiar with this place—was willing to pay an enormous price to destroy it.

Was this really His Excellency the Fool's ripple?

Fu Qian looked at the whale that seemed as if it could shatter at any moment.

After placing the Fool's Idol directly onto it, no particularly strange phenomena occurred. It was just that the little tune could be heard much more clearly.

It wasn't echoing all around, but rather stamped directly into his mind, like the final dirge of the apocalypse.

Here lay the problem: why was His Excellency Rom unwilling to listen to the song?

Crackle!

Because he had been standing perfectly still, the crystalline trail finally spread onto his body.

Fu Qian watched helplessly as another streak of glaze appeared on his chest.

[SAN Value -1]

The system prompt rang out frantically. By his estimate, the value had already successfully plummeted back to double digits.

Very nice. Not only had the instant-death bar filled up a significant chunk, but even his Health Bar had suffered severe damage.

Fu Qian sighed inwardly. Naturally, he wouldn't treat this kind of trauma lightly.

On the one hand, the physical sensation was right there. On the other hand, he knew very well that he had seen this kind of glaze trace somewhere else long ago—

In the Burial Ground of the Gods, on the body of Warehouse Senior Liliana.

...

Aside from being pale and withered, looking like a witch, the most unforgettable thing about that Senior—who had been forced into hiding with only a sliver of SAN Value left—was the bizarre, colorful trail flowing from her eye sockets like tears.

Although, regarding the source of those things, he had previously leaned toward it being connected to Blazing Rainbow.

After all, of the many Seniors he had encountered afterward, a significant portion had suffered deeply at the hands of that ancient higher entity.

Whether by turning them directly into puppets or luring them astray, the entity had gone to extreme lengths to target them.

Not to mention, that multicolored glaze gave him such a strong sense of déjà vu.

However, looking at it now, he might have actually wronged Excellency Blazing Rainbow on this particular point.

Under the storm's erosion representing the Transcendent Terminus, the true body of a Deity had unexpectedly manifested something visually identical.

And if his memory served him right, the most iconic feature within the Deity Burial Ground was the storm that blew through from time to time.

Was that the real reason Senior Liliana had been shedding those tears?

Did the storm over the blowhole of the Fool's whale also originate from there?

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