The strange sphere mixed with blood and pitch-black liquid was forcibly shoved into Silas's mouth by the reanimated corpse of Sirius.
Viscous, foul-smelling, ice-cold, slippery.
The moment the sphere entered his mouth, it liquefied into a fluid that writhed like a living thing, burrowing rapidly down his throat into the depths of his stomach.
"Nngh!"
Silas's eyes widened.
He didn't know where the strength came from, but he shoved away the now-still Sirius, then dropped to his knees and began desperately jamming his fingers down his throat.
Whatever that old bastard had made him swallow, it definitely wasn't anything good!
"Cough, cough! Come out! Cough, cough!"
But no matter how hard Silas gagged himself, that cold sensation refused to come up. Instead, it exploded directly in his stomach.
It broke through the stomach wall's constraints, spreading and corroding into his limbs and every part of his body, reaching his extremities, filling every cell with its influence.
Silas's hands and feet began twitching involuntarily, and the world before his eyes gradually darkened. Countless rustling whispers arose around him, as if countless malevolent eyes had opened in the darkness, peering and coveting his flesh and blood.
And in the deepest, most distant reaches of that darkness, something was watching Silas.
A giant. That inverted giant!
Corrupt and insane murmuring voices rose up, and the other peering gazes seemed startled, immediately shrinking back, leaving only him and the giant staring at each other in the endless darkness.
"Ahhh!"
Veins suddenly bulged on Silas's forehead. Pain, and beyond pain, something that didn't belong to him was being poured into his brain. He sensed something. He learned something!
"I don't want to know! I don't want to know!"
He cried out, but those things kept flooding into his mind, twisting his perception, dragging him deeper and farther into the darkness.
Corruption, darkness?
No, it was that existence. He was right, but He had gone mad!
Inverted?
No, the world had turned upside down!
The murmuring voices echoed relentlessly. Silas felt his consciousness dissolving, as if it would completely melt into the darkness and become part of that giant.
Just then, he heard that phantom sound of tides once more.
Immediately, an illusory yet moist sensation spread from the soles of his feet, quickly enveloping his entire body. It was as if an ocean had suddenly appeared in the invisible darkness, surging waves lapping against him.
Silas's body was quickly submerged.
He felt no suffocating pain; instead, the seawater blocked out the giant's gaze and those persistent murmuring voices. He felt safe.
The "influence" spreading through his body also calmed down, obediently merging into each of his cells.
The darkness dispersed. Silas found his consciousness floating above the room. His body lay on the floor, and Cecilia beside him was frantically shaking him, shouting something.
"Silas! Silas!"
Silas heard his sister calling his name, and his consciousness suddenly descended, returning to his body.
"Ugh!"
He jerked awake.
"Silas, you're finally awake! Are you alright?!"
Cecilia asked worriedly.
"I'm fine."
Silas sat up and shook his head, patting his sister's shoulder to reassure her.
Looking around, he saw two dumbstruck police officers standing behind his sister. They stared at Sirius, covered in tumors and torn to pieces, their faces as spectacular as if they'd seen a ghost.
"You... you two stay right here and don't move!"
The older sergeant ordered nervously, assigning his subordinate, a young officer with a bitter expression, to stay behind while he hurried away in a panic.
Silas took a deep breath and stood up with his sister's support.
His head still throbbed, as if gripped tightly by a powerful hand. His ears rang constantly, mixed with whispering voices. What he saw also seemed particularly strange; colors were extremely vivid but layered upon each other.
He saw the young officer's face pale as a corpse, his uniform black as coal. He saw his sister's eyes blue as a lake, shimmering with an enchanting luster.
He also saw Sirius's corpse radiating an ominous black aura, every tumor sprouting bloody mouths that prayed wantonly for something.
Holy crap!
Silas's body jolted in fright, but when he looked up, he found that his sister and the young officer had no reaction to the corpse's abnormality. He realized the problem was only with him.
What's wrong with me?
Is it because I swallowed that thing just now?
Silas closed his eyes and shook his head, trying hard to calm himself.
When he opened his eyes again, what he saw seemed much more normal, though faint sounds and bizarrely distorted lines still kept emerging in the dark corners of the room. He could only ignore them for now.
Cecilia looked at Silas uneasily. After all, the situation in the room hadn't been like this when she left.
What happened?
She asked with her eyes.
Silas raised his chin to point at the police officer, meaning they'd talk later; don't let that guy hear.
Cecilia immediately understood and nodded slightly.
So the three people in the room maintained an awkward silence. The young officer kept glancing between the corpse and the siblings, looking uneasy. The siblings continuously exchanged glances, appearing quite in sync.
Oh right, what about that letter?
Silas suddenly remembered the letter Sirius had written.
It was because he'd been reading the letter that he'd let his guard down and gotten attacked, but scanning around the floor, he couldn't see those pages anywhere. Not until his gaze fell in front of the altar, where he noticed the pile of ashes from the overturned cauldron was smoking, with a scorched corner of the letter paper remaining inside.
It must have blown into the ashes when I was knocked down.
Silas thought to himself. What a coincidence.
Just then, the sound of a carriage stopping came from outside the house. Before long, dense footsteps echoed up the stairs.
The old sergeant brought in three new faces; they were also police officers who looked relatively young, but the stars on their epaulettes outnumbered those of the other two.
After bringing them in, the old sergeant pulled his subordinate away, leaving the scene to these three.
Among the three officers, the leader was a man around thirty years old with deep silver-gray eyes. After scanning the room, his gaze landed on Silas's face.
"Mr. Silas Londor and Miss Cecilia Londor, correct?"
He asked gently.
"That's right."
Silas exchanged a glance with his sister, then replied.
"Good. Then, Mr. Silas and Miss Cecilia, please tell me what happened here."
The gray-eyed officer said.
So Silas began recounting the siblings' ordeal: his illness, their parents' accidental deaths, being invited to Sirius's house, being tied up for sacrifice.
He'd found an opportunity to subdue Sirius, but because the latter began mutating, he'd had to shoot him dead in self-defense.
He concealed his revival after death and his heart's repair, the contents of that letter, and the fact that he'd been forced to swallow the black sphere.
He only said he'd been knocked unconscious and attacked Sirius when he woke up.
The gray-eyed officer listened quietly to his account without expressing any opinion. His two subordinates began investigating on their own.
One officer with green eyes examined the corpse and circled the blood-soaked altar repeatedly, clicking his tongue; the other, a brown-eyed officer, actually pulled a citrine pendant from his sleeve and closed his eyes while muttering under his breath.
A moment later, he opened his eyes to look at the pendant, walked to the gray-eyed officer's side, and said something in a low voice.
Silas noticed the gray-eyed officer's gaze immediately became even more penetrating.
"Mr. Silas, let's find a room and have a proper chat."
He said to Silas.