Eldritch Horror Theatre

It turned out that even though Ariel was a Divine Emissary and not known for his physical prowess, the resilience of his flesh was still utterly absurd.

Even with his transcendent powers dispelled, the Bullet of Mercy left only a shallow mark on his skin when it struck.

Fu Qian responded by squeezing the trigger again and again, emptying the rest of the cylinder into him.

As the final round slammed into the exact same spot, it finally tore open a gash across Ariel's flesh.

Yet even this shallow wound was rapidly healing.

At the same time, his aura of divinity was surging back at a terrifying speed.

He was already shaking off the effects of the Eternally Lucid Mind, and the chiming of the Bell that carried the dispelling power had only just stopped.

A Tier 2 Transcendent was terrifying to this degree!

Fu Qian didn't hesitate. He lunged straight at him.

When he first tested its performance, Fu Qian had considered exploiting this trait to create a window of opportunity.

For the Demigod Tier, for instance, the time it took for their powers to return after being hit was significantly longer than the time it took for the dispel effect to activate.

Therefore, if he could get someone else to ring the Bell and time his own strike perfectly, he could easily crush any affected demigod.

Then again, he had realized he already crushed most demigods anyway, making such a convoluted setup largely impractical.

But applying that strategy here and now was absolutely perfect.

To some extent, the effects of the Eternally Lucid Mind had dragged Ariel, a Divine Emissary, down to his exact level.

Even so, by the time Fu Qian closed the distance, the man's divinity had already recovered to a considerable degree.

Fortunately, Fu Qian never expected to actually kill a Divine Emissary in such a brief window.

A moment later, he crushed a paint-covered Talisman right next to Ariel's open wound.

The Divine Blood Curse—his spoils of war from Camus.

Against a completely uninjured Ariel, the curse might not have posed much of a threat.

But applied in a weakened and wounded state? The results were worth looking forward to.

An aura brimming with depraved chaos erupted between them, rapidly burrowing into the surrounding flesh.

Brushing past Ariel, Fu Qian smoothly snatched the Bell from Lotte's hand. Without a backward glance, he dove into the sea, heading straight for Hamadus.

Behind him, chaotic, interlacing patterns flashed across Ariel's skin. They were briefly dispelled, only to reemerge moments later.

In less than a second, Ariel gave up trying to dispel the curse and gave chase. He didn't spare Lotte, the girl who had rung the Bell, a single glance.

Lotte hadn't even realized her hand was empty. She stood completely dumbfounded while her older sister, Veil, desperately dragged her backward.

Thanks to the area-of-effect from the Commandment Residue, Veil had also been jolted awake just a moment ago.

As a Mid-Tier Transcendent, she had been even more affected by the chime and still hadn't fully recovered.

Just as Fu Qian expected, Ariel had zero interest in killing Lotte and Veil to vent his anger now that they lacked the Bell.

Once Fu Qian demonstrated a clear threat to Hamadus, the Emissary couldn't even spare a millisecond to care about them.

For the two sisters, this extreme utilitarianism was obviously a stroke of luck.

...

"Ha—ma—du—"

When Fu Qian charged above the vessel-god once more, the entity was responding to the summons with a slurred, chaotic voice.

Along the way, Fu Qian had already enlarged his own body.

Since his supply of the Bullet of Mercy was dry, Fu Qian didn't hesitate to smash the empty gun directly into Hamadus. At the same time, he repeated his old trick—shoving his elongated arm straight down the entity's throat to choke back the second half of its roar.

Even so, the first half of the roar still happily earned Fu Qian a prompt: SAN Value -1.

He wasn't surprised. The Sweet Dream Head Cage's effect was to block gazes, not grant immunity to mental damage. Its actual function was more akin to preventing a Higher Existence from locking onto him.

For example, if Tan Ying and Young Master Qin wore this, the result would be that he wouldn't be able to trace their calls and influence them in reverse.

But if they idly ran over to watch him unleash an ultimate attack, they would still be just as terrified.

The fact that Hamadus's blood-red eyes glaring at him right now didn't cause a drop in SAN Value, and that he didn't feel any discomfort from it, proved this point exactly.

A split second later, Fu Qian crushed the Talisman he'd taken from Marco with his other hand, then triggered a Visceral Attack.

Blood sprayed. Unfortunately, this strike didn't trigger the Boon of Release; he only managed to tear out a single kidney.

'Was there really a luck bonus for fighting a boss the first time?'

Amid his lament, a Sunfire Flame descended from the sky and blasted directly onto his back.

Having caught up, Ariel launched an attack without a moment's hesitation.

Carrying an exaggeratedly high temperature, the heavenly fire instantly melted a hole right through his back's bone armor.

Yet in the blink of an eye, writhing flesh surged forward to plug the wound.

With absolute disregard for the spreading Divine Blood Curse, Fu Qian unleashed the power of his flesh to its absolute limit.

He completely ignored Ariel. In the very next breath, he launched another Visceral Attack on Hamadus.

Although the Boon of Release still failed to trigger, amid the chaotic struggling, Hamadus's head had been mangled almost beyond recognition.

This brutal scene caused Ariel to freeze in his tracks. He didn't unleash a second blast of Sunfire Flame.

An instant later, a familiar action replayed. The Emissary raised his gloved hand, and the sky full of Clamor quickly began to distort.

'He realized he can't kill me quickly enough, and Hamadus is likely to collapse first, so he's abandoning the plan to kill me before summoning and is choosing to drag Rom over directly?'

This action naturally didn't escape Fu Qian's eyes, and his response was exactly zero reaction.

Leaving Ariel to carry on with his brainwashing over there, Fu Qian thrust his hand deep into the chaotic flesh and executed his third Visceral Attack.

This was exactly the outcome he wanted; why would he ever interrupt it?

...

Once his true motives were exposed, Ariel's behavior became far too easy to predict.

Aside from achieving his predetermined "goal," his logic boiled down to basic self-preservation.

Faced with a mortal threat like the Divine Blood Curse, he couldn't attack with the same reckless abandon as Fu Qian. Inevitably, his combat strength suffered a discount.

Meanwhile, Fu Qian benefited from the magnifying boost of the Talisman.

Under this shifting balance of power, it wasn't strange at all that the Emissary abandoned his kill plan and entered into this Racing Mode.

As for why Ariel didn't choose to initiate a Descent of the True God to instantly annihilate everything, just as he did when dealing with Old Man Logan...

Fu Qian judged that the sun descending upon him would likely be just as fatal to Hamadus, which would directly render his "goal" impossible to achieve.

Therefore, unless Ariel faced a truly lethal threat to his own life, he wouldn't take that step.

"Rom~"

In fact, this strategy seemed quite effective.

After only three kidney extractions, Fu Qian could already see compound eyes rolling up like bubbles within the chaotic flesh.

'That was fast!'

Clearly, Rom was looking forward to this game of possession quite a lot.

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