Slightly undulating waves gently slapped the outer wall of the cabin, and slight creaking sounds could be heard from deep in the deck from time to time. The ship's lamp, which was fueled by whale oil, was burning quietly not far away. In the bright firelight, a scene was reflected.
Both eyes are curious or expectant.
Morris spread out the book about city-state folklore in front of his eyes, relaxed his mind little by little, weakened his protection of his own will, opened his mind to knowledge, and allowed the power of the book to immerse himself little by little.
soul.
He could feel that his undefended mind was exuding an increasingly alluring "flavor" in the vast and boundless sea.
A scholar, a reckless and undefended scholar, opened his heart on the sea, and those hungry shadows wandering in the depths of the world must have noticed this bait - those blind shadows could not resist this bait.
They were tempted by the offer, but they were still hesitating. Their barely rational minds, slightly enlightened by the pursuit of knowledge, had an instinctive resistance to the environment on the Lost Home, which made them hesitate.
But they will not always hesitate - those things lurking in the spirit world, deep space and even subspace have no real wisdom.
Morris slowly turned the page, his eyes flowing between the words.
Folklore knowledge is the thing that most attracts the attention of those shadows. Folklore embodies the fear, awe and simple cognition of nature accumulated by humans over a long span of time. It is a roughly processed human nature, a sweet emotion and solidification.
The knowledge is most suitable for those hungry knowledge chasers to feast on.
Another page was opened, and fine dust undulated and dispersed between the pages. The light penetrated the curved paper at an angle, and outlined jumping light and shadow between the paper and the text.
It's very quiet in the cabin.
The captain stood quietly aside, staring at the open book, and the sun fragment stood on the other side, paying attention to the movement in the air.
Morris looked at the next line of text and saw that the edges of the text were shaking slightly.
The intruder is approaching.
The invisible knowledge hunter finally couldn't hold back anymore and came to the edge of the real world. Its tentacles were sniffing Morris's mind through the pages of the book, and began to disguise itself as words. On the originally normal pages, strange things appeared.
The symbols emerge little by little.
Those are words that do not exist, describing knowledge that does not exist.
Skilled hunters often disguise themselves as prey, and chasers of knowledge often disguise themselves as "knowledge" when luring scholars. Reading them is the first step to falling into the trap.
Morris looked at the lines of unreadable characters emerging on the paper, feeling the power escaping from those characters to tempt him to read, and said softly: "Here it comes."
The next second, the "Hunter" hidden in the pages and words seemed to suddenly sense something. A sharp and chaotic scream suddenly reached everyone's ears. Then, the pages of the big book began to go crazy.
Turning the pages, the black words on the pages jumped up one by one as if they had independent lives, struggling to turn into ink, trying to break free from the yellowed paper!
Duncan smiled slightly when he saw this.
His "fishing" was successful. When facing knowledge hunters, using historians to build a nest was indeed effective.
A cloud of smoke surged out from the pages of the book. The words that were separated from the page quickly merged into the smoke, and roared out of the book, turning into a vortex of smoke and dust that rolled up into the air. Then, something black began to appear in the smoke.
It condensed, took shape, and turned into some kind of skeleton-like structure in the blink of an eye - a large number of extremely chaotic, twisted pitch-black bone fragments fell on the floor beside the dining table, and in the blink of an eye, they were pieced together to form
Something that everyone present is familiar with:
An ugly, hound-like creature made of black bones.
Agou, who was on full alert next to him, was immediately stunned when he saw this scene. He raised his head and looked at the people around him: "I don't recognize it."
"It's easy if you don't know him." Duncan said casually, and then walked towards the deep hound that had just condensed its figure and seemed to be still in chaos. The latter finally reacted at this time. It raised its head suddenly and said blankly.
Red light exploded in his blood-red eyes, and endless black flames rose into the sky from the cracks in the bones all over his body, making a gesture of resistance!
However, its resistance ended before it even started - the moment the black flames rose in the body of the Deep Hound, its eyes met Duncan's, and the next second, every ray of flame burning out of its body was gone.
It was stained with a layer of green.
This intruder from the deep depths lost control of its own flames in a second and became a sacrifice under the gaze of the captain. Its chaotic mind may not even have time to understand what happened before it was already ensnared.
