A crimson phantom appeared in Gallo's consciousness. In the scene projected by his Inspiration, red blood mist billowed upward. Gallo could even hear the rumble of a carriage rolling through it.
Several hideous monsters, each with multiple arms and a huge, tusked mouth, emerged from the blood mist, pulling something like a carriage shaped as a tower of black iron. At its very top appeared the crimson phantom of a demon, formed from a streak of red light.
The phantom held a long spear wreathed in the wails of souls. Gallo could even hear its mocking laughter echoing through his mind.
In the final moment before Gallo's consciousness froze, he abruptly invested a point in [Spirituality]. A completely different power erupted from deep within his soul!
If [Inspiration] was a tendril reaching outward to perceive the world, then [Spirituality] was the core that gathered the soul and anchored its existence!
A scorching, pure light of Spirituality burst from his body like the newborn sun. It drove back the viscous blood mist around him and fiercely repelled the icy will that sought to freeze his thoughts!
"Get out!" Gallo roared soundlessly in his mind.
The whispers and corruption from Subspace melted away and retreated before this newly awakened power of Spirituality, like snow beneath the blazing sun.
The crimson phantom of the demon in his mind—Blood-Howl Gorak—let out an enraged roar that gradually faded into the distance.
A streak of scarlet shot out of the blood mist, trying to pierce Gallo's will. But beneath the burst of Spirituality radiating from him, the spear the demon had hurled dissolved into scattered points of bloody light.
The suffocating pressure in the attic abruptly lifted, and time returned to its normal flow.
Gallo gasped for breath, drenched in sweat.
He'd been far too careless. That had been dangerous. It was obvious that the Human Skin Notebook was an entity from Subspace. It had lured and manipulated Jeffrey, using the man's life and soul as a sacrifice to create an extraordinary object corrupted by Subspace.
For psychics with high Inspiration, simply touching and reading the notebook would draw the attention of the entity in Subspace and affect them.
Even ordinary people who carried it for a long time would be affected by the fluctuations from Subspace and undergo drastic mood swings, even if they couldn't understand the ancient hieroglyphs written in it.
Gallo gasped for breath, then stood up. His legs felt weak. His younger sister, Lily, and his mother, Aisha, hadn't noticed the extremely perilous events that had just unfolded around him.
But Gallo knew about Subspace. If a psychic was manipulated by an entity from Subspace, they might lose control of their psychic powers and endanger the people around them. The most terrifying outcome was total corruption: they could become a puppet, or turn into a doorway connecting the real world to Subspace.
That would allow entities from Subspace to enter the real world.
"So that was... Blood-Howl Gorak. He wanted to control me. Did he think I'd bow down and worship him just because he projected himself into my mind?"
Gallo took a deep breath and thought, But after investing points in my psychic powers through the system, my strength has surpassed what that Subspace entity could have imagined. I could even drive its projection from my will and banish it back to Subspace!
This experience had also shown Gallo that [Spirituality] wasn't just a power that could affect reality. It was also the foundation that anchored his existence and helped him resist Subspace corruption!
Relying on Inspiration alone, he would have to keep his mind perfectly guarded, never allowing an entity from Subspace to find even the smallest opening.
"Another point!"
Gallo opened his status panel and saw that his available attribute points had increased by one. It seemed that banishing Blood-Howl Gorak had earned it.
Setting aside the new point for now, he picked up the notebook from the table. Its original dark-red spiritual fluctuations had vanished, replaced by a layer of light that seemed to shine. This new spiritual energy came from Gallo himself.
When he opened the notebook, he found that the dark-red hieroglyphs on its pages had disappeared completely.
"When I banished that Gorak, my own light of Spirituality drove it away... I suppose I could call it purification.
"I purified the Subspace corruption from the notebook. But in the process, it was infused with my own Spirituality. Although the negative effects of Subspace are gone, this notebook probably isn't an ordinary object. It carries my spiritual fluctuations, so it should still count as an extraordinary object."
As Gallo held the notebook, he could clearly sense some kind of connection between it and his Spirituality.
Then he set it down and took the coin he commonly used for divination from his pocket—a Fenso coin.
Under Gallo's perception, the coin was trembling faintly. Several tiny black tentacles had emerged from its once merely greasy, black surface.
The oily black tendrils writhed and waved, but they didn't dare do much in Gallo's palm. Instead, they even sent him a faint, ingratiating spiritual fluctuation.
"Every time I use this coin for divination, my soul's projection flickers in Subspace. And when the coin reveals a prediction through the Law of Causality, it naturally picks up some of Subspace's corrupting energy.
"But back then, my Inspiration was low, so all I could tell was that the coin was unusual. It was black and greasy, and my own Spirituality wasn't strong enough to purify it."
Watching the black tendrils wriggle across the coin, nearly ingratiating themselves with him, Gallo decided against using his Spirituality to purify it. He put it away.
"This thing is bizarre, but so far it hasn't shown any sign of being a threat to me. If I use it well, it might even make a useful extraordinary tool.
"Besides, now that my Inspiration has improved, I don't need such a simple divination tool."
When he looked at the Human Skin Notebook again, Gallo found himself at a loss.
"Even though I banished the demon and purified the notebook, I haven't dealt with Sacia and her people. The danger in the real world is still there. And worse, all the writing in the notebook disappeared because of my purification..."
He took a deep breath and continued thinking:
"Maybe... I can say it happened for some unknown reason. Even if Sacia knows the notebook is unusual, she doesn't know exactly what it does. If I tell her the writing vanished, this bizarre phenomenon might even excite her more.
"Perhaps Sacia and the others want to communicate with an entity from Subspace... What a bunch of fools playing with fire. They have no idea how dangerous Subspace is.
"They probably think they're making contact with some kind of great being."
At that thought, Gallo grew troubled again. "But I can't hand them a notebook with all the writing gone, then give them a blank sheet of paper.
"I have to give them at least some of the translated contents, or they'll get nothing and blame me for it.
"But if I hand them the ritual for communicating with a demon from Subspace, who knows what terrible consequences might follow? If a gateway to Subspace opens in this city and all sorts of entities pour through, I'll still be in danger—and I might even become one of Gorak's main targets for revenge."
At last, Gallo mused, "Perhaps I can modify the ritual and change its target to... myself!
"That way, I can also find out what those people are really after."
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