Kent looked terrible.
Two days of being fused with the clown costume had taken a severe toll on his body.
Most of his skin was badly ulcerated, and in places where the costume had fused more deeply, yellow fat was exposed beneath the wounds.
Still, he was alive.
Liam, however, wasn’t entirely satisfied.
He turned to Lily.
“Why is he in such bad shape? It feels like we practically ripped the clown costume off by force.”
Lily jumped down from Liam’s shoulder and walked a circle around Kent.
Then her voice appeared directly in Liam’s mind.
“Little one, you’re right. The ritual worked, but the results were mediocre at best. The only reason it succeeded at all was because of this man’s willpower.”
Liam smacked his forehead.
They had really put Kent through hell.
“How did that happen? I followed every step exactly the way you told me.”
Lily explained, “Your own spiritual energy is far too weak. On top of that, the tobacco was terrible quality, so the ritual barely had any effect.”
So that was the problem.
Liam breathed a sigh of relief.
He had been worried that something was wrong with the ritual itself.
Everything else could be improved later.
He helped Kent to his feet, then patted the still-trembling Meg on the shoulder.
“Help Kent into the bedroom and let him rest. His wounds need treatment, and you should get him to a hospital as soon as possible.”
Meg nodded numbly.
She and Jack each took one side of the weakened Kent and helped him away.
Liam bent down to roll up the clown costume lying on the floor and take it with him.
At that moment, the costume suddenly sprang into the air.
It shot onto Liam’s body and began wrapping itself tightly around him.
Fortunately, Liam had spent most of his money on meat recently to test Gluttony, and his strength had increased considerably.
The costume couldn’t overpower him.
He even had enough strength left to speak to Jack.
“What happens next isn’t suitable for children. Go take care of your dad.”
Jack nodded and followed his mother into the bedroom.
That left Liam alone in the living room.
Lily’s voice sounded in his mind again.
“Little one, this costume absorbed a lot of that man’s spiritual energy and fear. It can move on its own now.”
Liam nodded, completely unfazed.
Whenever he dealt with something strange, he was always prepared for the worst.
“What’s the best way to destroy it?”
“I’m not sure. Try restraining it first.”
Liam flexed his arm and forcibly pried open a gap in the costume wrapped around him.
With his other hand, he drew a small knife from his waist and slashed at the sleeve binding him.
The blade had barely opened a cut when rainbow-colored blood began pouring out.
The clown costume immediately released him and leaped away.
“Hee-hee! Ha-ha!”
It writhed across the floor, laughing in the voice of a child.
Gradually, the laughter became hoarser and more shrill.
The costume stretched and twisted.
Before long, it had grown arms, legs, and a grotesquely deformed clown head.
“Hee-hee-hee!”
The moment its body finished forming, the clown opened a mouth packed with sharp teeth and lunged at Liam.
Liam responded with a single word.
“Watson.”
Before he even finished speaking, the clown was struck violently from behind and slammed to the floor.
It was Watson.
After more than a week of Liam feeding him well, Watson had grown from a scrawny cub weighing around eighty pounds into a chubby little bear approaching 110 pounds.
He was finally beginning to develop some real fighting ability.
Watson dropped his weight onto the clown and immediately began biting and tearing at it.
But Watson was still only a bear cub, and he had virtually no combat experience.
He failed to notice the claw extending from beneath the clown, hidden in his blind spot.
Just as the claw was about to stab into his back, Liam stepped forward, caught the clown by the wrist, and drove his knife through it into the wooden floor.
“Shnk!”
Rainbow-colored blood immediately began pouring from the wound.
The clown’s laughter grew even louder, but for the moment, it couldn’t break free.
Liam nodded in satisfaction.
That worked.
He repeated the process, pinning all four of the clown’s limbs to the floor with knives.
Then, worried it might still escape, Liam thought for a moment and pulled out the remaining pitons from his climbing gear.
He positioned them over the clown’s torso and hammered them down one after another.
“Bang! Bang!”
Now the monster looked like an insect specimen pinned to a display board.
Aside from the occasional “hee-hee” of its laughter, it could no longer move at all.
Once he was finished, Liam asked Lily again.
“How do we destroy this thing for good? I get the feeling smashing its head wouldn’t do much.”
“Burn it, of course.”
Lily answered as if it were obvious.
Liam stared silently at the clown.
“Relax. Fire can purify most evil spirits. If fire isn’t enough, we can add something extra.”
Liam looked toward the staircase leading upstairs.
Meg was secretly peeking down at them.
“Do you have any fuel?”
“Will kerosene work? There’s some in the kitchen.”
Following Meg’s directions, Liam went into the kitchen and found a jug of kerosene.
When he returned to the living room, the clown was pulling desperately at its torn body, trying to work itself free.
Just as it was about to escape, Watson smacked it back down with one paw.
“Nice work, buddy.”
Liam praised Watson, unscrewed the cap of the kerosene jug, poured it over the clown, then flicked his lighter and set it ablaze.
“Hee! Hee! Hee!”
As the flames rose, the clown’s laughter became louder and louder.
Hearing it, Liam worried the creature might still have another trick left.
“What exactly did you mean by adding something extra?”
Lily pointed at Watson.
“This little spirit bear. He’s still too young to control his own spiritual energy. Make him sneeze, and he’ll instinctively blow some of it out.”
That worked?
Liam went back to the kitchen, found a small container of pepper, and sprinkled a little in front of Watson’s nose.
“Achoo!”
Watson unleashed an enormous sneeze, then turned toward Liam with tears in his eyes.
Liam ignored him and focused entirely on the clown.
The effect was astonishing.
The flames instantly turned green.
The clown’s laughter stopped abruptly.
A few minutes later, nothing remained on the floor but a pile of ashes.
[The Clown’s Skin]
[Event Level: C]
[Exploration Progress: 100%]
[Reward: Devour (By consuming bloody raw meat, you can slowly increase your strength)]
[Reward of the same type detected]
[Devour and Gluttony merged]
[Gluttony: By consuming meat, you can increase your strength at a normal rate]
So Rewards of the same type could be merged.
Liam had already felt that Gluttony improved his strength too slowly while costing him a fortune in food.
Now that problem had been solved.
More importantly, this meant that even if he obtained a mediocre ability in the future, as long as he kept improving and merging it, it could eventually become genuinely useful.
The thought made Liam even more eager to investigate all the unknown Events still waiting to be discovered.