The awakening of the savages was something that Joe Butron had expected. After all, it was only a matter of time.
His mind was obviously much clearer than before.
In order to ensure his safety, Jobtran put the hammer and nails in the corner.
"Water. I need some water."
The man said weakly.
Upon hearing this, the mouse rummaged through his backpack, found the water bottle and gave him a sip.
"Are you Hoover?"
Joe Butran sat down beside the savage's bed and asked softly.
"How do you know my name?"
Hoover looked at Jobtran in surprise, then put his hands on the edge of the bed and tried to sit up.
"I suggest you lie down for a while. You are very weak now."
Jobtran stretched out his hand and pressed Hoover's body to keep him lying flat.
“Your necklace is a talisman for your family.
Bertha told me that."
Hoover, who had become a savage, had tears in his eyes after hearing this.
"Is Bertha all right?"
“She’s very strong, and the Ice Flame Bar’s business is now thriving, but she misses you very much.
After all these years, why don't you leave here
You have the ability to move and survive here for so long, but you chose to stay and become like this?"
Joet Brown asked doubtfully.
"I can't go back, this is a cursed place.
Whenever I tried to leave the black ice cave, the beast would run out from the corner and attack me.
Only this mark left by Catra can provide protection."
Hoover's eyes were filled with fear. The thought of being attacked by the unknown beast made him shudder.
"My friend, Mr. Joe Butran is not an ordinary man. He will definitely be able to rescue you."
The mouse said loudly, and patted his chest.
"At least that's what I think."
Hoover reached out and shook Jobtran's hand, and said with some excitement,
“No, don’t mess with it.
No matter who it was, it was impossible to defeat that beast.
Without the protection of the Mark, you will be torn to pieces."
"calm.
I need you to tell me from the beginning, everything that happened between the time you left home and the time you met us.
Every clue may be the key to escape."
Jobtran patted the back of Hoover's hand rhythmically and looked at him solemnly.
"Hoover, please close your eyes now, slowly recall the fragments of memory in your mind, and try to speak them out in a calm voice."
After hearing what Jobtran said, Hoover closed his eyes obediently as if he had heard his mother's instructions.
In fact, with each slap, Jobtran transferred some of his own energy into Hoover's body.
The warm power formed warm currents that ran through Hoover's body, which not only eliminated his fatigue, but also allowed him to relax his vigilance.
When relaxed, with some hypnosis techniques, Hoover can enter a meditation-like state.
As Hoover's mind became clearer through meditation, he was able to tell more details.
“I was skeptical about the legend of Katla before I left home, so I bought some equipment and set off on my own.
At first, everything went well.
It wasn’t until I got to the EPA line that things got bad.”
"Is it because of the evil-eyed waiter that the bureau is having problems again?"
Joe Butran didn't say anything, but just kept it in mind.
“It seemed that the EPA men were arguing at the blockade, and one of them became angry after being pushed and shoved, and the two forces started fighting.
I thought I could get through the blockade during the chaos, so I stayed in the bushes.
I witnessed the massacre, it was a one-sided massacre.
One group of people had scarves wrapped around their foreheads. After they had dealt with the rest of the people, they gathered all the bodies together and burned them.
One of the guys with a bandana on his head spotted me and I had to run for my life.
At that time, the only thing on my mind was my children.
He chased me until he reached the ice field, but when he came to the volcano, he stopped chasing me.
I looked back and saw that man's face was full of fear, and he didn't seem to dare to get close to the volcano."
"So there is something in the volcano that the Evil Eye Attendants fear, or something that suppresses them from a life level."
Jobtrand came to this conclusion immediately.
“I walked and walked, and in a daze I came to the black ice cave.
I once wondered if my child would be caught in this, but who knew that I saw something that could never exist in this world.
It was a gray fog, and there seemed to be a ferocious beast in the gray fog.
It was chasing a starfish monster that you saw outside. No, it wasn't chasing, it was teasing it like a cat catching a mouse.
Every time the gray fog appeared from the corner, it would pass over the starfish monster's body, and a piece of flesh and blood would be taken away from the starfish monster.
I hid in the dark and saw the starfish monster holding something tightly in its tentacles, and then went to the second fork on the right side of the entrance.
At that time, I gritted my teeth. I knew I had no way out, so I ran towards the fork in the middle.
Then I came to this room and found these riding boots and Catra's notes."
Hoover's story ended here, and the mouse asked curiously,
"So what food have you relied on to survive until now?"
“There are plenty of starfish corpses outside the door, you can try to eat them if you want.
At least it's non-toxic, except that it's a bit smelly and a bit hard to chew.
The corpse of a starfish monster is enough for me to eat for several months, and because the black ice cave is cold enough, the corpses have not rotted too badly. "
Hoover answered honestly, not noticing that the mouse already had a look of disgust and disbelief on his face.
"Mouse, do you find the characteristics of that gray fog familiar?"
Joe Butran suddenly asked.
"...Maybe it's the same creature I encountered before."
The mouse was silent for a while, lowered his head and said dejectedly.
"Tell me again, how did that gray fog creature appear?"
Jobtran remembered a suspicion and confirmed it with the mouse.
"After the coffin was opened, gray fog appeared."
The mouse answered with great certainty.
“How did you place the boards of the ice coffin
This is the key, please show me how to do it with these two sticks."
After saying this, Jobtran removed two legs from the table and threw them over.
The table, which had lost two legs, was leaned against the wall by Jobtran at an angle.
The mouse took the table leg and said,
"The left hand is the ice coffin, and the right hand is the coffin board. If I remember correctly, the angles of placement at the time should be like this."
The two table legs crossed to form a slight angle, about thirty-five degrees.
"No, it can't be less than a hundred and twenty degrees! Otherwise it will come."
