Eldritch Horror Theatre

So he had really switched to Mechanical Ascension?

And in its complete form?

Saying his Transcendent Perception had completely vanished was no exaggeration. In the blink of an eye, Fu Qian confirmed he had lost all means of gathering information outside his normal senses.

Wherever he looked, Calamity ruled.

Where he couldn’t, he could only rely on the boundless grace of the Tyrant.

At the same time, this Tyrant’s power was entirely real. Given another chance, beating the Dragon King to death in three punches wouldn’t be much of a problem.

To be specific, it felt like completely transforming into an alloy structure—invincible and unrivaled—while entirely discarding his internal wetware, severing him completely from mind over matter.

It was a truly strange sensation. Even his Mythical Form—which he had previously described as being filled with internal gears and parts—felt different now.

It was more precise, more perfect.

Though its exterior remained the same, it was like a computer where everything but the case had been upgraded. The internals had been completely overhauled, and the Tyrant’s complete mighty power surged through interlocking mechanisms that had scaled up by an order of magnitude.So his previous lack of capability wasn’t an issue with the form itself. This ”machinery” was not some crude imitation of an ancient higher entity; now, he had even retrieved the missing modules.

It was excellent and extremely powerful, but also genuinely bizarre.

Even his ”perception” of his internal state just now had been reconstructed by gathering information akin to signals. It was completely different from his previous Transcendent Perception.

In short, he seemed to have reached the absolute peak of a certain state—an incomparably pure, ”mechanically reset” higher entity. This remained true even if he canceled his Mythical Form.

His body rapidly shrank, and soon the throne beneath him was no longer a perfect fit.

Examining his flesh-and-blood body, where the damage was practically negligible, Fu Qian instantly confirmed that his Transcendent Perception hadn’t improved at all.

...

During that ”reorganization” process just now, an inconceivable Sublimation had clearly taken place.

Scars, curses, distortions... All the damage caused during the night of the assassination—some of which was even hard-to-remove ”poison”—had been entirely resolved during this process.

And right now, even without his Mythical Form, he was a complete King of the Abandoned Prison walking the earth.

Fu Qian deliberately twitched his eyebrows. Through the muscular pull of that movement, he confirmed he still had his original face.

But there were two problems here. First, his method of confirmation—just like ”perceiving” his internal structure earlier—was a purely technical maneuver without any Transcendent Perception involved.

Second, he was still wearing the Emissary Mask on his face.

Theoretically, if he didn’t actively adjust it, he should be wearing the face of the Bookstore Owner, Fang Xun.

Sure enough, did becoming a big shot make it easier to go about standing by one’s true name and surname?

It wasn’t a major issue, considering this alternate persona was already semi-public.

But slightly more troublesome was the fact that he apparently needed to adapt to a new way of molding his face.

Fu Qian twitched his other eyebrow, and his face rapidly shifted toward the image he had used in Shangjing.

Under his exaggerated control, not only was the transformation still precise, but its speed hadn’t slowed down much either.

Compared to before, however, it felt like the technical school had replaced the impressionist school—it seemed to lack a bit of soul.

In fact, that wasn’t the only thing missing a soul.

Fu Qian proceeded to raise his hand, and several invisible bullets howled through the air in quick succession.

Air Bullet, one of the earliest supernatural abilities he had obtained, was still present. Yet the way it was ”present” seemed different, and its execution process felt less tied to mysticism.

For example, with the ”warheads” he had just fired—if he wanted to, he could directly control their shape, or even whether they spun.

And if he didn’t actively control them, they formed with an overly uniform circular cross-section.

Then there was flesh deformation.

In the blink of an eye, Fu Qian’s other hand morphed into a ferocious giant claw—the exact shape he had used to mimic the Blood Clan’s claws of darkness before.

It worked flawlessly, but this was also the result of precise control. If he just followed his instincts and let it act freely—

The next moment, the dark claw deformed slightly. To sum it up, it became even more ferocious.

Compared to its original mysterious and gloomy nature, its lines became much more rigid. The talons at the tips weren’t just sharp like a dagger; their fierce contours were practically identical to one.

Whether straight or curved, they undoubtedly possessed a highly unnatural geometric feel—the Frenzied Flame had given off the same sensation just now.

All in all, his supernatural effects remained, but their form had become subtle. It was like the difference between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla.

Even though both claws were black, the latter had more of a metallic texture, much like that bird blood from before.

Squelch—

On the hand Fu Qian had used to fire the Air Bullets, all five fingers simultaneously burst into tentacles, and each of the five was entirely different—

A black-and-red tentacle, a fanged blind snake, a mechanical tendril, a chained python, and one that was simply a sharp whip topped with Spikes...

It was miraculous. Furthermore, what supported them was still a body of flesh and blood.

Faced with this marvelous transformation, Fu Qian clicked his tongue in admiration, not feeling much discomfort at all.

Although he still didn’t know the essential reason behind this, as a pragmatist, he knew the increase in his Rank and Combat Power was undeniably real.

He was now unquestionably a humanoid weapon. Among those old friends of his from the past, none would likely want to take a punch from him.

The trouble lay elsewhere—clatter!

Fu Qian poured out a pile of Rings of different colors and styles, along with other items, and casually fiddled with them.

Sure enough.

Items with inherently passive effects seemed unaffected, like Emissary, or the sedatives.

The same went for those with no specific usage requirements—like the Eternally Lucid Mind that even Young Master Qin and the others could activate.

But things grew difficult with certain embedded equipment effects that required Transcendent Perception to act as an activation medium.

Fu Qian picked out the Dark Moon Ring, which looked like an embracing lone moon, slipped it onto his finger, and felt its eternally unchanging icy coldness.

Yet after a moment, he still hadn’t found the switch for Burning Frost.

The same went for Lucid Dream...

And Favor...

A significant portion of his equipment seemed to have lost its operating system. If he wanted to use them again, would he have to swallow them with Insight first?

That would be a bit too extravagant.

After all, it was hard to say whether their effects could be perfectly preserved, and Insight’s slots had a limit.

Aside from those, there was also Sword Three Short of One, Dimensional Poison... and even his SAN Value, which he used to be able to check at any time when his abilities were unrestricted.

These should all still be there, but they were already completely impossible to grasp.

In short, it was an interesting change worth studying closely later. At the same time, an even more realistic problem lay before his eyes... Fu Qian once again looked down upon this Land of Self-Abandonment.

This place was obviously a surreal location. In his current state, lacking Transcendent Perception, would he be able to come back if he left?—Of course he could.

He spread out the highly textured dark claw. In the next moment, a stream of fine sand swirled up from beneath his feet, rapidly coalescing, smelting, and deforming...

Finally transforming into tiny components that spliced together.