Eldritch Horror Theatre

The Sin Seeker’s rapid return clearly baffled Patrick.

In his vast experience surviving death matches, he couldn’t recall a time this thing had ever respawned so quickly.

He wasn’t given much time to think. Launching from almost the exact same distance as before, the Sin Seeker’s towering figure leaped up, cleaving down with its Greatsword.

Amid the howling wind, Patrick hesitated no longer and whipped his arm out.

Just like last time, the Bloody Hook Chain pierced straight toward the Sin Seeker’s chest.

’I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but since you’re back, I’ll just kill you again!’

Yet the moment he countered, Patrick realized something was terribly wrong.

The midair figure abruptly accelerated. Before the blade even reached him, a bone-chilling cold had already crushed the breath from his lungs.

A ring of white frost spontaneously bloomed around him!

’This thing isn’t the same as before!’By the time the realization hit him, it was too late to dodge.

His body suddenly felt light as a spray of blood erupted into the air.

One of Patrick’s arms, along with the Bloody Hook Chain wrapped around it, had been cleanly severed.

”Bring it on!”

The sudden, grievous wound only unleashed Patrick’s vicious nature.

Barking a mad laugh, the Sin Fire on his body boiled to its absolute peak. Meeting violence with violence, he hurled a brutal punch right back.

Unexpectedly, the suit of armor displayed an unimaginable agility.

Faced with Patrick’s ferocious counterattack, it didn’t clash head-on. Instead, it sidestepped with a nimble twist.

At the same time, its sword flashed, carving off Patrick’s left ear and a massive chunk of his scalp.

’Impressive!’

As a professional spectator, Fu Qian watched from the sidelines, clicking his tongue in admiration.

He was equally bewildered by the Sin Seeker’s reappearance.

If the current Patrick’s true Combat Power had reached the Demigod Level through his continuous slaughter...

...then this newly respawned Sin Seeker was absolutely in the Demigod Tier.

As a genuine Demigod himself, Fu Qian was quite certain of this.

According to Elena’s earlier explanation, the Sin Seeker’s strength was directly proportional to the amount of Sin Fire it had purified.

It was hard to imagine. Did someone really go and accept the goddess’s redemption at a time like this?

And even if they had, this power spike was way too massive!

’Could it be that Eldest Senior Brother Daidai actually went and repented to the Goddess of Sins?’

”What the hell... are you?!”

Patrick seemed to realize this gap as well, letting out furious roars as he desperately fought back.

Unfortunately, the only answer he received was the unstoppable sweep of his opponent’s Greatsword.

With every ruthless slash, the chilling frost radiating from the blade rammed a mouthful of ice shards down Patrick’s throat.

”Good! Excellent! How refreshing!”

Subjected to this brutal cold, Patrick didn’t rage. Instead, he laughed, cheering in absolute madness.

A split second later, the deranged Butcher’s charred skin violently exploded.

Like a detonated bundle of dynamite, the flesh and blood beneath his skin—mixed with roiling Sin Fire—instantly blasted outward, engulfing everything in the vicinity.

The pervasive frost was instantly swept away. The Sin Seeker was blasted straight out of the bloody firestorm, leaving its gleaming armor covered in deep scorch marks.

Yet the entity proved completely fearless. Barely stumbling, it immediately righted its stance and charged right back in.

Right then, a streak of dark red light shot out from the epicenter of the blast, fleeing in the opposite direction.

His fearless fanaticism was nothing but a facade. When truly faced with death, Patrick took a page right out of his previous opponent’s playbook.

Hindered by the lingering firestorm, the Sin Seeker clearly couldn’t catch up in time.

Just as Patrick was about to make a clean getaway, his figure suddenly jolted to a halt.

A slender, dark-red tentacle had somehow wrapped firmly around his ankle.

’This thing... was it just lying on the ground pretending to be the hook chain?’

Patrick instantly realized what had happened, but it was far too late.

Although the tentacle only gave a slight tug, his fleeting window for escape had already slammed shut.

Borne on howling frost, the Sin Seeker caught up.

Forced to abandon his retreat, Patrick turned to fight once more.

But stripped of his momentum and covered in gruesome wounds, he was no longer a match for the knight.

”Why?”

As the fatal wounds rapidly piled up across his body, Patrick glared with bloodshot eyes, staring dead at Fu Qian in his final moments.

”Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t have a personal grudge against you.”

Fu Qian waved a polite goodbye.

”It’s all business.”

The next second, the Silver Greatsword pierced cleanly through his chest. Radiating outward from the wound, his flesh, blood, and bones rapidly froze into jagged clusters of crystal.

Patrick’s body went completely rigid.

Crash!

With a brutal twist of the Silver Greatsword, the Frenzied Sin Butcher’s body shattered into countless pieces, ultimately collapsing into a pile of red ice shards.

The boiling Fire of Sin that had covered his body acted as if it were alive. It crawled up the Sin Seeker’s blade and snaked across its massive frame before finally vanishing into the armor.

The scorch marks and battle damage on its armor vanished right along with it.

’Does the Sin Fire absorbed by this thing count as being purified?’

Fu Qian watched the scene thoughtfully.

’Then it really does grow stronger the more it kills!’

Even as he pondered this, the Sin Seeker—radiating an aura much more terrifying than before—slowly turned around, Greatsword in hand, and locked its gaze straight at him.

...

...

”No need to thank me. It was the least I could do.”

After a brief, silent staring contest, Fu Qian waved his hand, wearing the humble expression of a good Samaritan refusing a reward.

But before he even had time to lower his hand, he abruptly blurred into motion, narrowly dodging the Silver Greatsword’s incoming thrust.

”Now that’s just entirely unreasonable!”

Surrounded by swirling frost, Fu Qian dodged the Sin Seeker’s relentless pursuit again and again.

”Logically speaking, shouldn’t you be hunting down the guy with the second-highest amount of Sin Fire right now?”

”No matter how you look at it, I’m an absolutely upstanding citizen.”

”There’s no way everyone else left out there has a completely clean slate.”

Although Fu Qian’s verbal defense was incredibly sound, the Sin Seeker clearly wasn’t listening.

The entity seemed entirely fixated on him. The Silver Greatsword flashed relentlessly, not pausing for a single second as it sought to carve Fu Qian into mincemeat.

Unfortunately for the knight, after days of grueling training, Fu Qian’s close-quarters combat skills practically rivaled a grandmaster’s. Weaving and dodging through the onslaught, he didn’t suffer a single scratch.

’It’s totally locked onto me. This thing really is abnormal!’

A few exchanges later, Fu Qian confirmed his suspicions.

Just as he had told Patrick, he hadn’t held the man back out of personal spite or a desire to kick him while he was down.

To Fu Qian, the Sin Seeker simply felt anomalous. He had just wanted to see how it would react to him once the Butcher was dead.

The facts were in: this thing wasn’t working its way down the Register of Sinners at all. It had immediately gunned straight for him.

’That’s enough experimenting. The wind is tight, pull back.’

Having verified this, Fu Qian quickly made his decision.

The next second, he flicked his fingers, rapidly firing three Air Bullets in succession. The volley forced the Sin Seeker to pull its sword back to defend.

Seizing the opening, Fu Qian readily accepted good advice. Following in the footsteps of the two wise pioneers before him, he immediately turned and bolted.

And the direction he chose was none other than the exact location of the Statue of the Goddess of Sin.