In a way, there are still similarities between the current Van and the world ruled by many lost gods and their families.

This is especially true for those who are accustomed to acting in accordance with forces and instincts.

To this day, Shuge still doesn't know much about the internal powers of the Abyss Court and how its existence works, but through the many fragments of memory from the Mirror Emissary and the Court Hound, he has also learned that the terrifying creatures that live in the Abyss and the periphery of the court actually adhere to a simple and simple set of rules of survival.

And this coincides with the Van's family who follow the rest of the ancient gods.

Most of the time, these dependents with different forms and abilities are like participants in a huge natural gladiatorial arena, constantly staging life-and-death dramas with their amazing vitality and fanatical and primitive emotions.

The Hound from the Abyss Court may not act logically like these clansmen, but as a ruthless and efficient stalker, it is just as capable of getting the most pleasure and satisfaction from killing and hunting.

And this characteristic of it has been exposed in its past performance and in the recent life-and-death battle with the Abyss Chelato.

Even during the rest of the previous two nights, Shug could hear the unconscious roar of this terrifying beast whose nature had been further unleashed.

It is eager to fight, eager to hunt for new prey, eager to find the right place and time to release its excess energy and desire to kill.

Now the wishes of the court hounds have been granted.

Although the turbulent ships are not the ideal hunting ground, and the cold spray is easy to bring unpleasantness, the moment you get up close and personal with these deep-sea visitors, the ferocious giant dog, which is the stalker of the abyss, has an accurate answer.

Through a magical connection to the court hounds, Shug learned that it was now certain that the strange colonies that had raided the fleet of the Windless were the remnants of a sea god from a bygone era.

"Hunt them...... Avoid the crew of the boat as much as possible. ”

Knowing the difficulties of these enemies and the brutal nature of the court hounds, Shug neither forcibly controlled its movements nor gave orders similar to "protect the rest of the crew", but instead allowed it to focus more on the battle at hand.

Whether or not anyone else will suffer damage in the process depends on their own luck.

At the moment of receiving the clear command, the sharp limbs of steel immediately stretched out from the backs of the court hounds, and they looked as delicate and cold as the parts of a large machine in the workshop.

The heavy abyssal mist swirled around the limbs, and any pieces of blood and flesh that touched them, whether they originated from the mutant fish or the dead crew, were consumed in an instant.

"Bang!"

As the limbs slammed hard against the gunboat deck, the hound's large, slender form vanished in place, and in the next moment, it burst out of the shadowy corner at the other end of the deck, its exaggerated mouth open to the limit, and the target it was about to gnaw at was a slightly smaller beast distorted from some large pelagic fish.

A deep sense of satisfaction poured into Xiuge's brain as the sharp teeth closed.

With the perception and power of the court hound, Xiuge can fully resonate with the emotions of the successful hunt of its target.

In that clean bite, he was even able to recreate in his mind every detail of the abyssal mist that gnawed and dissipated the swollen flesh, and wiped out the vitality contained in it.

For the soldiers and commanders who were in the gunboat cabin, trembling and looking through the window to see the situation on the deck, the image before them was even more terrifying and bizarre.

Their hearts were beating violently, their breathing was rapid, their clothes were already soaked with cold sweat, and the new guns they held in their hands were trembling slightly.

These ordinary people now simply can't see what's going on the deck outside.

The moment the court hounds pounced through the crack, a deep mist quickly escaped onto the deck of the gunship, a black mist that might not be as deadly as the true magic of the Abyss, but it was extremely effective in obscuring the vision of ordinary creatures.

Faced with such a situation, the soldiers could only hear one low, terrifying roar after another, while the magical, sentient mages managed to perceive the turmoil and horror of the depths of the fog.

There, something is going on with fierce fighting and slaughter.

Although this perception was very vague, the sense of terror conveyed in it made the mages timely remind the other soldiers on the gunboat that if they want to save their lives, they should not easily go to the deck!

If they can see through the fog, they will be glad for the judgments and decisions they have made.

Because after successfully tearing apart two giant fish trying to board the gunboat, the hound that tasted the traces of "color of life" and "community consciousness" in the prey completely activated his own nature, and in this state, even Xiuge could not completely restrain and control it.

The limbs and strength of the Abyssal Spider give the Hound a completely different way of moving, and if it used to be an unpredictable ambusher, now it can nimbly move between the shadows and the frontal battlefield.

With these formidable chelicerae of terrifying hardness and immense strength, the Hounds can crawl freely in complex environments, and use them to pierce and tear through their targets' flesh, and if necessary, they can even overlap in one place to block and defuse opponents' counterattacks.

Initially, it was clear that the Hound had not yet fully adapted to the new anatomy of its body, but as the killing continued, the two very different styles of action began to merge rapidly.

Just a dozen seconds ago, a giant fish of the colony that had been badly injured tried to abandon the deck and return to the water to seek refuge, but before it could dive to the surface, an abyssal crack appeared in the air above, and then the sharp chelicera like a knife pierced directly out of the crack, piercing through the remaining sarcoma of the giant fish.

The power of the abyss was like a deadly toxin poured into the flesh full of the will of the colony and the color of life in the blink of an eye, just like the previous times, all the pillars that supported the life of the giant fish were destroyed in an instant, and all the valuable beings in it, whether it was strength, will, or memory fragments, were also plundered and absorbed by the hounds at this moment.

But then, these special community creatures once again showed their own changeable and treacherous characteristics.

