Eldritch Horror Theatre

The Lord was already gone.

A decisive man was decisive in everything—from his earlier, relentless barrage of emotionless attacks to his current, unhesitating retreat.

Fu Qian was quite certain that the transformation the Lord underwent when the Meteor struck was no simple concealment technique.

It was a state shift akin to his earlier ambush tactics. It allowed him to enter the game as a piece, confusing his opponent by staying within the blast radius while remaining completely unscathed.

Fu Qian used to be capable of something similar; the Blood Crusade was essentially an advanced version of that very trick.

What a pity. He couldn’t bring the Ring in this time, nor could he use it.

In short, the Lord was not only decisive but thoroughly prepared. He had been waiting to sweep the battlefield and pick off the wounded the moment his ultimate attack landed.

Unfortunately, after witnessing the actual effects of his ultimate move, he had clearly recognized the futility of it all. He bailed immediately, fleeing with the utter detachment of a monk renouncing the mortal world.

Not that he needed to be so on edge. Fu Qian hadn’t planned on making him stay in the first place.

Sociable or not, based on what Ballard had said earlier, the Lord still ran with a few like-minded individuals.They would surely find some way to help spread the prestigious name of Dayun Mingwang.

...

Something was off about this assignment.

It wasn’t that there were too many anomalies; it was that everything felt far too normal.

Yes, even though the Prophet was dead, the current state of the Unseen Hill hardly seemed dire enough to warrant the Warehouse bothering him again.

There were no catastrophic disasters, nor were there any traces of the ’flames’ from before. If anything, the world seemed to be progressing toward the ’beautiful new era’ he had envisioned at the end of his last assignment.

The souls had escaped their ashen fate, ushering in a future of limitless possibilities.

Under these circumstances, the Prophet’s power shouldn’t have been of much use anyway. His outright death was just a rather extreme escalation.

Most crucially, what was he actually here to do?

The Warehouse hadn’t even fulfilled its basic duty of providing a prompt as quickly as possible.

Moreover, one of his main takeaways from previous assignments was that staying in this place for too long risked assimilation.

Ultimately, in Fu Qian’s view, taking things slowly was no longer a good option. Since he had returned, he might as well take a high-profile approach.

The Lord was already handling the publicity on one end. As for the other—

”Hold on tight if you don’t mind. We’re leaving.”

Offering that warning to the thing coiled around his body, Fu Qian looked up and surveyed his surroundings.

The commotion from just now had been a bit too loud. Now that the dust had settled, the crowd of distant onlookers was steadily growing.

”Good. I’ll pick a place, then.”

As he observed, Fu Qian clearly felt the black fluid constricting more tightly around him. Nothing with any vitality remained on the ground—a clear response to his suggestion, even if it made the pungent odor that much stronger.

He wasted no time in the next moment; the tentacles above his head finally retracted rapidly.

By the time they condensed into a single point, the area below was already completely empty.

...

”Satisfied with this spot? I thought you might want somewhere quiet.”

Not much time had passed. Fu Qian took a seat and called out again, checking on his passenger’s opinion.

The seat beneath him was soft, and the view was open. During the day, this place was clearly an excellent spot.

Even now, with the lights off, it provided concealment without feeling too claustrophobic.

For a contestant who might need some emotional soothing, Fu Qian considered it a good choice.

”So this works? We should still have a little time. Once you calm down, tell me if you remember anything.”

Met with no objections, Fu Qian was quite satisfied. He leaned back in the comfortable seat and lightly tapped his fingers on the tabletop.

Because of that layer of black fluid, nearly half his body looked as if it were clad in a black leather suit, including this arm.

It was a pity. The crab cakes he had eaten here last time were quite good, but his timing was unlucky—the staff were all off the clock.

Indeed, this was actually a familiar old place.

It was the restaurant he had visited twice during his past assignment, the very place he had first met Ballard and Akasha.

It hadn’t taken Fu Qian much effort to find it just now.

Everything he had seen along the way further confirmed his earlier suspicions. There were no shocking scars of destruction; the Unseen Hill looked exactly as it had back then.

He could even tell from the lingering aromas in the air that this restaurant was still operating well.

As for why he had gone out of his way to come here, fully aware it was past dining hours—

”Who... are... you...”

Not much time had passed. In the quiet darkness, Fu Qian actually managed to wait until a voice spoke.

Though the voice was low, raspy, and thoroughly inhuman, and the question itself lacked substance.

”Who are you?”

But it didn’t matter. This was already massive progress.

For a moment, Fu Qian patiently fired the question right back, offering a gentle guide.

”I am...”

The speaker wasn’t overly stubborn and accepted the prompt almost immediately.

Judging by the raspy voice vibrating against his chest once more, the entity had evidently fallen deep into thought.

”I remember now. I am not a monster. My name is... Catherine.”

After another stretch of patient waiting, she finally snapped out of her daze, awaking as if from a dream.

...

Or rather, ”she.”

Indeed. Aside from the nice atmosphere, the lingering scents, and the chance to reminisce, Fu Qian had chosen this spot hoping for a specific effect: to help his passenger do a bit of reminiscing of her own.

There was a reason he had let the Lord go so easily. While the Lord clearly hadn’t been sure what this thing coiled around him was, Fu Qian was fairly certain of its identity.

Catherine—a Mid-Tier Transcendent, a blood slave to the Spider Silk Queen, Akasha, imprisoned as a waitress in this very restaurant just so she would taste better when enjoyed.

In the fabricated history, she had taken his order once, and then proceeded to perform a live demonstration of swallowing a man whole.

And her appearance back then was exactly that of a mass of black fluid lined with stark white teeth.

Granted, there were plenty of things in the Unseen Hill with a similar aesthetic. There was the liquid that erupted from the clown’s body when he slammed into the ground, and there was the Sage in the lake, who looked suspiciously like a giant tongue.

But by applying the four diagnostic methods of looking, smelling, questioning, and pulse-feeling, and combining them with that highly distinctive odor, his judgment leaned heavily in one direction.

That was why, almost the very moment the midnight carriage started its devouring frenzy, Fu Qian had already formed a guess about the entity’s origins, and even why it had ended up like this.

Based on Akasha’s reactions back then, he surmised that even in the true history, Catherine must have gone berserk and ultimately been put down by Ballard.

On one hand, the wills within the Unseen Hill wouldn’t truly die; at the same time, their method of return was entirely unpredictable.

If Akasha could wake up directly inside someone else’s body, then Catherine turning into a mindless monster capable only of imitation and devouring didn’t seem all that strange, did it?

The main reason he had brought her here this time was to verify if his guess was correct, and to see if there was any possibility of helping her clear her head.