Chapter 282

Chapter 282: Hunters of Knowledge

The gently rolling waves softly beat against the outer wall of the cabin. From deep within the deck came faint creaks now and then. A lamp burning whale oil flickered quietly not far away. In its bright light, pairs of eyes, curious or expectant, shone.

Morris spread open the book on city-state folklore in front of him. Little by little, he relaxed his mind and lowered the defenses around his will. He let his thoughts open wide to knowledge and allowed the power in the pages to slowly flood his spirit.

He could feel that his unguarded mind was giving off an ever more tempting “scent” on this vast Boundless Sea.

A seeker of knowledge, a rash and unguarded seeker of knowledge, had opened his heart upon the sea. Those hungry Shadows roaming in the world’s deep layers had surely sensed this bait. Those restless, blind Shadows could not resist this lure, yet they still hesitated. Their minds, barely worthy of being called rational and only slightly enlightened by the pursuit of knowledge, felt an instinctive rejection toward the environment on the Vanished. That made them waver.

But they would not hesitate forever. Those things lurking in the Spirit Realm, the Abyssal Deep, and even Subspace did not possess true wisdom.

Morris slowly turned a page. His gaze drifted over the lines of text.

Folklore was what most attracted those Shadows. In folklore, Humans had gathered over long ages their fears, their awe, and their simple understanding of nature. It was roughly processed humanity, sweet emotions bound together with solidified knowledge. It was the perfect feast for hungry knowledge pursuers.

Another page turned. Fine dust between the sheets rose and drifted as they moved. The lamplight slanted through the curving paper, tracing leaping patterns of light and shadow in the narrow gaps between page and ink.

The cabin was very quiet.

The captain stood silently to one side, his gaze resting on the open book. The Sun fragment stood on the other side, watching the movements in the air.

Morris looked at the next line of text and saw the edges of the letters tremble slightly.

The Intruders were drawing near.

The invisible hunter of knowledge finally could not hold back anymore. It had come to the very edge of the Mortal Realm. Its tendrils sniffed at Morris’s mind through the pages, then began to disguise themselves as words. On what had been normal lines of text, strange symbols slowly emerged.

Those were letters that did not exist, describing knowledge that did not exist.

Skilled hunters often disguised themselves as prey. The pursuers of knowledge, when luring a Scholar, also liked to disguise themselves as “knowledge”. Reading them was the first step into the trap.

Morris watched as line after line of unreadable characters rose on the paper. He felt the power seeping out from them, trying to seduce him into reading. He said softly: “It is here.”

In the next second, the “hunter” hidden in the pages and words suddenly seemed to sense something. A sharp, chaotic scream burst into everyone’s ears. At once the big book’s pages began to flip wildly. The black letters on the pages hopped as if they had lives of their own, struggling as they turned into splashes of ink, trying to tear themselves free from the yellowed paper.

Seeing this, Duncan showed a small smile.

His “fishing” had worked. When dealing with hunters of knowledge, using the Historian as bait had indeed done the job.

A plume of smoke surged out from the pages. The letters that had escaped the paper flowed quickly into the smoke. Howling, the smoke rushed out of the book and spun upward into a whirling cloud of dust. Within that dust, something black began to condense and take shape. In an instant it became a skeletal structure. A heap of chaotic, twisted black bone fragments clattered onto the floor beside the dining table, then in the blink of an eye pieced themselves together into something everyone present knew well:

An ugly, hound-shaped creature built from black bones.

Dog, who had been on full alert beside them, was stunned at the sight. He looked up at the others and said: “I don’t know that one.”

“If you don’t know it, that makes things easier,” Duncan said casually. He stepped toward the Abyssal Hound whose body had only just finished forming and still seemed confused. At that moment the creature finally reacted. It jerked its head up. Red light exploded in its hollow, blood-colored eye sockets. Endless black flames surged into the air from the cracks between its bones as it braced itself to fight back.

But its resistance ended before it even began. The instant black fire rose within the Abyssal Hound, its gaze met Duncan’s eyes. In the next second, every tongue of flame burning inside it was dyed a ghostly green.

This Intruder from the depths of the Abyssal Deep lost control of its own flames in less than a second. It became a sacrificial victim under the captain’s gaze. Its chaotic, broken mind probably never even had time to understand what was happening before it was swept up in roaring green spirit form fire. A shrill, mad howl shattered the calm aboard the Vanished. The cracking of flames consuming bone and strange tearing noises filled the dining hall.

