"Uh-oh." Richard looked up at Billy's bizarre state and immediately realized what was happening. "That severed limb of the Mind Flayer—the thing that once invaded Troy's body—is now parasitizing Billy."
Upon hearing this, Maxine, who should have been the most repulsed by Billy, was actually the most agitated. She worriedly asked, "How could this happen? Will he be okay? How do we save him?"
"In any case, we have to try high-temperature fire exorcism first, just like how we helped Troy back then," Will said, clearly remembering how they had helped Troy break free from the parasite's influence.
Maxine looked around frantically. "But we don't have anything like that with us."
Richard's gaze was calm as he said placidly, "It's not necessary anymore. Billy destroyed the house, and now everyone is angry."
The teenagers' expressions changed drastically; they naturally knew exactly who Richard meant by "everyone."
The next moment, an eerie, sinister black wind rose from the ruins. Countless black air currents converged, swirling around Billy and quickly forming a tightly packed wall of wind. Seeing this, the enraged Billy hammered at the wind wall, but his blows hit nothing. After all, the black wind was the souls of the vengeful spirits and had no physical form. However, the gale whipped up by the spirits carried a large amount of sharp stones and cement fragments, easily slicing through Billy's skin.
Billy cried out in pain as he was relentlessly attacked by the sharp, small objects. His clothes were shredded, and his skin was torn open. The howls of the malevolent ghosts struck his ears and brain like shockwaves, over and over again.
Maxine couldn't help but scream, fearing that Billy would die under the vengeful spirits' furious assault.
"It won't be that easy," Richard said with a serious expression. Hearing this, everyone looked over and saw the battered Billy kneeling on one knee. Distinct black thread-like structures emerged from his open wounds, closing them like sutures and healing them rapidly.
Everyone was in disbelief. Was this also an ability of the Mind Flayer?
"Those black particles can modify the host's constitution. Right now, the black particles need to rely on Billy to fight. It hasn't occupied Billy's body for very long, so it probably hasn't modified him to a non-human level yet. However, to protect its host, it Will help heal Billy whenever he's injured," Richard explained.
He had no intention of joining the fight because he knew that even a parasitized Billy would be helpless against such a massive swarm of vengeful spirits.
The moment Billy drove his car through the house, he had completely enraged the ghosts cohabiting in Richard's home.
Suddenly, the massive swarm of vengeful spirits surged like a beehive, rushing into Billy's orifices and flooding into his body.
"Don't take his life." This was the only thing Richard could do. Thanks to his fusion with the Phantom Haunting Spirit, his own mental soul was equivalent to an overlord among vengeful spirits. Although he held a certain leadership position within the swarm, vengeful spirits were ultimately beings ruled more by malice than reason. When enraged, they were no different from rabid beasts.
Even a wolf raised and trained from birth might turn on its master when enraged, let alone this group of fierce ghosts. At this moment, Richard could only allow them to attack, merely requesting that they spare Billy's life. This was the limit of what he could currently do.
Soon, the sinister black wind had completely entered Billy's body. Billy lay on the ground, twitching incessantly. Ghostly faces, human limbs, and black threads writhed beneath his skin—a clear sign of the battle between the vengeful spirits and the Mind Flayer inside him.
The teenagers watched with grimaces, unable to bear the sight. Although Maxine couldn't stand to see Billy suffer, she was also deeply worried about her stepbrother's survival.
"Roar!" Suddenly, Billy snapped his bloodshot eyes open. A cloud of black particles erupted from his wide-open mouth, followed closely by a mass of black smoke. The smoke transformed into several ferocious skeletons that snatched the black particles, their skeletal hands tightly enveloping them to prevent any escape.
Surrounded by the airtight grip of the skeletal fingers, the black particles shrieked as they were dragged into the center of the black smoke by the vengeful spirits. After a flash of purplish-red light, everyone heard a sharp sound like glass shattering. The black smoke stopped its riot, and the black particles vanished, seemingly completely devoured by the spirits. The swarm of vengeful spirits let out satisfied, eerie cackles as they circled around Richard.
"Go inside here for now." Richard sighed, having expected such an outcome. He pulled back a wooden board in his bedroom, revealing a basement passage he had dug himself. "You'll stay in here temporarily until the house is repaired."
Having vented their anger, the vengeful spirits had returned to a state of calm. They obeyed Richard's words implicitly, vanishing into the basement in a flash. As the wooden board was replaced, everything fell silent.
"Billy." With a moment to breathe, Maxine rushed to the fallen Billy's side. Seeing him half-naked, his muscular body covered in flesh wounds, his face pale, and his breathing shallow, she became even more worried.
"If we get him to the hospital in time, his life shouldn't be in danger." Richard also walked over to Billy. He peeled back Billy's eyelids to check his pupils, then placed his hand on Billy's chest, using God's Hand to sense his heart's condition. There were no particularly serious internal injuries.
It was likely because Billy was naturally well-built and full of vitality. Despite being parasitized by the Mind Flayer and then possessed by vengeful spirits in succession, he was now merely "drained" to the point of exhaustion. Richard couldn't help but admire Billy's constitution, despite his foul personality.
That night, Billy was taken to the town hospital. As soon as Hopper heard about it, he rushed over with his subordinates from the police station. After hearing the full story from Richard and the members of The Party, he had his loyal subordinate Callahan write up a false report.
The story was that Billy had come to Richard's house to pick up his sister, but his car's brakes suddenly failed, causing him to crash into the house and resulting in the accident.
Hopper would help handle how to collect the evidence afterward.
For the first time, Richard felt the satisfaction of having "people in high places."
Billy was in no great danger. The hospital doctors only said he had lost a lot of blood. The wounds that looked terrifying were mostly superficial and not life-threatening, though they would take a long time to heal.
Maxine breathed a huge sigh of relief. Although Billy was a bit of a bastard, she knew this "jerk" didn't deserve to die. She didn't want him to die in front of her, especially in a way that involved her, as it would have left her riddled with guilt.
However, what surprised Maxine was that her stepfather—who usually treated Billy as roughly as Billy treated her—actually looked moved to tears in front of the unconscious Billy. She had only happened to see it by chance; even her mother, Susan, didn't know.
From this, Maxine realized that her stepfather didn't completely lack love for his children; he was just an unqualified father who didn't know how to educate and only knew how to use the crudest methods. Influenced by such an upbringing, how could Billy not be affected by his stepfather and become a brother who only knew how to watch over his sister in the same way?
When a child does something wrong, correct parenting involves patiently and calmly explaining what was wrong, why it was wrong, and what the consequences are, guiding the child toward the right path. However, Billy's biological father—whenever Billy did something wrong—would immediately use physical violence or intimidation and verbal abuse to tell him he couldn't do that and what he should do instead, much like a trainer taming a wild animal. Yet, humans are not beasts... Later, Maxine heard that Billy's biological mother had flown in from another distant state as soon as she heard about the incident.
What surprised her even more was that Billy, who was crude and impolite to everyone, was as docile as a child in front of that beautiful middle-aged woman.
Maxine took a picture of his well-behaved appearance. This would be her leverage for the next time Billy "acted out."