What appeared in Lu Ban's hand was still a skull.
Only, unlike the sharp-mouthed, monkey-faced, bizarrely shaped skull from last time, this one was closer to a human skull, with a normal shape.
Inside the skull burned flames as black as ink. This was by no means a flame color one could casually see in reality. Contrasted with the ghastly white skull, it created a gloomy, eerie atmosphere.
Lu Ban held the skull in his hand and was preparing to crush it as he had last time, but when he looked at the rough, gray-white cranium, an idea suddenly struck him.
He stuck out his tongue.
A fine, fragmented sensation rubbed against it, like the end of a joint hidden beneath the soft cartilage of a chicken wing.
"Not very useful."
Lu Ban came to this conclusion.
Then he applied force with his hand and crushed the loose skull.
The gray dust and pure-black flames turned into a deep, dense fog. It moved of its own accord without any wind, burrowing toward Lu Ban's ears, nose, and mouth.
From the corner of his eye, he saw wet black hair at the sewer drain retract like a worm.
Immediately afterward, Lu Ban's eyes rolled white, with no pupils visible, and his entire body began convulsing like a patient suffering an epileptic seizure.
The bathroom mirror trembled slightly. Water droplets fell continuously from the faucet, while a mass of black shadow drifted uncertainly outside the bathroom door.
Lu Ban felt his brain burning.
Some kind of black flame rose from his spinal cord. Pain traveled through his nerves to his limbs. Lu Ban felt as if countless insects were crawling, scratching, and gnawing inside his body. He instinctively reached out to scratch himself, wanting to drive the insects beneath his skin away.