Chapter 265: An Entity That Should Not Appear

Yu Sheng raised his head; deep within the thick fog, he saw the monster that was crawling down the shopping mall's glass curtain wall—or rather, "flowing" down.

It looked like a massive, formless blob of "ink" covering the building; its surface constantly rippled and undulated like an unstable liquid, while from the edges of that pool of "liquid," limbs resembling hands and feet constantly differentiated, yet each limb merely waved meaninglessly in the air before vanishing and retracting into the pool of ink in the blink of an eye; occasionally, it opened a structure resembling a mouth, revealing sharp teeth and a tongue, and that mouth sometimes emitted muffled, low mutterings, but more often, it simply gobbled up the surrounding thick fog in huge mouthfuls.

This liquid-like thing slowly wriggled down the mall's outer wall, a sight that was terrifying to behold.

Little Red Riding Hood, having finally gotten a clear look at the creature, let out a cry of shock: "Ink Trace?!"

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

"Dangerous Entity: Ink Trace, hostile to living beings, attacks via splitting bodies," Little Red Riding Hood spoke rapidly, reciting the data she knew, but the look of shock and confusion on her face only grew deeper, "But... this doesn't make sense! Ink Trace should only generate in the Otherworld 'Lakeside Town'; this place, this place could not possibly be that 'Lakeside Town' at all?!"

Yu Sheng listened with a blank expression, but clearly now was not the time to keep asking questions—that massive blob of "ink" flowing down the mall's outer wall had obviously discovered the "uninvited guests" in the square; in the blink of an eye, its edges trembled violently and expanded and contracted, and then countless slender "branches" extended in all directions from its undulating outline.

The scene was like countless invisible brushes dipped in that 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 various strange "traces," and then... those "traces" fell to the ground like rain, charging violently toward Yu Sheng and his group through the thick fog.

Yu Sheng instantly understood how the monster got its name.

He was now facing an assault from Ink Traces that had "come alive" from a two-dimensional plane—countless black splitting bodies of bizarre shapes, with sharp edges and unpredictable movement patterns, swarming forward like a frenzied pack of beasts.

The Phantom Wolf Pack materialized beside Little Red Riding Hood in the blink of an eye; having lost the restraint of the "Fairy Tale Curse," Little Red Riding Hood seemed able to wield her power more freely, and far more shadow wolves than she usually commanded appeared in vast numbers within the thick fog, howling, running, and fearlessly charging at those swarming splitting bodies.

Immediately after, black threads suddenly spread out; Erin raised both hands, and the spreading, wriggling threads wove into a giant spider web, meeting the area where the splitting monsters were most dense; although those monsters looked like mere "traces" without physical form, the moment they touched the spider silk, they stiffened one by one, trembled and shook in the air, and were then torn apart one by one by the wolf pack, turning into liquid droplets scattered in the fog.

Hu Li, without a second thought, launched a round of Fox-Root Missiles at the monster's main body on the mall's outer wall.

Having gorged herself at the Special Operations Bureau, the nine-tailed fox was full of confidence; with the armory vastly expanded, she didn't wait for the smoke to clear before launching a second round immediately.

The explosion of the Fox-Root Missiles was deafening; the powerful shockwave even shattered the surrounding thick fog for a short time; Yu Sheng saw that pool of "ink" being swallowed by the scorching fox fire and smoke, and it seemed to emit a short, chaotic roar—immediately after, the shopping mall building facing the missile bombardment let out a series of ear-piercing sounds of collapse and fracture.

Amidst the unbearable noise, the entire building began to slowly collapse, with ghostly blue fox fire scurrying wildly along the entire staircase, burning and corroding every structure in its path.

Erin was busy weaving the web; hearing the commotion, she turned back to look and immediately cried out: "Holy crap! You idiot fox, you blew the building down... and it's falling right this way!"

Yu Sheng reacted even faster: "Run first!"

Before he finished speaking, he saw a flash of silver light beside him—Hu Li instantly transformed into a giant nine-tailed demon fox; she wrapped her tail around Yu Sheng and Erin, placing them on her back, then took off running at full speed toward the area outside the building's collapse zone.

While running, the demon fox shouted loudly: "Sorry, Benefactor! I failed both Fire Control and Directional Blasting back in school!"

Yu Sheng and Erin sat on the big fox's back, gripping the silver fur beside them tightly to avoid falling off while looking back at the building's collapse; hearing the other's words, Yu Sheng's eyes nearly popped out: "Why did you study this in elementary school?!"

"Dad signed me up for extracurricular classes!" the fox girl shouted loudly, "Because he thought girls needed to learn to control their firepower; only then are they ladylike!"

