Eldritch Horror Theatre

Other than Fu Qian, no one expected Feng Yunhong to launch a sudden attack—especially not in the form of self-destruction.

Bearing the brunt of it, Li Weixuan had no room to dodge. He was engulfed almost instantly.

The sweeping storm of flesh and blood carried a terrifying, suffocating power. It far exceeded the oppressive presence Feng Yunhong had previously exuded, obliterating everything with unstoppable momentum.

Li Weixuan's entire body shuddered violently. In a split second, countless wounds tore open across his flesh.

But the next moment, an impossibly grand surge of sword aura pierced outward, colliding head-on with the storm.

Knowing escape was hopeless, Li Weixuan chose to withstand the shockwave head-on.

Rampant power overflowed, shattering the sword light. Li Weixuan's body was instantly torn to pieces.

Using that briefest sliver of a buffer, Ji Liushuang and the others behind him scrambled out of the storm's blast radius with everything they had.

Aside from those few, the rest of the exploration team was wiped out in a flash, blasted into a mist of blood by the storm's impact.

The entire area around the blood pool was plastered with a thick slurry of gore. Other than Li Weixuan, barely a single intact corpse remained.

As the storm settled, thick streams of blood pooled together, snaking their way into the adjacent blood pool.

Fu Qian stood to the side, quietly watching the scene unfold without missing a single detail.

The slurry of flesh and blood flowing into the pool once again displayed a clearly demarcated separation.

Most of the flesh rapidly melted into that foul-smelling lump, but Li Weixuan's broken body was engulfed by a surge of fresh blood. It dissolved away little by little, while a humanoid blood shadow slowly took shape from within.

'Just as I thought!'

Fu Qian felt he finally understood the true nature of this Furnace.

First of all, Feng Yunhong hadn't been telling the whole truth.

Fu Qian had been suspicious ever since he dripped blood into the pool earlier.

Over so many years, high-tier transcendents had definitely been trapped here. If they remained unaffected after death, then where did their bodies go?

Now the answer was perfectly clear.

Within the mist of blood that had just exploded, there was more than just Feng Yunhong's head. There had been far more than just one distorted face.

The owners of those Blood Faces were exactly those high-tier transcendents.

They had indeed been devoured—not by the Furnace, but by Feng Yunhong.

Just like Li Weixuan right now, they had all been "eaten" by this Feng Yunhong.

Fu Qian had no doubt that a new Feng Yunhong would grow out of the pool shortly, and Li Weixuan would become just another one of those many Blood Faces.

As for how Feng Yunhong managed to do this, Fu Qian recalled a passage about Ambergris he had learned in his flavor and fragrance class.

It was said that giant squids had tough, keratinous beaks and teeth that were extremely difficult to digest. When swallowed by sperm whales, these parts would accumulate in their stomachs and intestines, irritating the digestive tract. Over time, the intestines would secrete a special waxy substance to encapsulate the indigestible remains, slowly forming Ambergris.

All the transcendents who had reached a certain level of power were the indigestible impurities of this Furnace.

And the Feng Yunhong they had just seen was the Ambergris formed over countless years.

He wasn't a single person; he was the mixed Residue of all those transcendents.

When they had first encountered him, that lump of flesh and blood on his lower half hadn't been controlling him. It had been enveloping him to prevent him from affecting the Furnace.

Which meant that the guy's mindless appearance back then was completely fake.

"Why did this happen?"

In the distance, Ji Liushuang stared blankly at the bloody scene before her, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

To think that even the Dean...

She was among the luckiest. She had already been standing farther away, and after hearing Fu Qian's words, though she hadn't quite understood them, she had subconsciously braced herself.

So when Feng Yunhong self-destructed, she managed to escape the blast radius almost immediately, suffering only a minor concussion.

Aside from her, the only survivors were five people, including Yuan Xin and Huang Zhaoyan.

