29: Chapter 29 Don't stand in front of vicious dogs with dog biscuits.

This abominable creation is emerging.

From the shadows cast by the kneeling bodies of the cultists, and from the shadow of the still-twitching ox on the wooden stake.

The shadow is expanding, swelling, transforming from a two-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional entity.

A pitch-black, constantly writhing mass, like countless tentacles intertwined together, is squeezing out of the shadow.

At the end of every tentacle, an eye is wide open, lacking eyelids, featuring only pupils, dark green and as hideous as marsh gas rising from a rotting swamp.

Foul, evil, terrifying.

An oppressive feeling beyond the description of any anomaly keeps gushing out!

The mycelium begins to flee frantically, shrinking into the ground and tree trunks, escaping in any direction that can avoid that thing.

Tu Ziguan's voice is trembling. "Brother Feng, that thing..."

"Do not look back!"

The three of them continue running.

Behind them, the tentacles of the Dark Young completely stretch out from the shadow.

The first tentacle coils around the cultist closest to it; the cultist spreads his arms, tilts his head back, and the expression on his face is not fear, but fanaticism.

The tentacle pours into his mouth, filling the cranial cavity.

They kneel in place, their foreheads touching the ground, and the chanting sounds once again.

"Without magical blades, you only know a specific method to slaughter an ox! You bunch of lunatics actually dare to summon this thing out! You don't know the Dark Young Binding Spell! You only know a single summoning spell! You bunch of half-baked cultists!!!"

Xie Feng curses wildly; as a KP, he would absolutely never design such a mentally retarded NPC, but unfortunately, the real world is not a module written by him.

The mycelium flees frantically by Xie Feng's feet.

Xie Feng suddenly stops, and Tu Ziguan almost crashes into him.

"Brother Feng?"

Xie Feng turns around, facing the direction where the silk ball is fleeing.

The mycelium surges past his feet, and he abruptly jabs his blind cane against the ground, the cold iron sleeve at the tip of the staff striking the pine needles with a muffled thud.

"What are you running for!"

The silk ball does not stop.

"It is already here! Where can you run to now? Underground? It can emerge from the shadows, and it can come out of any shadow. If you burrow underground, will your mycelium not have a shadow? If you burrow into a tree trunk, can you avoid the shadow cast by the trunk? Wherever you run, it can find you!"

The movement of the silk ball slows for a split second.

"You ate so many hunters and grew so much mycelium just to use it for running away?"

The surging of the mycelium slows down.

The mycelium on the surface of the silk ball no longer frantically drills into the ground, trembling slightly.

"Are you afraid it will eat you? I am afraid too! But you cannot outrun it! Your only chance is to take advantage of the time before it finishes eating those cultists, grind away the patterns on the stone disk so the ritual is ruined, and it won't be able to stay! It will have to leave! Once it leaves, you won't have to run anymore! Isn't this your forest?!"

The entire Black Pine Forest falls quiet, save for the sound of the Dark Young's tentacles tearing apart some object coming from the clearing, and the slurred, fanatical chanting of the cultists.

The mycelium hesitates, oscillating between fear and another thing it doesn't quite understand.

Xie Feng senses that oscillation.

He crouches down, lies on the ground, and speaks sneakily.

"It is eating the second cultist right now. If your actions are fast enough, the time it takes to eat the second one is enough for you to grind away the stone disk. It won't notice you; it's busy eating. By the time it finishes the third one and wants to find you, the ritual will already be ruined. It must leave! The forest is yours."

Dozens of thick strands of mycelium simultaneously stretch out from the surface of the silk ball, crawling along the ground toward the clearing. Their speed is even faster than when they contracted earlier, and the sound of the mycelium crawling over the pine needles is like countless snakes gliding simultaneously.

Behind them, Tu Ziguan and Tie Rong are completely dumbfounded, like wooden chickens. Tie Rong has never heard of anyone being able to persuade an anomaly to surrender! Tu Ziguan can even only make sounds like chickens and ducks.

