Eldritch Horror Theatre - Ch. 41: You Have Yet to Realize the Gravity of the Situation
"Easy for you to say, it could be extremely dangerous. People could literally die!"
"Just the two monsters we encountered on the outside already caused casualties, and you want everyone to venture deeper inside?"
Fu Qian's words immediately sparked a strong reaction, or rather, fierce opposition.
Entering the interior of the Ruins...
Li Weixuan pondered for a moment, looking at Ji Liushuang and the others.
"What do you guys think?"
"If we don't want to just sit here and wait for death, going inside to find a way out is our only option."
Unexpectedly, Ji Liushuang's attitude was surprisingly resolute.
"And the sooner, the better. We need to do it while most of us are still in relatively good shape. Dragging this out is just a slow death."
She's truly decisive! Fu Qian secretly praised her.
"Isn't the risk too great?!"
At this moment, Yuan Xin suddenly interjected.
"These Ruins are bizarre in every way. We have absolutely no idea what we might encounter inside. To just dive headfirst into it is too reckless."
Rarely standing his ground, he's actually singing a different tune than the goddess?
Fu Qian glanced at Yuan Xin with interest, only to find the latter glaring coldly at him.
I overestimated him. Seems he's just unhappy that Ji Liushuang agreed with my proposal.
"We haven't reached a dead end yet. Some of us are injured, so it feels safer to rest and recuperate here for a bit."
Huang Zhaoyan, who was beside him, quickly chimed in.
Just because he usually had conflicts with Yuan Xin didn't mean he didn't value his own life.
"As long as people on the outside don't hear from us for a few days, they'll definitely notice something is wrong.
When they send people over to investigate, we can coordinate from the inside and outside to figure something out. The situation is far from being that desperate."
"Resting and waiting for rescue in a place where you don't know what dangers you'll face the next second? What are you thinking? Do you even know how far the Academy is from here?"
Ji Liushuang sneered and retorted bluntly.
Watching the crowd erupt into an argument, Li Weixuan furrowed his brows.
Being highly skilled and bold, he was more inclined to go inside and investigate. However, with lives at stake, as a competent leader, he certainly couldn't ignore the students' opinions and act arbitrarily.
"Idiots."
At this point, Fu Qian shook his head.
"What do you mean?"
Huang Zhaoyan had barely dared to look at Fu Qian since earlier, but now that he was directly called an idiot, he couldn't just not react.
"Have any of you ever considered a certain problem?"
Fu Qian looked around.
"This place has clearly existed for a very long time. Why don't you have any information about it whatsoever?"
This...
Fu Qian's words successfully made everyone fall deep into thought.
Put that way, it was indeed strange. True, this place was remote, but over so many years, it was unjustifiable that such a dangerous and unique location had absolutely no rumors surrounding it.
"Could there be this possibility?"
Fu Qian looked at the reactions around him with satisfaction.
"The moment you enter this place, your existence in the outside world is erased."
What?
The group collectively froze.
"Is that hard to understand? Then let me ask you, has anyone ever heard of someone going missing here?"
"As far as I know, no."
Ji Liushuang muttered to herself, her eyes losing focus.
"Then how do you explain that pile of hair and arms we encountered? Just looking at those two, there are plenty of victims."
"So the truth is, once you step foot in here, all information regarding your existence in the outside world is erased. No one will remember you or acknowledge your existence, whether it's family, friends, or lovers."
"Note, it's not death, but erasure. They won't even retain memories of you.
Even if your wedding photo hangs above your bed, your closest loved one will still turn a blind eye to you in it, only wondering why they bought two sets of tableware."
Fu Qian blinked at Ji Liushuang.
"Beautiful lady, there is a slight possibility that at this very moment, your parents have already forgotten they ever had a daughter like you."
...
"Nonsense, how is that possible?"
"Absolutely absurd!"
"Alarmist talk! I've never heard of such a thing!"
The picture Fu Qian described in his calm, narrative tone was so hair-raising that the group subconsciously began to refute it one after another.
Could it really be true?
Ji Liushuang bit her lip. Thinking about it now, some things really couldn't be explained.
For such a bizarre place, everyone had done their homework before setting off, yet they found absolutely no related information.
If it wasn't deliberately concealed by someone...
But if what he said was true...
Thinking about the image of herself completely disappearing from her parents' world, not even leaving behind a trace of memory, as strong as she was, she still found it hard to breathe.
"So, give up your pointless fantasies. No one is coming to save you."
Fu Qian twisted the knife.
"Unless you escape on your own."
...
Ultimately, it was Li Weixuan who recovered first. Seeing the whole group fall silent, he took a deep breath.
"This place is indeed bizarre. Sitting and waiting for death is not the solution. Everyone, follow me to investigate the inside of the Ruins."
This time, there were no voices of dissent; in fact, there were no voices at all.
Done!
Fu Qian snapped his fingers, very satisfied with the current result.
No matter what, for the first exploration of the Ruins' interior, he couldn't afford to lose a powerful fighter like Li Weixuan, so this group had to come along.
Of course, strictly speaking, what he just said was still an unconfirmed speculation.
But people are often like that. As long as you provide an explanation for something, no matter how outrageous it is, a group of people will inevitably ponder its possibility before finding another answer.
The more they think, the more terrifying it becomes.
Along the way, the team fell into an oppressive silence. Everyone looked like they had lost their souls, their morale plummeting to -99.
Fu Qian had successfully, single-handedly, driven the team's morale to the brink of collapse.
Li Weixuan wasn't as calm as he appeared on the surface either. However, as an expert among experts, he fully utilized his strengths and successfully transformed his unease into sheer anger.
Wielding a longsword temporarily requisitioned from a student, he led the charge almost the entire way. Anything he saw moving was immediately enveloped in a rain of sword strikes.
The secretive and sinister hair monsters, the agile and ferocious floating palms—these monsters that had previously caused the team immense trouble were shredded to pieces under the berserk sword aura of a Tier 4 Peak.
His efficiency was so high that even Fu Qian gave up on the idea of kill-stealing.
The students behind him were as quiet as winter cicadas. They were already in a trance, and now they were terrified out of their wits by this god-like might.
Led by the enraged Li Weixuan, the group was practically invincible, driving straight into the heart of the Ruins.
The inside was even more bizarre than the perimeter.
Various types of buildings were stacked in layers, squeezed together in an unimaginable way. At a glance, it looked like the Spring Festival rush; they couldn't even find a road, forcing them to walk across rooftops in many places.
And here, aside from the hair and palms they had seen before, there was also a type of giant white centipede.
Upon closer inspection, every segment of the centipede's body was composed of human skulls.
The deformed skulls had their mouths wide open, tightly biting down on the top of the next skull, stacking down in this pattern in an endless, undulating line.
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