Eldritch Horror Theatre - Ch. 52: Turning a Blind Eye (Angel of Tranquility Complete)
By the time it was Feng Yunhong's turn, his voice was utterly filled with despair.
The once-massive vortex of flesh and blood was now so thin it was almost invisible; his decades of accumulation had been entirely exhausted by Fu Qian.
And the individual Beyonder consciousnesses contained within had also turned to ash.
Thorough, hopeless annihilation.
"What did you say just now?"
Facing Feng Yunhong's unwilling roars, Fu Qian suddenly spoke.
"For years you've endured unimaginable pain, so I can never defeat you, is that right?"
"Here, let me show you what true pain is."
Following the connection to the flesh vortex, Fu Qian channeled the endless mental shockwaves directly into Feng Yunhong.
Ah!
A beast-like roar erupted, and violent fluctuations instantly appeared in Feng Yunhong's consciousness.
Half a minute later, he let out a groan, on the verge of complete collapse.
"Who... exactly... are... you?"
"Fu Qian."
Facing a dying man, Fu Qian still maintained the full posture of a victor, enunciating his name with clear cadence.
Following an even more violent emotional fluctuation, Feng Yunhong could no longer hold on. His soul scattered and shattered, leaving behind a final testament full of deep resentment that echoed for a long time.
"I have to pay for this too?" [Note: Pun on the name 'Fu Qian' which sounds like 'pay money' in Chinese]
Sure enough, human joys and sorrows are not intertwined!
Fu Qian sighed emotionally; this guy seemed to have misunderstood something.
However, he couldn't muster any sympathy for Feng Yunhong.
Setting aside the fact that this guy was a ruthless character who had surpassed God-tier more than a dozen times, hunting down over twenty lost lambs in total...
Just the fact that for so many years, this guy had used this Stone Seat as a daily tranquilizer and completely failed to discover its true essence.
I can only say you were given a chance, but you were useless!
As the last trace of static faded and the flesh vortex completely integrated into his body, Fu Qian opened his eyes and slowly stood up from the Stone Seat.
On the outside, he looked exactly the same as before; even his strength hadn't noticeably increased.
But only he knew that he was entirely different now.
Looking at his hand, he was very certain he was currently in a subtle state, an existence similar to an invisible barrier.
It was hard to explain specifically, but to some extent, it was akin to the philosophical concept of "I think, therefore I am."
That is to say, he only existed here when he was actively aware of himself.
Once he let go, his existence would diffuse and merge with the entire Ruins.
Fu Qian glanced back at the Stone Seat.
If he guessed correctly, this thing was essentially the physical manifestation of the rules inside the Furnace, a high-level expression of the Weird Great Disintegration.
The meaning of the name 'Furnace' referred to refining and restructuring the life energy that entered it, achieving an ascension in life form.
Those palm-monsters, skull-centipedes, and the like were nothing but the lowest forms of restructuring.
He could only say he had underestimated it before. For Beyonders like Feng Yunhong and himself who couldn't be "digested," on one hand, they were naturally repelled by the Furnace's instincts and processed like Ambergris.
On the other hand, the Furnace still possessed the potential to digest them.
The prerequisite was the willingness to accept the shock—that is, to sit here, completely open up one's consciousness, and accept the baptism of that terrifying torrent of information.
Just like he had done earlier.
At this very moment, Fu Qian confirmed that, in a certain aspect, he was now an existence homogenous with the Furnace.
Now, it was time to complete the mission.
Before leaving, something shiny caught Fu Qian's attention.
It was Feng Yunhong's Long Halberd.
Fu Qian picked it up, weighed it in his hand, and casually jammed it into the ground next to the Stone Seat.
He had no interest in polearms.
Emerging from the Underground Church, no matter what kind of monster he encountered along the way, they all turned a completely blind eye to him. They had zero reaction, making his journey practically unobstructed.
Using his mystical connection with the Furnace, Fu Qian quickly located Ji Liushuang's group.
