The Old Man Had His Eye on Illumi

The underground core area.

Illumi kept his head lowered as the silver-robed bishop led him to the end of the corridor.

This passage was much quieter than the ones outside.

The glass compartments on both sides were filled with pregnant women.

Tubes were connected to their bodies, and the machines beside their beds flickered rhythmically. Pale golden liquid dripped from IV bottles. Once it entered their bodies, their bellies would briefly twitch.

Illumi only looked a few times before piecing the information together.

The golden liquid was not medicine.

It was mixed with something resembling postmortem Nen, though the malice it should have emitted was far stronger than this.

These residual Nen traces were a chaotic mixture: Enhancement, Manipulation, and fragments that had already lost their original structure, leaving behind nothing but stimulation.

The mothers could not endure it.

The fetuses were swallowing it.

This was neither treatment nor a blessing.

They were using women as culture dishes and adjusting unborn children as containers.

Illumi's fingers tapped lightly beneath the blanket.

At the hotel, Milluki immediately recorded it.

"The holy water contains residual Nen. Its source is suspected to be the dead."

Ella sat before the screen, her face pale.

On the screen, a woman labeled Number Thirty-Four lay unconscious.

She looked about Ella's age. She still clutched a cross in her hand, and her lips kept moving.

Milluki turned up the audio.

"Lord... save my child..."

Ella's breathing became uneven.

This was not the first time she had seen something horrific.

But this time, she saw herself.

If Bai Zhu had not come, she would have been lying there too, a number pasted to her hand while the thing in her belly was "baptized" over and over by those people.

She had once thought she had merely been deceived by love.

Only now did she understand that she was just one product on this assembly line.

"If I had woken up sooner..."

She spoke, her voice dry.

"Would anyone have survived?"

Milluki stared at the screen, his fingers never stopping.

He was not good at comforting people, nor was he interested in doing so.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

Ella lowered her head.

Milluki added another sentence.

"But if you don't wake up now, you'll die, and these people will definitely die too."

Ella gripped her cup tightly.

The words were blunt and harsh.

But she took them in.

Before the core area's door.

The silver-robed bishop stopped and bowed.

"Elder, the candidate Holy Mother has been brought."

A hoarse voice came from inside.

"Let her enter alone."

The silver-robed bishop hesitated.

"Her condition is unstable. She needs restraints."

"I said, let her enter."

The silver-robed bishop immediately stepped back.

Illumi supported himself against the wall, walking slowly as though he might collapse at any moment.

The door opened.

Inside was an empty room.

At least, it appeared to be empty.

The walls were clean, there was no extra equipment on the floor, and only a chair stood in the middle.

Illumi walked in, and the door closed behind him.

He did not sit down.

Because the wall on the right side of the room was too smooth.

The angle at which the light fell on it was wrong.

Illumi quickly realized it was one-way glass.

There were people behind it.

And more than one.

A few seconds later, that aged voice sounded again.

"Sit down, child."

Illumi made Ella's voice tremble.

"I... where is my husband?"

"He will be proud of you."

"I want to go home."

"This is where you belong."

Illumi slowly sat down, both hands protecting his belly.

Behind the glass, a gaunt old man sat amid a cluster of machines.

A black crystal was embedded in his chest. Every time it pulsed, the readings on the machines surged.

The attendant beside him kept his head lowered, hardly daring to breathe.

The old man watched "Ella" in the room through the glass.

"Her soul is very resilient."

The attendant spoke quietly.

"Elder, the records before Number Fifteen indicate that she was only an ordinary woman."

The old man raised a hand, and the attendant immediately fell silent.

"Records can lie. Machines can lie."

The old man leaned closer to the glass.

"But the Lord cannot."

Inside the room, Illumi raised his head slightly, then immediately looked away from the wall, acting like a pregnant woman frightened by the voice.

The old man seemed quite satisfied.

"Fear has not crushed her. Her body is weak, but her mind has not shattered."

The attendant hesitated.

"Should we conduct a deep examination immediately?"

The old man chuckled a few times, as though phlegm were lodged in his throat.

"Don't rush."

He pressed a button beside him.

Inside the room, two straps sprang from the chair's armrests and snapped around Illumi's wrists.

Illumi did not dodge.

Snap.

The straps locked shut.

The next second, his ankles were restrained as well.

A silver needle extended from behind the chair, stopping three centimeters from the back of his neck.

The old man spoke slowly.

"Child, do not be afraid."

Illumi drew in a quiet breath.

"What are you going to do?"

"Just see whether you can endure the Lord's gaze."

Behind the glass, the black crystal in the old man's chest began pulsing faster.

A stream of Nen surged into the room through the needle.

Illumi lowered his head, and his body began to tremble.

That was not an act.

This Nen was filthy, its malice obvious.

It contained far too many obsessive remnants left after death. They tore at one another, yet had been forcibly stitched together by some means.

If an ordinary person were touched by it, their mind would probably collapse on the spot.

