The Eldritch Files

He was anxious to determine its exact effect so he could devise a targeted strategy. But when the tall, thin woman faced the Crystal Skull, she showed no unusual reaction.

She moved with urgent steps, arriving in front of him. Then, facing the eerie light emanating from the Crystal Skull, she reached out, grabbed his collar, and her form Flashed as she sped toward Abyssal Studio.

Her actions, emotions, and sanity all seemed perfectly normal.

Even the proficiency and immense pressure she exuded when she struck hadn’t weakened in the slightest.

”What’s going on?”

”...”

Outside Abyssal Studio, Song Chushi and Lu Neng exchanged a look from afar, unsure what expression to make.

They watched Han Su and the tall, thin woman enter Abyssal Studio, momentarily at a loss for how to react.

The plan had taken an unexpected turn. Song Chushi could only think to himself, ’I hope he can be ruthless enough...’

...

...

Han Su was grabbed by the tall, thin woman, all the Spiritual Activity around his body suppressed, rendering him like an ordinary person.

He let her drag him into Abyssal Studio. Everywhere they passed was a mess of tangled wires and raging sparks. The mysterious laboratory had already been half-destroyed by Song Chushi’s earlier assault, and many of its functional areas were completely inoperative.

But with no apparent destination, she simply led him deeper inside.

After passing through several heavy iron doors in succession, it seemed they had reached the deepest part of some laboratory.

Once there, she finally let him go.

She stood a meter away, watching him quietly. A nearby warning light cast a bloody glow upon her face.

”You...”

Han Su held the Crystal Skull in his right hand and the briefcase in his left, but he was suddenly at a loss.

’He had just secretly tried to touch the woman with the Crystal Skull, but there was no reaction at all. So why was Song Chushi so nervous about this thing?’

’Even if this thing could counter the tall, thin woman, it was useless if he didn’t know how to use it!’

Just as anxiety filled his heart, tears suddenly welled up in the eyes of the tall, thin woman before him.

The next moment, she suddenly stepped forward and gently pulled him into her embrace.

Han Su’s body instantly stiffened. He froze on the spot.

Feeling her gaunt frame tremble, he wondered, ’Should I channel the copper-colored blood and use this opportunity to snap her neck?’

”My child...”

The tall, thin woman’s voice was thick with intense, remorseful grief. ”You... you’ve suffered so much...”

An indescribable feeling, like an electric shock, suddenly flooded his mind.

’It was her!’

’The woman from his memories who would hold him and cry... she was back.’

In his memories from before he was ten, this tall, thin woman had always had two sides.

One side loved to beat him, torture him, and hate him.

The other would hold him and weep bitterly after she had beaten him until he was covered in wounds.

Now, ten years later, in their first face-to-face encounter, she had only shown him that resentful and twisted side.

But he never expected that after a whole night of playing this game of kill-or-be-killed, she would suddenly reveal this other side.

’So, what is she doing?’

An instinctual emotion also made Han Su want to raise his hands, to gently wrap them around her gaunt frame and feel the embrace he hadn’t felt in ten years.

But Han Su couldn’t do it. He just stood there, frozen. With all his might, he spoke, his voice filled with a sense of absurdity and coldness, ”You’ve spent this entire night trying to kill me, lock me in a cage, and send me to a sacrificial altar. What are you trying to pull, acting like this now?”

”I’m very busy...”

”Do you really think I have time to be here playing some happy-family game with you?”

His voice was filled with resentment and genuine hatred and disgust. He suddenly shoved her away with force, his gaze grim. ”I prefer the way you were before.”

”Either kill me, or I’ll kill you!”

”...”

”I just want to kill myself!”

The tall, thin woman suddenly burst into tears. Just moments ago, she had been arrogant, cold, and utterly imperious.

She had easily brought all of Qinggang to its knees. Whether it was Qinggang’s Four Heavenly Kings or Song Chushi, they were all like trash in her eyes.

But now, she had actually been pushed to the ground by Han Su.

Her body trembled, her face streaked with tears. Endless vexation and pain, regret and fear, crawled across her features.

Even her cries carried a truth so agonizing it was as if she wished for death. ”I know what it feels like to have your heart torn out! It’s not that I haven’t felt the pain of being a mother! I miss you every day and every night! I can’t control it, so...”

”So I put all of my feelings for you into this Crystal Skull.”

”I’d rather my usual self be just an emotionless tool. At least that way I could escape this torture...”

”So they think this Crystal Skull is my greatest weakness, but in reality, you are my greatest weakness.”

”I... have been waiting for you to get this Crystal Skull.”

”...”

Han Su was stunned, momentarily unsure how to respond to her words.

He looked at the Crystal Skull and could indeed feel a strange fluctuation emanating from within it.

The Crystal Skull had automatically activated the moment he got his hands on it—or rather, the moment it entered a certain range of her.

The tall, thin woman was now engaged in some kind of substance sharing with it on a spiritual level. This was why her will and actions remained unchanged from before, yet emotionally, she had suddenly become exceptionally fragile, like a completely different person from who she was moments ago.