Deep Sea Embers

The slightly undulating waves gently slapped the outer wall of the cabin, and there was a slight creaking sound from the depths of the deck from time to time. The ship lights fueled by whale fat were burning quietly not far away. A pair of curious or expectant eyes.

Morris spread out the book about city-state folklore in front of his eyes, relaxed his mind a little bit, weakened the protection of his will, opened his mind to knowledge, and let the power in the book submerge his body little by little. soul.

He could feel that his undefended mind was exuding more and more alluring "taste" in this vast and boundless sea.

A seeker, a reckless and unguarded seeker, opened his heart on the sea, and those hungry shadows prowling the depths of the world must have sensed the bait—those squirming and blind shadows could not resist this. However, they are still hesitating, their barely sane, slightly enlightened minds chasing knowledge have an instinctive resistance to the environment on the Lost Country, which keeps them hesitating.

But they won't hesitate forever - those things lurking in the spirit world, the deep and even the warp have no real intelligence.

Morris slowly turned a page, his eyes wandering between the words.

Folklore knowledge, this is what attracts the attention of those shadows the most. Folklore embodies the fear, awe and simple cognition of nature accumulated by human beings over a long time span. It is roughly processed human nature, sweet emotions and solidification. knowledge, the most suitable for those hungry knowledge chasers to feast on.

Another page of the book was opened, and fine dust fluctuated and drifted between the pages. The light obliquely penetrated the curved paper, and outlined the jumping light and shadow between the paper and the text.

It's quiet in the cabin.

The captain stood quietly on one side, staring at the open book, and the sun shards 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, 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 original normal pages, strange The symbols emerge little by little.

Those are words that do not exist at all, describing knowledge that does not exist at all.

Smart hunters often disguise themselves as prey, and knowledge chasers often disguise themselves as "knowledge" when they lure scholars. Reading them is the first step in falling into the trap.

Morris looked at the lines of illegible characters that emerged on the paper, felt the power emanating from those characters that tempted him to read, and said softly, "Here it comes."

The next second, the "hunter" hidden in the pages and text seemed to sense something suddenly, and a sharp and chaotic scream suddenly entered everyone's ears, and then, the pages of the big book went crazy Turning the page, the black characters on the page jumped up one by one as if they had independent lives, struggling to turn into ink stains, trying to break free from the yellowed paper!

Duncan showed a smile upon seeing this.

His "fishing" was successful. When facing knowledge hunters, using historians to make nests really worked.

A puff of smoke gushed out from the pages of the book, and the words that were separated from the page quickly merged into the smoke, roared and rushed out of the book, turning into a vortex of smoke and dust that rolled into the air, and then, within the smoke and dust, there was another pitch-black thing. Condensed, formed, and turned into some kind of bone-like structure in the blink of an eye—a pile of extremely chaotic, twisted black bone fragments crackled and fell on the floor beside the dining table, and were pieced together and combined in the blink of an eye. Something familiar to everyone present:

An ugly hound-like creature made of black bones.

A Gou, who was on alert next to him, was dumbfounded when he saw this scene, and looked up at the people around him: "I don't know it."

"It's easy if you don't know it." Duncan said casually, and then walked towards the dark hound that had just formed its figure and seemed to be in chaos, and the latter finally reacted at this time. The red light in his blood-colored eyes exploded, and endless black flames shot up from the cracks in the bones all over his body, as if to resist!

However, its resistance was over before it even started—the moment the black flames rose from the deep hound's body, its gaze met Duncan's sight, and in the next second, every ray of flame burning from its body was exhausted. Stained with a layer of dark green.

This intruder from the deep depths lost control of its own fire within a second, and became a sacrifice under the watchful eyes of the captain. Its chaotic and confused mind may not even have time to understand what happened, and it has already been coerced In the blazing flames of the spirit body—the shrill and chaotic roar instantly broke the peace on the Lost Homelander, and the crackling sound of the flames burning the bones and the strange tearing sound resounded through the dining room!

Good hunters often appear as prey - but very good hunters really become prey.

What happened next was really unbearable for Agou to witness. The whole dog shivered into a ball, trembling with his head hugged behind Shirley, while watching the dancing flames in front of him, while listening to the sound coming from his ears. There was a movement, and the red light in the eyes flickered: "Hey... oh I'm going here... oh my mother, this is burning... oh my bones are broken... oh my howling... oh my god I can't stand it anymore... ..."

The dining room fell silent.

A group of broken bone fragments whose details could not be discerned were scattered on the floor, green smoke billowed above the bone fragments, and some remaining green sparks jumped among the piles of debris, devouring the remains of the "Knowledge Hunter" in the real dimension. One last bit of strength.

Duncan frowned. The development of the matter was a bit unexpected, and the speed at which it ended was also a bit unexpected.

He stepped forward, kicked the pile of broken bones that still had a little heat with his toes, and raised his head to look at Agou not far away.

"Why is it a deep hound?"

"I... I don't know..." Agou trembled for a moment, his voice sounded trembling, "I have never read a book before, I don't know how to read, and I didn't even have much sense before I met Shirley. I don't know why a... fellow countryman popped up."

At this time, Morris stood up on the side, and the steady voice of the old scholar finally helped Agou out: "Theoretically, the 'evil spirits' attracted when reading books will be random, and usually come from spirits." The invisible shadow of the world, but in a few cases, it will be a 'demon' running out of the depths. The name of the deep hounds has the meaning of 'hunting' and 'chasing'. In fact, they are indeed a kind of knowledge hunter... ...and a fairly powerful one."

"A very powerful one?" Duncan raised his eyebrows when he heard the words, and subconsciously glanced at Agou who was trembling at Shirley's feet, "Really?"

"...Under normal circumstances, a person reading a book at sea is attacked by a ghostly demon that suddenly ran out of the book. There is almost no chance of survival," Morris said with a strange expression, "In worse cases, through The deep demons that invade the real world through this method will grow rapidly and get out of control, killing the entire ship's people in a short period of time... Not every ship is the Lost Homeland."

"Okay," Duncan nodded, quickly scratched the strength formula in his mind, and his tone was a little subtle, "If the strongest intruder summoned when reading the book 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 homework on the boat in the future. If something really gets out, just beat it yourself—be careful not to burn it."

Nina suddenly laughed: "Oh!"

Then Duncan glanced at Agou again: "Speaking of which, you don't even know that you are a 'hound of knowledge'?"

"I don't know," Agou said in a muffled voice, shaking his ugly head, "I've said it all, I used to be muddleheaded..."

Xue Li frowned and thought for a long time, and suddenly said: "If you want to say this, the Youshen Hound is as illiterate as Agou, so why are they chasing knowledge?"

"Alice is still studying cooking," Duncan said casually, "maybe it's just a hobby."

Shirley nodded half-understood, then looked down at her partner, but the latter silently got under the table next to her, holding her head in her huge paws, and said in a muffled voice, "Don't ask me, what am I doing?" I don't even know...it's too fucking scary, this place..."

Duncan couldn't help but shook his head with a smile, and suddenly felt that the atmosphere was getting better day by day after there were so many people on board—now that he has such a pleasant daily life, I really don't know what happened after Fanna boarded the ship. How lively will it be 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 deep demon, completely different from Agou.

"Alice, clean up this pile."

...

Under the bright and warm sunlight, Fan Na 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.

What should come, always will come.