Chapter 265: An Entity That Should Not Appear

Yu Sheng looked up. In the depths of the thick fog, he saw that creature crawling down the mall's glass curtain wall… or rather, "flowing" down.

It looked like a large blob of ink with a form, covering the building. Its surface rippled and undulated like an unstable liquid surface. From the edges of that puddle of liquid, it kept differentiating limbs that looked like arms and legs, but each limb just waved meaninglessly in the air before disappearing and retracting back into the ink in an instant. Occasionally, it opened something like a mouth, with sharp teeth and a tongue inside, and that mouth uttered garbled, low murmurs, but most of the time, it just gulped down the surrounding fog.

This liquid-like thing slowly crawled down the mall's exterior wall, a horrifying sight.

Little Red Riding Hood, after finally making out what it was, let out a cry: "Ink Stain?!"

Yu Sheng turned around instantly: "What the hell? You know this monster?"

"A dangerous entity, Ink Stain. It's hostile to living things and attacks using split bodies," Little Red Riding Hood said quickly, reciting what she knew, but the shock and confusion on her face only grew. "But… this isn't right! Ink Stains should only be generated in the foreign realm 'Lakeside Town.' This place, this place couldn't possibly be that 'Lakeside Town' by any look of it?!"

Yu Sheng listened with a bewildered expression, but now was clearly not the time to keep asking questions. That large blob of "ink" flowing down the mall's exterior wall had clearly noticed the "uninvited guests" on the plaza. In the blink of an eye, its edges began to tremble, swell, and contract violently, and then countless slender "branches" extended in all directions from its undulating outline.

This scene was like countless invisible brushes dipped in thick ink suddenly drawing wild lines on paper. Those slender branches extending from the monster's main body instantly imprinted on the glass curtain wall, forming all sorts of strange "traces." Then… those "traces" rained down to the ground and, within the thick fog, charged at Yu Sheng's group.

Yu Sheng instantly understood how that monster got its name.

He was now facing an attack from Ink Stains that had "come to life" from a two-dimensional plane—countless grotesque black split bodies with sharp edges and unpredictable movements, swarming in like a frenzied beast horde.

Phantom wolves emerged from beside Little Red Riding Hood in an instant. Having lost the restraint of the "fairy tale curse," she seemed more able to use her power freely. Many more shadow wolves than she usually commanded appeared in large numbers in the fog, howling, running, and fearlessly charging at the swarming split bodies.

Next, black threads suddenly spread everywhere. Irene raised both hands, and the creeping threads wove into a huge spiderweb, intercepting the densest area of the split monsters. Although those monsters looked like intangible "traces," the moment they touched the spider silk, they stiffened one by one, trembled in the air, and were then torn apart by the wolves one after another, turning into droplets scattered in the fog.

Hu Li, without a word, fired a round of Fox Carrot Missiles at the monster's main body on the mall's exterior wall.

Having been well-fed at the Special Affairs Bureau, the nine-tailed fox's confidence was high. With her arsenal unprecedentedly expanded, she fired a second round before the smoke even cleared.

The explosion of the Fox Carrot Missiles was deafening. The powerful shockwave even shattered the surrounding fog for a short time. Yu Sheng saw that patch of "ink" swallowed by scorching foxfire and smoke, and it seemed to let out a short, chaotic roar. Then, the mall building that had taken the missile bombardment directly let out a series of piercing sounds of collapse and fracture.

Amid the unbearable noise, the entire building began to slowly collapse. Blue foxfire ran everywhere along the structure, burning through everything in its path.

Irene was busy weaving her web. When she heard the commotion and turned to look, she exclaimed, "Holy shit! Stupid fox, you blew up the building… it's falling toward us!"

Yu Sheng reacted faster: "Run first!"

Before the words died out, he saw a flash of silver light beside him—Hu Li had directly transformed into a gigantic nine-tailed demon fox. She wrapped Yu Sheng and Irene with her tail and placed them on her back, then sprinted toward the area outside the building's collapse zone.

As she ran, the demon fox shouted loudly, "Sorry, benefactor! I failed Fire Control and Directional Demolition back then!"

Yu Sheng and Irene sat on the big fox's back, gripping the silver fur tightly to avoid falling off while looking back at the collapsing building. Hearing her words, Yu Sheng's eyes almost popped out: "Why did you learn that in elementary school?!"

"My dad signed me up for extracurricular classes!" the demon fox girl said loudly. "Because he thought girls should learn to control their firepower. Only when controlled can one be a proper lady!"