A good hunter often appeared in the shape of prey – but a really lousy hunter truly did become prey.

What happened next was more than Dog could bear to watch. Dog’s whole body shook into a trembling ball. He hid behind Shirley, hugged his head with his paws, and shivered. He watched the flickering firelight in front of him and listened to the sounds in the room. The red light in his eye sockets flickered on and off: “Ah… oh man, that burning… ah, those bones breaking… ah, that howling… ah, damn, I can’t watch this…”

The dining hall grew quiet again.

A pile of shattered bone fragments lay scattered on the floor, with no details left to recognize. Thin blue-grey smoke curled above them. A few remaining green sparks jumped among the remains, devouring the last traces of power this Knowledge Hunter still had in the Mortal Realm.

Duncan frowned. The way things had unfolded was a bit unexpected, and the speed at which it ended was even more unexpected.

He walked forward and nudged the still slightly warm bones with the tip of his boot. Then he lifted his head and looked at Dog in the distance.

“Why was it a Abyssal Hound?”

“I… I don’t know…” Dog shivered at once. Even his voice shook. “I never read a book before, and I couldn’t read. Before I met Shirley I barely had any sense at all. I don’t know why one of my… hometown folks popped out.”

At this moment, Morris stood up. The Old Scholar’s steady voice finally came to Dog’s rescue: “In theory, the Malevolent Spirit drawn when you read a book is random. Most of the time it is an intangible Shadow from the Spirit Realm. But in a few cases, a Demon from the depths of the Abyssal Deep may come out instead. The ‘Abyssal Hound’ already has the meaning of ‘hunt’ and ‘chase’ in its name. In fact, they really are a kind of Knowledge Hunter, and a rather powerful type at that.”

“A rather powerful type?” Duncan raised his eyebrows when he heard this and glanced at Dog, who was still shivering at Shirley’s feet. “Really?”

“Under normal circumstances, if someone at sea is reading a book and a Abyssal Demon suddenly jumps out of it to attack, that person almost has no chance of survival,” Morris said, his expression a bit strange. “In the worse cases, a Abyssal Demon that invades the Mortal Realm by this route can quickly grow and enter a runaway state, then slaughter everyone on the ship in a short time. Not every ship is the Vanished.”

“All right,” Duncan said, nodding. He quickly adjusted the strength scale in his mind. His tone turned a bit odd. “If the strongest Intruders you can summon while reading are hunters like Dog, then it doesn’t seem that dangerous…”

As he spoke, he glanced at Nina: “Nina, you can do your winter homework on the ship from now on. If something really pops out, just beat it up yourself – just be careful not to burn anything.”

Nina laughed at once: “Okay!”

Then Duncan looked at Dog again: “By the way, you really didn’t know you are a ‘Hound that Chases Knowledge’?”

“I didn’t know,” Dog said, shaking his ugly big head. His voice was dull. “I already said, I used to drift around in a daze…”

Shirley frowned and thought for a long time. Suddenly she blurted out: “If that’s how it is, and Abyssal Hounds can’t read just like Dog, then why do they chase knowledge?”

“Alice studies cooking too,” Duncan said offhandedly. “Maybe it’s just a hobby.”

Shirley nodded as if she half understood, then lowered her head to look at her partner. Dog had quietly crawled under the nearby table. He hugged his huge head with his paws and spoke in a muffled voice: “Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything… this place is just too damn scary…”

Duncan could not help shaking his head with a smile. He suddenly felt that after so many people had come aboard, the mood on the ship really was getting better day by day. They already had these pleasant everyday moments. He truly did not know how lively things would become once Vanna came aboard.

With that cheerful feeling and a bit of hope for the future, he stepped forward and kicked the pile of black bones on the floor that were gradually cooling.

This was just a heartless Abyssal Demon. It was nothing like Dog.

“Alice, clean up this pile.”

…

Under the bright, warm sunlight, Vanna, who was walking through the Cathedral courtyard, suddenly felt a chill. She shivered without thinking.

She lifted her head and looked at the little path in the courtyard under the sunlight. After a long moment she let out a deep sigh.

[What has to come will always come.]