Eldritch Horror Theatre

So his old friends, the Marr Brothers, had actually walked this place not long ago?

Highly respected, yet they still retained a sense of free-spiritedness.

Although he had accepted Classmate Liushuang’s careful reminder, Professor Fu was in no rush to change his clothes.

He wasn’t even in a hurry to return to the Laboratory. Instead, he simply strolled through the Academy with his hands clasped behind his back, pondering everything that had happened in this disaster-prone place and his recent experiences in the Subterranean Ark.

Though he lacked absolute proof, it was ultimately confirmed to some extent that the entity that had just crawled out of the stomach was Marco.

Considering that back in Dunis, Marco had been smashed to pieces and even counted as a confirmed kill, the situation had grown increasingly bizarre. It truly qualified as an undying rebirth.

As for the trip to Silver Mist Manor, after being crushed, neither Marfu nor Malka had provided him with even a sliver of SAN Value. He had good reason to suspect they possessed a similar mechanism.

That meant that afterward, the two siblings had likely crawled out of some corpse’s stomach as well.

Given that he hadn’t encountered them during this exploration, the greatest possibility was that they had recovered to a certain extent and already left, completely without the Academy’s knowledge.

After all, with the Academy’s lax management and the probable cover provided by the Origin Council, it wasn’t strange at all for two Demigods to come without a shadow and leave without a trace.What was rather shocking here was the speed of their recovery.

Honestly speaking, it hadn’t been that long since Classmate Ji Liushuang last returned home, and yet the crushed Demigods had already gained a new lease on life.

This Origin Council truly encompassed quite a few extraordinary individuals.

As for why there was such a massive difference compared to Marco’s rebirth?

It was hard to say for sure. The only thing he could think of was the ”divinity” possessed by Marfu and his brother.

A High-Tier Transcendent represented a fundamental metamorphosis in essence. That wasn’t just empty talk.

Of course, this was all just a brainstorm for now. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that their vitality wasn’t actually that exaggerated, and they were still slowly incubating in the stomach of some corpse.

Unfortunately, Fu Qian was never overly optimistic.

There was a very simple piece of logic here. If this truly concerned the rebirth of two Demigods, would the Origin Council really have been so straightforward about using The Ark to shelter the Prison Archangel—an action that carried a massive risk of exposure?

Even now that they were truly exposed, he hadn’t seen them take any action. It faintly looked like a strategic abandonment.

...

Although the path of the transcendent was infinitely profound, it frequently couldn’t escape the concept of gain and loss.

Sighing softly, Fu Qian withdrew his gaze from the snow tree in front of him, not even snapping off a branch to examine it further.

After watching Classmate Liushuang leave, he had been deep in thought and ended up walking right up to this miraculous plant. It was just a pity that a bout of observation ultimately yielded nothing.

Visually, it was indeed quite pleasant. Even the bark could be considered delicate, and the leaves possessed a wondrous sense of beauty.

It was just a shame that even with the close-up observation of a Tier 2 Transcendent, he still couldn’t find anything special about it.

It was just a perfectly ordinary tree. Even the miraculous properties Classmate Liushuang had mentioned, he had yet to witness to this day.

In this season at the Academy, the morning temperatures easily dropped past the freezing point, to the extent that even the vegetation would frost over.

However, the snow tree’s leaves remained emerald green, showing no signs of changing color. It looked as though it absolutely had to wait for real snowflakes to fall upon it.

But as he had said before, coming up empty-handed was also a kind of harvest.

That faint feeling he had when revisiting the Benevolent Curse Institute with Su Gao seemed to become much clearer in this moment—specifically, regarding why The Ark hadn’t been moved away from here.

Classmate Liushuang had mentioned a very interesting point, which was that if this snow tree before him were taken away from here, it would lose its color-changing ability for unknown reasons.

His most plausible previous guess might just be correct: it wasn’t that Nepheli and her group didn’t want to move The Ark away, but rather that they couldn’t.

There was no way to recreate that Miracle acting as a dock to provide an Anchor Point for The Ark’s Descent—because they weren’t in the Academy.

That’s right. It seemed one could try to use the same explanation for why the snow tree would lose its miraculous color-changing reaction to snowflakes if it were taken anywhere else—

Namely, that some kind of shocking, mighty power had endowed this area with a transcendent-level concept, such as being an ”auspicious geomantic land.”

It was obscure, non-violent, and not easily detected.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have gone widely untested for so many years, especially in front of a group of people who courted death on a daily basis.

But it had indeed resulted in the emergence of certain situations.

Such as allowing the snow tree located within it to change color, and certain Miracles only being able to be reproduced here.

Move to another place, and it simply wouldn’t work.

It seemed he had once again felt the profound thickness of the world’s underlying fabric... Moreover, the person who picked this location back in the day had a great eye for it.

It was just a pity that proving this theory wouldn’t be an easy task.

He hoped Professor Ah Kai would bring him good news, such as a name that might be related to that Miracle.

”Gene?”

Amidst his reflections, in the very next moment, a name actually rang out in Fu Qian’s mind.

...

Of course, it wasn’t anything like his thoughts finally triggering the enlightenment of fate.

The exploration of knowledge was never that easy. It was merely that Fu Qian had attempted to respond to a certain call in his consciousness.

It came from the Greed Worms, Covenanters abducted from the Dominator of Death in the name of the King of the Abandoned Prison and the Visage of the Fool.

And it was specifically from Laywoman Tooth-Throat, whose voice was the loudest and most devout among them.

It wasn’t that he was a voyeur, nor was he preparing to use them for some kind of experiment again.

The reason he did this was because, just a moment ago, Laywoman Tooth-Throat’s prayerful call of faith had suddenly grown several degrees more intense.

And the moment Fu Qian responded, he seemed to faintly grasp the reason.

Right in front of Laywoman Tooth-Throat, impressively, was a face he had just seen not long ago.

He was also one of the Greed Worms, the one who had decided to accept the Anjing Company’s conditions and do his meager part in the conflict between the factions.

The face and the name matched up perfectly.

The only problem was that his complexion was vastly different from last time.

It was no longer just a matter of looking unwell. This was the first time Fu Qian had seen someone’s face literally ”turn green.”

It was still a human face, but its texture was somewhat similar to the snow tree he had just examined. It even looked as though his skin was genuinely suffused with chlorophyll.

Moreover, this change wasn’t limited to his head; it visibly permeated his entire body. In his perception, a line stretching from his left ribs to his waist was the thickest.

”It’s me... I can’t find Laurie...”

At this moment, Gene finally spoke up, his chest heaving violently as he talked.

”...Did you make your move today? Did you fall into an ambush by Siren?”

Having knocked about the jianghu for many years, Laywoman Tooth-Throat’s nose for danger was undoubtedly up to par.

After freezing for a moment and taking in the bizarre changes on Gene’s body, she seemed to realize something and quickly fired off a question.

”We did fall into an ambush, but it wasn’t Siren, it was something else—hurry and find a way to save me!”