Eldritch Horror Theatre

”A teachable child.”

”The essential attribute of desire is that it cannot be satisfied. Once it comes alive, it will seek to proliferate at all costs until cognition is thoroughly shattered and reduced to chaos. Most of the time, that Ecstasy is even considered to be the true self.”

This was the evaluation of the Invitation Letter found in the mission summary after the Attendant of Ecstasy was killed.

Truly worthy of being an elite student retained by the Academy’s top research team, Classmate Ji Liushuang had grasped this with just a little guidance.

She even used this insight to explain the series of events that had occurred up to this point, truly combining theory with practice.

As stated earlier, Fu Qian didn’t deny the significance of hope.

But in serious academic argumentation, he always did his best to abstain from the bad habit of optimism.

Given his rich imagination, the brief exchange at the ball had been enough for Fu Qian to envision the inner world of the Ecstasy Collective, to say nothing of Honma’s special case.

As for a conclusion, Fu Qian’s evaluation had never been optimistic to begin with.

And now, this lack of optimism was even firmer—the thirst for pleasure could never be eliminated, and aside from this single point, absolutely everything else could change.The specific manifestation was endlessly distorted and sublimated pleasure, such as—

The craving for the flesh...

The craving to restrain the flesh...

The craving to restrain the restraint of the flesh...

The craving to restrain the restraint of the restraint of the flesh...

This was by no means a simple vacillation back and forth, but rather endlessly stacking layers of depravity.

Speaking of which, this sentence structure was rather familiar. After he crushed the reward Carnival of Wicked Desires and upgraded Visceral Attack, its description had featured exactly this kind of infinite deepening: ”the inner of the inner of the inner.”

It was hard to call that a mere coincidence.

...

Truly gifted with extraordinary talent. While Old Man Qiao and the others were on the First Layer, Honma had already reached the Second Layer.

He had even just reached the Third Layer, and the Fourth Layer.

If one didn’t harbor beautiful expectations for the outcome like Professor Chang Mo did, Honma’s appearance of complete enlightenment after touching the Finger Orb and peering into the White-Headed Sanctuary could have an entirely different interpretation.

Namely, that a new pleasure was born from the negation of ”restraint.”

In essence, this was of the same nature as Honma beginning to enjoy fine food outside.

What the Finger Orb, or the White-Headed Sanctuary behind it, brought was the Sublimation of Ecstasy, not its elimination.

Even the alleviation of the other Ecstasy Collective members’ thirst for physical pleasure was essentially the same.

They weren’t beginning to become like normal people; they were beginning to become like Honma.

Of course, if it stopped there, it would merely offer another explanation without falsifying Professor Chang’s conclusion.

Under these circumstances, Professor Yi’an, the Academy’s founder of Ecstasy theory, was invited to take the stage once more.

And with holiness itself being defiled, Honma’s reaction became extremely interesting.

His performance could be interpreted as Ecstasy obtaining an even higher-level, indescribably wonderful pleasure from within itself after a brief metamorphosis.

Perhaps from Professor Chang’s perspective, it could still be explained as the holiness being defiled and losing its purifying effect on people’s hearts, causing Honma’s condition to relapse.

But even her beloved disciple’s subconscious choice when facing the question earlier had already proven how the sharp-eyed masses saw it.

Micro-innovation had finally yielded new discoveries.

Of course, if a report were to be written, it would be even better to have a few more pieces of supporting evidence...

Next, Fu Qian snapped his fingers.

High upon the platform, Yi’an, who was so entangled with the massive Emblem that they were almost indistinguishable from one another, slowly stopped his licking.

This quiet lasted for only a few seconds. With an eerie roar, his mouth expanded to its absolute limit, and he ruthlessly bit down.

...

Blood splattered outward, and it wasn’t just Yi’an’s blood.

The force of his bite was so massive that his already deformed mouth was brutally torn open once again.

However, aside from this wound, a thin crack unexpectedly appeared on the pristine white Emblem beneath Yi’an’s bite, and a liquid of an even more vibrant crimson flowed out.

So fragrant.

Almost simultaneously, a bizarre, sweet fragrance pervaded the air.

In this place that made one want to swear vows and exchange rings upon seeing it, a trace of obscenity seemed to have seeped into the holiness.

This further desecration seemed to catalyze a few special changes.

Naturally, Brother Honma’s ascension to an even higher level of pleasure was a given.

Seeing the Sanctum not only desecrated but actively damaged, his eyes instantly grew as bright as stars, and he drifted into an indescribable state of transcendence.

”Ignore it. Focus on observing and recording.”

Faced with this change, Fu Qian immediately cast a glance at Ji Liushuang beside him.

The latter clearly possessed sharp combat intuition and had realized that some sort of mutation was occurring.

The Weaver’s Limb Tip had already been drawn once more, ready to deal with any potential danger at a moment’s notice.

And Fu Qian’s immediate reminder was to make her focus on what she was supposed to be doing.

”Keep your observations and records free of bias.”

He even helped her review the key points he had covered earlier.

”Understood.”

Classmate Ji, who had long been won over by Professor Fu’s academic prowess, didn’t hesitate for a single second. She put away her weapon, trading the sword for the pen.

Urgh...

Almost immediately after, the prostrating Yi’an squeezed out a sound from deep within his throat.

However, rather than a howl, it was more like a moan, even a somewhat charming and soft moan.

The fresh blood overflowing at his lips seemed to carry an indescribable attraction, ravaging the little willpower he had left... as well as his body.

The next moment, as he completely lost control and leaned in to frantically suck at the crack, Yi’an’s body underwent a bizarre transformation.

Wrinkle-like lines crawled all over his body, then split and turned outward. The exposed flesh underneath continued to repeat this process, and in the blink of an eye, he looked like a sliced-open ball of tape.

This distortion brought about by the infinite outward turning caused him to lose almost the last traces of being human in the blink of an eye—except for his hair.

His messy hair, which Fu Qian had just been wondering if it was inconsistent with the Sanctum, was turning snow-white bit by bit.

In the very instant the transformation was fully completed, Fu Qian sensed that this figure—which was within his domain and manifested by him—was faintly breaking free from his will.

Not only that, but in the next moment, that body unfurled from the Emblem.

Although there was no longer anything that could be called eyes, and it didn’t even make a sound, in that split second, Fu Qian clearly knew it had locked onto him.

What followed was a moan that appeared directly in his consciousness, one that was agonizing to the extreme, yet also pleasurable to the extreme.

And the sublime, unfathomable power attached to it made his sanity feel as though it were being torn into pink bubbles—

Boom!

The voice within his consciousness came to an abrupt halt, replaced by a sound outside his consciousness.

As if struck head-on by an artillery shell, that body brimming with sexual tension explosively blasted in all directions, evenly plastered across the walls in pieces weighing no more than five grams each.

Did it really not know what the word ”Sovereign” meant?

At the same time, Fu Qian blew on the tip of his finger, as if he had just finished a completely trivial matter.