"Aba aba."

Tu Ziguan suddenly discovers some moonlight peeking through the forest gaps. Looking through the moonlight, why does it feel like there are a few more twisted octopus tentacles on Xie Feng's shadow?

Xie Feng stands up.

"Hurry and go!!"

The three of them immediately run in the opposite direction.

Behind them, the sound of mycelium crawling over the pine needles grows further and further away.

Then comes the sound of the stone disk being wrapped, lifted, and smashed to pieces by the mycelium.

The Dark Young stops its movements and glances in the direction where Xie Feng and the other two ran off into the distance.

Over at the clearing, the remaining two cultists kneel in front of the ox's carcass, and the chanting stops.

They raise their heads and see that the stone disk is shattered. They open their mouths, wanting to shout something, when mycelium surges out from beneath the pine needles where they are kneeling, blocking their mouths.

When the three run out of the Black Pine Forest, the forest behind them suddenly falls silent.

Tu Ziguan bends over, supporting his knees with both hands, panting heavily. Tie Rong sticks her long staff into the ground and stands leaning against it.

"Brother Feng." Tu Ziguan pants for quite a while before speaking out. "You just negotiated with an anomaly."

"Mhm."

"You cursed at it."

"Duh."

"It listened to your words."

"You bet."

"Don't act as my straight man! Doing this, doesn't it count as harming the nearby villages?"

"Heh, I lied to it."

"What!?? "

Tu Ziguan and Tie Rong are dumbfounded.

"That thing cannot go back once summoned. I don't remember any millstone ritual in the ceremony; it's most likely self-created by those cultists. That thing only disappears when it's full, but unfortunately, it never gets full and will probably just disappear on its own when the time comes."

"Then that anomaly smashed the millstone...?"

"Just listening to a sound, I suppose."

"The cultists?"

"Those people deserved to die in the first place."

"Didn't you say it could manifest from its projection?"

"I was just bragging; the Dark Young is not a hound, it's not that strong."

"That thing is a young one?!" Tie Rong and Tu Ziguan are shocked. "Also, what kind of thing is a hound!"

"You don't want to know."

Tu Ziguan straightens his waist, looking at the veil hanging over Xie Feng's face, and is silent for quite a while. "Were you a con artist in your past life?"

"In my past life, I did human things."

"Isn't that the same."

"Scram."

Tie Rong pulls her long staff out from the ground and shoulders it back. "Let's go, it's getting dark."

The three of them walk back along the mountain path.

Xie Feng walks at the very back, his blind cane tapping the ground, one strike after another.

Walking a long way out, he turns his head to "look" in the direction of the Black Pine Forest.

At the edge of his spiritual power perception, underground in that forest, the mycelium network has gradually dissipated.

"You actually went, you fool."

Nyarlathotep should have heard those words spoken to the mycelium.

Nyarlathotep will not get angry; Nyarlathotep will find it very interesting.

Come to think of it, I haven't read that book of mine in a long time; hounds...

Xie Feng starts recalling the race of the Hounds of Tindalos.

They have hollow long tongues used to suck dry the bodily fluids of victims, and they also excrete a bizarre, foul-smelling blue mucus. They can materialize in places with "angles" (less than 120 degrees) such as room corners.

When a Hounds of Tindalos appears, smoke will first emerge from the corner of the room, then the head of the hound will appear from the smoke, followed by its entire body.

As long as a person has undergone time travel, which means content related to Transmigration through time and space, the hounds may notice him and pursue him relentlessly.

Xie Feng is still thinking, hounds are also extremely formidable mythological creatures, but it's a pity that after Transmigration he has the Incarnation of Yog-Sothoth on him, otherwise those bullying, cowardly space-time little cops would chase him to death.

Then Xie Feng suddenly realizes one point.

His eyes stare fixedly at Tu Ziguan.

Tu Ziguan is made to feel chilled by his gaze.

"What's wrong..."

"I think... you need to understand the hounds."