Yu Sheng lifted his head, and in the depths of the dense fog, he saw that thing crawling down along the glass curtain wall of the mall... or more accurately, "flowing" down.

It looked just like a huge blob of "ink" with a form. It covered the building, its surface rippling like an unstable liquid, constantly forming limb-like appendages from its edges, but each limb flailed meaninglessly in the air, disappearing in an instant, retracting back into that puddle of ink. It occasionally opened a maw-like structure, with sharp teeth and a tongue appearing inside. The maw sometimes emitted a low, murky muttering, but more often, it just gorged on the surrounding fog.

That liquid-like thing slithered down the mall's exterior wall slowly, looking utterly horrifying.

Little Red Riding Hood let out a gasp upon finally seeing it clearly: "'Ink Stain'?!'

Yu Sheng turned his head instantly: "What the hell? You know this monster?"

"Dangerous entity, Ink Stain, hostile to living beings, attacks using subdivisions," Little Red Riding Hood quickly recited the information she knew, but her face showed increasing bewilderment, "But… this doesn't make sense! Ink Stain should only appear in the Exotic Realm's 'Lake Town'. This place, this place doesn't look anything like that 'Lake Town'!"

Yu Sheng was bewildered as he listened, but it was clearly not the time to continue asking questions. The large blob "flowing" down the mall's exterior had evidently noticed the "uninvited guests" in the square. In an instant, its edges started to tremble violently, and countless slender "branches" extended from its ever-changing outline in all directions.

The scene resembled countless invisible pens dipped in the thick ink, violently drawing wild strokes on paper. The slender branches extended from the monster's main body and instantly imprinted on the glass curtain wall, forming various eerie "traces". And then… those "traces" fell to the ground like rain, rushing towards Yu Sheng and his group in the dense fog.

Yu Sheng immediately understood where the monster's name came from.

What he now faced was an attack by Ink Stain come to life from a two-dimensional plane—countless bizarre black subdivisions with sharp edges and unpredictable movements surged forth like a frenzied beast pack.

The Phantom Wolf Pack appeared beside Little Red Riding Hood in an instant. With the shackles of the "Fairy Tale Curse" lifted, Little Red Riding Hood seemed able to use her powers more freely. Many more Shadow Wolves appeared in the dense fog than she usually commanded, howling, running, fearlessly charging towards the swarming subdivisions.

Next, black silk threads suddenly spread out. Erin raised her hands, weaving the extending threads into a huge spider web, meeting the densest part of the subdividing monsters. Although these monsters looked like no more than non-physical "traces", they stiffened on contact with the spider silk, shivering and trembling in the air, and were then torn to pieces by the wolf pack one by one, dissolving into droplets scattered in the fog.

Hu Li didn't hesitate and launched a round of Fox Radish Missiles at the monster on the mall's exterior wall.

With the Special Service Bureau's well-fed Nine-Tailed Fox boasting unprecedented military strength, she didn't wait for the smoke to clear before launching a second round.

The explosion of the Fox Radish Missiles was deafening, and the powerful shockwave momentarily shattered the surrounding fog. Yu Sheng saw that blob of "ink" consumed by the fiery Fox Fire and smoke, emitting short and chaotic hisses—then, the mall building directly hit by the missile bombardment emitted a series of ear-piercing collapsing and cracking sounds.

Among the unbearable noise, the entire building began to slowly collapse. The ghostly blue Fox Fire spread wildly along the stairs, incinerating every structure in its path.

Erin, busy weaving the web, turned back at the sound and exclaimed, "Holy shit! Silly fox, you've blown the building up… and it's falling this way!"

Yu Sheng reacted faster: "Run first!"

Before the words finished, he saw a flash of silver beside him—Hu Li immediately transformed into a gigantic Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. She wrapped Yu Sheng and Erin with her tails and placed them on her back, then dashed out of the collapsing building's range.

While running, the demon fox shouted loudly, "Sorry, Savior! I failed firepower control and directional blasting back then!"

Sitting on the large fox's back, Yu Sheng and Erin gripped the silver fur tightly to avoid falling, looking back at the collapsing building. Hearing this, Yu Sheng's eyes almost bulged out: "Why did you study this in elementary school?!"

"My dad enrolled me in an interest class!" the demon fox girl shouted, "He thought girls should learn to control their firepower, control it to be ladylike!"

