After Fingernail Granny finished telling the whole story, many things finally fell into place.
For instance, why the Water-Pattern Witch had said that Fingernail Granny was involved—because Fingernail Granny had indeed participated in the forging of the Reincarnation Box.
And why Fingernail Granny had warned him not to use the Lucky Scroll—because of Ivo Spreet's cautionary example.
Angel even speculated that what Bauxia had once said—that Fingernail Granny had rarely practiced alchemy and seldom visited the Research Institute for the past thousand years—might be connected to this. The timing of those thousand years was too much of a coincidence. Perhaps this incident was what had caused Fingernail Granny to change.
Yet behind all these matters, there was still one question Angel had not figured out.
"What did Alex have to do with this story?"
Fingernail Granny sighed softly. "Alex was actually the name Ivo used back when he was still a mortal."
Not only that, Fingernail Granny also explained the similarities between Ivo and Alex from the Shadow of the Cage: the same snow-white hair, similar manner of speaking, and so on.
After hearing this, Angel sank into thought.
Fragments of memory kept surging through his mind: everything that had happened after he arrived in Gust Town, the brutal serial murders, the youth gazing at the moon, the undead pursuer, the imprisoned cage, the priest who defied the Creator, the nun who purged outsiders...
And there were also the things Fingernail Granny had told him: Ivo's former name, the creator of the Reincarnation Box, the nightmare that came when the mysterious object descended... and so on.
Within the stillness of his thoughts, these emerging fragments of memory seemed to condense into pearl after pearl.
These "pearls" floated through the space of his mind, glimmering faintly as they bobbed and drifted.