Eldritch Horror Theatre

It really was a lake.

Prompted by Akasha, Fu Qian studied their destination.

Not a single ripple stirred the surface, and he couldn't see what lay beneath, but it was undoubtedly water.

He had worried beforehand that it might be some sort of disguised cesspit, but reality proved otherwise. It lacked any foul odor and instead felt inexplicably refreshing.

Right now, not a single living creature could be seen within this perfect circle.

"Stop dawdling."

The terse urging followed soon after.

Naturally, it wasn't Akasha. She was clearly still immersed in memories of her past failures.

Instead, it was Crystal, who had been trailing them the entire way. Seeing the two ahead finally drag their feet to the destination, she lost her patience. In a blur of motion, she leaped forward and arrived at the edge of The Lake.

A fair point, but as someone in the Demigod Realm, wasn't she being a little too impatient?

Fu Qian mused to himself as he looked at the "serious" expression on the ice wolf's face.

Back at the bar, though she had been quite dismissive of the talk about "fire," her actions had been noticeably abnormal. Brooking no argument, she had demanded that Ballard bring her to the Prophet.

He had thought it strange at the time, assuming she only feigned disinterest in the fire while actually harboring the same desire for freedom as the others, wanting to use the opportunity to test the Prophet's attitude.

However, judging from his exchange with Akasha just now, Crystal's intense focus on the flame might actually be for the sake of her close friend.

Akasha had kept it brief earlier, but he could roughly picture it. Her rebirth process had essentially involved taking Crystal's friend as a vessel and possessing her outright.

It was hard to even say whose appearance she was currently wearing.

Could Crystal's unusual interest in the fire be driven by a desire to see if the flame left by a fallen expert of the Demigod Realm could bring her friend back?

"All right."

Fu Qian hadn't planned on dawdling anyway. He took a step and stood upon the water.

Following his movement, numerous shards of Mirror Armor converged beneath his feet, piecing themselves together into a glossy black board that kept him from sinking.

Yuan Fang's advice had been to simply head toward the center of The Lake by any means necessary. Theoretically, even swimming would have worked.

But as someone newly advanced to the Demigod Realm, Fu Qian felt this posture was much more imposing.

"You're coming too?"

A moment later, a commotion behind him made him turn around. He saw Crystal and Akasha following right behind him.

A layer of ice had condensed beneath Crystal's feet, allowing her to walk effortlessly across the water. Akasha had simply unfurled the bone claws on her back, sprouting fine hairs at their tips to stand on the surface like a water strider.

"Didn't Yuan Fang tell you that you wouldn't be able to help, and to just hold the perimeter?"

From what he had seen along the way, Yuan Fang could obviously not only observe through the Demigod Realm experts, but also transmit messages to them anywhere and anytime. It was impossible for these two not to know this.

"I want to make sure you don't run away halfway."

Crystal offered the flat explanation, her stance resolute.

"Besides, how will we know if we don't try?"

"I'm not that dedicated; it's purely for self-satisfaction."

Beside her, Akasha offered a charming smile.

"I'm very curious about this state of being unable to intersect."

Curious? Or was it seemingly familiar?

Fu Qian shook his head inwardly.

The description of being unable to intersect was clearly similar to what Akasha had experienced when trying to escape. For a prisoner, freedom was simply too great a temptation; it was no surprise she felt compelled to investigate.

"Suit yourselves."

Ignoring the two of them, Fu Qian continued treading across the ripples.

The Lake was not large, and he soon reached its center.

Akasha and Crystal followed closely behind, unwilling to fall even a single step back.

Just then, Fu Qian realized something had changed beneath his feet.

The mirror-like surface of the water had silently turned solid, to the point where the long board beneath his feet felt as if it were sliding across smooth, hard stone.

Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he confirmed that Akasha and Crystal showed no signs of abnormality; they maintained their previous postures.

So this was the manifestation of their tracks of fate being unable to connect?

As he pondered, the long board beneath his feet retracted. Without pausing, he took a step forward.

In that instant, even the Crystal Demigod's face displayed recognizable astonishment. Akasha reacted immediately, lunging toward him with a motion even more exaggerated than throwing herself into an embrace.

Unfortunately, even so, her bone claws and long hair grasped at nothing.

Fu Qian watched as they passed right through his "body," as if they existed in another dimension.

...

In less than a second, the two Demigod Realm experts completely vanished from his sight.

Fu Qian withdrew his gaze and studied this entity that only an outsider could touch.

It was no longer the quiet surface of The Lake. He was now standing in a towering, circular Great Hall, the floor beneath him looking as if it had been carved from a single piece of crystal.

In the center of the Great Hall, a massive stone coffin had been opened, and dark mist cascaded out of it like a waterfall.

An indescribable stillness hung over it all, making him involuntarily want to cease every movement and let his mind melt completely into the silence.

Fu Qian did indeed stop his movements.

Studying the coffin, he didn't rush to act.

Without a doubt, there was something in there, just as Yuan Fang had described.

At the same time, however, Fu Qian sensed a trace of something wrong.

That thing didn't seem quite as quiet as Yuan Fang had claimed.

...

As it turned out, Fu Qian's instincts were correct.

In merely a few seconds, the dark mist overflowing from the coffin suddenly surged, nearly solidifying as it poured onto the smooth floor.

This process lasted for over ten seconds before finally slowing down. By then, a massive heap of mud-like substance had accumulated outside the coffin, slowly contracting and squirming.

Its tail end remained connected to the interior of the coffin. At a glance, it looked like a long black tongue protruding from a giant maw.

In fact, they really were one single entity.

Fu Qian was absolutely certain that the saint Yuan Fang had spoken of was not the thing inside the coffin, but the coffin itself.

That Rank, bordering on Deity, radiated entirely from it.

Meanwhile, the phenomenon at the base of the "tongue" was startling.

As the long tongue thrashed, he could see that the base wasn't a sludgy, gloomy color, but an extremely eye-catching, bright yellow.

At a glance, it looked like flowing magma.

Where the two colors met, black and yellow mingled to form a peculiar pattern.

A tongue with a golden gradient finish?

Having watched the entire process without intervening, Fu Qian let out a heartfelt sigh.

Without a doubt, that splash of bright color at the base of the tongue felt very similar to the Talisman in Chaumont's hand.

Just as Yuan Fang had said, the saint was constantly annihilating, thus generating fire?

The problem was, he hadn't even followed the method Yuan Fang had provided to awaken it.

This "saint" was clearly a bit more active than in Yuan Fang's description.

No, far too active.

The next moment, Fu Qian watched as blisters bulged on the giant tongue like ulcers.

Immediately after, humanoid figures as deep and dark as the night clawed their way out of them, slowly drifting toward him.

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