Chapter 2935: Precise Excision

Cast a long line to catch a big fish.

As the saying goes, when you covet excessive returns, someone else is usually coveting your principal.

He hadn't been so generous with his SAN Value out of some naive kindness like, 'What if she can be saved?' And filial piety was even more out of the question.

Fu Qian had paid this cost with only one goal in mind.

That was to confirm whether it was possible to precisely excise "Annalise" without destroying the entire Bottom Layer of the Dream.

He had already reasoned that wiping this place out entirely would likely have some effect.

However, it might cause unnecessary collateral damage, and the medicine might be a bit too strong for the Red Moon to swallow.

So, was there any way to optimize this approach?

There was. For example, seeing if he could "fatten her up for the slaughter."

Annalise's shattered traces, which were the root of the Red Moon's curse, had most likely fused into the Blood Nova.

But between the depth of that fusion and the fact that his Burial Scroll was unusable, securing a precise lock-on was extremely difficult.

To deal with this kind of hidden ailment, he figured he might as well feed it some nutrients and try to coax it into an "obvious ailment." This was exactly why Fu Qian had been so pleased earlier when his SAN Value dropped.

For one thing, the nutrient delivery had gone very smoothly.

For another, his current stockpile was in the triple digits, giving him a fair amount of buffer to burn through—and he could even conduct a little SAN Value research while he was at it.

The results had been quite ideal.

Once fattened up, the Annalises had not only united, but to further strengthen themselves, they had actively appeared in front of him to chase down more SAN Value.

In the end, this mutual pursuit had reached a perfect conclusion. At the cost of nearly thirty points of SAN Value, the opportunity for a full-firepower precise excision had finally emerged.

So next—Fu Qian raised the hand holding Annalise's Lie.

True, he could still afford to pay the SAN Value, but it seemed there was no further value in communicating.

He hadn't hidden this Item belonging to Annalise at any point, yet it hadn't sparked the slightest interest from the other party.

It was a thoroughly dead object now.

Since that was the case—Bang!

Fu Qian shaped his fingers into a gun and fired a shot at the head wearing the stone crown, not forgetting to provide the sound effects himself. ...

Didn't a saying go something like, "A mortal's growth relies on self-destruction; a God-Man's growth relies on patricide and matricide"?

Fu Qian had always felt there was some truth to that.

Of course, if one insisted on asking exactly who said it, when and where, or in which famous book?

The answer was his first and final summer vacation in college, coined while he was poisoning people's minds on a forum under the alias Razor Consultant.

Naturally, having the chance to personally verify it years later was something his past self never could have expected.

Moreover, the verification process was truly spectacular.

At that moment, as the Calamity Eyes detonated with full force, it wasn't surprising that the attack still manifested as the Golden Flame of Madness.

Perhaps because the target was too large, or perhaps lured by the concept of the Blood Nova, the Flame of Frenzy didn't erupt from his body this time. Instead, it transformed into a Meteor in the dark night.

In that moment, the frontier of this Nightmare was completely shrouded by the brilliance descending from the sky.

...

World-destroying. It could no longer be described as the extinction of the dinosaurs; this was an extinction that wiped out the dinosaur fossils along with them.

Against a special creation like the "Rebirth" Annalise, the Flame of Frenzy displayed terrifying destructive power.

It was evident that "Annalise" had still managed some defensive moves.

Yet whether it was the barrier condensed from darkness or her suddenly ethereal body, the heavenly flames surged with the momentum of a bulldozer, crushing everything in their path.

They struck the target, blooming in the most brutal manner imaginable.

With just the first wave of impact, that fragile "building block structure" collapsed with a boom.

As for the building blocks themselves, they were annihilated clump by clump, leaving not even ashes behind.

It wasn't even over yet. The golden brilliance continued along the Umbilical Cord, delving deep into the wound on the ground as if to completely ignite the Star.

Faced with this scene, Fu Qian felt deep satisfaction and gave up any thought of stepping forward to deliver a finishing blow.

Instead, he focused on examining the Calamity Eyes corresponding to "Annalise" in his vision until they completely dissipated.

...

Thirty-nine points. It was even more economical than expected, not even dropping his total below three digits. Brilliance always had its curtain call. The moment the last trace of the Flame of Frenzy dissipated, Fu Qian finished tallying his SAN Value loss for the strike.

He could only say it was exactly what you'd expect from a soulless, mutilated corpse—it really couldn't take a beating.

It even dragged the Blood Nova down, causing it to suffer heavy damage—

Fu Qian looked down at his feet. The view was nothing short of hellish.

There were bottomless, giant ravines, as if a pillar of death had been continuously smoldering downward.

At the same time, not a single speck of ash was left behind; there were only writhing, tearing barriers of flesh and blood.

It truly lived up to the name Blood Nova—not a speck of non-biological matter could be seen.

But this purity also led to a major problem: it looked like there was nowhere to hide from the agony caused by the pillar of death.

Everything was struggling, including the broken and intact Umbilical Cords, as well as every drop of blood flowing from them.

Ultimately, it gave the impression that the pain wasn't just failing to diminish as it transmitted; it was actually resonating.

So much so that even though the golden flames had extinguished, the tremors beneath his feet were growing increasingly violent, tearing the ravines into even more hideous wounds.

But looking on the bright side, at least he didn't find any gestating Annalises in these wounds anymore.

The excision surgery looked to have been quite successful.

It wasn't blind optimism. Aside from this and the fact that he was no longer losing SAN Value, there was actually more concrete evidence—in his Insight slot, a newly acquired keyword had unexpectedly changed.

That's right, something even more bizarre than the Etched Intellect outright vanishing had occurred.

Specifically, the content of the "Artificial Progeny Specification" had changed to "Designated as Tilanqi's Offspring."

...

'This really is an "Artificial" Progeny Specification, huh? You can just change it back and forth.'

This was undoubtedly a situation he had never encountered before, though amid his internal complaints, Fu Qian could roughly guess the reason.

[Annalise is Tilanqi, and Tilanqi is Annalise.]

He couldn't forget this sentence that his research had always revolved around. As the saying went, the action of forces was mutual.

The effects of the Artificial Progeny Specification were tightly bound to Annalise.

However, his recent actions had very likely caused that name to completely lose its occult significance. With one waning and the other waxing, was Annalise's relationship to Tilanqi now a bit like Master Yuhun's to himself after being thoroughly defeated in that inner demon battle back then?

He had lost the qualifications for an independent existence, redefined instead as Professor Fu's inner demon.

Annalise's Death Rattle, born from her will to survive, had likely still failed after tormenting her victims for a millennium, instead offering herself up as a gift.

In short, the "Power of the Family of Origin" was formidable indeed. After that series of maneuvers, Annalise had quieted down a lot and was no longer demanding money from him—bah, SAN Value.

But the Red Moon had made it clear: no matter what, she was determined to be the mother.

It was a bit bizarre, but regardless, the strategic goal of this trip was possibly achieved.

Having pulled the firewood from under the cauldron, things should be much better on the Red Moon's side.

As for what was next, he might as well see if this Blood Nova, and even the Bottom Layer of the Dream, were resilient enough, especially a certain Old Doctor...

Fu Qian turned and cast a glance. Even though the boundless ruins were currently undulating like ocean waves, he still easily distinguished the direction of the Full Moon Garden.

Of course, before that—Fu Qian checked his pockets, took out the glass bottle he had stowed away earlier, and bent down to find some blood to fill it up again.

He couldn't forget what he had been entrusted to do.