Eldritch Horror Theatre

Fu Qian stood on a rather secluded street.

Beneath the thunderstorm, it was completely deserted.

The person who had spoken to him was sitting on a chair in the rain, shrouded in a familiar haze of mist.

The torrential downpour struck the mist and dissolved into it without a sound. Not a single drop touched her.

"You took longer to get here than I thought."

Fu Qian's composed reply seemed to catch the woman off guard.

A moment later, she slowly turned around.

Beneath the wide brim of her hat was a faintly familiar face.

Fu Qian was certain he had seen this face less than a day ago.

Fu Qian recalled that she had seemed quite familiar with Rolden, and had even spoken to Fu Qian himself.

Now, dressed entirely in black with a faint, ambiguous smile, she sat enveloped in mist like a ghost.

"I was just worried you wouldn't be able to keep up."

Fu Qian spoke as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

"You don't seem very surprised."

Fu Qian's answer clearly surprised Teresa again, and she let out a soft laugh.

"Surprise doesn't solve anything."

Fu Qian snorted.

"Just as I thought..."

Teresa nodded.

"Good luck doesn't come out of nowhere. The others kept saying you were just fortunate, but I maintained there had to be a specific reason. Looking at you now, your disposition is far stronger than Shang Shiming's."

As she spoke, she flicked her finger. The mist suddenly expanded several times over, swallowing Fu Qian as well.

The scene from the Stone Tower was repeating itself.

Fu Qian shook his head and exhaled a light breath to test it.

Evidently, reinforced by the rain, the mist's binding force had grown even stronger.

In fact, while back inside the Stone Tower, he had already realized someone was lurking nearby.

In his initial assessment, however, Fu Qian had not been sure of the hidden figure's purpose, even considering whether they might be Shang Shiming's backup.

Judging by subsequent events, though, old Shang clearly had no idea she was there.

Not only that, but Shang Shiming had specifically scouted the surroundings to make sure no one was lying in wait.

In truth, even Li Min, who was a step above him, had failed to notice anything amiss.

The reason was simple: the woman before him belonged to a tier far higher than those three.

Sitting there, although Teresa's face showed few marks of time, Fu Qian was certain she was not young.

Most importantly, her strength was at least Tier 5 or above.

Under such overwhelming rank suppression, hiding from a few Low-Tier Transcendents was effortless.

The only puzzling part was her motive.

If she had truly suspected him, she would have had plenty of opportunities to probe him. Fu Qian did not believe she had targeted him from the start.

"So everything back there was your doing?"

Fu Qian looked at Teresa and asked.

"Isn't it obvious?"

She admitted it without hesitation.

"May I ask why?"

"Why don't you guess?"

"No matter how you look at it, your actions back there were rather abnormal. You didn't just disrupt Shang Shiming's plan; you were practically trying to kill people."

"Given what your crowd usually gets up to, can I assume this is related to a ritual?"

"Not bad. Quick on your feet."

Teresa offered a hollow smile of praise.

"So you didn't want Shang Shiming to complete his ritual? But if there was a real grudge, someone with your strength could have easily finished him off. Why go to such trouble?"

"I was indeed sabotaging his ritual, but that has nothing to do with personal animosity."

Teresa beamed with a pleasant smile.

"I bear no grudge against Shang Shiming. What I did was simply what I was supposed to do."

What she was supposed to do.

Fu Qian frowned as realization struck him.

"A ritual?"

"That's right. My ritual."

"Let me think."

The puzzle pieces from earlier suddenly clicked into place for Fu Qian.

"Could your ritual be to prevent that Stone Tower from being destroyed? Which happened to conflict directly with Shang Shiming's."

"To be precise, it is to stop a major act of destruction. It isn't limited to that single building."

Teresa admitted it offhandedly.

So that was how it worked!

"Aren't you two in the same circle? You could have just talked it over with old Shang and stopped him once to get it done."

"This is a true ritual of devotion. Did you think we were playing house?"

Teresa gave a chilling smile.

"How could such foolish deception ever satisfy the demands of a ritual?"

"So you were waiting for Shang Shiming to act all along?"

Fu Qian shook his head.

"Pity he seemed completely unaware of it."

"That's because he is fundamentally an ignorant fool, no different from the rest of you."

Looking at Fu Qian's face, Teresa's tone was thick with mockery.

"He doesn't understand the essence of a ritual at all... And did you really think this ritual came from some spontaneous revelation he had on his own?"

"Which means..."

Fu Qian realized what she meant.

"You set it up? Just like Rolden did to me?"

"You really are quick."

Teresa glanced at him with genuine surprise.

"That's right, it was indeed my doing. And considering he's a transcendent, I had to be even more careful not to get caught."

"Since you're so clever, why don't you guess why I'm waiting for you here?"

"That's simple. Your ritual failed, and clearly because of me."

"Like putting in all the work to herd a sheep, only for someone to let it loose right when you're about to slaughter it."

Fu Qian remarked lazily.

"Given how impatiently you came looking for me, you're probably here to settle the score, right?"

"It's best that you have that self-knowledge."

Teresa let out a string of laughter.

"Everyone must pay the price for their actions, whether intentional or not. So, are you ready?"

"Ready to die."

"I'm always thoroughly prepared on that front, so you needn't worry."

Faced with a death threat, Fu Qian looked entirely unbothered, waving his hand casually.

"Considering I'm already a dead man, could I ask a few questions?"

...

When Fu Qian finished speaking, even Teresa fell into a momentary silence.

It seemed this fellow before her genuinely did not fear death.

"Sure, go ahead and ask."

A few seconds later, she let out an ambiguous chuckle and signaled for Fu Qian to continue.

"Since Shang Shiming only had a half-baked understanding of rituals, I'm quite curious: what exactly is the essence of a ritual?"

Fu Qian asked bluntly.

The essence of a ritual...

Teresa looked at Fu Qian.

"With death on your doorstep, your curiosity is certainly strong."

"Hear the Dao in the morning and die content in the evening."

When Fu Qian said this, there was not a trace of piety on his face.

"Actually, there's no harm in telling you."

A bone-chilling coldness crept into Teresa's smile.

"The essence of a ritual is, naturally, knowledge."

"Not human knowledge, however, but that of Deities."

"A tiny fraction that mortals are permitted to glimpse from the vast knowledge beyond all imagination."

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