Eldritch Horror Theatre

So this was the legendary eye-snake?

Although, calling it a snake was a bit of a stretch given its sheer bulk.

It was a strange thought, but it was Fu Qian’s genuine impression.

He had seen all sorts of snake forms, including the classic tightly coiled posture.

The one before him hadn’t grown any extra limbs, and its top was a face with highly reptilian features. Even though the scales covering its body looked bizarre, at first glance, it appeared to be coiled into a lump.

But after that first impression, if you looked a little closer, you would realize it truly was just a lump—

Rather than its massive lower half being a long torso coiled in rings, it looked more like layers of flab sprouting from its stomach.

Indeed, the arrangement of those peculiar scales defied basic structural logic.

There were no distinct boundaries between the bulging rings; they all fused seamlessly together.

Beneath what closely resembled a long head and neck lay a slender, upright torso.Except, starting from the diaphragm, colossal amounts of subcutaneous fat accumulated, dragging all the way to the ground.

Paired with the dense covering of eye-shaped fine scales, it packed quite the visual punch.

But that wasn’t all. Although his inspiration was currently gone, pure visual observation alone gave the impression that these peculiar scales possessed considerable resistance to the Flame of Frenzy he had just unleashed.

So much so that the Calamity he had just detonated in the form of fire merely forced the entity to change its shape—or rather, to reveal its true form.

A sweeping glance from top to bottom didn’t reveal a single missing scale—wait, there was one.

Right as he evaluated it, among the scales opening and closing in a bizarre rhythm, one finally snapped off and clattered to the ground.

”Just as you do not know what kind of calamity of destiny you are.”

The giant snake’s imposing presence was actually still rising.

As that massive maw opened and closed, it continued to let out a low chuckle.

The voice had shifted slightly, but Fu Qian could still tell it was him.

Moreover, it didn’t seem to have any intention of retaliating for the previous attack.

”You know nothing... You don’t know what kind of blasphemous freak you play in destiny...”

”For a higher entity commanding Calamity to ultimately be reborn in such a form—I must say, it is wonderfully ironic.”

As if it had heard Fu Qian use the word ’lump’ to measure it, its critique was undeniably sharp.

”I know,” Fu Qian replied. ”I even compared who was worse with a guy called the Blasphemy Monarch.”

Fu Qian didn’t mind the insult, and even proactively corrected the opponent’s misconception.

...

It was obvious that his excellency the Blasphemy Monarch really wasn’t very popular.

Fu Qian didn’t think it was just his imagination—when he uttered that honorific name, the ”eyes” on his excellency Destiny Serpent’s body seemed to narrow slightly.

It was a reaction strikingly similar to the Mother of Gospel back at the Silver Mist Manor, who had acted terrified of being splashed with dog shit—truly, different tunes played with equal skill.

”You are far more interesting than the former Tyrant. So why not continue your attack? Didn’t you come to kill me?”

Unfortunately, while slightly provoked, his excellency Destiny Serpent wasn’t very receptive to Fu Qian’s topic-derailing tactics. After giving a brief compliment, it went straight back to business.

”Good point—”

Click! Click!

Fu Qian didn’t push the issue. As soon as the serpent’s voice faded, he directly answered the call to action.

This time, however, he didn’t rush to detonate another Calamity. Instead, he pulled out the murder weapon he had been carrying all along and unceremoniously fired two shots.

All fear stems from insufficient firepower.

Regrettably, the normally reliable revolver only yielded the sound of its mechanism clicking. The remaining two bullets completely failed to fire.

Sure enough, external objects were still unreliable.

Fu Qian casually tossed the gun aside, showing no dissatisfaction.

After all, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

Merely amplifying the probability of a misfire—back in Dunis, even the Tier 2 Transcendent Ariel could easily pull that off.

The one before him was suspected to be a true master of destiny; pulling off something like this probably didn’t even require the effort of blowing away dust.

Bang! Bang!

Mid-critique, he shaped his fingers into a gun, and two Air Bullets went howling out.

Of course, the sound effects were provided by Fu Qian himself.

And sure enough, the reliability of non-external means was proven as they successfully hit their mark the next second.

It was just a pity that this attack method, whose power had soared alongside his own advancement, didn’t seem to even make those scales tremble.

This was a Deity’s body, after all. Such a method still suffered from insufficient firepower.

A shame, considering he had specially sculpted them into triangular arrowheads to enhance their armor-piercing capability.

Crackle—

Fu Qian didn’t even retract his raised hand before a blindingly bright arc of blue lightning violently surged forth.

And one could see that his arm had already completely transformed.

One-eyed, hornless, its end had turned into a similarly scaled, reptilian-like head, and the destructively potent lightning was bursting right out of its mouth.

The ”Thunder” of the Three Faces.

As expected, the Blood Face’s rarity was simply too high. This was the fourth time, and he still hadn’t rolled it.

Indeed, this was the extra harvest he had obtained through Insight during his last trip to Lanphilai.

”An interesting attempt.”

Yet, under the ravaging destruction, what was triggered was actually the victim’s praise.

Remaining rooted to the spot without dodging, the serpent hadn’t even lost a single additional scale.

But it wasn’t completely unchanged. Over vast swaths of its body, the multitude of eye-shaped scales had vanished, transforming into a peculiar broad diamond shape.

...

Sure enough, it wasn’t just specifically targeting the Flame of Frenzy.

Fu Qian only needed one glance to seemingly sense the different resistance these shield-shaped scales possessed.

This was likely also the reason it had emerged completely unscathed.

But that was exactly the issue. The change in shape carried a shift in affinity. The eyes from earlier had perfectly resisted the Flame of Frenzy, and now its lightning resistance was completely maxed out.

Specific and reasonable.

For the grand Serpent of Destiny to have such might wasn’t surprising.

But even legendary adaptive carapaces supposedly only underwent targeted evolution after taking damage, right?

Yet the display before him was practically flipping the bird at the concept of time. It was even more absurd than if he had given advance notice for it to prepare.

At the very least, with Fu Qian’s eyesight, he hadn’t even seen the conversion process from eyes to shields.

At the same time, its degree of customization was remarkably high. For instance, the earlier Air Bullets had been too weak and thus failed to trigger any reaction at all.

Indeed, there was a reason behind his step-by-step escalation of firepower.

When the eye-shaped scales had first appeared, rather than believing it was just a coincidence of ”perfectly countering,” Fu Qian leaned toward a deeper reason. Thus, he hadn’t rushed to dump damage on it, opting for a slight test instead.

And that complimentary ”interesting attempt” proved his opponent had seen right through his motives. Truly worthy of being the Serpent of Destiny.

He wondered if it had also seen clearly that the test still had another gear—

Amidst a sharp howl of wind, a ferocious claw had already slashed straight at it.