Eldritch Horror Theatre

As soon as Fu Qian spoke, the guy who had asked him for an appraisal flinched, nearly dropping the object in his hands.

"Hair? Have you ever seen hair a blade can't cut?"

Once he recovered his composure, the guy was visibly angry.

"Special hair."

Fu Qian remained expressionless.

He had no intention of scaring the guy, but he was equally uninterested in making up lies.

Unfortunately, the item this guy was treating like treasure really was just a coil of hair.

It just had a peculiar luster flowing over the strands, making them look almost alive.

As for why the guy couldn't see something so obvious, Fu Qian already had a guess.

In all likelihood, it was tied to his inspiration. What others saw in the object wasn't necessarily what he was seeing.

But the guy's words had just given him a highly useful piece of information.

This hair became more common the deeper they went into the ruins. By following its trail, it would be easy to pinpoint the direction they had come from.

And by extension, the way out of the ruins.

Ji Liushuang was clearly keeping an eye on their side, and Fu Qian's answer naturally reached her ears.

Although his claim about the hair made her frown too, she didn't question it. Instead, she instinctively began scanning their surroundings.

She's fairly sharp.

Fu Qian praised her inwardly.

The next moment, Ji Liushuang's expression changed. She stood up in a flash, drew her Longsword, and sent a fierce surge of sword aura sweeping out.

A patch of flowing black had quietly snaked along the ground right up to their feet.

The closest edge of it was on the verge of climbing a girl's leg, but fortunately, Ji Liushuang's strike severed it.

"Drop what's in your hand!"

Ji Liushuang shouted at the guy the moment her strike landed.

The guy who had asked Fu Qian for the appraisal froze for a second, subconsciously reluctant to part with his prize.

But Ji Liushuang's tone carried a natural authority, ultimately compelling him to toss the object away.

Yet the instant the hair left his grip, every fine strand suddenly stiffened like a needle and whipped back to wrap around his hand.

Sword light flashed again. Ji Liushuang was suddenly right in front of him, swinging her blade to cut the strands.

Even with that rapid reaction, several hairs had already pierced deep into the guy's hand, draining his entire right arm of color in an instant.

"Fire."

Ji Liushuang spat out the word. The guy, awaking as if from a dream, instantly channeled heat into his hand. It felt as if actual flames were burning, and the hair buried deep in his flesh was scorched out.

"Thank you!"

His face ashen, he offered his sincere gratitude.

If Ji Liushuang hadn't acted so decisively, he would be dealing with far worse than just a weak right hand right now.

Ji Liushuang just gave a slight nod, her eyes fixed in another direction.

Fu Qian, who had just been sitting there, had vanished without a trace.

Several screams rang out. A tide of black filaments was surging in from multiple directions.

...

These people really don't know the meaning of caution. Knowing something was wrong, they still wandered this far in.

Fu Qian sighed inwardly as he wove through the mist.

He had noticed the disturbance behind the broken wall even earlier than Ji Liushuang, but he hadn't stepped in. Instead, he took advantage of the chaos to slip away from the group.

As far as he was concerned, the team should be more than capable of handling the bizarre, bloodthirsty hair.

To him, the mission came first.

The ideal scenario would be to just walk out in the opposite direction and finish the task.

Though judging from past experience, the chances of that were basically zero.

He faced no obstructions along the way. It didn't take long for Fu Qian to find himself at the edge of the ruins.

Here, the scattered remnants of broken walls were extremely sparse, and the mist was so thin it was practically gone.

He still didn't see any physical barriers.

Is that it?

Fu Qian furrowed his brows. An ominous premonition made him slow his pace.

The next second, his body collided with an obstacle.

Looking at the empty space in front of him, Fu Qian reached out and pressed a hand against the invisible block.

It felt like a smooth surface, as if a completely transparent barrier hung in the air.

Looks like this is the boundary of the Furnace.

He recalled the strange anomaly he had seen in the Warehouse—that massive sphere.

Is this thing a spherical barrier enclosing the entire ruins?

Fu Qian quickly formed the hypothesis.

If true, even though it was a non-lethal, inanimate object, his instincts told him it would be quite tricky to deal with.

He decided to try the simplest method first.

When facing the unknown, the most scientific way to understand it was to test, summarize, hypothesize, and verify.

Even if the barrier's existence wasn't very scientific to begin with.

Flexing his fingers, Fu Qian adjusted his breathing and threw a punch straight at the barrier.

The barrier didn't tremble in the slightest, nor did it emit a single sound.

The rebounding force nearly ruptured his blood vessels. It felt like he had punched a mountain.

Brute force definitely wasn't going to work.

Although he had only used seventy percent of his strength at most, the feedback made it clear that breaking this thing with raw power was impossible.

Figuring he might as well try, Fu Qian fired two Air Bullets at the barrier.

The Air Bullets whistled as they slammed into the barrier, failing to stir up a single ripple.

The toughness of this barrier was truly absurd. It surpassed the very concept of being sturdy—it didn't yield a single reaction.

Looking at the outside world just inches away, Fu Qian frowned.

From Ji Liushuang and the others' conversation, he knew they had accidentally discovered these ruins while out on an exploration trial.

They hadn't faced any obstacles when they entered. That meant unless this barrier had just appeared, it allowed one-way passage; coming inside from the outside wasn't an issue at all.

Does it repel specific targets? Organic lifeforms?

Fu Qian picked up a rock and hurled it at the barrier.

Halfway through its flight, the rock slammed into the barrier and dropped straight down.

It seemed the effect was the same whether the object was living or non-living.

You could only enter, not leave.

Fu Qian finally understood where all the bizarre things inside the ruins came from.

This is a pretty big problem.

The crux of the issue was that there were clearly hostile creatures inside. It was hard to say if he could even stay in one spot long enough to figure out a solution.

As he pondered, Fu Qian turned around and called out toward a certain direction.

"Come out."

Five seconds later, a middle-aged man slowly walked out from behind a broken stone stele.

The man clapped his hands, looking at Fu Qian with admiration.

"Very impressive. To think you could sense my presence."

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