Eldritch Horror Theatre

So decisive?

They completed the phase transition, yet just walked away without firing a single shot?

With that kind of decisiveness, one could only say the two seniors were truly extraordinary.

The situation had suddenly shifted again. The highly anticipated brawl was over before it even began.

While marveling at Lu Ming and his companion’s decisiveness, Fu Qian didn’t try to force them to stay.

Smack! He casually swatted away the Crystal Spear whipping toward him once more.

Even when retreating, seasoned veterans of the jianghu knew exactly how to time it.

Blossoming Wealth—bah, Blooming Brocade—clearly felt no gratitude for Professor Fu’s nurturing, glaring at him like an active Death Mark.

And the power of the gene lottery was now on full display.

With its other transcendent limbs nearly wiped out, the thing before him was like a venomous insect forged in a Gu ritual.Under the gaze of his Calamity Eyes, its progress bar had shifted—it was almost at the Divine Emissary Level.

Another glaring piece of evidence was its hand, which now had only three fingers left.

Under the creature’s death stare, Fu Qian flexed his left arm.

Acting nonchalant was one thing, but swatting away the Crystal Spear twice came with a price.

Under the terrifying impact, his index and middle fingers had instantly vaporized, leaving flesh buds squirming out from the wound.

Of course, to Fu Qian, this kind of scene was an everyday occurrence. The real problem was that they didn’t look like ordinary flesh buds.

Plump and moist, covered in scaly bracts and fine fuzz—although they were similarly reddish, Fu Qian easily recognized the plant-like traits.

Was this the legendary karma? As expected, one shouldn’t go around giving people random nicknames.

He had just called it Blossoming Wealth a moment ago, and now it seemed he was being used as potting soil.

That crystalline tail had looked perfectly clean, yet from such a brief contact, something had actually crawled along the attack to parasitize him, devouring his flesh and blood to grow.

Did this count as further proof of the crystal’s corruptive nature?

In no rush to purge this bizarre corruption, Fu Qian continued testing his theory.

Smack! He swatted away the incoming attack for a third time.

What? Without an index and middle finger, wouldn’t swatting it be a bit hard to pull off?

Who said they were gone? Wasn’t his right hand still perfectly intact?

Elegance was never something you could fake. In that moment, Fu Qian naturally switched to the hand wearing Annalise’s Lie.

The results were actually quite ideal.

Not only was the attack deflected yet again, but all five fingers remained perfectly intact.

”You see, this is exactly why you should always wear your safety gear.”

Given the circumstances, Fu Qian didn’t hold back. He immediately raised his hand to show it off, sharing his life experience without caring in the slightest whether the creature could understand him.

It truly lived up to an item bearing the name of an Ancient Higher Being. Aside from being useful for magic tricks, its sheer durability was completely absurd.

That seemingly indestructible Crystal Spear hadn’t even managed to leave a scratch on it.

Boom! However, armor wasn’t a cure-all. Seemingly realizing that its current method of attack wasn’t yielding much, pale purple lightning suddenly erupted directly from Blooming Brocade’s body.

Set against the backdrop of the night, the lightning thrashed like a frenzied, living nervous system.

Zzap! As a target within its strike zone, Fu Qian undoubtedly failed to escape unscathed.

Pure and berserk. As the result of a fusion and ”evolution” of numerous transcendent powers, it really shouldn’t be surprising that this rather dim-witted contestant could unleash absolutely any kind of move.

Faced with this genuine Divine Emissary Level eruption of power, even the Razor Blade tentacles wrapped around his body were instantly mangled beyond recognition.

”Not a bad hit.”

Even Fu Qian offered a word of praise as he snatched the Crystal Spear that came thrusting in through the chaos.

The next moment, instead of retreating, he pressed the advance. Following the tail the creature was trying to retract, he charged headlong into the jungle of lightning.

This time, it truly was a ”neural whipping.”

The violently rampaging power instantly piled more pressure onto his Demigod Physique.

Specifically, hundreds upon thousands of electric arcs flickered into existence and vanished, lashing at him without a single moment of rest like a heavenly lightning tribulation.

The crux of it was that this lightning was poisonous.

In just a split second, Fu Qian realized that the tree shoots growing on his body were actually outpacing the flesh buds.

Furthermore, every single spot on his body that took a hit was infected with new parasites.

Given a little more time, his entire body would likely be transformed into a Blooming Brocade as well.

Marveling at this bizarre spectacle, Fu Qian refused to let go of the creature’s tail, entirely unwilling to show weakness.

Not only did the metallic bandages on his body unspool in that instant, whipping outward in all directions, but they also began to proliferate wildly.

In the blink of an eye, they blotted out the sky, creating a fascinating contrast with the furiously bombarding electric arcs.

Of course, this was just a surface impression. Normally, in a direct clash between Tier 2 and Tier 3, the latter would find it difficult to gain the upper hand—Crack!

It indeed didn’t last very long. Just two breaths later, the rampaging electric arcs suddenly contracted, leaving only the Razor Blade tentacles to blot out the sky.

However, it was hard to say that the tentacles had gained the upper hand, because those rapidly retracting electric arcs gave off the distinct impression of someone preparing to unleash an ultimate move after failing to break through.

Its target was clearly losing health constantly yet simply refused to die. Blooming Brocade had lost its patience and was preparing a single strike to determine the victor and decide life and death—Boom!

This exact scene genuinely played out.

Right as the electric arcs contracted to their absolute limit, looking as if they would be projected outward in the very next second to reduce the target to ashes in one fell swoop, the electricity detonated directly from within.

Amidst twisted, frenzied wails, tears ripped open across that deformed body, spraying flesh and blood into the air like drifting pollen.

Was it really that extreme?

Now free from its restraint, Fu Qian easily backed away, unable to avoid feeling a bit surprised at the sight.

Of course, he didn’t suspect the creature was feigning weakness.

For one thing, he was still holding half of its crystalline tail; it had casually ripped off even such a vital component.

For another, he knew it hadn’t actually been charging an ultimate move just now. The retracting electric arcs had been a defensive maneuver.

As for how he knew?

The next moment, Fu Qian looked up, staring right above Blooming Brocade’s head.

He saw the numerous Razor Blade tentacles extending from his own body following a peculiar pattern, converging up there to form a massive disc.

There were even radial Spikes around the disc’s edges.

That’s right, it was a scaled-up version of the sun he had previously carried on his back.

He had taken advantage of their scuffle earlier to place it up there and weave it into something even larger.

As for why he would do such a thing?

It was simple. Even without relying on Rank suppression, it really wasn’t difficult to find an advantage in the current situation.

For instance, a rather brainless contestant like this one had almost certainly never thoroughly read the Laboratory chapter of the White Tower Codex.

And consequently, it wouldn’t know that apart from ”No walking on the walls,” there was another rule: ”No opening umbrellas inside the Laboratory.”