Eldritch Horror Theatre

After the second Air Bullet hit, the Serpent-Man’s skull shattered, rendering it as dead as could be.

Unsurprisingly, Fu Qian acquired another Boneless Finger.

Fu Qian gave it a try, then abandoned the idea of changing it back, shifting his focus to maintaining the state of his other body parts.

Once he had more or less stabilized, Fu Qian stepped forward and looked down to examine the monster’s corpse.

Despite its snake-like head, the monster possessed human hands and feet, and even now it remained standing upright.

What he had previously assumed was a dress turned out to be layer upon layer of shed skin.

Accumulated over who knew how many years, the folds overlapped to form the shape of a floor-length gown.

This was also why the corpse hadn’t fallen over—it was being propped up.

This really was... For a moment, Fu Qian didn’t even know how to mock it.

Combat strength aside, just the sight of it was enough to drain his SAN Value.[SAN Value -1]

The moment that thought crossed his mind, a notification chimed by his ear.

?

Were things like this possible? Was this words carrying absolute law in another sense?

Fu Qian was momentarily speechless.

He had just inexplicably lost a point of SAN Value.

Losing a single point of SAN Value wasn’t scary; the truly terrifying part was not knowing what caused it.

However, he could do some simple deduction.

The Serpent-Man was completely dead, so... Fu Qian turned his head, narrowing his eyes at his surroundings.

Was it some other monster?

The next moment, he was surprised to see the figure of a Serpent-Man standing at every tunnel entrance in his line of sight.

Moreover, all of them had their backs to him.

What was this? Real Serpent-Men never look back at their enemies?

Just as that sarcastic thought rose in his mind, the Serpent-Men at every entrance moved simultaneously.

They still didn’t attack. Instead, they each walked forward, slowly disappearing into the dim tunnels.

At the same time, Fu Qian heard a strange sound echoing through the space, like something was singing.

Almost instantly, his head felt as if it had taken a heavy blow, and his mind slipped into a daze.

[SAN Value -1]

In that brief moment of distraction, his SAN Value dropped by another point.

This... Fu Qian frowned.

The last time his SAN Value dropped this rapidly was when he fought the Demigod Realm expert, Li Weixuan.

At this rate, his SAN Value would hit zero in less than half an hour.

Fu Qian watched the Serpent-Men walking off in all directions. The singing was incredibly ethereal; even if they were the ones singing, it was completely impossible to pinpoint the source by sound to determine which one it was.

Fu Qian thought for a moment, quickly memorized the positions of the tunnels, and chose the first one on his right to head down.

Moving silently through the tunnel, Fu Qian quickly caught up to the Serpent-Man ahead.

Almost the instant he got close, the creature stopped and whipped its head around.

Fu Qian didn’t use an Air Bullet this time. He simply delivered a vicious backhand, sending the Serpent-Man’s head flying.

The singing didn’t stop.

Fu Qian turned and left, heading straight back the way he came, paying absolutely no mind to the Serpent-Man now chasing him.

[SAN Value -1]

Just as he returned to the starting hall, Fu Qian’s head felt heavy as his SAN Value dropped again.

Under these circumstances, testing them one by one would lead to disastrous losses!

Besides, what if the singer wasn’t any of them? Not to mention the sheer number of branching paths here.

Using Transcendence directly would certainly be simple, but things hadn’t reached that point yet.

After all, if he didn’t figure it out this time, he would face the exact same situation the next time he came back.

Without slowing his pace as he thought, Fu Qian chose an adjacent tunnel and headed inside.

The Serpent-Man in this tunnel had already wandered quite far. Fu Qian didn’t hold back; the moment he caught up, he delivered another slap.

The singing still didn’t stop, and now the number of Serpent-Men chasing him had grown to two.

Controlling his speed, Fu Qian retraced his steps once again.

This time, he didn’t choose another tunnel. Instead, he led the two Serpent-Men in circles around the main hall.

[SAN Value -1]

’So that’s how it is. I think I know what’s going on!’

When the notification for his fourth SAN drop rang out, Fu Qian realized something—the intervals between the SAN drops weren’t fixed.

Although the singing hadn’t fluctuated in volume or pitch, the frequency of his SAN drops was constantly shifting.

Specifically, the interval between the second and third drops had been the longest.

This was incredibly suspicious. What determined the frequency of the SAN reduction?

’If it’s not a fixed frequency, could it be the distance between me and the singer?’

Fu Qian rapidly mapped out a route in his mind, leading the two Serpent-Men in a loop past every tunnel entrance.

He merely circled past them, however; he didn’t venture into any of the paths.

Finally, after the SAN drop notification rang out over a dozen more times, Fu Qian kited the two Serpent-Men to a specific corner.

[SAN Value -1]

’It should be somewhere around here!’

Amidst yet another notification of his dropping SAN Value, Fu Qian didn’t hesitate. He stomped down hard on the empty ground.

With a thunderous boom, stone shattered, and he forcibly stomped a crater right into the floor.

The very next moment, the singing came to an abrupt halt, and the two Serpent-Men chasing him vanished into thin air.

Simultaneously, the empty space in front of him distorted. A figure appeared out of thin air, swaying unsteadily and nearly collapsing.

’I knew it. I nearly got screwed over by being decisive and ruthless!’

Fu Qian stared at the monster in front of him, which wasn’t much taller than he was.

This time, it actually was human!

Though her long dress had rotted to the point where its original color was indecipherable, everything from the chest down was essentially human in shape. The upper half, however, was an absolute nightmare to look at.

Just how horrific was it?

It looked as though a grenade had detonated inside her skull, and every single shattered fragment had grown into a new head, all of them writhing and clustered together.

These heads varied in size, and most of them lacked complete facial features.

The only consistent trait was that every single head possessed more than two eyes, all of which were currently blinking and staring right at him.

It was clear now. It had been this Multi-Brain Sister all along, using her abilities to stay hidden right here while singing.

She had used her singing to launch mental attacks while generating the Serpent-Man illusions to lure him into a chase.

In reality, none of the Serpent-Men were the ones singing.

If he had blindly kept chasing them, he likely would have paid a massive price to wipe out all the Serpent-Men, only to find the singing still echoing. Ultimately, unable to withstand the SAN drain, he would have been forced to use Transcendence.

The reason his SAN Value had dropped at such bizarre intervals was simply because the closer he got to her, the faster his SAN drained. And every time he returned to the hall, he had been standing extremely close to her.

Having guessed this possibility, Fu Qian had mapped out a route to test it, gradually narrowing down the radius step by step until he locked onto her position.

It sounded simple enough, but looking back, the level of danger he had just navigated was incredibly high.

Had his judgment been wrong, he would have wasted nearly twenty points of SAN Value for nothing.

As things stood, he could only say he had played it well.

Fu Qian silently gave himself a thumbs-up.

With her cover blown, the Multi-Brain Sister threw her arms wide and lunged at him. In response, Fu Qian simply slipped the Ring off one hand, aimed his middle finger, and blasted out an Air Bullet.