Eldritch Horror Theatre

A fight was inevitable; Fu Qian had never doubted that.

Character determines destiny. Goto Hi’s life philosophy was essentially the same as Captain Lane’s.

Just as Lane was prepared to kill himself under any circumstances, the moment Fu Qian showed his face again, her ultimate response would be singular, regardless of what words passed between them: a violent attempt to turn him into her vessel.

His only objective was to reap as much as possible before that final moment arrived.

So far, the situation remained largely under control—aside from the attack’s sheer repulsiveness.

Did all these people who spent their lives at sea love saliva enchantments this much?

Trapped within the soft yet incredibly resilient wrapping, Fu Qian focused on its slippery surface and frowned deeply.

Fu Qian rarely used the word ”colorful” to describe a smell, but here it fit perfectly.

It clearly wasn’t some strong acid, venom, or anesthetic. The liquid flowing over his skin was practically a premium, concentrated essence of the Ash Sea, weaving together to form a barrier that completely encased him.

Inside this barrier, Fu Qian felt every concept of his entire being rapidly jumbling together.His organs, along with the sight and hearing they produced, were swiftly tangling into a mess.

The most immediate effect was that Fu Qian wasn’t even sure what would pop out if he unleashed Myriad Tentacles right now.

He finally understood why Niniane had ruined her own face. Manually crippling parts of herself might have actually helped keep her will stable.

Of course, that wasn’t Fu Qian’s style.

”Insolent!”

He wasn’t sure which of his facial features had issued the furious shout, but in the next moment, his body inside the barrier abruptly expanded.

Resplendent Tyrant activated.

Fight off the pollution? This seat is the pollution!

...

”The aura of The Abyss? You certainly have plenty of tricks!”

Expanding to just over two meters naturally wasn’t enough to tear through the tongue’s wrapping, but it successfully drew a gasp of surprise from Goto Hi.

”And what about yours?”

Even his voice had deepened. Fu Qian was in no rush to make a move.

”I don’t need tricks!”

Judging by Goto Hi’s reaction, his words had clearly struck a nerve.

Almost instantly, Fu Qian noticed a dense, magnificent radiance filling the barrier’s slippery surface.

Spheres, like the ones that made up her tail, seemed to be gestating within it.

Hmm? She was actually a predatory, egg-laying all-in-one machine?

Fu Qian’s grasp of the nature of this change was spot-on.

Despite the restraints, the Tyrant’s might was warping his surroundings in reverse. The situation had originally been deadlocked in a state of mutual poisoning.

This new change was a clear attempt to use his bodily chaos to violently fuse him with the mermaid.

”Such reckless abandon, such arrogant folly!”

Faced with this increasingly insolent offense, Fu Qian no longer hid his domineering aura.

”It is time to teach you a lesson!”

Without warning, a neat slash appeared out of thin air on the surface of the tough tongue. It steadily and slowly lengthened, triggering an uncontrollable, violent shudder.

However, as the signature technique of a Divine Emissary, it naturally wouldn’t be that easy to deal with.

Flesh and blood began to flow like a stream along that elongated giant tongue.

In the next moment, the wound itself traveled along the tongue, flowing all the way down to the frog’s massive body.

This miraculous maneuver clearly revealed Goto Hi’s intent: she absolutely refused to release her bindings. Instead, she was converting all her killing strikes into a purely mutually destructive contest of attrition, maximizing her advantage in Rank.

”As expected, a cowardly wretch bereft of all skill who only knows how to stack up Carrion! To think you delusionally hope to profane this seat with it!”

Fu Qian clearly sensed the shift, but the Tyrant’s momentum did not wane in the slightest.

”I bloom in slaughter, a scar left by the old ones!”

Another slash, and then another...

Following that solemn declaration, crisscrossing wounds genuinely tore across the giant tongue’s surface, spraying blood like falling petals.

That wasn’t all. The brilliant, flowing radiance inside the barrier was sliced into fragments as if it were a physical object, unable to condense into even a single ”egg.”

”Impossible!”

The flowing wounds, like ripples in a stream, rapidly cascaded down onto the frog’s massive body, drawing an uncontrollable shriek of shock from Goto Hi.

”You are only in the Demigod Realm! How can you possibly do this?!”

”Why wouldn’t it be? Haven’t you fallen just as far?”

Fu Qian’s ruthless retort was met with several seconds of silence.

”Fine. If you want to kill yourself so badly, you’ll save me some effort.”

”Trying to win a battle of attrition against a Divine Emissary, and in the Ash Sea of all places... The stupidest people really are the luckiest. You are exactly like that wretch, Stella—you only know how to waste your gifts!”

When she finally spoke again, her voice was twice as furious, profoundly reflecting her bitter resentment toward the Warehouse’s favoritism.

Matching her fury was the maddened, surging torrent of flesh and blood on the tongue.

The giant Cocoon binding Fu Qian expanded several times over in the blink of an eye.

Truly, human joys and sorrows were never shared.

In response to Goto Hi’s seething envy, Fu Qian only gave a cold scoff.

”This seat is chosen by destiny! How could the likes of you ever compare!”

With those words, barbed fangs emerged one after another across Fu Qian’s already mangled body within the giant tongue, cutting deeply into the slippery surface encasing him.

Dimensional Poison. He had shown her its effects earlier, but now it was time for a live demonstration.

”Your wounds are self-inflicted?”

Looking as though he were wearing a spiked bear-hunting suit, Fu Qian instantly delivered a massive shock to his opponent.

The barrier trapping his body broke into an uncontrollable tremble, and so did Goto Hi’s voice.

She clearly recognized that this was a method used to make an opponent’s wounds impossible to heal, but she could not fathom why such a technique would be deployed on his own body.

Even so, the violently trembling giant tongue showed no sign of giving up. Instead, it frantically contracted inward.

Sharp thorns even sprouted from its flesh, indiscriminately tearing into the bodies of both parties.

Clearly refusing to forfeit this advantage, Goto Hi doubled down on her stakes, choosing to accelerate their mutual destruction.

Tendril Barrage Devastator!

Answering her was an unimaginably violent reactive force.

Like a blooming firework, it exploded in all directions.

Tentacles, sharp horns, long snakes, Bone Chains... hundreds upon thousands of inconceivable creations tore apart every obstacle in sight.

Their one shared trait was the jagged fangs lining their surfaces.

The broken flesh and blood flowing back toward the frog’s massive body acted like a routed army, scattering anything that could still be called whole.

Amidst the violent convulsions, a bizarre eyeball that had detached itself just in time transformed into a streak of light, fleeing outward.

Yet in the next moment, a Thorned Long Whip covered in dark red barbs whipped it right out of the air.

”Very courageous.”

His entire body covered in wounds and fangs, Fu Qian gripped the Thorned Long Whip, radiating absolute dominance.

”To dare test my mighty power with mortal flesh.”