Yu Sheng was completely shocked, and a feeling of admiration for Fox Dad arose spontaneously—WTF, controlling firepower is being a proper lady… Don't ask why she has such strong firepower first, right?!

Just then, the corner of his eye caught a fleeting black shadow. Little Red Riding Hood charged out of the surrounding fog on a shadow wolf, barely keeping up with the nine-tailed demon fox while shouting at the top of her lungs: "Don't make such a big scene! What if 'Big Nephew' is hiding nearby and gets caught in it?!"

Hu Li turned her head and glanced at Little Red Riding Hood: "I scanned with my divine sense. There are no other living people around. The teacher taught in class—a proper lady doesn't use missiles to blow up her own people."

Little Red Riding Hood was dumbfounded, but still remembered to urge her shadow wolf to keep up with Hu Li's speed while complaining loudly: "Slow down! I can't keep up!"

"She's already slow enough; at least she hasn't used any boosters," Yu Sheng laughed at the situation. "Otherwise, you'd get to see what a supersonic fox looks like."

But talk is talk; Hu Li gradually slowed down. Since they had already run out of the collapse zone, she came to a complete stop after running a few dozen more meters, then looked back toward the mall building.

The thick fog made visibility very poor. Here, they could only faintly see residual foxfire burning in a scene of rising dust and chaotic ruins. Yu Sheng guessed that the entire building had completely collapsed. The split "Ink Stains" that had attacked earlier were probably buried under the ruins or ignited and burned up by the flowing foxfire.

As for the Ink Stain's main body, it probably couldn't withstand such a sudden saturation bombardment—after all, it didn't seem to be a tough monster like the enhanced version of "Hunger," which had both stats and mechanics.

It seemed they could breathe a sigh of relief.

However, that relief lasted less than two seconds.

A strange, low grumble came from the fog. Yu Sheng looked up and saw countless shadows slowly emerging from the mist.

Not Ink Stains, but something new—a group that looked like humans but lacked facial features and normally proportioned limbs. They were humanoid figures completely pieced together from trembling, chaotic colored geometric lines. Tall, short, fat, thin, in groups and clusters, they emerged from the fog in waves, like a blind wandering corpse horde, slowly approaching from the other side of the street.

"...Are all 'entities' this abstract? Can't there be a few good-looking ones?" Yu Sheng broke out in goosebumps at the sight, then turned to Little Red Riding Hood: "What the hell is this now? Do you recognize it? Can we just attack?"

Little Red Riding Hood was staring intently at the "crowd" emerging from the fog. Her expression was extraordinarily strange, but clearly, she did know.

"Cluster-type entity, 'Carnival Crowd.' When they appear, their numbers range from one thousand to ten thousand. They follow a specific path through the carnival site. They randomly approach or even attack living people, but sometimes they leave peacefully. Their danger level ranges from two to three," she said quickly and quietly. "Be careful. Never let your skin directly touch them. Once touched, you'll be gradually dyed by their 'lines.' After three contacts, you'll become one of them… Don't act rashly for now. They don't seem to have an offensive intent yet…"

Upon hearing this, Irene and Hu Li instantly restrained their impulse to attack. They cautiously moved to the roadside with Little Red Riding Hood, nervously observing the crowd outlined by trembling colored lines. Yu Sheng noticed a word Little Red Riding Hood had mentioned: "You said 'carnival'?"

"...Yes, carnival," Little Red Riding Hood's tone was especially grave. "These things shouldn't be here either. Logically, they are entities generated in the foreign realm 'Nameless Carnival,' but now they appear in this fog… The 'Ink Stain' just now too. What exactly is this place…"

She stopped mid-sentence abruptly.

Because the "line crowd" that had been slowly crossing the street suddenly stopped.

Countless indistinct colored line figures stopped in the fog.

After a few seconds of hair-raising silence, one of the colored line figures slowly turned its head toward them. It was very short, like a child walking beside an adult, attracted by something interesting on the roadside.

As that line figure turned its head, Yu Sheng clearly heard several "bang" sounds of confetti poppers being set off from within the carnival crowd.

Colorful confetti appeared out of thin air in the fog. As it fluttered down, all the line figures began to slowly turn their heads toward them.

They walked over, as if wanting to invite the uninvited guests to join the carnival dance. Those trembling colored lines had no facial features, yet within their chaotic head structures, horrifying and twisted smiles seemed to emerge.

Irene, in perfect articulation—

"Holy shit!!"

(End of Chapter)