Yu Sheng was completely stunned, feeling an instant surge of respect for the fox father—what the hell does controlling firepower have to do with being ladylike... and why would anyone have such powerful firepower in the first place, never mind that?!

Just then, the corner of his eye caught a streak of black shadow passing by; Little Red Riding Hood rode a shadow wolf out of the surrounding thick fog, struggling to keep up with the nine-tailed demon fox while shouting toward them: "Don't make it so big! What if 'Big Nephew' is hiding nearby and gets wiped out with us?!"

Hu Li turned her head, glanced at Little Red Riding Hood: "I scanned with my divine sense; there are no other living beings nearby—what the teacher taught in class: a lady doesn't bomb her own people with missiles."

Little Red Riding Hood was dumbfounded, but she didn't forget to urge the shadow wolf again, keeping up with Hu Li's speed while complaining loudly: "Slow down! I can't catch up!" "She's already slow enough; at least she hasn't activated a single booster," Yu Sheng, seeing the situation, laughed, "How about I show you what a supersonic fox looks like."

But say what she would, Hu Li gradually slowed down; having already run out of the collapse zone, she came to a complete stop after running another few dozen meters, then turned back to look in the direction of the shopping mall building.

Thick fog filled the air, visibility was extremely poor; here, one could only vaguely see the remaining fox fire still burning amidst the constantly rising smoke and the chaotic rubble of the collapsed ruins; Yu Sheng guessed that the entire building must have completely collapsed, and those splitting "Ink Traces" that had launched the attack earlier were most likely buried within the rubble of the fallen building, or ignited and burned away by the fox fire flowing everywhere.

As for the "Ink Trace" main body, it probably couldn't withstand such a sudden saturation bombardment—after all, it didn't seem to be an enhanced version of "Hunger," a difficult monster with stats and mechanics.

It seemed one could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

However, that sigh of relief lasted less than two seconds.

A strange, low gurgling sound came from the thick fog; Yu Sheng looked up and saw countless shadows slowly emerging from the fog.

Not Ink Traces, but something new—groups resembling humans, yet lacking human facial features and normally proportioned limb structures; they were humanoid figures pieced together entirely from trembling, chaotic colored geometric lines, of varying heights and builds, moving in groups, emerging from the fog in waves, approaching slowly from the other side of the street like a blindly wandering zombie horde.

"... Are all 'Entities' this abstract? Can't there be a few with better aesthetics?!" Seeing this situation, Yu Sheng's goosebumps rose; then he turned to look at Little Red Riding Hood, "What the heck is this again? Do you know it? Can we just fight it directly?"

At this moment, Little Red Riding Hood was staring fixedly at the "crowd" emerging from the thick fog, her expression extremely strange, but clearly, she really knew.

!

"Cluster-type Entity: 'Carnival Crowd'; the number appearing each time ranges from one thousand to ten thousand; they move along specific routes through the carnival site, randomly approaching or even attacking living beings, but sometimes they depart peacefully; danger level fluctuates between Grade Two and Grade Three," she spoke quickly and quietly, "Be careful, absolutely do not touch them directly with your skin; once touched, you will gradually be dyed by their 'lines'; once contact exceeds three times, you will become one of them... Don't act rashly yet; they seem to have no desire to attack for now..."

Upon hearing this, Erin and Hu Li instantly suppressed their impulse to attack proactively; then, following Little Red Riding Hood, they cautiously moved to the roadside while nervously observing the crowd outlined by trembling colored lines; Yu Sheng, meanwhile, noticed a word Little Red Riding Hood had just mentioned: "You said 'Carnival'?"

"... Yes, Carnival," Little Red Riding Hood's tone was exceptionally grave, "These things shouldn't be appearing here either; according to theory, they are Entities that only generate in the Otherworld 'Nameless Carnival,' yet now they appear in this thick fog... The 'Ink Trace' just now was the same; what exactly is this place..."

Her words stopped abruptly halfway.

Because the "Line Crowd" slowly walking across the street suddenly stopped.

Countless shadowy, colored line figures halted their steps in the thick fog.

After a brief few seconds of silence that made one's scalp crawl, one of the colored line figures slowly turned its head toward them—it was very short, like a child walking beside an adult, its gaze attracted by something interesting by the roadside.

And with the action of that line figure turning its head, Yu Sheng clearly heard several "pop-pop" sounds of colored paper confetti cannons going off from within the Carnival Crowd.

Colorful confetti appeared out of thin air in the thick fog; accompanied by their fluttering descent, all the line figures began to slowly turn their heads toward them.

They were coming over, seemingly 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 float into view.

Erin, with perfect diction—

"Holy crap!!"

(End of Chapter)