Illumi's fingertips twitched as the Nen Needle hidden in his palm pressed against the strap.

Give him half a second more, and he could break free.

But he did not move.

Because the old man's earlier words had revealed the crucial point.

"The Lord's gaze."

This was not a simple resurrection.

The thing behind the Creation Society had not yet been resurrected, but its Nen had always possessed independent consciousness.

It needed a container capable of enduring vast amounts of postmortem Nen residue.

Illumi kept trembling, his breathing becoming so ragged that the machines sounded an alarm.

The attendant hurriedly spoke.

"Elder! The readings are unstable!"

But the old man stared at the monitor.

The curve on it first jolted wildly, then slowly steadied.

The old man leaned forward.

"Did you see that?"

The attendant's eyes widened.

"She... she adapted?"

The old man raised his withered hand and pressed it against the glass.

"Not adapted."

"She swallowed it."

Inside the room, Illumi kept his head lowered, long hair covering half his face.

He had not swallowed anything.

He had merely used Nen Needles to divide his body's reactions into separate zones, trapping the foreign Nen within insignificant muscle groups.

It was a technique the Zoldyck family had trained into him since childhood.

It hurt.

But he could endure it.

The old man did not know.

He only saw a result that drove him mad with excitement.

"List Number Fifteen as the first container."

The attendant froze.

"But the first container for the Holy Advent Ritual in three days was originally Number Seven."

"Replace Number Seven."

The old man's voice was hoarse.

"Number Seven cannot withstand the true Lord. Number Fifteen can."

The attendant lowered his head.

"Then the fetus in her womb..."

The old man stared at "Ella" in the room.

"Keep it."

"Keep the mother too."

"This time, do not settle for only the Holy Infant."

The old man paused, greed coloring his tone.

"I want the mother on the altar as well."

At the hotel, Milluki's entire expression changed when he heard those words.

"Damn."

Ella stood up.

"What did he say? What did he mean by putting the mother body on the altar too?"

Milluki didn't answer.

He hammered frantically at the keyboard, trying to stabilize the feed from the core area.

The signal kept flickering.

All they could see on the screen was Illumi strapped to a chair, along with several instrument readings.

Ella panicked.

"Talk to me!"

Milluki suddenly slammed the desk.

"Shut up! I'm trying to save my big brother!"

Ella froze in fright.

Milluki took two breaths before forcing out a sentence through clenched teeth.

"That old bastard thinks my big brother is a perfect vessel."

Ella was stunned.

"Then what do we do?"

Milluki didn't look at her.

"See if that lunatic Bai Zhu can throw the surface into chaos."

The church bell tower.

Bai Zhu finally climbed to the top.

He set the last scout device to standby and looked down through the window.

The church's entire patrol route unfolded beneath his feet.

Six men at the entrance, four in the side courtyard, two at the back door.

The underground elevator entrance changed shifts every three minutes.

The defenses weren't in disarray.

That meant Illumi hadn't been exposed yet.

Bai Zhu touched his earpiece.

"Milluki, all six are in place. So how are we blowing this up? Start with an appetizer, or go straight to the main course?"

There was only static in his earpiece.

Bai Zhu frowned.

"Hello? Chubby? Don't lose signal at a time like this."

A few seconds later, Milluki's voice came through.

It was much lower than before.

"Bai Zhu."

"Yeah?"

"That old bastard has listed my big brother as the first vessel."

Bai Zhu's hand froze on the bell tower railing.

"The first vessel?"

"Yeah."

Milluki took a breath, as if suppressing the urge to curse.

"And he wants to send the 'mother body' onto the altar too."

"What other information did you hear?"

Only then did Milluki realize that the key issue wasn't being sent to the altar, but the timing of the ritual. Suddenly, he felt incredibly stupid compared to Bai Zhu and his big brother. Bai Zhu had realized it wasn't the important part even without sitting in front of the surveillance feed, but he hadn't.

"There's some Holy Advent Ritual in three days. That's when my big brother will be sent to the altar."

Bai Zhu lowered his gaze toward the main hall.

The believers below were still praying.

On the chancel, the priest was leading everyone in chanting the name of the Creation God.

Slowly, he reached into his pocket and touched the detonator Milluki had given him.

"Fine. Then we still have time. First, we get your big brother out."

Milluki grew anxious.

"Don't do anything reckless! You can't blow up the underground area!"

"I never said I was blowing up the underground area."

Bai Zhu looked up at the great bell in the tower.

The bell was thick and heavy, hanging there for who knew how many years.

He clenched his fist and slowly gathered strength.

"Since they like a sense of ceremony so much."

Milluki's voice tightened in his earpiece.

"What are you going to do?"

Bai Zhu threw a fierce punch at the bell.

Dong.

The prayers throughout the church paused for half a beat.

Bai Zhu watched the believers below raise their heads and lowered his voice.

"Then I'll ring their death knell first."

The next second, footsteps sounded at the bell tower stairway.

Someone rushed up.

"Who's up there?!"