Eldritch Horror Theatre

Fu Qian's sudden act of violence caught everyone completely off guard.

As for his target, Brother Goya might have been a tier above Cynthia and the others, but he was ultimately just a Mid Tier combatant.

Facing a shameless sneak attack from a Demigod Realm expert, his head was skewered clean through.

"It's a pity experiments are so dangerous. Not everyone gets to see the results."

Fu Qian spoke at a leisurely pace, slowly withdrawing his sharp, spear-like fingers.

The time limit was almost certainly up, and he had a few things of his own to verify.

However, despite having his head pierced through, Brother Goya didn't immediately collapse.

A split second later, a pale green brilliance brimming with life energy erupted across his body, surging frantically toward the bloody hole in his head.

Simultaneously, he retreated at an inconceivable speed, desperately trying to put distance between himself and Fu Qian.

For a man who cherished his life this much, backed by the massive Anjing Company, the odds of him lacking a few life-saving items were astronomically low.

So, in almost the exact same moment, Fu Qian kicked off the ground and caught up to him at an equal speed.

Only then did the stunned crowd finally react. Amid shouts of alarm, they scrambled to intercept him.

Unfortunately for them, Fu Qian had already arrived right in front of Goya. Glancing at the rapidly mending wound on the man's head, he launched a flying kick.

Even with his face a ruined mess, Brother Goya's almost tangible fear was obvious under that terrifying force.

And since his life-saving items had just been entirely expended, his flesh and blood took the full, solid impact of the kick.

It was no longer a matter of sustaining a wound. Like a grenade detonating at his waist, the Mid-Tier Transcendent splattered in a shower of gore on the spot, his life aura rapidly plunging to zero.

Everything happened in a flash. From the moment Fu Qian made his move to the target's execution, only a few short seconds had passed.

Yet the task was still not complete.

Dodging the belated interference a moment later, Fu Qian realized that a certain notification chime still hadn't sounded.

So this one still wasn't Goya?

Wasting no time on shock, Fu Qian glanced at the mangled remains sliding down the wall but didn't bother desecrating the corpse any further.

His figure blurred again, appearing right between the fake Goya and Cynthia. The black Handcuffs were torn to shreds as Air Bullets whistled out.

At such close range, the still-dazed pair had nowhere to run. Their heads instantly exploded.

It really wasn't that simple!

He stood in a pool of blood, piercing alarms blaring in his ears.

Seeing the guards finally lose their nerve, no longer daring to step forward, Fu Qian didn't make another move either.

The idea that the body double was actually the real body was a boring trick Fu Qian hadn't found likely to begin with, and now he could rule it out entirely.

Faced with the threat of death, Cynthia and the fake Goya had displayed only ordinary strength. Neither had dropped a disguise to reveal their true colors.

So where exactly was the real Goya?

"Here, look at this."

After a brief standoff with the guards, Fu Qian raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Under their terrified gazes, he activated the Commandment Residue.

[Containment Failure, SAN Value -1]

[Current SAN Value: 105]

A few seconds later, the containment failure prompt rang in his ears.

...

Something was wrong here!

The scenery shifted. Back in the Warehouse, Fu Qian stared at the illusory image not far away.

There was nothing special about it; he could clearly recognize it as the bizarre Nether Steed.

Did he have to run down to the lowest level and kill this thing, too?

This thought lingered in his mind for a few seconds before he silently shook his head.

The odds of that were incredibly low.

The Warehouse's task was crystal clear: kill Goya.

Then the only explanation was that the person he had killed was still not Goya.

The problem was, judging by the reactions of everyone at the scene, it was hard to imagine that the one who appeared later was a fake too.

In Fu Qian's view, his strategy this time had obviously worked.

By playing the part of an extreme test subject, he had successfully baited two Goyas into delivering themselves straight to his door.

Unfortunately, based on the results, both of them had been body doubles. He still hadn't seen the real deal.

Theoretically speaking, what he should do next was go back in and try every possible means to hunt down the real Goya Ulrich.

Or should he take the simplest and most brutal approach: activate Asura Mode and slaughter everyone?

After all, the fact that the Warehouse had teleported him to the underground research institute proved that Goya had to be nearby.

But there was a problem with that plan. Just from the life-saving methods displayed so far, it was obvious Goya was extremely paranoid and had numerous contingency measures.

Once Asura Mode was activated, it was hard to guarantee the man wouldn't immediately flee.

Fu Qian didn't think he had the time to seal off the exits one by one and then slowly slaughter his way through them.

So his only option was to rely on luck and make multiple attempts until he found a window of success?

Fu Qian rubbed his head.

He had never been a fan of leaving things up to chance.

Furthermore, he couldn't shake the feeling that something about this task was strange—that he had overlooked a key detail.

This was the intuition of a task runner.

Thus, for the first time in days, Fu Qian made the rare choice to pull up the task replay and review his experience during this run.

Soon, the footage froze on his very first interaction with Cynthia.

Throughout this entire task, this was the only moment that struck him as a bit strange.

He had pretended to be possessed by Patches. After a back-and-forth exchange with Cynthia, he was eventually 'moved' by her words, began to question his existence, and decided to head back down to interact with the Nether Steed one more time.

It was a fairly natural progression. Cynthia clearly hadn't suspected anything at first; she had even seemed quite smug, adopting a posture that suggested she had everything under control.

Yet in just a few seconds, her attitude had undergone a complete one-eighty. She became absolutely certain he was playing her, and she was furious about it.

So, why?

What exactly had happened in those short few seconds to trigger such a drastic change?

Even watching the replay now, Fu Qian couldn't spot any issues with his acting, nor any flaws that could have given him away.

Within those few seconds, there must have been some sort of signal he hadn't noticed that confirmed to Cynthia she was being played.

In Fu Qian's eyes, this was the only possibility.

The question was, what could that signal be?

Fu Qian pondered for a moment, feeling it was worth a thorough investigation.

Aside from that, nothing else stood out.

Even replaying all the way to the end when he activated the Commandment Residue, the guards' reactions were completely normal, and his AoE hadn't revealed any hidden characters.

Finally, one other thing became clear: from the moment he appeared until the 'horse' stopped crying, exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes had passed.

That was all the time he had to complete the task.

A full two days—couldn't it have happened a bit earlier? Did it really have to be this pulse-pounding?

[SAN Value -1, entering Containment Scenario]

[Due to scenario restrictions, you cannot carry any equipment or weapons]

Still silently complaining about the Warehouse, Fu Qian touched the Mist Door once again.

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