Yu Sheng was stunned and suddenly felt a deep respect for Fox Dad—Goddamnit, controlling firepower is ladylike… why did she have such strong firepower in the first place, don't ask, right?!

At that moment, in the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a shadow. Little Red Riding Hood, riding a Shadow Wolf, emerged from the surrounding fog. Struggling to keep up with the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, she yelled, "Don't make it so big, ah! What if 'Big Nephew' is hiding nearby and gets killed too?!"

Hu Li turned her head and glanced at Little Red Riding Hood: "I used my Divine Sense to scan the area, there are no other living people nearby—teacher mentioned in class, a lady wouldn't use missiles to bomb her own people."

Little Red Riding Hood was dumbfounded, but she didn't forget to cast the Shadow Wolf again to keep up with Hu Li's speed, while loudly complaining: "Slow down! I can't catch up!"

"She's already going slow, she hasn't even activated a booster," Yu Sheng chuckled at the situation, "How about I show you what a supersonic fox looks like."

However, despite his words, Hu Li gradually slowed down; she had already run out of the collapsing zone. After running another few dozen meters further, she completely stopped, then turned back to look in the direction of the mall building.

Thick fog enveloped the area, the visibility was terrible. Here, only the remaining Fox Fire could be vaguely seen, spreading in the smoke and debris of the constantly rising dust and collapsing chaos. Yu Sheng speculated that the entire building should have completely collapsed, and those fragmented "ink stains" that had launched the attack earlier were most likely buried under the debris or ignited and burned by the spreading Fox Fire.

As for the main body of that "ink stain", it probably couldn't withstand such a sudden saturation bombing—even though it didn't seem like a reinforced version of "Hunger", a monster as troublesome with values and mechanisms.

It seemed safe to take a breath.

However, that breath lasted barely two seconds.

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

Not ink stains, but something new—human-like groups, yet without human features or normally proportioned limbs. They were completely formed by vibrating, chaotic colorful geometric lines in humanoid shapes, varying in height, weight, and size, coming out from the fog in clusters, like a wandering horde of the undead, slowly approaching from the other side of the street.

"...Do all 'entities' have to be this abstract? Isn't there a single good-looking one?!" Yu Sheng shuddered at the sight then turned to Little Red Riding Hood, "What is this? Do you recognize it? Can we directly attack it?"

At this moment, Little Red Riding Hood was staring intently at the "crowd" emerging from the thick fog, her expression extremely peculiar, but evidently, she knew.

"Cluster-type entity, 'Carnival Crowd', every appearance ranges between a thousand to ten thousand. They move along specific routes through the carnival site, they randomly approach or even attack living people, but they sometimes leave peacefully. Danger Level fluctuates between Level 2 to Level 3," she quickly and quietly said, "Be careful, absolutely avoid direct skin contact with them. If touched, your skin will gradually turn into their 'lines'. On the third contact, you will transform into one of them...don't act rashly, they don't seem to have any aggressive intent for now."

Upon hearing this, Erin and Hu Li immediately withdrew their impulse for a proactive attack, cautiously moving to the roadside with Little Red Riding Hood while nervously observing these groups sketched by trembling colorful lines. Yu Sheng noticed a word Little Red Riding Hood mentioned: "You said 'Carnival'?"

"...Yes, Carnival," Little Red Riding Hood's tone was particularly solemn, "These things shouldn't appear here. Normally, they are entities generated in the Exotic Realm 'Nameless Carnival', yet they are now appearing in this thick fog...even the 'ink stains' earlier, what's happening to this place..."

She abruptly stopped speaking.

Because the "line crowd" slowly walking through the street abruptly stopped.

Numerous shadowy colorful line humanoids all halted their steps within the thick fog.

After a few seconds of a short yet terrifying silence, one colorful line figure slowly turned its head towards them—it was very small, like a child walking beside an adult, captivated by something interesting on the roadside.

With this movement, Yu Sheng clearly heard a few "bang bang" sounds of confetti cannons firing within the Carnival Crowd.

Colorful confetti appeared out of nowhere in the thick fog. As it scattered and fell, all the humanoid figures of lines began to slowly turn their heads.

They were moving closer, seemingly wanting to invite the uninvited guests to join the carnival dance. Those vibrating colored lines had no features, yet within their chaotic head structures, horrifying and twisted smiles seemed to emerge.

Erin perfectly enunciated—

"Oh shit!!"

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