Feast

Chapter 48: Feast

[Clear Dream: After activation, causes targets within a certain range to fall into a brief shared dream.]

Fu Qian checked the rewards for the two Transcendent achievements. To his surprise, [Clear Dream] turned out to be another ring!

Though calling it another ring wasn't quite right. Tyrant's Fist might look like a ring, but it was classified as a weapon.

Compared to Tyrant's Fist, Clear Dream looked much more ordinary.

Its silver-white metal band was carved with intricate patterns, and the flat face of the ring was set with tiny gemstones clustered together to form a swirling nebula.

A slight movement sent icy blue light flowing across it, dreamlike and unreal.

Making everyone in a certain area fall asleep sounded a bit like hypnosis. Its special feature was probably the shared dream.

Make a group of people have the same dream? Like Inception? That was pretty interesting.

He couldn't think of any use for it just yet, but the ring was quite beautiful. Fu Qian slipped it onto his other middle finger.

He turned his attention to the next reward: [Feast].

[Feast: Greatly increases vitality. Cannot be deactivated once activated.]

[The body's form is unimportant. Only the soul's joy is the feast.]

From the name, he'd thought it might be something like devouring corpses to recover health. But based on the description, it seemed Feast's target was himself.

Greatly increase vitality?

Fu Qian was a little puzzled. His vitality already seemed high enough. How much higher could it get?

And the part about being unable to deactivate it sounded rather serious.

Another one-way road!

Unfortunately, Fu Qian was a very curious person. After hesitating for a few seconds, he talked himself into it and activated the skill.

Feast glowed with a soft light before vanishing without a trace.

At the same time, Fu Qian felt ripples of vibration appear inside his body and quickly sweep through him.

His bones, muscles, and tendons all thrummed with the ripples, which eventually overlapped in waves of resonance beneath his skin.

Only after a long while did the vibrations gradually stop.

"Doesn't seem like anything's changed!"

Fu Qian clenched his fist. He didn't feel any significant increase in strength.

The next moment, something came to him, and he swung a punch through the air.

The wind howled. As his fist reached the end of its arc, his index finger suddenly straightened and shot out a full arm's length with a whistle, turning into a finger-gun.

I think I understand what this vitality thing does.

Fu Qian withdrew his finger and took a deep breath.

With a ripping sound, a huge mouth opened on his chest, filled with countless sharp fangs.

Just as he'd thought!

A transformation that had once taken considerable effort could now be done in an instant. He didn't even need to tear open a wound first.

Fu Qian quickly returned to normal, more or less certain of the change [Feast] had brought him.

If Thug Form had lifted his human limit on strength, then Feast had removed the limits on his shape in the traditional sense.

He could now freely transform any part of his body without worrying about it falling apart.

Impressive! A little monstrous, though!

Still, it was worth all the effort.

Overall, Fu Qian was satisfied with what he'd gained.

After checking his rewards, he selected Incident Replay.

Just moments ago, he'd realized he'd overlooked something.

The notification that containment had failed hadn't appeared until after he left the barrier. That in itself was understandable.

But he clearly remembered what had happened when [2-292] breached containment.

When Wen Li had lost her chance to advance after Wen Xiuxian's death shattered her mind, he'd received a mission-failed notification immediately.

Comparing the two incidents revealed something: even after he'd left the barrier in a shattered state, he'd still had a chance to complete containment.

In other words, there had to be a way inside the furnace to recover from his mental breakdown.

He quickly dragged the progress bar to the end and watched himself walk outside the barrier, his body and mind both broken.

His body was badly deformed, covered in faces trying to escape. Their expressions were even clear enough to make out.

There were men's and women's faces, and quite a few matched the Blood Faces that had appeared after Feng Yunhong's self-detonation.

But something seemed to be missing!

Frowning, Fu Qian rewound to the instant Feng Yunhong blew himself up and watched closely. Sure enough, he spotted something unusual.

After Feng Yunhong exploded into a storm of flesh and blood, every Blood Face that spread through the air bore a strange mark shaped like four hands rotating counterclockwise.

This...

Thinking back to Feng Yunhong's condition when they'd first met, even Li Weixuan hadn't noticed anything wrong with him. That meant he'd kept the consciousness of those Blood Faces firmly suppressed.

Feng Yunhong was clearly hiding a secret. With some special method, he could suppress his mental breakdown to a certain extent and keep himself from losing his mind.

That was probably why he'd roared that Fu Qian's actions were reckless.

Looks like he'd have to find a way to talk things through with Feng Yunhong next time.

After watching it several times and making sure he hadn't missed anything, Fu Qian touched the Mist Door again without hesitation.

[1 Sanity Value consumed. Attempting containment again. Current Sanity Value: 54]

[...1%...5%...15%...50%...75%...99%...100%, Containment Scene loaded]

"Strange. Is this place even on the map?"

Yuan Xin's voice came from ahead. A half-collapsed wall appeared, and the team began discussing whether to rest there.

It was starting!

Fu Qian stretched and, under the astonished gazes of the group, walked straight from the back of the line to the front.

"Fu Qian, what are you doing? Don't change formation without permission."

Yuan Xin, who'd been talking with Ji Liushuang, noticed his strange behavior and called out irritably. The latter ignored him completely.

"I'm talking to you!"

Yuan Xin flared up and reached for Fu Qian's shoulder. But his hand grabbed nothing. In the blink of an eye, Fu Qian had moved several meters away from the group.

"I'm going ahead to scout."

Without even looking back, Fu Qian kept walking and stepped over the wall blocking his way.

Fu Qian walked away without looking at him even once. Yuan Xin was first stunned, then filled with indignation.

But he wasn't about to lose his head over it. After taking a deep breath, he looked to Ji Liushuang for her opinion. She hesitated, then shook her head.

"Fu Qian doesn't seem to want us following him. To be safe, we should rest here as planned and find a way to contact Dean Li later—"

Ji Liushuang's eyes froze before she could finish.

From the shadows, a mass of black spikes suddenly shot out from behind the broken wall, hurtling toward Fu Qian's back.

The group cried out. But Fu Qian seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. He lightly pushed off the ground with one foot and sprang forward, just barely dodging the ambush. His body quickly vanished into the mist.

The nine-person team stood frozen in place. It took them a while to react and move away from the broken wall.