Eldritch Horror Theatre

The sight of the three Logans undoubtedly sent a profound shock through the Hunting Squad.

"What is going on?"

Aike, who had been on the verge of attacking Fu Qian, widened her eyes and asked.

"I still know far too little about this place."

Fu Qian had no interest in answering her. Instead, he deadpanned the exact assessment Chaumont had given him back in the bar.

...

The response left Aike momentarily speechless. She had simply assumed that Logan's transformation had been triggered by Fu Qian's actions.

Now, she realized the anomaly had already been taking place. Fu Qian hadn't acted out of malice; he had simply used the opportunity to point it out.

"This..."

His already pale face was now so stiff it looked fake.

Talk about the ups and downs of life. The situation had been looking excellent, only for this mutation to occur in the blink of an eye.

"It shouldn't be like this... Logan?"

Muttering to himself, he looked up and tried calling out again.

This time, the three humanoid silhouettes turned to look at him in perfect unison, but their subsequent reactions were anything but consistent.

The entity that resembled the Scarlet Angel stood dazed for two seconds before suddenly leaping up like a startled animal, bolting off into the distance on all fours.

The white skeleton was even more extreme, lunging straight at Fu Qian.

Holding a grudge, are we? Over the Air Bullet from earlier?

Watching the bone spurs rapidly proliferating across the skeleton, Fu Qian couldn't even be bothered to move. He simply stood in place.

Sure enough, halfway through its charge, the skeleton's movements turned sluggish, as if confined by an invisible resistance.

Because of his actions earlier, Chaumont had immediately cast his confinement ability on him, and he still hadn't lifted it.

However, the skeleton's tier was surprisingly high; it didn't feel much weaker than an intact Logan.

Even under the effects of the confinement, it forced its way forward step by step.

The pressure was now on Chaumont.

Fu Qian ignored it, looking over at Chaumont with a beaming smile.

The next moment, the pressure on his body vanished, and the skeleton's movements finally slowed to a complete halt, nearly freezing in place.

With a dark expression, Chaumont chose to shift his confinement entirely to the new target.

"I think I've proven my sincerity, whereas it seems you've made a slight mistake."

Now free, Fu Qian pointed right at him.

"Now, can you tell me what information I don't know?"

"...Without flame, you cannot obtain flame."

Surprised that Fu Qian was asking about this first, Chaumont hesitated briefly before finally answering.

Hmm?

Fu Qian furrowed his brows slightly, gesturing with his eyes at their fiery surroundings.

"First of all, that doesn't seem to be the case. And secondly, even assuming it is, it's a bit logically flawed."

"If you need fire to obtain fire, how did you get those Talismans in the first place?"

"You don't understand. Some changes happen silently, and the opportunity is fleeting."

Chaumont quickly explained.

"From the moment you enter this place, you begin sinking into it. Very soon, you lose the ability to grasp that divinity of Death."

"Unless you manage to obtain a flame in an extremely short window at the very beginning, and use it to bless yourself. That will grant you immunity to the influence."

"And when I first entered this place, I was lucky enough to get into a conflict with a being of the Demigod Realm right off the bat. It was only after I killed him that I discovered this."

Just as I thought.

Recalling how he had felt when the sky was filled with swirling specters earlier, Fu Qian gave a solemn nod.

"So when you placed your mark earlier, and when Old Man Stoss tried to kill me, what was the purpose of using the Talismans?"

"The Flame Blessing continuously weakens until it completely loses its effect. When approaching that state, abilities of too high a Rank can easily spiral out of control."

So that was it. When they tried to kill him, they threw out everything they had, even burning extra Talismans just to guarantee success?

I'm truly flattered.

...

"Of course, now I don't understand either."

Even though the skeleton Logan was restrained, his main body—the one resembling a skin suit—suddenly turned around and began walking step by step toward the coffin.

Chaumont stared intently at this scene, his voice turning somber.

"It shouldn't be like this... How could there be so many flames existing right out in the open?"

"To be honest, this isn't exactly a sight I wanted to see, either."

Fu Qian sighed.

After all, the bigger the fire, the harder it was to put out.

Furthermore, despite Chaumont's current self-doubt, the information he had revealed wasn't entirely useless.

If nothing else, The Deep and the flames clearly felt like two opposing forces.

One caused a person to "merge" with the world, while the other allowed them to maintain their independence.

And the saint before them was undoubtedly a combination of those two contradictions.

As for the entirety of Unseen Hill, judging by Yuan Fang's description, it was still clearly based on The Deep. The anomaly before them had likely only appeared recently.

This was probably the reason for this mission's existence.

...

Well, that concluded the analysis. Now came the most pressing issue—the fire was already blazing, so how could it be put out?

Directly wipe out the saint, the likely root of all this evil?

Or should he do the opposite? Imitate Logan, draw all the flames onto his own body, and pull off his own version of one Qi transforms into the Three Pure Ones?

It was merely a dual splitting of the mind and body. No big deal.

Considering there was no evidence to prove which of the two methods was superior, it seemed he should try the first one first.

...

His mind raced. The next moment, Fu Qian dashed past Logan's figure, rapidly firing off Air Bullets at the massive tongue.

The Hunting Squad had visibly tensed up the moment Fu Qian made his move.

However, upon seeing his actions, the group couldn't help but fall into a collective silence, finding the guy's actions even more impossible to understand.

Fu Qian had no need for their understanding. Right now, he was witnessing the scenario he least wanted to see.

The originally creeping massive tongue writhed bizarrely, narrowly dodging the Air Bullets.

Just like the specters from before.

He really was merging into it, and was gradually losing the ability to harm these things.

He had reason to suspect that in just a little while, he would likely be completely helpless against it.

Fortunately, someone had already suggested a solution—bless himself with the fire to shake off the influence.

The next moment, Fu Qian didn't dodge or duck. Instead, he stepped right into the path of an incoming ring of fire.

[Containment Failure, SAN Value -1]

[Current SAN Value: 41]

This...

Almost simultaneously with the mission failure notification, Fu Qian realized he was being returned to the Warehouse.

Touching the flames had actually caused a direct failure?

[SAN Value -1, entering Containment Scenario]

As this question swirled in his mind, the notification sound hadn't even finished.

It sounded like he wouldn't even get a chance to review the failure before directly starting a new containment attempt.

Was it because of the [Reassignment]?

Fu Qian quickly figured out the reason.

It was already midnight, the mission's deadline. There was zero room left for procrastination.

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