At this moment, the group was groping their way along the edges of the Furnace, searching for an exit.
The three teams had merged together, but their numbers were fewer than last time, likely having suffered more casualties.
Broken arrows fell from above as the archer brother began testing the high areas for potential weak points.
However, most of the people were clearly already in despair, their eyes filled with hesitation and lost hope.
Fu Qian kept walking straight toward them, only to find that everyone turned a blind eye to his arrival. As their gazes swept over him, they were completely blank, as if looking at thin air.
This state really was quite peculiar.
The monsters turning a blind eye to him could be explained by him being assimilated by the Furnace, making them treat him as one of their own.
But for this group of people to show the exact same reaction was quite interesting.
Fu Qian recalled the Furnace's effect of obliterating external information. Did it have similar properties?
Their eyes clearly saw him, but their consciousness couldn't register that they saw him, therefore they wouldn't react.
To prove his theory, Fu Qian chose to walk straight through the middle of the group.
As a result, out of the entire group, only Li Weixuan frowned slightly and looked around alertly.
Sure enough, unless the gap in realms was huge, noticing the anomaly was extremely difficult.
Now, the barrier was right in front of him.
Fu Qian directly reached out and touched it.
If last time he was squeezed out, this time he was absorbed.
Fu Qian felt as if he had become a part of the barrier, like a drop of water merging into the ocean, allowing him to easily travel through it.
Looks like it's time to clock out.
"Vice Dean Li, I still think we should explore deeper inside the Ruins."
Right at that moment, Fu Qian heard Ji Liushuang speaking quietly to Li Weixuan.
"Even though I was the one who suggested looking for a gap along the edge, it seems like a wasted effort now."
"Besides, Fu Qian is still inside. No matter what, we should confirm his situation."
"He acted on his own accord, completely disregarding the safety of others. I don't believe we have any obligation to risk ourselves for him!"
A voice of opposition arose, unsurprisingly.
This girl is actually quite thoughtful, even though she doesn't know I just walked right past her face.
Li Weixuan also agreed with Ji Liushuang's view, but the several opposing voices within the team made him hesitate slightly as well.
After all, the current situation was simply too bizarre, and taking rash action was far too risky.
Moreover, listening to Ji Liushuang's description, that student named Fu Qian's behavior was also exceedingly strange.
Fu Qian had originally intended to just walk away, but the scene before him made him pause. After a thought, he simply yelled a sentence toward Ji Liushuang.
Ji Liushuang was currently arguing red in the face with Yuan Xin and the others. Suddenly feeling something in her heart, she looked up at a specific spot ahead.
There was clearly nothing there, but she felt as if something was calling out to her.
Leaving the crowd behind, Ji Liushuang inexplicably walked forward, reached out to touch the spot, and then turned her head back in disbelief.
"There's... a hole here?"
As she spoke, even Ji Liushuang herself couldn't quite believe it.
But her hand was truly touching the edges of a smooth opening, just large enough for a person to bend over and pass through.
The moment her words came out, the crowd was stunned for a second before instantly surging forward.
There actually was a way out!
After confirming it was a real passage, under the coordination of Li Weixuan and Ji Liushuang, the highly emotional group passed through the tunnel one by one, escaping this despair-inducing prison.
Ji Liushuang insisted on being the last one to leave.
The instant she passed through the passage, she quickly grabbed a few stones from the ground and piled them into a marker, intending to leave a sign for the yet-to-emerge Fu Qian.
However, just a few seconds later, she looked at the marker on the ground with slight confusion, entirely unable to remember why she had just done that.
At this moment, the group that had escaped to safety was cheering thunderously. Li Weixuan called out to them, and they quickly headed in the opposite direction.
After the group had gone far away, Fu Qian floated out from the barrier.
Using his connection with the barrier, he had just attempted to open a path through it, and hadn't expected it to actually work.
It could only be said that Ji Liushuang had won her group a chance at survival.
[Containment Successful]
At that moment, the long-awaited notification finally chimed.
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