Hoover shouted in panic.
The seals of the old gods in the redstone corridor lit up one by one from the outside to the inside, including those on the walls.
"Angles? No wonder everything in this room is round."
Jobtran looked at the corridor calmly. A cloud of gray mist was emerging from the corner of the pentagram, followed by a hideous beast's head.
The beast gradually emerged from the gray fog.
The whole thing looks like a giant Komodo dragon①, but its size has reached or even exceeded the length of an adult saltwater crocodile.②
A pair of slender but powerful forelegs supported its body, sky-blue saliva flowed from its mouth, and its flexible tongue was covered with barbs.
There are scales on its body that shine with metallic luster, covering its entire torso.
Its eyes and pointed chin, which were burning like flames, looked terrifying even in the blur. However, its outline kept changing as it moved forward, as if all the evil in the world was deforming for it, showing this ignorant time what true terror and destruction were at every moment.
"Is this the Hound of Tindalos
I’m a little disappointed.”
Joe Butran sighed and shook his head slightly.
Compared with Hoover's panic, Joe Bruin's indifference was a bit abrupt.
He didn't seem to care about the ferocious beast at all, but was very confident in himself.
He even sat down cross-legged and yawned.
Faced with Jobtran's provocation, the Hound of Tindalos remained unmoved, like an old hunter with great skills.
He paced back and forth at the entrance of the corridor with graceful steps.
It waits for the best opportunity before launching a thundering attack, just like when it killed the ancient one.
"Mouse, put the two legs back in and lay it flat."
Joet Brown waved without turning his head, just looking at the hounds walking up and down the corridor outside.
"Oh, okay."
After hearing this, the mouse immediately happily put the table legs back on the table.
The action of moving the table back to its original position seemed to have successfully irritated the uninvited guest, and it ran towards the corridor, but the power of the Seal of the Old God prevented it from moving.
Although it was blocked, it shot its tongue with sky-blue saliva at Joet Brown, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground.
The tongue's advance stopped in front of Jobutran because Jobutran held it with one hand.
The power of Holy Light formed a layer of protection on his hands, making the saliva ineffective. Under the layers of obstruction of the Seal of the Old God, the power of this attack had been weakened by nine levels.
Having grasped the long tongue, Joet Brown took out the knife from his pocket and chopped off its tongue to the ground.
A mournful cry like a wolf's howl came from the hound's mouth, and it disappeared back into the gray fog.
"Goodbye."
Jobtran smiled and waved toward the hound that was disappearing in the gray mist.
The eyes glared at Jobtran hatefully, then disappeared along with the gray mist.
"Oh, I'm being hated."
The mouse looked at Jobtran's unusual expression sideways; this immature behavior was very different from the usual Jobtran.
"Lord Joe Butran, what are you doing?"
The mouse frowned and asked tentatively.
"It was a small experiment, and it proved my hypothesis."
Jobtran gently brushed the fallen hair from his forehead to the side of his ear.
He stood up, kicked his tongue off the ground, and patted his butt.
"We can go now. Time is running out. Don't waste time."
"It... won't come back again?"
Hoover was still worried that the hound would strike back. Years of living here had made him somewhat concerned about whether it was safe to go out this time.
"The Hound of Tindalos, this name was left by Catra.
They are called hounds because of their characteristic of attacking their prey fiercely, but they have an obvious advantage which is also their weakness.
That’s the angle.”
Jobtran picked up his bag and walked away, talking to himself.
"angle?"
Seeing this, the mouse also put on his backpack, helped Hoover up, and followed Jobtran's footsteps.
"Tindalos, have any of you heard of this city?"
Joe Butron turned around and looked at the two bewildered people.
"The name is obviously a combination of a city and a species, like Icelandic rotten shark meat.
Only rotten shark meat produced in Iceland can be sold for fifty kronor and six dollars, which is the meaning that the name brings to the product.
And I wonder if the person who discovered this species would have named it in the same way
The answer is yes, because Tindalos exists, but it does not exist.”
Joe Butran explained in detail, but the two people behind him became more and more confused the more they listened.
"What is there and what is not there? I don't quite understand. Have I been isolated from the world for too long?"
Hoover asked in confusion with a wry smile.
"No, no, no, I don't quite understand either. Sir, please explain it more clearly."
The mouse said helplessly.
“This creature does not exist in the real world we live in, but exists in perspective.
Unlike our biological world of straight time, the Tindalos where they are located is an angle of time, so they can only travel to the real world at an angle.
Whether it is hunting or killing, one needs to pass through the tunnel between time and dimension.
This will undoubtedly take a lot of energy, so we can escape before it recovers."
Joe Butran couldn't help but feel proud of his own wild imagination, and the two people behind him also laughed.
"Then this should be good news."
The mouse said excitedly.
“Don’t be happy too soon.
The hound holds grudges, and the three of us are already on its hunting list.
If the younger brother gets beaten, will he seek revenge on his older brother? "
Joe Butran spread his hands and raised his eyebrows.
"Then why should we leave? If we stay, the mark can protect us."
Hoover shouted as he struggled.
"it's useless.
If the Seal of the Old Gods was really that useful, the Ancients would not have ended up in their current situation.
They can dissect organisms to gain knowledge, they can create such massive underground structures, and they can create graphite that is harder than diamond.
All these signs indicate that the ancient race is far smarter than we imagined. Is it possible that they cannot think of what we can think of
Face the reality, Mr. Hoover.
If we want to survive, we must go and see what precious things our ancient master left us."
"But why is it outside and never comes in? Isn't this the function of the mark?"
Hoover said stubbornly.
"If I asked you to walk through a shithole to catch someone you hate, would you be willing to do that?"