Eldritch Horror Theatre

What a pity. It seemed self-confinement wasn’t a viable option after all.

As he lamented this, Fu Qian tightened his grip, instantly subduing the intensity of Henry’s struggles.

It turned out that besides growing manic, the cat’s physical strength had significantly increased. Keeping him under control was far harder than before.

In truth, Fu Qian had another motive for checking on Henry’s condition in the dark.

Alleviating the contamination was one thing, but from the very beginning, Fu Qian had been pondering the reason behind the disappearance of their Transcendent power.

As it stood, the most obvious culprit was this ubiquitous prismatic color.

Exposure to it caused contamination to accumulate and Transcendent power to fade.

Therefore, if being locked in absolute darkness could dissipate the contamination, Fu Qian wondered if the same method might restore some of his lost power.

So far, this assignment hadn’t presented any threats explicitly within the Transcendent tier. But as a professional, he couldn’t afford to just focus on scraping by in the short term.

It was undeniably a mission involving the Transcendent tier. For those forces to remain hidden for this long meant a massive crisis was undoubtedly brewing in the background. Assuming anything else would be overly optimistic.”Henry...”

While Fu Qian was lost in thought, Oliver finally reacted to the cat being dangled in front of his face.

He really did recognize it.

Seeing Oliver’s attention drawn to the animal as he called out its name, Fu Qian nodded. This more or less confirmed another of his theories.

This guy had indeed come looking for the cat. It was even highly likely that he was the one who had locked it inside the safe.

His reasons were unknown for now, but it wasn’t out of the question that he shared Fu Qian’s motive: testing whether a cat kept in the dark would be spared.

Adele had mentioned earlier that Henry often sneaked in here to enjoy the air conditioning. Getting caught and used as a test subject to pay for the privilege seemed entirely plausible.

Speaking of which, what kind of research facility allowed pets—especially stray ones—to just wander in and take naps? Wasn’t the security at this Scientific Research Institute a little too lax?

Looking around the empty Laboratory, Fu Qian snapped his fingers to grab Oliver’s attention and asked his fourth question.

”Where is the Laboratory?”

Perhaps because Fu Qian had helped him find the cat, Oliver actually provided an answer to this inherently bizarre question after a few seconds of silence.

”Underground.”

Oh?

Fu Qian raised an eyebrow, extremely satisfied with this answer.

”How do I get down there?”

His expression and tone unwavering, Fu Qian asked the question with complete naturalness.

”Henry...”

Unfortunately, the special Q&A window seemed to have closed. Oliver had reverted to being a broken record.

Fu Qian wasn’t too disappointed; he had merely been pushing his luck. The information he had already gathered was more than worth the effort. Now, it was time to fill in the blanks.

Imagination was a force that not even censorship mosaics could withstand.

His reason for asking about the Laboratory’s location was simple.

He had already set foot in this supposed Laboratory across two different timelines, yet the scene was identical in both.

One could explain it away by assuming that after receiving a warning about an impending disaster, the staff—despite their skepticism—had cautiously moved all the valuable data and equipment away.

But Fu Qian leaned toward a much simpler possibility: this place had always looked like this, and the Scientific Research Institute’s true Laboratory was located elsewhere.

And Oliver’s answer to that had been ”Underground”...

Meanwhile, during his very first exploration, he had confirmed with Red Dragon that this old building didn’t have a basement.

Ruling out the unlikely scenario that Oliver was a visiting scholar from another facility, the explanation was clear: the real Laboratory had been built directly beneath this building in absolute secrecy.

The reason the cat could freely come and go up here was simply because this entire floor was nothing but a smokescreen.

What a classic Umbrella Corporation move!

Fu Qian marveled at the thought.

As for how to get down there?

It didn’t matter whether Oliver answered that or not; the solution was glaringly obvious—from the top floor.

Fu Qian was confident that there was a high probability of finding an elevator leading straight into the earth behind the door he’d failed to open earlier.

And the massive crowd of people pounding on that door? Most likely Oliver’s colleagues.

They had tried to flee whatever disaster occurred below, but had been a step too late and ended up trapped.

The man sitting before him must have made it out ahead of the others, though the reason why was still anyone’s guess.

”Henry—”

The next moment, right in the middle of another muttered cry for the cat, Oliver took a heavy blow to the head and collapsed to the floor.

...

An access card?

After knocking Oliver out with the sedatives, and seeing that the man was sleeping like a baby, Fu Qian unceremoniously searched his pockets.

Unfortunately, whether he had left his belongings in a locker room or somewhere else, a thorough pat-down yielded only a few keys and a nondescript white card.

Judging from the photo and the name printed on it, Oliver hadn’t lied about his identity.

”No matter how you look at it, this has to be for accessing the top floor, right?”

Keeping a firm grip on the thrashing Henry, Fu Qian casually pocketed the card.

Though the haul wasn’t as spectacular as he’d hoped, this trip had still been highly rewarding.

There was even one minor discovery: despite being heavily contaminated, Oliver had displayed an uncharacteristic level of docility.

Perhaps as a researcher, he had attempted to use something to combat the contamination. If the opportunity arose, it might be worth looking into.

Of course, whatever he used had limited effectiveness. He had made it all the way to the Laboratory, and one of the keys on him clearly belonged to the safe, yet he still hadn’t managed to free Henry. That meant his mind must have already been slipping away by the time he arrived.

...

So, here was the real question.

Fu Qian looked down at himself. In just this short amount of time, the fluorescent patterns on his body had noticeably expanded.

Now that he had an access card, shouldn’t he risk a trip to the top floor while his mind was still relatively clear?

Even if his appearance was getting a bit horrific.

Fu Qian examined his reflection in the glass panel beside him.

He held the sedatives, stained with human Residue from his blunt-force strikes. His face was dyed deep red by the prismatic color, and specks of fluorescence glowed all over his body. He genuinely looked like a deranged serial killer.

Coupled with the frenzied, thrashing cat in his left hand, the look really came together.

Theoretically speaking, the most sensible choice right now would be to take his spoils and reunite with the rest of the team.

There was strength in numbers, and they were likely still holding their position.

But that was only in theory.

Fu Qian was somewhat looking forward to seeing how they performed on their own, so he had no intention of doing that—wait, what was that?!

As he pondered, he noticed a subtle shift in the deep crimson reflected in the glass.

Again?