Eldritch Horror Theatre

They'd been having a perfectly fine conversation, so why suddenly turn hostile?

At this sudden shift, Fu Qian sighed deeply. Truly, human hearts are no longer pure.

Was a peaceful conversation really so hard to come by these days?

Even as he lamented this, Fu Qian didn't hold back against the Half-Step Divine Envoy who had already drawn his weapon. He raised his right hand.

"It's simple. Since we're treating each other as peers, I won't hold back either."

"I recently learned a new move called the Physical Black Dragon Wave. Please, Brother A Wei, give it your appraisal."

Physical Black Dragon Wave?

As A Wei pondered the name's meaning, a bizarre beast's head—pitch-black as the void and laced with connecting golden lines and dots—actually manifested in his line of sight.

...It really was physical!

He instantly realized that this was no manifestation of special energy; it was formed entirely from writhing, twisted black tentacles.

And the ends of those tentacles had burst right out of Dayun Mingwang's left arm.

"All flash and no substance!"

Facing this physical attack that clearly carried the force of a Mental Shock, A Wei maintained the lofty bearing of a Divine Emissary and eagerly voiced his disdain.

He didn't dodge or evade. Instead, he swung the hook sword in his hand with unimaginable speed.

Following his movements, pulses rippled through the space before him, converging into a beam that surged forward to meet Fu Qian's attack.

When the two forces collided, the invisible pulses didn't seem to form any tangible barrier.

However, with every inch the seemingly ferocious physical wave advanced, it withered rapidly, as if ravaged by countless years.

Soon, amidst flying ash, the tentacles couldn't advance a single inch further.

"Trying to fight a pure war of attrition with me in here? You must be insane!"

A Wei's sharp critique arrived on cue, his hands never stopping.

"You didn't actually think I'd be stupid enough to abandon this gift over a little taunt, did you?"

Clashing head-on obviously cost him far less than it did Fu Qian. Wearing down his opponent consumed Fu Qian's flesh and blood, while A Wei was essentially just leveraging the power of the domain.

And driven by a certain mindset, he was more than happy to let his opponent know it.

Finally, after thousands of clashes in a single breath, his opponent seemed to realize the cruel reality. The sky-filling tentacles instantly retracted.

Even the man's figure vanished from sight.

"That move wasn't bad."

Unfazed, A Wei laughed.

"Unfortunately, you showed your hand too soon."

As he spoke, Fu Qian—who had entered the Blood Crusade State—felt a certain restriction.

His movements hadn't slowed, nor was it the formless lock Chaumont used.

If he had to describe it, the area seemed to have condensed into a pure concept that repelled all overlapping or parallel existences.

If he forced himself to maintain the Blood Crusade, every step he took would drain his vitality at a terrifying speed.

If he crossed a certain threshold, he would simply drop dead.

Truly the methods of a Deity.

Without a doubt, Brother A Wei was once again borrowing "His" power to achieve this effect.

He hadn't locked onto Fu Qian directly, but had instead turned the entire domain into an insurmountable boundary.

Forcing his way out meant instant death; staying inside meant a slow death from erosion.

These two choices... Fortunately, he didn't plan on picking either.

"How does it feel? This is the true Death Boundary."

Speaking to empty air, A Wei's tone grew low and deep.

"In fact, this is the domain's true name—something those idiots know nothing about."

"Because the God of Death... is exactly His honorific name!"

Amidst his increasingly impassioned declaration, several invisible impacts blasted toward his face.

Easily dodging Fu Qian's Air Bullets, A Wei faced his suddenly appearing opponent. He slashed upward with his blade, knocking away a Crimson Long Whip.

"You paid such a steep price to get close to me, yet you still don't dare use your own hands—"

He dragged out the last word, reaching up to touch his own neck.

Beneath the white feathers, a wound had inexplicably appeared.

"What is this..."

Feeling something amiss, A Wei realized similar cuts were appearing all over his body, yet he was absolutely certain no blade had struck him.

"These are my hands."

The voice echoing from beneath his opponent's mask didn't sound like it was in the best shape, either.

The newly revealed Dayun Mingwang raised both hands, turning them over for display.

Cut after cut covered them as well.

Just as A Wei marveled at the absurdity of the scene, his opponent's right hand took on the same hue as the tentacles from earlier and reached out without hesitation.

"Good."

A Wei didn't dodge. The hook sword in his hand slashed toward the same spot on his opponent without a second thought.

However, during this apparent attempt at mutually assured destruction, an abnormality occurred before Dayun Mingwang's hand even touched him.

Waves of seemingly familiar withering pulses rapidly eroded the hand to ash.

A Wei didn't have to rely solely on the weapon in his hand to leverage this power.

He had intentionally misled Fu Qian earlier on that point.

Faced with this situation, the right hand—reduced to a mere sprinkling of starlight in the blink of an eye—showed no intention of retreating.

In the end, amidst the tyrannical glow of blood, A Wei's hook sword nearly sliced his opponent in half at the waist, while Dayun Mingwang's shapeless stump plunged right into A Wei's wound.

...

With feathers drifting through the air, Fu Qian stared at the wound left on A Wei by the Visceral Attack. Instead of pressing the advantage, however, he took a step back in a bizarre posture.

The gash on his waist was incredibly deep, and a strange power was frantically resisting the healing process.

Of course, his heaviest injury came from those few steps he sprinted in the Blood Crusade State.

The massive loss of vitality looked like a percentage-based health drain no matter how he looked at it.

"Very sharp. No wonder you have the confidence to pry into secrets."

This praise came from A Wei, who had just taken a Visceral Attack head-on, yet his voice sounded robust and full of vigor.

Along with his words, slender arms reached out from the gash left by the Visceral Attack.

Had he retreated a second later, Fu Qian would have likely been caught.

Of course, this grotesque trick wasn't the main point. The point was...

Fu Qian looked down at his own hand.

His strategy just now had been simple: close the distance using the Blood Crusade, inflict wounds with the Mark of Old Days, then use the preceding psychological momentum to bait the opponent into trading injuries, and finish it off with a Visceral Attack.

Fu Qian always respected his opponents.

No matter how disdainful his words were, he was essentially facing an entity bordering on a Divine Emissary.

The problem now was that after all his maneuvering, that strike had landed squarely.

Yet the Visceral Attack—a move capable of draining the health of a True God—failed to inflict critical damage in one blow.

To be more precise, after he dug his hand in, his opponent became even more spirited.

"It's just a pity... you know nothing about Death."

A Wei let out a long sigh.

"Life or death... the mysteries and allure within surpass your imagination."

...

Are you serious with those lines?

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