That was a "meatball" preserved in a glass bottle with alcohol.
It was a long-dead embryo.
Lin Yiyi endured the pain, her mind a complete blank.
Her heart was filled with a strong sense of discomfort and disgust, and the barrage had once again vanished:
"It’s this... as long as we have this..."
A breathless, somewhat crazed voice came from her mouth.
The "painter" coughed while reaching for the glass bottle.
The basement, where flesh had still been churning and stirring, suddenly became silent.
The restlessly squirming flesh on the ground relaxed into stillness, as if life had left it.
The skulls, all at once, turned to look at the painter.
Lin Yiyi suddenly felt that they seemed...
But how could that be?
"Elle, Elle... protect me!"
The painter caressed the bottle containing the "meatball," whispering softly, "Let Angelo wake up... Can you hear me? Elle? Elle?!"
Finally, the middle-aged man holding a hammer spoke up.
He slowly walked into the light.
His right arm melted like liquid, plop plop falling to the ground, blending into the flesh. The flesh became quiet after mingling with his blood.
Those green eyes, like a wolf that had lost everything.
His voice was not old, it could even be called young, but it was filled with weariness.
"Is this Elle’s child? His name is Angelo, huh... nice name."
The man murmured softly.
Then, he extended his left hand toward the painter, lightly clutching at the air.
Suddenly, the painter’s body stiffened.
He began to cough violently, and his body lost all strength.
With his throat in turmoil, he could no longer hold onto the bottle containing "Angelo," and accidentally dropped it on the floor.
But because the blood and flesh were flowing on the ground, the bottle did not break... instead, it floated like dropping into the sea, drifting toward the man with the hammer. A faint sound of a baby’s laughter filled the air.
But the painter suddenly gasped in terror, his breaths like asthma and his cough growing more violent.
Finally, he coughed up something.
He reached out, pulling something that was stuck in his throat.
Then he froze completely.
After being coughed up, the umbilical cord suddenly ignited in colorful flames. He recoiled as if electrocuted by the cord, falling seated on the ground.
And the umbilical cord floated on its own toward the man with the hammer.
...So it is, "Stillbirth Transmigration." You were planning to use this ritual to resurrect Elle?
The man sneered, "Do you think what you’ve sacrificed can be brought back to life by such a low-success-rate ritual?"
The painter ignored the man.
His voice was filled with fear, even bordering on shrill, "Don’t abandon me, Elle! Elle!"
"All this Elle... Who do you think you are to Elle?"
The man with the hammer’s eyes were cold.
"I, I am Elle’s father!"
The painter wailed on the ground like an abandoned dog.
The man with emerald-green pupils angrily rebuked in a low voice, "I am Elle’s father!"
Upon hearing that, the painter’s trembling body suddenly froze.
"You, you are... Baccara..."
The painter uttered incoherently, "But you weren’t supposed to be dead..."
The man clutching the hammer simply walked down and waved his left hand that was holding onto the umbilical cord— and the cord swung like a rope, with the other end tied to the meatball inside the transparent sphere.
The end near him, however, directly burrowed into the palm of his hand.
Once the meatball was connected by the umbilical cord, it began to swell rapidly. It grew so big that it burst the bottle.
It floated in the air like a balloon, getting bigger and bigger.
And the man holding the hammer became visibly gaunt at a noticeable speed.
But his gaze didn’t wander at all.
The man known as "Baccara" spoke indifferently, "You’re nothing more than a substitute... Who do you think taught Clara her knowledge and rituals? She didn’t dare to hurt me directly, which is why she divorced me and found you afterward.
"If I had been even a week later, you would have already been sacrificed to the ’Black Widow’ by her. Your life now is the one I saved. I didn’t plan to kill you since Elle needed a father... a healthy human father, free from curses. So after I killed Clara, I left Frostwater Harbor.
"I was wrong. I should have taken all the books with me... That’s my fault, I admit it. It was me who brought harm upon Elle."
Baccara’s voice was filled with a thick and profound malice.
His right face melted into black mud, fluctuating with his voice and emanating heavy echoes, "I shouldn’t have trusted a mortal’s self-control; you and Clara are essentially the same.
"However, it turns out to be rather convenient. Now, I am alone, without any hope or attachment... Thus, I have nothing to fear anymore."
As he spoke, he lifted the hammer.
This unremarkable-looking hammer was, in fact, a powerful cursed artifact.
Once he aimed the hammer at the painter and lifted it, the painter’s body became rigid, unable to dodge...
But before the hammer could fall.
The "Angelo" that floated in the air like a balloon, the child of the painter and Elle.
Just beyond Baccara’s sight, suddenly opened his eyes and yawned wide.
—He bit off Baccara’s head directly.
Everything below his neck instantly turned into a pile of sludge and fell to the ground.
The painter, upon witnessing this scene, was immediately stunned.
Lin Yiyi was startled as well.
Even Annan, who was watching the scene from outside, was shocked.
Still cowering in fear, the painter gasped for breath with no realization of having been saved: "...Ha, heh... Hah?
"E-Elle? Is that you?!"
But the "balloon" that gulped down Baccara’s head didn’t respond.
It just started to swell suddenly, its surface igniting with rainbow-colored flames. The air echoed with the laughter of a baby.
And then it just kept growing, growing...
Endlessly getting bigger.
All of a sudden, Annan remembered a sentence he had seen in the newspapers:
"— After rushing to the Morrison Gallery, they found the officers battling with a ’giant meatball entirely engulfed in flames’."
This so-called "Angelo" the stillborn?
An idea suddenly surfaced in Annan’s mind:
If Elle’s soul had already been sacrificed to the Bone Lord, but Morrison’s "resurrection ritual" had indeed succeeded...
...Just what sort of messed up thing did this painter, completely ignorant of the supernatural world, end up bringing back to life?