A peculiar small orb, a mixture of fresh blood and dark liquid, was forcefully shoved into Lu Ze's mouth by the reanimated Siris.
Viscous, putrid, icy, and slimy. The orb instantly transformed into a liquid upon entering his mouth, quickly wriggling like a living thing, and burrowed down his throat into the depths of his stomach.
"Ugh!"
Lu Ze's eyes widened.
He didn't know where the strength came from, but he shoved away Siris, who was now still, then knelt on the ground, frantically digging his fingers into his throat.
Whatever that old man had made him eat, it definitely wasn't anything good!
"Cough, cough! Get out! Cough, cough!"
But no matter how hard Lu Ze tried to clear his throat, the icy sensation wouldn't come out. Instead, it exploded directly in his stomach. It breached the stomach wall and spread, corroding his limbs and bones, reaching his extremities, filling every cell with its influence.
Lu Ze's hands and feet began to twitch uncontrollably, and the world before his eyes gradually plunged into gloom. Countless rustling whispers echoed around him, as if myriad malevolent eyes had opened in the Darkness, spying and coveting his flesh and blood body.
And in the deepest, farthest reaches of the Darkness, an entity watched Lu Ze.
It was the giant, the inverted giant!
Depraved and mad gibbering followed, and the other prying gazes, as if startled, immediately retreated, leaving only him and the giant staring at each other in the endless Darkness.
"Ah!"
Veins suddenly bulged on Lu Ze's forehead. Pain, and something beyond pain, something that didn't originally belong to him, was being poured into his mind. He felt something, he knew something!
"I don't want to know, I don't want to know!"
He screamed, but those things continued to flood into his mind, distorting his perception, pulling him deeper and further into the Darkness.
Depraved, Darkness?
No, it was that entity, It was right, but It was mad!
Inverted?
No, the world had turned upside down!
The gibbering echoed incessantly, and Lu Ze felt his consciousness dissolving, as if it would completely melt into the Darkness, becoming part of that giant.
Just then, he heard the ethereal sound of surging tides once again.
Immediately, an ethereal and moist sensation came from the soles of his feet, quickly spreading throughout his body. It was as if an ocean had suddenly appeared in the unseen Darkness, with surging waves crashing against him.
Lu Ze's body was quickly submerged. He felt no suffocating pain; instead, the seawater isolated the giant's gaze and the persistent gibbering. He felt safe, and the spreading "influences" within his body also quieted down, obediently merging into his every cell.
The Darkness dissipated, and Lu Ze found his consciousness hovering above the room. His body lay on the floor, and Cecilia next to him was anxiously shaking him, calling out something.
"Lu Ze! Lu Ze!"
Lu Ze heard his sister calling his name, and his consciousness instantly sank, returning to his body.
"Ugh!"
He suddenly woke up with a start.
"Lu Ze, you've finally woken up, are you alright!"
Cecilia asked worriedly.
"I'm fine."
Lu Ze sat up, shook his head, and patted his sister's shoulder, reassuring her.
Looking around, two dumbfounded police officers stood behind his sister. They looked at Siris, covered in tumors and tattered, their faces as expressive as if they had seen a ghost.
"You… you two stay here! Don't move!"
The older sergeant nervously ordered, assigning his subordinate, a young police officer with a bitter expression, to stay behind, while he himself left in a panic.
Lu Ze took a deep breath and stood up with his sister's help.
His head still hurt terribly, as if a powerful hand was tightly gripping it, and his ears buzzed incessantly, interspersed with whispers. What he saw was also very strange; the colors were extremely vivid, but also overlapping. He saw that the young police officer's face was as pale as a corpse, but his uniform was as black as coal. He saw that his sister's eyes were as blue as a lake, shining with a captivating luster.
He also saw Siris's corpse emitting an ominous black aura, and every tumor had grown bloody mouths, wantonly praying for something.
Holy crap!
Lu Ze's body trembled with fright, but when he looked up, he saw that his sister and the young police officer showed no reaction to the corpse's abnormality. He then knew that something was wrong with him.
What's wrong with me?
Is it because of that thing I ate just now?
Lu Ze closed his eyes, shook his head, and tried to calm himself down. When he opened his eyes again, what he saw was finally much more normal, but there were still subtle sounds and strangely distorted lines constantly appearing in the dark corners of the room, which he could only temporarily ignore.
Cecilia looked at Lu Ze uneasily, as the room's condition was not like this before she left.
What happened?
She asked with her eyes.
Lu Ze raised his chin and pointed at the police officer, meaning to discuss it later so the guy wouldn't hear.
Cecilia immediately understood and nodded slightly.
So the three people in the room remained quiet in an awkward atmosphere. The young police officer occasionally looked at the corpse, occasionally at the siblings, appearing restless. The two siblings, meanwhile, constantly exchanged glances, seeming to have a perfect understanding.
Oh, right, where's that letter?
Just then, Lu Ze suddenly remembered the letter Siris had written. It was because of reading the letter that he had been careless and attacked, but after scanning the floor, he didn't see those few sheets of paper. Not until his gaze fell in front of the altar, where he found the ashes of the overturned cauldron smoking, with a charred corner of the letter remaining inside.
When I was hit, it must have flown into the ashes.
Lu Ze thought, what a coincidence.
Just then, the sound of a carriage stopping came from outside the house. Not long after, the sound of dense footsteps came up. The old sergeant came in with three new faces. They were also police officers, looking younger, but the stars on their epaulets were more numerous than the other two.
After bringing the men in, the old sergeant took his subordinate and left, leaving the scene to these three.
Among the three police officers, the leader was a man of about thirty, with deep, silver-gray eyes. After scanning the room, his gaze fell on Lu Ze's face.
"Mr. Luze Longdaoer and Ms. Cecilia Longdaoer, correct?"
He asked gently.
"That's right."
Lu Ze and his sister exchanged glances, then told him.
"Alright, then Mr. Lu Ze and Ms. Cecilia, please tell me what happened here."
The gray-eyed officer said.
So Lu Ze began to recount the siblings' ordeal, from his illness and his parents' accidental deaths, to being invited to Siris's home, then being tied up and sacrificed. He found an opportunity to subdue Siris, but because the latter began to mutate, he had no choice but to shoot him dead in self-defense.
He concealed the details of his heart being repaired after his resurrection, the contents of the letter, and being forced to eat the black orb. He only said that he was knocked unconscious and, upon waking, attacked Siris.
The gray-eyed officer listened quietly to his account, without expressing any opinions. His two subordinates began their investigation on their own; a green-eyed officer examined the corpse, then circled the blood-soaked altar, making clucking sounds. The other brown-eyed officer even pulled out a yellow quartz pendant directly from his sleeve, muttering incantations while closing his eyes.
A moment later, he opened his eyes, looked at the pendant, walked to the gray-eyed officer, and whispered something.
Lu Ze noticed that the gray-eyed officer's gaze immediately became even deeper.
"Mr. Lu Ze, let's find a room to have a good talk."
He said to Lu Ze.
Stopped