The gently rising and falling waves gently slapped the outer walls of the cabin. From time to time, a slight creaking sound could be heard from deep in the deck. The ship's lights fueled by whale oil were burning quietly not far away. In the bright firelight, pairs of eyes were reflected, some curious and some expectant.

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

He could feel that his unguarded mind was emitting an increasingly tempting "smell" in this vast ocean.

A learner, a reckless and unguarded learner, opened his mind on the sea, and those hungry shadows roaming in the depths of the world must have noticed the bait - those blind shadows could not resist the temptation, but they still hesitated. Their barely rational minds, which were slightly enlightened by the pursuit of knowledge, had an instinctive resistance to the environment on the Lost Homeland, which made them hesitate.

But they will not hesitate forever - those things lurking in the spirit world, the abyss, and even the warp have no real wisdom.

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

Folk knowledge is what attracts the most attention of those shadows. Folklore embodies the fear, awe and simple understanding of nature accumulated by human beings over a long period of time. It is a roughly processed human nature, sweet emotions and solidified knowledge, which is most suitable for those hungry knowledge pursuers to feast on.

Another page of the book was turned, and tiny particles of dust rose and fell between the pages as they were turned. The light slanted through the curved paper, outlining the dancing light and shadows between the paper and the text.

It was very quiet in the cabin.

The Captain stood quietly on one side, looking at the open book, while Sun Fragment stood on the other side, paying attention to the movements in the air.

Morris looked at the next line of text and saw that the edges of the text were shaking slightly.

The intruders are approaching.

The invisible knowledge hunter finally couldn't hold back anymore and came to the edge of the real world. Its tentacles sniffed Morris's mind through the pages of the book and began to disguise itself as text. On the originally normal pages, strange symbols gradually emerged.

Those are words that don't exist, describing knowledge that doesn't exist.

Skillful hunters often disguise themselves as prey, and knowledge seekers often disguise themselves as "knowledge" when luring learners. Reading about them is the first step to falling into the trap.

Morris looked at the illegible characters emerging on the paper, feeling the power emanating from those characters that tempted him to read, and whispered, "It's coming."

The next second, the "hunter" hidden in the pages and text seemed to suddenly sense something, and a sharp and chaotic scream suddenly reached everyone's ears. Then, the pages of the big book began to flip frantically, and the black words on the pages jumped up one by one as if they had independent lives, struggling to turn into ink, trying to break free from the yellowed paper!

Duncan smiled when he saw this.

His "fishing" was successful. When facing knowledge hunters, using historians to bait the bait was indeed effective.

A cloud of smoke poured out from the pages of the book. The words that had fallen off the pages quickly merged into the smoke and roared out of the book, turning into a vortex of smoke and dust that rolled into the air. Then, something black began to condense and take shape in the smoke and dust, and in the blink of an eye it turned into a structure that looked like a skeleton. A large pile of extremely chaotic and twisted black bone fragments fell to the floor next to the dining table with a crackling sound, and in the blink of an eye they were pieced together and combined into something that everyone present was very familiar with:

An ugly, hound-like creature made of black bones.

Agou, who was on full alert nearby, was stunned when he saw this scene. He looked up at the people around him and said, "I don't know it."

"That's easy if you don't recognize it." Duncan said casually, and walked towards the Deep Hound that had just formed a shape and seemed to be still in confusion. The latter finally reacted at this time. It raised its head suddenly, and red light burst out of its empty blood-red eye sockets. Then, endless black flames rose into the air from the cracks in its bones, as if to resist!

However, its resistance ended before it even began - the moment the black flames rose in the Deep Hound's body, its gaze met Duncan's. The next second, every wisp of flame burning from its body was stained with a layer of dark green.

The invader from the abyss lost control of its own flames within a second and became a sacrifice under the captain's gaze. Its chaotic mind probably didn't even have time to comprehend what was happening before it was engulfed in the blazing spiritual flames. Its mournful and chaotic roar instantly broke the tranquility on the Lost Homeland, and the explosion sound of flames burning bones and the strange tearing sound echoed throughout the restaurant!

Good hunters often present themselves as prey - but bad hunters actually become the prey.

What happened next was too much for Agou to bear watching. He was trembling all over, holding his head and shaking behind Shirley. He looked at the flickering flames in front of him and listened to the noises coming from his ears. The red light in his eyes flickered: "Oh... Oh my god... Oh my god... Oh my god, it's burning... Oh my god, the bones are broken... Oh my god, it's howling... Oh my god, I can't bear to watch it anymore..."

The restaurant fell silent.

A bunch of broken bones, so detailed that no details could be distinguished, were scattered on the ground. Smoke rose above the bones. A few remaining green sparks jumped among the wreckage, devouring the last bit of power left in the real dimension of this "knowledge hunter".

Duncan frowned. The way things turned out was a little unexpected, and the speed at which it ended was also a little unexpected.

He walked forward, kicked the pile of broken bones that still retained some heat with his toes, and looked up at Agou who was not far away.

"Why a Deephound?"

"I... I don't know..." Ah Gou shuddered for a moment, and his voice sounded trembling. "I have never read a book before, and I don't know how to read. Before I met Shirley, I didn't even have much rationality. I don't know why a... fellow villager suddenly appeared."

At this time, Morris stood up. The old scholar's steady voice finally helped Agou out. "In theory, the 'evil spirits' attracted when reading books are random. They are usually invisible shadows from the spirit world, but in a few cases they are 'demons' running out from the depths of the abyss. The name of the Abyss Hound carries the meaning of 'hunting' and 'chasing'. In fact, they are indeed a kind of knowledge hunter... and a pretty powerful one at that."

"A very powerful one?" Duncan raised his eyebrows and subconsciously glanced at Agou who was shivering at Shirley's feet. "Really?"

"...Under normal circumstances, if a person reading a book at sea is attacked by a dark demon that suddenly escapes from a book, there is almost no chance of survival," Morris said with a strange expression. "In worse cases, the dark demon that invades the real world in this way will grow rapidly and go out of control, slaughtering all the people on the ship in a short period of time... Not every ship is the Lost Homeland."

"Okay," Duncan nodded, and quickly drew up a strength formula in his mind, with a subtle tone, "If the strongest invader summoned when reading the book is a 'hunter' like Agou, then it doesn't seem to be that dangerous..."

As he said that, he glanced at Nina and said, "Nina, you can do your winter vacation homework on the boat in the future. If something really runs out, you can just beat it up yourself - be careful not to burn anything."

Nina laughed immediately: "Oh!"

Then Duncan looked at Agou again and said, "You don't even know that you are a 'hound chasing knowledge'?"

"I don't know," Ah Gou shook his ugly big head and said in a muffled voice, "I've already said that I was in a daze before..."

Shirley frowned and thought for a long time, then suddenly said, "If that's the case, then the Deep Hounds are just as illiterate as Ah Gou, so why are they chasing after knowledge?"

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

Shirley nodded, not quite understanding, and looked down at her partner, who quietly crawled under the table next to her, holding his head with his huge paws, and said in a muffled voice: "Don't ask me, I don't know anything... This place is too damn scary..."

Duncan couldn't help but shake his head with a smile, and suddenly felt that with so many more people on the boat, the atmosphere was really getting better day by day - now that they had this pleasant daily routine, he really didn't know how lively it would be here after Vanna got on board.

With a happy mood and some expectations for the future, he walked forward and kicked the pile of black bones that were gradually cooling down on the floor.

This is just a heartless dark demon, completely different from Agou.

"Alice, clean up this mess."

※※※

Under the bright and warm sunshine, Vanna, who was walking in the church atrium, 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 is meant to come will always come.