Eldritch Horror Theatre

”Huh?”

At that moment, Old Man Stoss clearly wasn’t the only one caught by surprise.

Unsurprising. Given the level of detail in Su Gao’s report, she had definitely mentioned the inconsistency in time flow between the inside and the outside, and likely even outlined the perceived ratio.

As transcendents, they didn’t need a clock to tell time; their own physiological rhythms were enough to gauge its passing.

The ambient brightness might have leaped sharply, but strictly speaking, the team had already been inside for quite a while.

Going by the report, it might not have been a full three days yet, but it had definitely been longer than half a day...

The theoretically negative news provided by Professor Fu made the atmosphere in that moment rather delicate.

”How certain are you?”

Excellency Stoss was ultimately the first to ask, though his hands remained poised to strike.

”Not very. If you hadn’t asked for my opinion, it absolutely wouldn’t be enough to convince you.”Fu Qian answered bluntly and honestly.

”Even now, my advice is simply to consider waiting a bit longer to see what happens.”

...

The little timekeeping trick naturally wasn’t nonsense, but Fu Qian certainly couldn’t tell Excellency Stoss the real reason—that the Warehouse was keeping time for him.

The time flow inside The Ark was unreliable. After his first experience, he was quite certain of this.

However, the cause of this unreliability still eluded him.

This posed a problem: given that The Ark had likely been in the hands of the Origin Council for a considerable time, was it possible they had figured out that cause?

It was by no means an overreaction. Exploring The Ark again was almost a certainty, and it was equally certain that he would be required to come along.

Although Fu Qian didn’t think the Origin Council was highly likely to slaughter the Night Watchers for no reason, he still left himself a small contingency plan against this potential danger: he hadn’t finished one of his tasks for the week.

Long before the Old Man’s visit, when he made a special trip back to the Warehouse to drop things off, the usual containment breach alert had appeared. He had casually rejected it using his Reassignment authority.

According to the Warehouse’s rules, a task could be delayed until midnight of that same day at the latest.

Given that they had entered around noon, there was a high theoretical probability that after half a day passed on the outside, he would be forcibly dragged into the Warehouse to complete the task.

Without a doubt, this would cause a lot of inconvenience, and he might even be judged as having deserted in the face of battle.

But buying insurance always cost money, didn’t it?

In fact, the better the insurance, the higher the premium.

Fu Qian considered such a contingency plan a worthy sign of respect for an old friend like the Origin Council.

And as it turned out, it actually seemed to be paying off.

Up until this moment, the Warehouse still hadn’t dragged him back.

The Ark’s Rank might be quite high, but in Fu Qian’s eyes, it was nowhere near high enough to shelter a Warehouse employee. Therefore, a highly likely explanation was that the ratio of internal to external time flow differed from last time.

What did this mean?

Coupled with the recent appearance of the Marr Brothers, it was easy to draw a straightforward conclusion: someone had tampered with it.

While the purpose of this tampering might be hard to confirm right now, one thing was certain: any ”reasonable” judgment made based on the resulting illusion was exactly what the manipulator intended.

...

”So how long do you think we should wait?”

Even at this critical juncture, Old Man Stoss’s mind remained sharp; he clearly sorted out the underlying logic very quickly.

This included Fu Qian’s statement about it ”not being enough to convince you.”

It was actually quite simple. If he hadn’t consulted the advisor before making a move, the advisor wouldn’t have voiced this potential guess and would have simply offered tacit support for his actions.

Only because of his prior performances did Stoss feel the advisor’s thoughts were still worth consulting at this crucial moment. Only then could this seemingly baseless, stream-of-consciousness guess possibly convince him.

It had to be said that the professional competence Professor Fu displayed was truly exceptional; this was the highest realm an operations advisor could achieve.

With a touch of quiet admiration, the Old Man asked his question, even putting away the lethal move he had been preparing. He clearly wanted to wait and see as well.

”Until someone can’t stand it anymore.”

Stepping sideways to dodge a drifting Feather, Fu Qian answered casually.

The area affected by the Feathers spread rapidly, already occupying nearly half the cabin.

The tremors rocking the ship were doing the same.

This wasn’t a simple swaying from wind and waves, but a shuddering on a spatial level. Under these circumstances, even a transcendent wouldn’t find it easy to stabilize themselves; it felt like their brains were going to be shaken right out of their skulls.

Wait a minute, it seemed something really did come out.

Clang—

Amidst the crisp sound, Su Gao stepped forward like a phantom beside him. Her weapon struck a target that had appeared out of thin air—and this time, it didn’t vanish back into nothingness.

It was a body so completely round that it instantly brought a walrus to mind. After literally rolling in a circle, it stood there.

Who else could it be? From a family with three transcendents, the very model of fraternal harmony and mutual respect—Malka of the Marr clan.

As expected of me.

Fu Qian even praised himself a little for matching those two bizarre names so perfectly.

It completely matched his previous guess. That familiar method of stealthy ambush belonged precisely to these two Demigods from the Origin Council, the ones who had started arguing at the end of the Silver Mist Manor incident over who was the true reincarnation of the Blasphemy Monarch.

Not only had they recovered from their injuries, they could even take on such a high-risk mission. It seemed the mental impact caused by the Blasphemy Monarch had also been handled by the Origin Council.

The organization’s foundations were deep indeed.

As for why they suddenly emerged when they had been hiding so well?

In fact, as the operations advisor, this was exactly the goal of Fu Qian’s suggestion to wait.

If this exaggerated level of concealment, far surpassing anything they had shown before, could only be achieved with the enhancement of The Ark, then what would happen if The Ark’s state became too erratic?

While it was certainly uncomfortable for his own group, wasn’t it possible that the Marr Brothers would also be somewhat affected?

The facts had already proven this wasn’t blind optimism. Malka’s appearance just now clearly hadn’t been his own intention; Classmate Su Gao had forced him out, nearly cleaving him with her sword again.

Of course, this was partly due to their concealment weakening, but on the other hand, it also served to demonstrate the immense strength of Demigod Su’s abilities once again.

As for the stick-thin Malfoy, who was always inseparable from Malka—where was he?

”You stupid pig—”

Almost in the very next moment, an unceremonious, furious roar rang out from Malka’s abdomen.

Although it was hard to distinguish beneath the layers of fat folds, Fu Qian could still confirm that it was indeed Malfoy.

Perhaps due to abdominal resonance, his voice was even louder than the last time they met.

When they were on Layer 1, the continuous lethal attacks from Su Gao and the Old Man hadn’t been easy to digest.

After one brother’s body had been shattered, he had resorted to parasitizing the other to survive. Fu Qian had already seen such a method last time.