Eldritch Horror Theatre

”Do you even know what you’re saying?”

Clearly, for Jacques, some things were simply inviolable.

Fu Qian’s reverse deduction tracing straight to the commandment made this noble member of the Blood Clan toss everything he had learned in logic class out the window in a split second, descending into pure emotional venting.

”I’m afraid you don’t understand certain concepts. Do you know why the Blood Clan are called the Children of the Stars?”

”Why?”

Fu Qian generously played along.

”The Stars shine, and a commandment is that shining itself. The Stars are Eternal, and therefore a commandment is correct.”

Jacques wore an incomparably solemn expression as he spoke those words.

”Unlike you polluted creations, every member of the Blood Clan is born with a gift, able to perceive the most essential part of that shining.”

”How correct?”That description carried a rather lofty air. Fu Qian nodded slightly as he listened.

”As correct as the fact that if I kill you, you will die. Do you think that statement could be wrong?”

Jacques sneered, employing a highly aggressive analogy.

If you were killed, you would die?

”Hard to say.”

Fu Qian genuinely considered his own situation for a moment and offered an honest critique.

He had to admit, conversing with Brother Jacques had been quite fruitful.

A commandment was the abstraction of the Stars’ shining?

Combined with The Order’s ideology, the logic flowed rather smoothly.

It even perfectly explained why Olinter had been helpless regarding Jane’s condition earlier.

They had reversed their days and nights and racked their brains, only to finally catch a glimpse of a cosmic truth that amounted to mere scraps of this shining.

Jane, who had already shared in the glory of the Children of the Stars, clearly possessed a cosmic truth with much higher authority.

As for why he succeeded later, that was also quite simple.

Olinter hadn’t grasped only scraps. The ultimate technique he displayed at the end had very likely come close to the Blood Clan’s ’most essential part.’

...

”Heh. In truth, I had absolutely no need to explain this to you.”

Unfortunately, Jacques clearly couldn’t understand Fu Qian’s honesty.

Visibly dissatisfied with his answer, he gave a contemptuous laugh.

”Because you can never imagine certain things without having experienced them. If you’re ever lucky enough to get close to the Stars one day, you’ll realize just how absurd your words are.”

”Summer insects cannot speak of ice, huh? That’s not entirely unreasonable. So, the Stars, Eternity, commandments...”

After a moment of muttering to himself, Fu Qian finally put on a look of profound enlightenment.

”It seems the situation is very clear now. Something went wrong with the Stars.”

...

In that instant, the atmosphere, which had already reached the freezing point, plummeted straight to absolute zero.

Jacques’s expression looked as if his ancestral graves had just been dug up.

”From today onward, you are an enemy of the Blood Clan... Herbert.”

He spoke the words almost one syllable at a time.

”It’s an honor.”

Fu Qian continued to drive up the aggro meter.

”And honestly, I really hadn’t heard of anything like the Blood Clan or the Children of the Stars before today. The number one faction in Laerdin is obviously the Celestial Sphere Cult.”

”Earlier, just Olinter alone showed up, and it looked like he caused you no small amount of trouble.”

”You’ll find out soon enough.”

Perhaps the aggro meter had spiked so high it overflowed and reset to zero; despite his obvious rage, Jacques actually sounded a bit calmer when he spoke.

”To the Blood Clan, mundane influence is meaningless. Would you care what a colony of ants thinks of you?”

”If we so desired, even the act of ’looking’ could cease to exist.”

”I believe you’ve already experienced that, haven’t you?”

”True. Was that also achieved through a commandment?”

The man was obviously referring to the evasion aura. Fu Qian nodded and asked.

”Of course. It is the most classic and most sublime manifestation of a commandment’s protection, bar none. It is also an innate gift shared by almost every member of the Blood Clan.”

”And it is precisely thanks to this that the Blood Clan remains a mere legend to this day.”

”After humans made this world excessively noisy, everyone tacitly began to hide their identities. Being discovered became a disgrace.”

Jacques wore a haughty expression.

”In any case, it is called the Untouchable!”

This name... Fu Qian shook his head as he listened.

Honestly, it was quite fitting, but just a little weird.

The situation Brother Jacques mentioned wasn’t too surprising. It perfectly fit the style of their race—they could always find a way to put on airs.

Of course, a group of arrogant figures who were ashamed to associate with ordinary people, yet still wanted to maintain an elegance acknowledged by those very people—it only took a moment of thought to see the contradiction.

”But I’ve made contact now.”

A moment later, Fu Qian issued a reminder.

...

This fresh, piping-hot dose of reality had maxed-out piercing damage, instantly choking Brother Jacques into silence.

”I can imagine the heroic bearing the Children of the Stars maintained over the long years thanks to that.”

Fu Qian, however, acted as if he didn’t see the man’s reaction, sighing in lament.

”But my apologies. Your description easily reminds me of the things in the dense fog outside the city.”

”Even The Order’s name for them is the Outcast of the Stars.”

”Bastard!”

Under this barrage of provocations, Brother Jacques finally swore.

’Hmph, did you think just anyone could sit in the seat of chief attending physician?’

Fu Qian, who had cured his patient’s speech impediment with a mere two sentences, scoffed inwardly at the sight.

Earlier, Brother Jacques clearly hadn’t wanted to offer any more opinions. Perhaps after repeated setbacks, he’d realized that talking too much was useless.

However, was speaking or not speaking something he could control?

Dealing with this kind of smug individual was far too easy.

”To compare something even filthier than you to the Blood Clan... I grow increasingly curious about your purpose here. In fact, that’s the reason I stayed.”

It seemed those things had nothing to do with the Blood Clan. From the Blood Clan’s perspective, they were even more blasphemous than a polluted creation like himself.

Watching the giant bat wings unfurl once again, Fu Qian summarized his gains and sighed inwardly.

Clearly, the value he could extract from this man through words had almost reached its limit.

Next, he would need to supplement it with body language.

”What an honor. I thought you stayed to stick to your principles.”

Fu Qian gestured toward Jane on the ground.

”Heh. Principles don’t mean inflexibility. Did you think you could use this to threaten me?”

Unsurprisingly, Jacques’s sneer rang out again.

Accompanying it were fine, thread-like blood-red patterns extending from the giant bat wings, creeping up inch by inch from beneath his feet. A thick stench of blood genuinely filled the air.

While they were talking just now, Brother Jacques clearly hadn’t been idle.

”It’s good to not be inflexible and know how to adapt, but you seem to have forgotten today’s main topic once again.”

Faced with this situation, Fu Qian didn’t panic in the slightest. He even offered a compliment before getting to the real point.

”What I mean is, regarding your solution of sharing the glory of the Children of the Stars... is it possible to reverse the process? Turn her back into an ordinary person, thereby solving her problem?”

His mission this trip was to purify the Blasphemous Blood. No matter how he looked at it, the current situation was related to the commandment gift Jane had received.

And it looked like Jacques’s final solution had caused him no small amount of trouble.

”There is.”

Jacques answered rather quickly.

”The commandments gathering inside her right now essentially have nothing to do with me anymore. They stem entirely from her connection with the Stars.”

”Considering that the Stars’ influence on this world is omnipresent, it’s very simple. All you have to do is destroy the world.”

”That is indeed an approach.”

Although Jacques’s tone was hardly serious, Fu Qian listened intently.

The next moment, his figure suddenly expanded. The Resplendent Tyrant was activated.