Chapter 325: Incalculable

Rustle!

"The text on the book cover is in ancient Latin; the translation after being processed is 'Secret of the Insect Shadow', and the optimized translation is 'Mystery of the Insect Shadow'." The communication signal connected by Zhu Jingzhi interrupted Ma You, who was focused on reading Dong Wen's diary.

Ma You happened to be looking at the passage that revealed the truth about the ancient book, seeing that Wang Yong and his team of scholars had also translated the book title into a similar meaning: "Insect Shadow Mystery".

Let's just go with the "Mystery of the Insect Shadow" as translated by Zhu Jingzhi. Ma You said over the communication, "I also happened to flip to the records in Dong Wen's diary regarding the ancient book; this is a Magic Book that records a lost civilization."

"A Magic Book?" Zhu Jingzhi was startled upon hearing this. Ma You could imagine the look of astonishment on Zhu Jingzhi's face on the other end, and then heard Zhu Jingzhi say in a grave tone, "Then this is a Forbidden Book."

In this world, there exist not only Magic Books, but also Spell Secret Manuals, Cultivation Arts, Shaman Witch Canons, and other widely circulated tomes of mysterious power; it is just that these pieces of knowledge are, in reality, Forbidden Knowledge.

The reason they are considered forbidden is not because they are powerful forces that would alter the existing social system, but because the enormous price hidden behind these powers is not as simple as people imagine.

Those powers do not arise out of thin air, nor do they originate from the potential within the human body, but are instead favors left to the believers of the world by every unknown Alien God.

It is just that while the favor is granted, there is no guarantee that the believer can withstand the "weight" of that favor; this is not something they concern themselves with, and they do not care. Being able to respond to a believer is already the highest reward for the believers.

Of course, although this Forbidden Knowledge is fraught with danger, human desire is infinite. Knowing there are tigers in the mountains, they still prefer to head toward the tiger mountain, just to touch the tip of the iceberg of the unknown, hoping one day to realize the grand ambition of transcending mortals.

It is just like Wang Yong, that group of scholars, and later, Dong Wen as well; they were all obsessed with the might of this extraordinary power.

Ma You photographed the contents of the first few pages of the book, letting the Pig Group team led by Zhu Jingzhi attempt to decipher the content, while he himself could continue flipping through the diary.

Through the unremitting efforts of Wang Yong and the scholars, they truly achieved significant and great results, discovering and attempting to learn how to master the first Incantation they deciphered.

An Incantation to summon an Insect Shadow Eater.

This was a remarkable discovery. They attempted to follow the cumbersome requirements in the book, first setting up the scene for chanting and casting, then having a volunteer scholar hold the necessary items—bloody liver and a handful of insect eggs—and stand upon a Strange Array drawn with pigment based on human blood to chant the Incantation.

Subsequently, they truly summoned an Insect Shadow Eater that should not have existed in this world. The moment the Insect Shadow Eater was summoned, it shocked and terrified everyone to the point that before anyone could react, the summoned Insect Shadow Eater impatiently devoured the scholar who had summoned it.

The book contained records on how to defend against and deal with the Insect Shadow Eater. After the Insect Shadow Eater devoured the first person, listening to the wails of that miserable scholar, they finally reacted. After a flurry of chaotic preparations, they trapped the Insect Shadow Eater within a set Barrier to restrict its movements, and this was the very Insect Shadow Eater that Dong Wen later saw in the villa at the banquet.

Later, Wang Yong and the others, crazily obsessed with magic knowledge, actually wanted to study the Insect Shadow Eater. Being bold and reckless, they did indeed succeed in unearthing quite a bit of knowledge related to the Insect Shadow Eater.

It is just that what they did not know was that the path they were walking was not a broad, smooth road, but a cliff leading to an abyss of despair.

Studying the Insect Shadow Eater and staying with it for long periods, Wang Yong and the scholars gradually began to show Abnormal manifestations. They became lethargic and weak, and gradually symptoms of neurasthenia appeared. They suffered auditory and visual hallucinations and often had a recurring nightmare related to the Insect Shadow Eater. The sound emitted by that flesh-mountain demon insect was clearly full of discordant abnormality, yet it possessed an addictive magic, slowly making it sound extremely pleasant.

On the fifth day after they began studying the Insect Shadow Eater, Wang Yong and his team of scholars discovered that several members among them had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Even after checking all the surveillance cameras in the villa, they found that the last place those missing persons vanished from was their own respective rooms.

Although they did not know how those people had disappeared from the scene within the locked rooms, everyone knew that this was inextricably linked to the existence they were torturing and studying.

The day after someone went missing, Wang Yong discovered that quite a few more people were gone.

After the third day, Wang Yong discovered that of the original team of 26, only 3 remained, including himself.

One scholar, finally unable to endure the fear, drove off in a car Wang Yong had parked in the villa garage like a madman and fled, but Wang Yong did not send anyone to pursue.

He and the scholar who had not fled knew deeply and certainly that no one here could escape.

On the night of the third day when people were disappearing one after another, the only scholar left in the villa hugged a Translation Note, jumped from the balcony of his room, and voluntarily fell head-first to the ground, dying on the spot.

Wang Yong was in fear. He did not feel afraid because of the scholar's suicide, but was deeply terrified, trembling incessantly, knowing the situation he would inevitably have to face next.

Wang Yong stepped over the corpse of the scholar who had smashed himself into a bloody mess and took the Translation Note left behind by the scholar.

The blood-stained Translation Note recorded other content in the ancient book regarding the Insect Shadow Eater, writing that the presence of the Insect Shadow Eater would make people feel relaxed and sleepy, but this kind of sleep was like an anesthetic; once received to a certain degree, it would not only create dependency but also lead to unimaginable consequences.

This characteristic of the Insect Shadow Eater was actually their habitual feeding routine. The method recorded in the book to restrict them only limited their movement in this spatial dimension; it was a temporary method to restrict and defend against them.

Once someone nearby slept, it would utilize its ability to cross reality and enter the dream, ending the life of the dream's owner in the most terrifying way and erasing this person's body in reality, which looked as if the person had mysteriously disappeared.

Subsequently, Wang Yong saw that the note also recorded another Incantation that had just finished being translated; it was an Incantation to control the summoning of the Insect Shadow Eater. However, after seeing the strict procedures necessary for casting the spell and the essential casting items that could not be gathered, and feeling the irresistible drowsiness that had set in since nightfall, he knew it was already too late for him.

Wang Yong could only exhaust his remaining will to make a final resistance; he wrote a short suicide note, deciding to leave a special inheritance for Dong Wen.

He deeply regretted his reckless behavior of exploring the unknown, because Dong Wen was the only person he knew who had resisted Forbidden Knowledge from the very first moment. He believed that Dong Wen would know how to handle that villa full of evil and filth after receiving the inheritance, as well as the Forbidden truth that should not be known to man.

However, Wang Yong had miscalculated human nature.