Chapter 264

Chapter 265: An Entity That Shouldn’t Appear

Yu Sheng looked up and saw it in the fog, creeping, or rather flowing, down the mall’s glass facade.

It was a huge mass like living ink, spread over the building, its surface rippling like an unstable liquid. From the edge of that ‘liquid,’ limb-like shapes kept budding and waving meaninglessly in the air before shrinking back a heartbeat later. It sometimes opened a mouth-like structure, teeth and a tongue flickering within. The mouth would mutter in a low, muddled way, but most of the time it simply gulped down the surrounding fog.

The liquid thing oozed along the wall toward the ground, terrifying to behold.

At last seeing it clearly, Little Red Riding Hood cried out: “Ink Stain?”

Yu Sheng spun around and asked: “What is that? You know this monster?”

Little Red Riding Hood spoke quickly, even as confusion grew on her face, and said: “A dangerous Entity, Ink Stain. It hates living things and attacks with split bodies. But this doesn’t make sense. Ink Stain only forms in the Otherworld called ‘Lakeside Town.’ This place, no matter how I look at it, is not that ‘Lakeside Town.’”

Yu Sheng was still lost, but there was no time to keep asking.

The ink mass noticed the uninvited guests on the Plaza. Its edges suddenly shivered and swelled, and countless thin branches stretched out from its wavering outline.

It was like invisible pens dipped in thick ink drawing furious lines across paper. Thin branches ran across the glass wall and stamped themselves there as strange ‘marks,’ then those marks fell like rain and, in the fog, rushed straight at Yu Sheng and the others.

Yu Sheng instantly understood how the monster got its name.

He now faced an attack from living marks that had stepped off a two-dimensional surface, countless oddly shaped black split bodies with razor edges and unpredictable moves, surging forward like a crazed herd.

The Phantom Wolf Pack rose beside Little Red Riding Hood in an instant. Freed from the ‘Fairy Tale’ curse, she could finally cut loose, and far more Shadow Wolves than she usually commanded poured into the fog, howling and sprinting, fearless as they crashed into the oncoming splits.

Next, Black Threads bloomed. Irene lifted both hands as creeping silk wove itself into a giant Spiderweb and met the thickest wave of splits head-on. The marks might have looked like mere ‘stains,’ but at the first touch of Spider Silk they froze, trembled in the air, and were then torn apart one by one by the Wolf Pack, falling as scattered droplets into the mist.

Without a word, Foxy fired a volley of Fox Carrot Missiles at the monster’s main body on the wall.

After eating her fill at the Special Affairs Bureau, this Nine Tailed Fox had the confidence of a swollen armory, and before the smoke cleared she fired a second volley.

The explosions were deafening. The shockwave even blew the fog apart for a moment, and Yu Sheng saw the ‘ink’ engulfed by hot Fox Fire and smoke. It seemed to give a short, confused howl, and then the mall tower taking the hits let out a chain of shrieking cracks.

In that unbearable noise, the whole building began to collapse. Blue Fox Fire raced along the structure, burning through everything it touched.

Irene, still busy weaving, looked back at the sound and shouted: “Oh crap! Silly Fox, you knocked the building down… and it’s falling toward us!”

Yu Sheng reacted even faster and said: “Run first!”

A silver flash went by. Foxy turned into a huge Nine Tailed Fox, scooped Yu Sheng and Irene onto her back with her tails, and bolted out of the collapse zone.

As she ran, the Demon Fox yelled: “Sorry, benefactor. I failed fire control and directional blasting in class!” Yu Sheng clutched at the silver fur to keep from falling, looked back at the collapsing tower, and nearly popped his eyes as he asked: “Why were you learning that in elementary school?” The Fox Maiden shouted back: “My father signed me up for it as an interest class, because he thinks girls must learn to control their firepower. If you can control it, then you are a lady.”

Yu Sheng was stunned and felt sudden respect for Fox Dad: [Control your firepower to be a lady… Why would you have that much firepower in the first place?]

Just then, a black blur crossed his vision. Little Red Riding Hood burst from the fog riding a Shadow Wolf, barely keeping up with the Nine Tailed Fox, and shouted: “Don’t go that big. If the ‘big nephew’ is hiding nearby, won’t he be done for?”

Foxy glanced back at her and said: “I scanned with Divine Sense. There are no other living humans around. Teacher taught us that a lady does not use missiles to bomb her own people.” Little Red Riding Hood was stunned, but she urged her Shadow Wolf to run faster and complained: “Slow down. I can’t catch up.” Yu Sheng, seeing this, grinned and said: “She’s already slow. She hasn’t even turned on a booster. Want to see what a supersonic fox looks like?”

Even so, Foxy gradually eased off. Once they had cleared the danger zone she stopped completely, then looked back toward the mall.

The fog was thick and the visibility awful. They could only faintly see Fox Fire still burning among rising dust and collapsing rubble. Yu Sheng guessed the whole building had fallen. The oncoming split ‘Ink Stains’ were likely buried in the debris or set alight and burned out by the stray Fox Fire.

As for the main Ink Stain, it probably couldn’t tank such a sudden saturation barrage. It wasn’t like an enhanced Hunger with both stats and special mechanics.

They seemed able to breathe again.

Yu Sheng had time to exhale for barely two seconds.

A weird, low muttering rolled out of the fog, and when he looked up he saw countless shadows slowly walking forth.

They weren’t Ink Stains, but something new, humanlike groups without faces or normal limbs, bodies built out of shaking, jumbled, colorful geometric lines. Tall, short, thin, fat, they came in clusters out of the mist, like blind wandering dead, and drifted from the other side of the street toward them.

Goosebumps rose on Yu Sheng’s skin as he said: “Are Entities all this abstract? Can’t we get a few with better looks?” He turned to Little Red Riding Hood and asked: “What are those? Do you know them? Can we hit them right away?”

Little Red Riding Hood stared hard at the ‘line crowd,’ her expression very strange, but she clearly knew. She spoke fast and low and said: “Swarm-Type Entity, Carnival Revelers. Each time they appear, there are between one thousand and ten thousand. They follow a set route through the carnival grounds. They sometimes approach or even attack living people at random, but sometimes they pass peacefully. Their danger level floats between two and three. Be careful, and never let them touch bare skin. If you touch them, their ‘lines’ start dyeing you, and if you make contact more than three times, you become one of them. Don’t act rashly yet. They don’t seem aggressive right now.”

Irene and Foxy instantly pulled back their urge to attack. They edged to the roadside and watched the colorful lined people with tight faces. Yu Sheng caught on to a word Little Red Riding Hood had used and asked: “You said ‘carnival’?” Little Red Riding Hood answered in a heavy tone and said: “Yes, a carnival. These things shouldn’t be here either. They form in the Otherworld called ‘Nameless Carnival,’ yet they’re showing up in this fog. Same with the Ink Stain. This place…” She broke off.

The ‘line people’ drifting across the street had stopped.

Countless Colorful Line Figures froze in the fog.

After a few seconds of silence that made their scalps prickle, one small Colorful Line Figure slowly turned its head toward them; it was short, like a child walking beside a lord who had been distracted by something fun at the curb.

As it turned, Yu Sheng clearly heard a few ‘bang-bang’ bursts of party poppers from inside the Carnival Revelers.

Colorful confetti appeared out of thin air and drifted down, and all the line figures began to turn their heads.

They started walking closer, as if inviting the uninvited guests to join the carnival’s dance. Those trembling lines had no faces, yet within their chaotic heads twisted smiles seemed to bloom.

Irene enunciated perfectly and shouted: “Oh crap!!”