Absolutely must not let go, Alex gritted his teeth and persisted, despite the pulling force wanting to tear his arm apart.
Alex's promotion ritual was simple; on the surface, it was just holding Gary's hand, just holding Gary's hand and nothing more, but in reality, it was a struggle to snatch a soul from the god of death.
But he clearly had underestimated what he was facing. It was a default rule of the underworld; a soul buried six feet under was destined to fall into the River of the Underworld to wash away memories.
A coercive suction force struck; the ground beneath his body seemed to liquefy. Alex was dragged down six feet underground, sinking into endless darkness.
Karamor's Tear suddenly extinguished, with not a bit of light remaining; all four sides sank into a deadly silence.
And at this moment, in Alex's small house, far away from the graveyard, the skeleton standing there breathed a sigh of relief; the bony chest slightly lowered.
It was successful. His empty, godless eyes, where deep sockets were, looked into the distance toward the graveyard, as if penetrating through the night and distance. The next moment, where the finger bone fragment had fallen beside the oil lamp, the tall, illusory figure of Elias slowly appeared; faint wings of light enveloped that area.
The darkness that was screaming and intending to rush in to bite and tear immediately restored silence out of fear; the angel bent down, a white bone finger lightly tapping on the ancient oil lamp. The holy blessing of the Angel of War dispelled the polluted characteristic of the extraordinary item; the flame inside Karamor's Tear flared up, once again emitting a gentle, warm light.
Following the appearance of the light, on that newly dug patch of earth, a masked teenager holding tight to a finger bone fragment lay quietly as if sleeping soundly, and beside him, there was a tiny, transparent little boy, only the size of a hand sitting there, looking around bewilderedly.
Necro-Speaker Alex and his undead Gary had returned from the realm of death.
Alex was awakened by rude knocking that shook the rotten wooden door frame.
He climbed down from the creaking wooden bed, his head still dizzy as if he had just experienced severe seasickness, his heavy body instinctively staggered to the door, removing the cold iron chain and pulling the latch with a squeak.
Standing at the door was Toby; on his body, the strong smell of antiseptic from the morgue still lingered.
The tall teenager worked at the morgue, a colleague who always seemed annoyed with Alex.
"You're still alive? Why didn't you go..." Toby's words were not very friendly, full of gruffness. He stood looking down from above at Alex, noticing the face pale as paper with no blood of the teenager opposite him, the dark, tired circles under his eyes. His voice paused, a bit hesitant: "Sick?"
Alex pouted, rubbing his eyes, his mind gradually recovering amidst Toby's noise. After his head cleared, he remembered everything, almost instinctively turning his head into the house to search for that existence. In his line of sight, Elias appeared in the familiar corner of the wall, motionless, standing straight exactly like a true, senseless white skeleton.
Toby squeezed past Alex, naturally crowding into the house as if it were his own, turning his back to Alex to hide the expression on his face. The teenager's face was a bit shy mixed with worry, but the spoken words were still curt and unpleasant:
"Don't think too much, I was just afraid you living alone here were eaten by demons, with no one to clean up the corpse, so I stopped by to check."
"I'm not thinking too much." Alex was still busy thinking about whether the Necro-Speaker promotion ritual was successful or not; the sensation of falling into the abyss still haunted him, so he didn't pay attention to the abnormality in Toby's clumsy tone of concern.
"Lucky for you, you weren't eaten by demons, just almost died of sickness." Toby turned his head back, staring at Alex, his eyes probing: "Didn't you rob my money? Why not go into the city to see a doctor? Do you want to keep the money to take to the grave?"
"Doctor." Alex muttered absentmindedly and then lowered his head, but caught sight of something that shouldn't exist. A pair of small, bare feet appeared hovering in front of his chest; looking up along those feet, right at this moment, a tiny person emitting a soft white light was sitting perched on his shoulder.
Looking at that appearance, the messy hair and chubby face, it was clearly a perfect miniature version of Gary.
Alex exclaimed in shock; as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized there was an outsider, Toby, here, and immediately covered his mouth tight with his hand, eyes wide open.
"What are you screaming for? Is there a ghost?" Toby turned his head, looking down at Alex with suspicion: "Don't tell me you're sick to the point of delirium, brain broken, not even knowing to go see a doctor?"
Alex stared at this miniature version of Gary, seeing the little boy making a funny face teasing him, and answered dazedly: "I'm fine. Just... a cramp."
The little spirit smiled mischievously at him, then flew up as light as a feather, circled around, and landed on top of Toby's head. It used its tiny feet to stomp hard on his messy hair twice, as if taking revenge for the rude attitude just now.
Alex hurriedly covered his mouth, suppressing a giggle; he almost laughed out loud at this humorous scene.
Elias had told him that the Necro-Speaker was an extraordinary path dealing with cold corpses and fierce evil spirits, extremely dangerous and lonely, but he had never said Alex could possess such a cute and lively spirit.
After little Gary finished helping Alex vent his anger, it flew back, did a somersault in the air, then landed on the teenager's shoulder, rubbing its tiny face against Alex's cheek.
Toby looked around Alex's simple house once, his gaze stopping on the white skeleton standing motionless in the corner for a moment. Alex was naturally brave, daring to live alone in this desolate place near the graveyard; collecting bones was perhaps his new weird hobby, so Toby didn't want to question further.
Toby said nothing; he took out from his coat pocket a bag wrapped in thick oil paper, still retaining a bit of body warmth, and placed it heavily on the wooden table. His eyes avoided looking, gazing out the window, not daring to look straight at Alex.
"Being fine is best, the corpses in the factory are so many there's almost no room left, the stench rises to the sky; if you're okay, then go to work quickly, don't be lazy lying at home all day."
Toby left behind a grumbling sentence and prepared to leave; just stepping over the threshold, he stopped, hand gripping the door frame.
"Right, the forest to enter the city is blocked, heard there are wild beasts or criminals or something, have to take a detour a bit farther over the hill, don't go the wrong way or get caught by the Church's people. They are hunting everywhere lately."