Eldritch Horror Theatre

The Order of Blood?

This sudden commotion could easily make one think that Excellency Rom wasn't entirely dead and had instead entered a second phase.

For Fu Qian, however, his slightly recovered perception allowed him to confirm that the pooling blood-red mass possessed a far purer nature.

Much like a certain authority he had encountered more than once.

The way it pooled together was also highly unusual, perfectly illustrating what it meant to wallow in the mire.

Every blood-red crystal maintained its original shape, darting like swimming fish as they shoved aside the other scattered fragments in their path.

In the blink of an eye, they had converged into a winding line of blood.

The negative consequence was that numerous other crystals were forced to flow along with them, turning an already abstract scene into pure chaos.

Was this the same nature as Moore within the storm? Had Excellency Rom even precipitated out the authority he controlled?

Even the storm had been abstracted into a single crystal, revealing in the most direct way possible that it was an indispensable part of Moore.

The scene unfolding before him shared a distinctly similar feel.

Furthermore, he had always known that Rom did indeed hold a certain amount of the Order of Blood authority.

Did that mean his earlier joke about the boss dropping loot was holding even more weight?

With Excellency Rom's death, had he even dropped a Supreme Bone like this?

Yet, rather than snatching it up to instantly refine it, Fu Qian was far more focused on what it would do next.

The line of blood forged from the gathered crystals continued to flow, traversing the lake, the ash, and even the sea...

...

Thanks for your hard work.

Making no attempt to stop it, Fu Qian watched it go, his heart filled with nothing but gratitude for Excellency Rom's final ripple.

Dropping loot was certainly nice, but one should never forget that an academic worker's most important harvest was knowledge.

This was a rare display of an apocalyptic scene, and not a single second could be missed.

Compared to trying to pocket the materials, Fu Qian was far more interested in the essence of that blood line and where it was heading.

Not to mention, time was running out.

This Second Layer of King's Skin, woven by the Power of the Fool, was not so easy to wear.

Fu Qian could clearly feel himself rapidly integrating into this apocalypse, spreading out like the whale beneath his feet to "sweep away" fallacies like the Original Sin Sage.

The most distinct sign of this was the fact that the system alerts for his dropping SAN Value hadn't sounded for a while now. He certainly wouldn't take that as a good thing. Wait, was that—

Fortunately, there were still some good things in the world. His curiosity had finally been rewarded.

As his perception tracked its movement, the blood line traced a miraculous trajectory, even crossing the night sky.

In doing so, it left behind every other element—the Inverted Lake included—while rapidly expanding his visual scale.

Not bad. Was this an episode of 'The Order of Blood Shows You the World'?

The scene grew increasingly abstract, yet Fu Qian understood it effortlessly, even thinking of an analogy.

Even in the Real World, one could use aircraft to elevate their perspective to a sufficient height, making everything below appear minuscule.

The roaming Order of Blood could be understood in exactly the same way right now.

After all, in a situation where even distance had become abstract, achieving a similar Sublimation would only be easier.

...

So what exactly did the world look like after the apocalypse?

Growing even more satisfied with his earlier choice, Fu Qian raised a hand and gently tapped his head, fully activating his Transcendent Perception.

Even with this death-courting behavior, the area illuminated by the line of blood remained limited. He could only see the small fraction of things it interacted with, and the lack of a reference point made interpretation difficult.

His most profound realization was that as it extended outward, everything truly behaved just like the spreading crystals from before. They turned into abstract combinations of elements, all laid out on the exact same plane.

Was this the true form of the apocalypse?

Much like the whale beside him, had everything's essence been replaced by crystals, rendering it all a specious imitation of reality?

Even the very concept of a planet had been warped along with it. The Flat Earth Theory had officially been proven true.

The reason he didn't call it a "round sky and square earth" was because even the night sky was clearly laid out on that identical plane.

If that were truly the case, then this was vastly different from the apocalypse on the Witch's end.

At the same time, it suddenly made sense why Excellency Rom had been so incredibly reluctant to mend his body with the crystals.

That stuff was far beyond what the word "curse" could summarize; it was practically the complete annihilation of the entire transcendent system.

The term Transcendent Terminus was starting to feel more fitting by the second.

Wait a minute, it seemed to have stopped.

Within his perception, Fu Qian suddenly realized that the Order of Blood appeared to have reached its destination.

For one, its movements had slowed down. For another, he could see even more blood-red.

...

Very pure.

The instant he laid eyes on those additional blood-red crystals, Fu Qian realized they were also a condensation of the Order of Blood.

Except they weren't arranged in a line. Instead, they were crookedly linked together into a peculiar outline, faintly resembling a curled-up baby—the Holy Infant Calamity Star?

Fairly confident in his guess, Fu Qian recognized that cluster as the very character who had once backstabbed the Ancient Tyrant.

Though compared to their last meeting, it really didn't look much like a human anymore.

So the reason the line of blood had moved was due to some kind of aggregation effect? And the Holy Infant Calamity Star also held a certain amount of the Order of Blood authority?

Judging by its title alone, that wasn't particularly surprising.

It even lined up perfectly with the diagnosis he had made at the end of the Four Knights mission.

He had pointed out back then that His Excellency the Holy Infant Calamity Star seemed to be suffering from a bit of vascular nodular calcification. Sure enough, He was suffering from a certain curse as well.

Compared to the others, however, there was a distinct difference with this victim.

Namely, no matter how much of a mess His insides were, the crystallization was strictly limited to the ring of blood-red surrounding Him.

Still putting up a stubborn resistance? So only a portion of His elements had been crystallized, or even extracted outright—the sugar?

Fu Qian suddenly recalled the Fruit and Sugar Theory he had shared with Su Gao, and the final question that came with it: how was the sugar extracted from the fruit?

Wasn't this a living example right in front of him? The Order of Blood had been extracted out...

And via crystal extraction, no less. It wasn't just scientific; it was downright chemical.

Furthermore, the two portions of the Order of Blood were clearly merging together.

That being said, the line of blood that had traveled all this way didn't simply pool around the Holy Infant Calamity Star to bolster the weight of His authority.

Quite the opposite. The crystals on the latter's body were actually being torn out bit by bit, to the point that His physical form seemed to be left crippled.

Was he currently witnessing a live demonstration of the sugar-making process?

Was the authority slipping from the hands of mediocre gods, officially beginning to incarnate into the Heavenly Dao?

Marveling inwardly, Fu Qian thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle, though he didn't forget to do a little self-reflection: had he just screwed over the deeply connected Holy Infant once again?

A prosthetic leg was still a leg, after all. It seemed he had just completely crippled the poor guy.

There was no time for remorse, however, because it was time to chop off his own leg—Riiip!

Amid the grotesque noise, Fu Qian raised his other hand, reaching toward the back of his head with both arms to forcefully tear open the Tyrant Armor.

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