In the blazing flames of the spirit body - the shrill and chaotic roar instantly broke the peace on the Lost Home, and the explosion of the flames burning the bones and the strange tearing sound echoed through the restaurant!
A good hunter will appear to be the prey - but a bad hunter will actually become the prey.
What happened next was really unbearable for Agou to witness. The whole dog shivered into a ball. It held its head behind Shirley and shivered. While looking at the dancing fire in front of its eyes, it listened to the sound coming from its ears.
There was movement, and the red light in his eyes flickered: "Hey...oh, I'm going here...oh, it's burning...hey, the bones are broken...hey, it's howling...oh, damn, I can't stand it anymore..."
…”
The restaurant became quiet.
A group of broken bone fragments whose details were completely indistinguishable were scattered on the floor. Green smoke curled above the bone fragments, and some remaining green sparks jumped between the piles of debris, devouring the remains of this "knowledge hunter" in the real dimension.
The last bit of strength.
Duncan frowned, the development of the matter was a bit unexpected, and the speed of the end was also a bit unexpected.
He stepped forward, kicked the pile of broken bones that still retained some heat with his toes, and raised his head to look at Agou not far away.
"Why a dark hound?"
"I...I don't know..." Agou trembled for a moment, and his voice sounded trembling, "I have never read a book before, and I don't know how to read. I didn't even have much sense before I met Shirley.
I don’t know why a... fellow countryman appears."
At this time, Morris stood up, and the old scholar's calm voice finally helped Agou out: "Theoretically, the 'evil spirits' attracted when reading books will be random, usually from spirits.
The invisible shadow of the world, but there are also a few cases where they are 'demons' running out of the deep depths. The deep hounds have the meaning of 'hunting' and 'chasing' in their names. In fact, they are indeed a type of knowledge hunters...
…And it’s quite a powerful one.”
"A rather powerful one?" Duncan raised his eyebrows upon hearing this, and subconsciously glanced at Agou, who was trembling at Shirley's feet, "Really?"
"...Under normal circumstances, if a person reading a book at sea is attacked by a mysterious demon that suddenly runs out of the book, there is almost no chance of survival." Morris looked a little weird, "In a worse case, through
The deep demons that invade the real world through this method will grow rapidly and get out of control, killing everyone on the entire ship in a short period of time... Not every ship is a lost home."
"Okay," Duncan nodded, quickly ran through the strength formula in his mind, and said in a subtle tone, "If the strongest intruder summoned while reading is a 'hunter' like Agou, then it doesn't seem to be the case.
How dangerous..."
As he said that, he glanced at Nina: "Nina, you can do your winter vacation homework on the boat from now on. If something really escapes, just beat it yourself - be careful not to burn anything."
Nina suddenly laughed: "Oh!"
Then Duncan glanced at Agou again: "Speaking of which, you don't even know that you are a 'hound chasing knowledge'?"
"I don't know," Agou shook his ugly head and said in a muffled voice, "I told you, I used to be confused..."
Shirley frowned and thought for a long time, then suddenly said: "If you want to put it this way, the deep hounds are as illiterate as Agou, so why are they pursuing knowledge?"
"Alice is also studying cooking," Duncan said casually, "Maybe it's just a hobby."
Shirley nodded in understanding, then looked down at her partner, who silently got under the table next to him, held his head in his huge paws, and said in a muffled voice: "Don't ask me, what am I doing?"
I don’t even know...this place is so damn scary..."
Duncan couldn't help but shook his head with a smile. Suddenly he felt that the atmosphere was really getting better day by day after there were so many people on the ship. Now that he had such a pleasant daily life, he really didn't know what would happen when Vanna got on the ship.
What kind of excitement will it be like here?
With a happy mood and some expectations for the future, he stepped forward and kicked the pile of black bones on the floor that had gradually cooled down.
This is just a heartless dark demon, completely different from Agou.
"Alice, clear this pile."
…
Under the bright and warm sunshine, Vanna, who was walking in the atrium of the church, suddenly felt a chill and shivered subconsciously.
She raised her head, looked at the atrium path under the sun, and sighed deeply after a long time.