In the pitch-black room, the human shape lying on the velvet bedcovers spasmed eerily, its limbs flailing uncontrollably as if they had a life of their own. Amidst the calm of the room, the clicking and clacking sounds played a sinister serenade of the night.

The Specter Maid, who witnessed it all, hurriedly floated toward the door to call for her mistress. A translucent large hand blocked her path, Mr. Ernest remained calm.

"Ascension."

The power sealed by Mr. Raymond had been continuously used in academic research and practice. Finally, Lyle’s magical energy was sufficient to support the ascension, and his body was ready.

Three locks.

Although this movement was much more bizarre.

Frantic footsteps pattered against the wall as a dark creature resembling a spider scaled the wall and squeezed through the window.

Nia, too, wore an expression of contented fullness, like Lyle, but her body was quickly climbing across the ceiling, faster than ever before.

A closer look revealed tiny indentations where the tentacles touched the walls, leaving behind Nia’s "footprints." These were not marks that could be made by muscle or skin layers, nor did they resemble those left by suction cups.

They were nails, shards of bone. The surface of Nia’s body was tumultuous with white scales emerging from within her flesh, bone formations. As Lyle ascended, Nia was transforming her life form.

The tentacle tips extended sharp bony hooks, biting fiercely into the wall like the teeth of a beast. The rampaging Nia now reached the ceiling directly above Lyle’s body, at the top of the canopy bed.

The movements of the two bodies gradually synchronized, their flailing limbs and bodily twitches matching frequencies as if invisible threads bound their hands and feet.

Crackling sounds emitted from Lyle’s writhing body, accompanied by an odd rhythm, while overhead, in Nia’s flesh, an exoskeleton continuously formed, concentrated on her tentacles. Followed by the veins, white delicate bone scales grew.

In a sharp crackling sound like bones breaking, the two came to a halt. Lyle collapsed onto the bed, with Nia’s tentacles drooping in mid-air, falling vertically. But she remained firmly on the ceiling, her back pierced deeply into the wall by several thick bone spikes.

The process was not yet over. Lyle’s spine, shoulder blades, vertebras, and ribs slowly protruded under his skin, making peculiar clicking noises. Amid the grating sounds, bone spurs pierced through the flesh.

Lyle was like a hedgehog, one with a back full of bone spurs.

By now, Nia’s tentacles had drooped above Lyle, those tentacles touching the bone spurs, blending together as two pigments neutralize in one, merging completely.

The sinister activity resumed, with the tentacles pulling Lyle into the air. The tentacles manipulated the bones, influencing Lyle’s movements.

As if invisible hands were playing with His puppet.

Lyle was the puppet, Nia the strings pulling at the puppet.

Lyle, manipulated by unseen forces, performed a frantic dance in the air. His wild movements, paired with his serene, eyes-closed expression, made the Ascension ceremony even more bizarre.

Finally, Puppet Lyle took a glorious final bow, and all returned to calm. Lyle collapsed onto his bed, and his bone spurs, like ants returning to their nest, burrowed back under his flesh. Nia fell onto him with a slap, instinct driving her into Lyle’s shadow, but a long line of silver bone fragments arranged along her tentacles marked the completion of the Ascension ceremony.

Lyle had a strange dream.

In a twilight where the setting sun could not pierce the thick clouds, only a faint glow remained. The sky occupied by both daylight and night, but none of the brilliance for him to enjoy.

For Lyle, himself, was completely engulfed in the giant shadows of two intersecting entities.

Two omens of giants.

One was exactly as he had seen in the depths of Arnold’s reservoir: a mask made of shells, a body composed of the seabed and gravel, covered in twisted tentacles like deep-sea creatures. It gazed at Lyle, its hollow eyes containing whirlpools, as if Lyle saw his own drowning self within them.

The other sat crouched like a gargantuan, grotesque monkey. Its body, cleaner than that of the deep-sea giant, was still far from being spotless. Chaos formed its being, but it was also speckled with star-like points of light, although the dim glow only made the dark figure more profound. The hollow at the center of its bone mask stared at Lyle, along with that familiar, mocking smile.

They were staring at him, Lyle could feel it, they were waiting.

When Lyle woke, it was already the next morning. This was the quietest time in Naslan, when the ghosts and their mistress entered a period of lethargy.

Perhaps Lyle had grown accustomed to the intimidation of the ominous giants, or perhaps it was because they did nothing in this dream, but Lyle slept well. There was no hangover-like pain in his head.

Almost the instant he came to consciousness, Lyle understood his powers.

Three locks, Puppet Master.

Ability, Heretical Growth. The power of the Plague Messenger was further enhanced. Creatures infected by the plague could experience a third type of major symptom; their bones would mutate. Bones would soften, unable to support the body; bones would become brittle, unable to withstand impacts; bones would aberrate, growing abnormally in a short period, eventually piercing flesh and blooming outward, turning their hosts inside out, riddling them like a sieve. In higher organisms, the effect of this plague symptom would be diminished. But imagine the exquisite agony of a legendary mage suddenly experiencing a herniated lumbar disc during a spell.

Ability, Skeleton Puppet. Lyle’s understanding of white bone necromancy deepened. For his own skeletal creations and those creatures that had completed Heretical Growth, Lyle would interfere and control them through puppetry abilities, turning them into his own playthings. This ability acted as physical, enforced control; the controlled could resist or suppress the effect through magic or physical resistance. In any case, they would suffer some impact. Limbs suddenly out of control, muscles straining or tearing in the struggle, or organs punctured by bone spurs. Turning enemies into puppets at his command. In life, you obey me; in death, you serve me.

Nia wriggled out from behind Lyle, eagerly examining her body, her tentacles adorned with bone fragments. Well, what pleased her more were the pretty nails on her hands and the sharp teeth in her mouth. Nia had finally learned to scratch, the kind that tears flesh. Upon Lyle’s cue, Nia could completely ossify, adhering to the surface of Lyle’s body, forming a layer of bone armor.

Lyle listened to the clacking noise of Nia, she was lively, like a thin layer of snakeskin. He wondered how much Medusa had contributed to this, but he knew now she was hard. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"I remember Mr. Dragon recently complaining about my absences. Watching Shiny and the others limp out of class with broken arms and legs..." Lyle observed the glowing skeletal armor.

"Is this for me to take a beating?"