...What is this situation?
The wandering child paused for a moment.
He reached out to touch his eye again, only to find that his left eye was perfectly normal. It was even a bit warm.
...Strange, it’s getting more and more bizarre.
It was almost as if two different states were intermittently switching back and forth...
Is this an illusion or something from the other world?
Could it be that just now, Elle’s face had also turned into a skull-like face similar to painter Amos’s?
"——Elle, can you hear me?"
Just then, the wandering child heard Amos’s call.
He instinctively turned his head.
And saw... a skeleton sitting on a chair next to him, looking at him with concern.
It had almost no flesh on its body whatsoever.
Only the left eye and the back of the neck.
Its left eye housed a green eyeball, and the back of its neck was covered with a patch of skin the size of two palms... with some blond hair on it even.
The wandering child remembered clearly.
Amos had brown hair and blue eyes, while Elle had blond hair and green eyes.
——In other words, these were Elle’s eye and skin!
The skeleton asked slowly with an echoing, heavy voice, "Can you see...?"
Why is he asking if I can see?
Didn’t I tell you at the start that I had a headache?
The wandering child sharply sensed the problem here.
He was about to answer in this way.
But at the moment when he was about to speak, he suddenly felt a wave of dizziness.
When he regained clarity, he found that the skeleton had turned back into Amos.
His eyes were still blue.
The wandering child suddenly realized something.
"I can see, very clearly... My body also feels comfortable."
As he slowly responded, he covertly touched his own eye and the back of his head with the clever techniques he had practiced in exam halls, leaving no trace.
This time, he felt the odd, ice-cold touch again.
Whether it was his eyeball or his neck, both were chilling to the touch. He could clearly feel his protruding vertebrae, which even felt a bit sharp...
"——I get it now, one between the host and his dad must be dead."
"——Is he planning to dismantle Elle and stick her onto himself?"
"——Child God, how do you feel! How do you feel?!"
"I feel pretty good, Father."
Elle’s expression changed slightly as she asked softly, "I just felt my body become very light and... strong. What’s happening to me?"
"This is a gift from the Skeleton Lord, Elle."
It was not until then that Amos finally laid his cards on the table with Elle: "That strange Divine Paint I have was bestowed by the Skeleton Lord.
"And your now healthy and vigorous body was also given by the Skeleton Lord. His Divine Power resides within you... You will not only live healthily, but you will also not get sick or age."
He said with a light chuckle, "Isn’t that a good thing? This is a benefit even the True Gods cannot provide."
"...So then, Father."
After a moment of silence, Elle asked seriously, "What’s the price?"
Amos answered without hesitation: "This is just a one-way ritual of seeking blessings, and my trade with the Skeleton Lord hasn’t officially started yet. You don’t need to pay anything... He has promised me that he will give me many times more paint than the first time, enough for me to use."
Pay nothing...? Do you believe that yourself?
Elle’s face looked a bit strange.
If there’s nothing to be paid, where did Elle’s left eye and the skin at the back of her neck go?
Since he’s asking if I can see clearly, that means he knows my eye has been stolen.
But why would Amos think that I haven’t noticed this? Is that what the Skeleton Lord told him?
Annan, watching this scene, suddenly paused.
He recalled something else—
If he wasn’t mistaken.
Elle could actually not have been killed by Amos.
Or rather, he might not have realized... that he had already killed Elle!
In that newspaper from forty-five years ago, "Elle’s" body parts were scattered in the form of flesh chunks around every painting’s frame. And there were already over a hundred paintings in just the first three layers of the nightmare "Gallery."
If the task really was to break down Elle’s body and insert it into every painting...how much work would that entail?
Was there so much hatred between them?
The time of Elle’s death...was actually later than the construction of the gallery.
Could he possibly run to the gallery at night when no one was around, and stuff the pieces of flesh into the frames one by one?
Not that Annan believed in their father-daughter affection...but with Amos’s clumsy skills, there was no way he could have done all this silently without being detected.
Therefore, there was only one possibility left.
That was, the time Elle’s body parts entered the paintings had to be earlier than her time of death.
——Her body had already been fragmented before her death.
This wasn’t impossible.
To be more precise...
"The paint granted by the Bone-paint Noble...was mostly made from grinding Elle’s body?!"
Annan’s pupils shrank.
He suddenly felt a chill down his spine.
A somewhat bold speculation.
But it just might explain everything.
The ritual of the Bone-paint Noble, even the first time, was not without cost...
It had a price paid in advance!
In the third Sacrifice, if one chooses "half of one’s lifespan," the previous part—meaning one would instantly become elderly—is sacrificed.
Then, would the "half of the conscience" and "friendship from now on" sacrificed in the second Sacrifice have no impact on oneself? If there is an impact, what is the common point?
It’s the disregard for the lives of others.
That is to say, the second Sacrifice can no longer be stopped. Those who undergo the second Sacrifice will inevitably carry out the third Sacrifice...because no matter which ritual they choose, "consuming a part of someone else" no longer poses a moral burden to them.
Following this logic, the content of the third Sacrifice must make the sacrificer have to carry out a fourth Sacrifice.
This isn’t surprising.
The ritual that pleases the Bone-paint Noble the most is "the creator being killed by their own work." And the "sacrificial substitution ritual" that avoids payment of a price, requires cutting all ties with one’s parents, spouse, children, and friends.
Would a protector who loves an artist appreciate such a ritual?
Many images suddenly appeared in Annan’s mind:
——Every painting in the gallery contained parts of Elle’s flesh.
——In the basement discovered at Yawen’s place, Elle’s skeleton, stripped of all flesh, was hidden, along with a container holding a dead infant.
——Amos had swallowed Elle’s umbilical cord.
——Amos’s body bore Elle’s lost eyes and skin.
"...I completely understand now."
Annan murmured, "Amos got it completely backwards..."
The Bone-paint Noble was never the protector of artists and creators.
His enmity towards Yawen wasn’t because they were competing for the resources of artists.
He hated all creators.
Therefore...he was the enemy of Yawen, the protector of artists.
He mocked their greed, ridiculed their unscrupulous ways for the sake of their work, and made them pay the price...turning into devils.
The Bone-paint Noble had assumed from the beginning that those who summoned him would carry out the ritual to the end.
So He had already taken away the final price in advance...which was the life of their "loved ones." He just let these people move around as usual before they realized they were dead.
To put it precisely, it should be the life of the "loved ones" of these artists before they performed the ritual.
Not the life of that person after they had achieved fame and fortune, lost half of their conscience, consumed the body of a loved one, or had severed ties with them...
By then, they no longer valued that person.
The most costly fourth Sacrifice had been completed at the very beginning.
There was no turning back for them. And by that time, there was no need to turn back anymore.
At that time, their original selves had already died.
Severing all ties with their past selves, losing all the glory of their original identities, as if they had died. Taking on the skin of their loved ones, their victims...watching themselves die in society.
[The creator is killed by their own work.]
Is by way of drama, recasting this theme.
Annan’s brow furrowed slightly.
Following this logic, Amos’s ritual should not have been completed.
Otherwise, he should have become Elle...but in the end, he even coughed up Elle’s eyes.
...Or rather, it was because he coughed up Elle’s eyes.
That he entered this nightmare, "where Elle’s eyes had been taken"!?
A brightness flashed before Annan’s eyes.
He finally knew all the rules of this nightmare!