When the hound, once again in pursuit, cut through the fog and reached the other end of the gunboat's deck, it was not confronted by a ferocious deformed sea beast.

A number of flexible tentacles that Shuge had never seen before suddenly protruded from beneath the surface of the sea, and with the help of these suction cups, the tentacles clinged to the sides of the gunboat and began to move quickly towards the gunboat deck.

And the one who manipulates these tentacles is not a difficult sea beast, but a "meat ball" the size of a human head that has been transformed by the will of the community

These balls of flesh are essentially countless highly proliferated fish, their bodies filled with unbridled flesh and tissue, and while they still retain some of their basic fish features, the torn scales and fins are insignificant in front of the twisted flesh.

The razor-sharp chelicerae easily severed the tentacles that clinged to the decks and the edges of the gunboats, but the hideous and miserable-looking exotic fish did not stop their movements, and the tentacles that grew from their backs were still using suction cups to latch onto the gunboats and struggling to send the balls of flesh to the deck.

And when the court hounds destroyed a few deformed fish that had just managed to reach the deck, a large amount of blood was immediately sprayed from them.

Unlike the previous blood that was easily submerged in the fog of the abyss, this time, Xiuge felt a richer vitality in it, and it seemed that the concentration of life color in these blood was fundamentally different from before.

Not only that, but when the blood flowed out, Huge also received an extremely strong and clear feeling of disgust from the court hounds.

It is not the first time that there seems to be an existence in these bloods that can confront and neutralize the power of the Abyss, and make the creatures of the Abyss court hateful, but unlike before, this time the will of the colony clearly hopes to use these powers to delay the actions of the court hounds and achieve some new goals.

A similar scenario was seen on other vessels, such as the Windless.

Sitting on the deck of the Windless, Shug found that the sea beasts that had been repelled by the ship's fire and emergency protection rituals had returned, and despite the damage, they continued to throw tiny, swollen individuals at the ship, which would either be smashed into flesh by the protective magic or shattered by the reactive soldiers after falling off the deck, but the blood that flowed from them was unusually bright and glaring.

Another swollen fish was tossed up, and of course, it crashed into a mass of broken flesh during the ongoing ritual, but this time, a significant portion of the psychedelic blood managed to pass through the magical concussion gap in the ritual.

With a quick eye to summon his mage's hand, he picked up a little blood in mid-air.

And when these flesh and blood with a special luster were brought to Xiuge, he immediately noticed the strangeness in it.

The nature of those flickering colors is the color of life that has been manipulated by the will of the community, but now, these "color of life" forces are obviously in a state of extreme restlessness, they are like pieces of extremely unstable magic crystals, constantly radiating outward.

This special state caused their power to be consumed at an alarming rate, and in just a few seconds, the power in these flesh and blood was completely depleted, and in the process, Xiuge noticed that the protective rituals on the ship were constantly flickering, which meant that their power caused some interference and damage to the ritual fields that had an isolation effect......

"Smack!"

There was another crisp sound, and Xiuge turned his head quickly, this time, he saw half of the mutilated deformed sea bouncing on the deck, although the next second it exploded into minced flesh under the pressure of the ritual field, but the power hidden inside it swept through the people and things around it at a rapid speed, and then dissipated into nothing in the shock of the ritual field.

At this moment, Xiuge was finally faintly aware of the group's intentions.

Their actions look like they are committing suicide, and they are engaging in senseless harassment and assault, but in reality, what they do is probe.

The forces that are constantly dissipating in the fleet are simply invisible "eyes", which are the means and bridges they use to observe, learn, and understand these creations of the Van Grace civilization.

Amid the cheers of the surrounding soldiers as they successfully resisted the monster's onslaught, Xiuge's face darkened at a speed visible to the naked eye, and he realized that he still lacked understanding of the will of the group.

The battle that took place tonight was the first real collision between these ancient sea creations and the land civilization of the new era.

The community clearly underestimated the current civilization of Vann.

Those vast consciousnesses probably did not expect that in today's world, those lowly races who had failed in the past would be able to wield so many terrifying powers.

And everyone, including Xiuge, also underestimated these invisible beings that could transform the body of the sea beast.

They are the hidden dangers of being truly intelligent and able to think, learn and grow quickly.

In front of them, the mutilated heirs who had destroyed the city of Salem seemed so stupid and naïve.

Realizing that they could not achieve their desired goals with their current forces and tactics, the hordes of terrorists lurking beneath the surface of the sea immediately changed their tactics, giving up on killing the crews of these ships and began to test and observe the ships and the weapons and magic on board.

In order to be able to achieve this, they even give up and sacrifice a part of their power, and use the gap between their collapse and dissipation to obtain more information.

On the gunboat on the other side, the monstrous court hounds cut a strange crack in the black mist and deftly burrowed into it.

On the deck of the gunboat, psychedelic blood was slowly flowing, and the power in this blood had completely collapsed under the influence of the Abyssal Mist, but Xiuge knew that before those powers were completely gone, many details on the gunboat had been incorporated into the vast memory bank of the ocean community with the spread of the "color of life".

With these important messages in hand, what changes will be made to the power that once controlled most of the Vann under the name of Karon?

Xiuge couldn't tell.

Sorry, I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 for the past two days

There is no sense of time at all, and there is no sense of time passing

The last time I did this, I was playing God Realm Original Sin 2............

MAN FAINTED ORZ

(End of chapter)