Eldritch Horror Theatre

"What is this thing?"

Faced with this strange "creature" and its sudden display of aggression, Chang Mo was inwardly alarmed.

Her sword strike just now might have been hasty, but it carried formidable power. An ordinary Mid Tier taking that blow would never have brushed it off so easily.

Yet as she looked at it now, the thing was completely unharmed.

"Hard to say. It's not even clear if it's alive."

As a Demigod, Fu Qian frowned as he sized it up.

At such close range, its physical structure was clear at a glance. It didn't feel like a flesh-and-blood creature at all, looking more like a child's handicraft.

However, its aggression was very real.

Seeing this crystal worm curl its body as if ready to pounce, Fu Qian stepped right past Chang Mo and reached out to grab it.

Crack... crack...

A sharp scraping sound rang out. As Fu Qian tightened his grip, the crystal worm struggled even more fiercely.

Crash!

Realizing its absurd hardness, Fu Qian executed Unity of Body and Sword and slashed down on it.

This time, it finally had an effect.

A spray of glittering crystal fragments flew outward.

Heavily damaged, the crystal worm shuddered violently. It wrenched itself out of Fu Qian's grip and tumbled away.

Clang!

Chang Mo, who had been keeping a close eye on the situation, struck at almost the exact same time.

Her swift sword flashed like lightning, striking the target again, yet it once more failed to leave even a scratch.

Borrowing the force of the recoil, the crystal worm rolled away at an inconceivable speed, tumbling down the path until it vanished behind the door at the far end.

"How is this possible?"

Having used her full strength, Chang Mo stood frozen on the spot, doubting her own existence as she muttered to herself.

"The unity of man and sword."

Seeing her suffer such a blow to her confidence, Fu Qian raised his left hand. Under her complicated gaze, he took the lead and chased after it.

"Teacher."

Ji Liushuang, however, didn't abandon her guardian, immediately hurrying over to Chang Mo's side.

"Let's follow and take a look."

Chang Mo signaled that she was fine and spoke through gritted teeth.

No matter how one looked at it, the scene before them seemed to have nothing to do with the trouble the Kamakura Family had encountered.

But if she didn't figure out this incomprehensible situation, she probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

...

"Down here... there's a pool?"

Closely following Fu Qian through the stone door, Chang Mo and Ji Liushuang couldn't help but marvel at the sight before them.

Completely different from the halls outside, the space Inside the Door was clearly an excavated pool.

It was a reasonably sized square, and quite deep.

At a glance, densely packed stone pillars stretched all the way from the bottom of the pool to the ceiling.

At this moment, an extremely clear body of water could be seen within, along with the smooth, clean floor of the basin.

Thousands of years seemed to have left not a single speck of dust behind.

"This..."

Chang Mo quickly snapped out of her daze and swiftly scanned the steps surrounding the pool.

Given that the area wasn't large, the surroundings could be taken in at a glance. Yet as she looked around, there was no sign of the crystal worm anywhere.

"Did it jump inside?"

Chang Mo began to employ her rather limited knowledge of physics.

"That thing is transparent. If it jumped into the water, it would blend right in. If it stays completely still, it would definitely be difficult to spot."

The next moment, she let out a sigh and looked at Fu Qian.

"Although this place is very unusual, shouldn't we head back first?"

"We can come back here anytime, but the Kamakura Family won't last much longer."

"Theoretically speaking, we can only come back anytime if they're dead."

Fu Qian, however, shook his head and reached out, drawing Ji Liushuang's sword.

Ji Liushuang was slightly surprised, but ultimately raised no objections, allowing Fu Qian to take her weapon.

The next moment, under their bewildered gazes, Fu Qian raised his right arm and hurled the weapon straight toward the center of the pool.

Clang!

A crisp clanging sound immediately rang out.

'No way, he actually spotted it!'

The sound made Chang Mo's scalp tingle in shock.

From her angle, she hadn't been able to see a single abnormality there.

'Is this the gap between myself and a Demigod?'

'Then again, wasn't that bug a bit too stupid? Couldn't it have dived a bit deeper—'

As she muttered inwardly, the ensuing scene abruptly interrupted her train of thought.

There was no injured bug leaping out of the water. Instead, centering on where the Longsword had struck, a web of spider-like cracks appeared and began to expand rapidly.

'What is going on...'

Amidst a dense, rain-like chorus of shattering sounds, Ji Liushuang and Chang Mo stared in dumbfounded shock.

In just a few seconds, the cracks had already spread to their feet.

"This isn't water..."

Ji Liushuang finally realized what was happening and cried out in alarm.

"Of course it isn't water!"

Fu Qian snorted.

"As a swordsman, how could you be deceived by the surface?"

...

These words were undoubtedly a bit harsh, but now wasn't the time to feel ashamed.

Staring at the rapidly changing pool before them, Chang Mo finally understood why she hadn't spotted the crystal worm.

It hadn't been hiding in the water at all. This entire pool was filled with crystals identical to the ones that made up its body.

It was just that they were fused together in an unimaginable way, leaving absolutely no gaps between them, making them look exactly like a perfectly still pool of water.

And now, as the cracks rapidly blanketed the entire pool, countless transparent crystals began to shift and writhe, as if the whole mass had come alive.

However, they didn't split into hundreds of thousands of bugs. Instead, they remained a single cohesive entity. Its surface churned like rolling waves, even extending translucent, crystalline tentacles.

The crisp, almost rhythmic sound of the clashing crystals made Fu Qian feel as if he had just walked into a mahjong parlor.

"What do we do? I'm afraid this thing won't be easy to kill."

Seeing the wave of crystals about to wash over their feet, Chang Mo couldn't help but feel anxious.

The hardness of the crystal worm from earlier was still fresh in her memory. Even this Demigod's Unity of Body and Sword had only managed to wound it.

She couldn't think of any method to deal with such a creature down here.

"Why kill it?"

What answered her, however, was Fu Qian's puzzled question.

"Aren't you guys the investigation team? It's not like you're greedy adventurers, so why are you so violent?"

...

Seeing Fu Qian's probing question leave Chang Mo completely speechless, Ji Liushuang had to exert quite a bit of effort to suppress the smile on her face.

"Then what do we do? Do we wait for the others to arrive?" she asked softly a moment later.

"Interesting discoveries should naturally be shared with everyone. But there's no need to wait—they're already here."

Looking at the increasingly violent churning of the brilliant "pool water," Fu Qian gestured for Ji Liushuang to pull Chang Mo back a bit.

With the repeated commotions they had just made, the probability of them going unnoticed was very slim.

And with the Kamakura Family members being somewhat familiar with these Ruins, finding their way here obviously wouldn't be too difficult.

At this very moment, several familiar auras had already appeared in the Corridor outside.

"Let's retreat behind the door first."

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