They hadn't been so fortunate. Although Li Weixuan had risked his life to buy them a brief window to breathe, they had all been caught in the shockwave without exception. The most severely injured of the group had half their body practically reduced to minced meat.

The large team from just moments ago was reduced to a mere handful of survivors in the blink of an eye.

"How did you know?"

Struggling up from the ground, Yuan Xin didn't rush to check for injuries. Instead, staring fixedly at Fu Qian, Yuan Xin gritted out every word.

"Know what?"

Fu Qian looked at the other party's bloodstained face.

"Know that there was something wrong with him."

Yuan Xin pointed toward the blood pool.

"From beginning to end, you were the one who told us we were trapped... told us we couldn't rest... told us we had to search inside the ruins for a way out...

"The entire team has been moving according to your arrangements, and this is the outcome we got.

"Tell me, how did you know all of this?"

Yuan Xin's words brought a brief silence. Then, everyone stared thoughtfully at Fu Qian's face.

...

It was true. Thinking about it carefully, there were far too many suspicious points. From the very beginning, this guy seemed to have been directing the team's actions.

Not to mention his bizarre behavior just now.

Fu Qian's right hand currently only had four fingers left. He had just forcefully ripped off his pinky and tossed it onto Feng Yunhong.

"Now is not the time to harp on this. We need to find a way out first."

Ji Liushuang stepped forward, looking at Yuan Xin with a stern gaze to stop the accusations.

While she also felt that Fu Qian held many secrets, she absolutely didn't believe it was what Yuan Xin was implying.

Fu Qian's actions were more akin to those of a completely rational survivor; every move he made was solely for the sake of staying alive.

After all, they couldn't forget that Fu Qian had been the one to warn everyone to run just moments ago.

Rebuked by the goddess in their heart, the red-eyed Yuan Xin dropped all previous respect, merely staring at her with a cold sneer and refusing to back down.

'Ah, humanity!' Fu Qian lamented inwardly.

Many times, the only reason some people hated you was because you told them the truth.

Even when they were powerless to fight against the truth, they would often subconsciously want to kill you, as if the predicament before them would vanish the moment you were gone.

Fortunately, when dealing with people like this, Fu Qian had a special method of communication.

The next moment, murderous intent surged into the sky.

The dread of death gripped everyone's hearts.

Fu Qian smiled as he looked at Yuan Xin.

"Are you misunderstanding the situation here? What makes you think I need to answer your questions?"

As soon as those words fell, Yuan Xin, who had been boiling with rage just a moment before, instantly turned as pale as a sheet of paper.

It wasn't just Yuan Xin; everyone had the exact same reaction. For a moment, there was dead silence.

Indeed, given the current situation, did Fu Qian have any need to answer any questions at all?

Setting aside the fact that almost everyone besides him was injured, even if all six of them were in perfect condition, they still wouldn't necessarily be a match for a Tier 6 Transcendent.

Considering the nature of these ruins, whatever happened in here would remain completely unknown to the outside world.

No matter how powerful their families were, it was completely meaningless.

Dying in here meant truly dying without leaving a single trace. The outside world wouldn't even remember they existed, let alone avenge them.

Even the dignified former Dean of the Academy had been trapped here for decades without making a single ripple, ultimately turning into this half-human, half-ghost monstrosity.

To Fu Qian, their group was nothing more than meat on a chopping block.

If he really decided to kill them, they didn't even have anything to threaten him with.

No, he had already killed one person.

Recalling that dismembered assassin, the group's hearts sank even further.

Especially Huang Zhaoyan.

"Fu Qian, don't be impulsive."

Ji Liushuang also paled, her voice trembling as she tried to dissuade him. She was deeply afraid that Fu Qian would start a massacre out of sheer displeasure.

"It's fine. I am never impulsive."

Fu Qian walked over to the blood pool with a smile. The humanoid blood silhouette inside was slowly taking shape. He looked back at Ji Liushuang.

"Do you know what Ambergris is?"

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