The people behind me all coughed and waved their hands.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
"Why is there so much smoke?"
"Is it dust?"
"..."
As they spoke, I had already made out the situation inside the house.
There was actually a wooden carving of some strange beast resembling a toad inside.
The carving was as large as a person, with twisting tentacles and claws all around it.
It crouched on the ground with its huge mouth open, a dark hollow as though it were inhaling and exhaling.
Its pair of eyes stared straight at us by the doorway.
I had never seen this strange beast and had no idea whether it was a statue of some beast or evil god, so I looked at it a few more times.
Long Daqiang upstairs flew into a rage.
"Fuck! You dared kick down my front door? I'm coming down to deal with you!"
As the smoke dispersed, the others also got a clear look at the person-sized strange beast in the main hall.
Its absurdly huge mouth made everyone who saw it feel deeply unsettled.
"Wh-what kind of statue is this?"
"No idea."
"G-Great Martial Uncle, wh-what is this thing? I feel like that eerie wind just now was blown out by it."
"..."
"You don't need to feel it. It was this thing."
With that, I walked over.
The statue was strange and entirely black.
When I got closer, I found peculiar runes around it.
Those runes were rather bizarre as well, but one of them made me freeze.
Because one of the runes resembled a rune I had seen in Carefree Tower.
It was a black rune, eerie and winding.
Rather than a rune, it looked more like a depiction of some kind of creature.
There was even the outline of