Eldritch Horror Theatre

The instant her consciousness returned, Veil picked out a dangerous sound cutting through the endless clamor.

It was a gunshot—a real gunshot!

Reacting, she instinctively looked toward the noise, just in time to see a figure wearing an Iron Cage vault over the crowd and lunge toward the Lighthouse.

Her pupils suddenly dilated. From beneath the figure’s robes, a black-and-red tentacle lashed out, snatching something from her younger sister’s hand.

...

Standing in the tide once more, boundless joy welled up within him—the plan was proceeding perfectly.

Up in the Lighthouse, Count Valentin looked no different from the rest, completely lost in the Tide of Clamor.

This time, Raven Feather and Wehle were both still absent.

It was an unexpected delight.

Unlike last time, he had been sitting in a conspicuous spot with an eye-catching look for a long time. The chances of Wehle and the others not noticing him were extremely slim.The fact that they hadn’t come knocking for over a day didn’t rule out the possibility.

After all, during such a sensitive period, picking a fight with someone at the Demigod Realm in such an obvious location would almost guarantee their own plans would be ruined.

But avoiding trouble didn’t mean abandoning all defenses. This scene was still a bit unusual.

Were they worried he had already formed a tacit agreement with the Night Watchers? That he was just putting on an act here to draw their attention, freeing up the others to seize control of the other two locations and prevent the Tide of Clamor from rising?

It wasn’t entirely impossible, but to play it safe, it would have been far more logical to leave at least one of their Demigod Realm experts here.

These thoughts flashed rapidly through Fu Qian’s mind.

But the sliver of doubt they brought up stood no chance against the sheer joy born from his good luck, melting away in an instant.

At this moment, Fu Qian’s condition was rather unique.

He had been wearing the Head Cage for over twenty-four hours. The surge of positive emotions rewarded for completing actions hadn’t stopped for a second.

The massive reservoir of positive emotions welling up inside him, along with the ravenous desire to keep those emotions growing, violently tore at his willpower.

For example, any action Fu Qian actively chose to do right now presented a massive temptation—even something as simple as taking a step.

This was exactly why his pace and rhythm were so bizarre. The sheer sense of accomplishment rushing through him with every footstep hammered against his mind.

This infinitely compounding sweetness would eventually cause anyone to lose themselves entirely and forget everything—but not today!

In the next second, his giant body, now expanded several times over, crashed back down onto Hamaduth’s Colossal Flesh Warship.

Crushing a grayish-black Talisman in his grip, he casually tossed aside a silver-white pistol.

His arm—streaked with near-void black and violently chaotic oil paints—punched directly through the colossal maw, sealing Hamadus’s wail right back inside its own body.

Visceral Attack!

A scene that had once played out in a certain illusory future now repeated itself amid the clamor.

As he ripped his claw out, the emotional feedback of personally slaughtering a Deity caused that maddening sweetness to undergo a Sublimation, pushing it to an unimaginable height.

Riiip!

Amid a dull, tearing sound, several spine-like chains ripped out from Fu Qian’s back, shooting off in all directions.

This transformation didn’t happen by his own will. It was driven directly by the frantic, surging bloodlust commanding his flesh and blood—an instinct now as automatic as a knee-jerk reflex.

In response to this move, Ariel—visible in the distance—decisively abandoned his slaughter. Instead, he stood in place and began twisting the Tide of Clamor, pouring all his effort into guiding Rom’s Descent as quickly as possible.

Unfazed by this, Fu Qian unhesitatingly drove his claws in for a second strike.

Accompanied by another fountain of flesh and blood, a wing membrane slathered in countless chaotic oil paints tore through the flesh directly above where the Bone Chain had pierced, expanding into a massive bat wing.

At the same time, thousands of black Spikes erupted across his entire body, growing endlessly.

Visceral Attack, the third time.

The Boon of Release still hadn’t triggered. Meanwhile, the Spikes sprouting from Fu Qian’s skin seemed to possess minds of their own. They wildly tore and elongated into bizarre shapes, frantically fighting to carve up this body.

The same horror played out deep inside him—every single organ and blood vessel mutated in the frenzy.

Despite the back-to-back devastation, Hamadus’s body, though crumbling, barely managed to hold itself together. It still hadn’t completely broken down.

At the same time, deep within the massive trench carved out by the Visceral Attack, flesh and blood boiled and churned. Hexagonal individual eyes began to condense from the gore, rapidly converging to form a seemingly familiar, gigantic compound eye.

Just beneath that compound eye, countless fine, black arthropod limbs could be seen uncurling.

With Hamadus so drastically weakened, its transformation into Rom was happening at a terrifyingly accelerated pace.

Very nice!

Sunken deep into the trench of flesh and surrounded by a dense sea of writhing horrors, Fu Qian bathed in supreme euphoria and let go of all limiters.

Tendril Barrage Devastator!

In the next instant, an endless torrent of tentacles erupted from his body.

Radiating from Fu Qian as the epicenter, the tentacles slammed out indiscriminately in every direction with an unstoppable momentum.

Under the influence of the Divine Blood Curse, the tentacles were no longer constrained to a single shape or color.

Sacred, chaotic, foul, agonizing... all sorts of distinct powers violently intertwined.

Fu Qian could almost hear them. Every single tentacle possessed its own consciousness, frantically tearing at itself in sheer excitement as they strove to completely obliterate the flesh and blood of the Deity with the most maddening posture imaginable—three times!

The Boon of Release also triggered simultaneously.

Sorry, but the future you refused to accept is here.

Are you ready?

...

It was like detonating a hand grenade inside a tomato.

Deep within the colossal warship, a terrifying cavity blasted open with Fu Qian at the epicenter, rapidly expanding and annihilating everything in its path as it pushed outward in all directions.

In the next moment, the massive flesh warship finally could hold on no longer.

Bone and flesh shattered completely. Blood poured down like rain.

The fragmented will anchoring itself to this monstrosity completely dissipated at last.

Whatever supreme gaze had linked to it also instantly receded in bitter reluctance.

At almost the exact same second, Ariel, standing amidst the crashing winds and waves, abruptly halted his ritual. His body transformed into a streak of flowing light, fleeing into the distance without a single backward glance.

With his abrupt departure, the half-guided, deafening clamor instantly broke into utter chaos. The various roaring voices lost all coordination, clashing and interfering with each other.

Within ten seconds, this Tide of Clamor rapidly collapsed, regressing into an ordinary, disorganized cacophony of wild screaming.

The revelers who had been completely entranced by it snapped out of it as if waking from a dream, recovering their own free will.

Yet the hyperactive crowd hardly seemed to notice the jarring shift. After only a brief hesitation, their crazed carnival continued.

[Current task completed. Number 1-339 Containment successful.]

The prompt announcing the successful Containment finally rang out just as a sudden storm surged, trapping Fu Qian completely within the sea.

And even as the vision before his eyes blurred away, Fu Qian still didn’t try to remove the Head Cage.

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