Something fell into the Spirit Realm!

Lin En froze.

"The Thousand-Armed Demon God? The Lord of Crawling??"

Smack-

With a dark look, Lin En slammed him into the ground, sending countless bones and teeth flying.

The Lord of Crawling? He might as well call himself the Lord of Besties!

If he wanted to stay alive, he could at least make up a better-sounding name! He really was just spouting nonsense!

[Ding! Your second-stage advancement is 70% complete... 71%... 72%...]

Gurgle, gurgle-

As the progress bar advanced, more tentacles kept squeezing out of Lin En's body, and his bulk continued to swell.

With dead-fish eyes, Lin En wrapped him up again and stared at the skeleton, who was almost unconscious after being battered into a (꒪Д꒪) expression.

"Where's my origin substance?"

"H-here..."

The skeleton fearfully held out his hand. The ring on his little finger flashed, and a crystal shimmering with golden light appeared in his palm.

A tentacle whipped around it and stuffed it into Lin En's eyeball.

"Do you still think I'm greedy?"

The flames in the skeleton's eye sockets flowed out like tears.

"N-not greedy... Not greedy..."

Lin En gave a cheerful, cold chuckle.

"All right. Now I'll ask, and you'll answer. If you can't answer even one question, or dare try to fob me off, I'll shove your head up your ass. Understood?"

The Skeleton Lord trembled.

"Understood."

Lin En rolled his eyeball and said:

"First question. Why did you kill my host?"

The skeleton shuddered and said fearfully:

"We didn't actually know him. Shakira was the one who wanted him dead. She wanted us to extract the [origin substance] in his brain and swap it with the one in hers. That would help her preserve her looks. If there was any other reason, it was probably her twisted feelings for him."

"Second question." Lin En narrowed his eye. "Why was I dumped there?"

"The Red Moon suddenly descended while we were still outside. Since I'm a creature from the Spirit Realm, exposure to the Red Moon can easily trigger the Spirit Bell's alarm. We had no choice but to dump the corpse right there."

He quaked with fear.

"We thought he must have been eaten already, but who could have imagined... imagined..."

"Imagined I'd descend into his body?"

The Skeleton Lord was so terrified he nearly fell apart.

"All right, third question."

Lin En watched him with a faint, ambiguous smile.

"I'm curious. What is this [Crimson Secret Cult] you mentioned earlier? Are you members of that organization?"

At the mention of the Crimson Secret Cult, the Skeleton Lord visibly hesitated.

"Talk!"

Lin En threatened him.

The Skeleton Lord instantly stiffened in terror and said:

"Yes! Shakira and I, along with those two humans who just died, are all members of the Secret Cult! We're responsible for infiltration and intelligence gathering in the physical world. Shakira is the core member of our team. Because she's female, our people have been grooming her to infiltrate Clockwork City's nobility and gather intelligence."

Lin En immediately asked doubtfully, "What sort of intelligence?"

"All sorts. For example, [Sequence] information on high-level Exorcists, internal secrets of the various noble groups and organizations, and information about the Church's internal affairs. But we aren't core members of the Secret Cult. What exactly they collect this intelligence for... we... we don't know."

Lin En rubbed his eyeball and asked doubtfully:

"So what exactly is this organization?"

The skeleton stammered:

"It's... it's a very powerful faction in the Spirit Realm. Its members are spread throughout both the physical world and the Spirit Realm, and its emblem is a red six-pointed star. I don't know much about its internal structure, either. All I know is that every member of the Secret Cult worships a Great Demon who existed as far back as the Eternal Night... We reverently call him..."

"The [Crimson King]."

"A Great Demon?"

"Y-yes."

Lin En instantly grabbed him with a (▼皿▼#) expression and roared:

"You think a Great Demon is hot shit?!!"

The skeleton immediately went (.;ﾟ;:anger:;ﾟ;.), fragments of Sanity clattering all over the ground.

"N-no!! He's nothing compared to you!!"

Lin En rubbed his eyeball.

It seemed he had picked up some very interesting information.

And judging by what he had previously learned from Jones, a Great Demon's rank should correspond to seven tolls of the Spirit Bell.

But that only made him more curious.

The Spirit Bell didn't really seem to judge things by how powerful they were, did it?

Because if it did, weren't his nine tolls a little too inflated?

Lin En promptly tossed those thoughts aside and smiled at the (.;ﾟ;:anger:;ﾟ;.) skeleton, stroking his gleaming forehead with a tentacle as he said:

"All right, I've finished asking my questions. What do you think I should do with you?"

Knock, knock-

He tapped his skull.

"Eat you? Kill you? Or... screw you?"

[Ding! Saragon's fear of you +70!]

Utterly horrified, he covered his backside, terror filling his eye sockets as he said:

"No! No!! Please believe me! I can definitely be useful to you!! If... if you really came from above, you must not know much about this world yet, right? If you'll just give me a chance, I swear I'll do everything in my power to assist you! Whether you want to slaughter the whole world or let your glory descend once more! Your sword can point my way!!"

"I can offer you my eternal loyalty!"

Lin En smiled as he felt around his skull and said:

"Loyalty? All I did was ask a few casual questions... and you sold out your entire Secret Cult in one go. Isn't that loyalty a little cheap?"

His tentacles slowly coiled around the terrified skull.

He said slowly:

"If you ask me, I should just..."

But just then, a system notification abruptly rang out in his mind.

[Ding! Your second-stage advancement is currently 97% complete... 98%... 99%-]

[Ding! Warning! Your vessel has reached its maximum threshold! The vessel is not strong enough to support your second-stage advancement!]

Pop-

Almost at the very instant the notification sounded.

Lin En's body, which had swollen into a monstrous mass a full ten stories tall, seemed unable to bear the will within it any longer. A fissure instantly burst open along his largest tentacle.

And immediately afterward.

Pop, pop, pop, pop-

Every one of his monstrous tentacles split open in places at the same time. Countless cracks spread across his entire body like climbing ivy.

As his body split apart, a boundless, terrifying aura of utter chaos suddenly erupted from within him, instantly dispersing the black fog that shrouded the entire sky.

Lin En was startled.

"What the hell is happening?!"

But almost the instant he finished speaking.

Crack-

A tremendous crash rang out.

Cracks like shattered glass instantly appeared across the surrounding scenery.

The Skeleton Lord was instantly aghast and cried out in terror:

"It's reality... Reality can't hold up anymore! My ancestors must be smiling on me, damn it... I actually have the honor of witnessing this!!"

He was practically shrieking.

"Your rank of existence is too high! Hurry! Pull your aura back into your vessel! Otherwise... otherwise..."

But before he could finish.

Crack-

The scenery around them instantly shattered like a mirror.

In an instant, amid the screams of Hana Ye and the skeleton, every building within a hundred-meter radius of Lin En plunged into the gap left by reality's collapse.

A dozen or so minutes later.

When Jones led the massive Demon Horde here, panting for breath, they all jolted, horrified by the sight before them.

Because right before their eyes, a blank area over a hundred meters in diameter had been cut out of the entire street.

At a glance, it looked like the bald patch on a father's head.

Their hair stood on end.

"What on earth..."

Jones stared intently at the scene and said:

"Reality collapsed. Something fell from here... into the Spirit Realm."