Night of Despair-Chapter 197 - : Believe One
Chapter 197: Believe One
“Thank you! This really helps a lot,” Yu Hong narrowed his eyes, thinking of strengthening the Black Mark for the first time.
It’s likely that this freebie comes with strings attached, but no matter. Once refreshed and strengthened by the Black Mark, it’ll function even more powerfully and wipe all hidden dangers for personal use, much better than the surveillance mode of the dragon lizard.
“Glad it helps.” After exchanging items, Shu Cheng gave a slight bow. “Do you mind if I take some photos of the camp?” he asked.
“Feel free.” Yu Hong was in a good mood and gestured with his hand.
Shu Cheng took out a black cellphone and silently photographed the camp for a while, then bowed again to Yu Hong before turning and walking decisively into the mist, disappearing from sight.
Soon, faint sounds of a car engine starting drifted from the outside, fading into the distance until entirely gone.
Yu Hong was about to turn back when his steps suddenly halted.
Where Shu Cheng had just stood, lying quietly on the dark soil outside the fence, was a small wad of paper.
Previously obscured by the wooden fence barrier, its presence escaped notice. But now, with a change in his viewing angle, it came into his sight.
Yu Hong walked over, bent down, and picked up the wad of paper.
He unfolded it.
On the white paper were neatly written words.
“Returning Home Association Member Benefits Overview.”
“Benefit 1: For those who sincerely join us, we offer the utmost survival assistance.”
“Benefit 2: The Returning Home Association has a special ability to largely avoid the Black Disaster without harm; members who contribute enough will receive this blessing.”
“Benefit 3: All members are brothers and sisters; we help each other, keep each other warm. Members with sufficient contributions can receive a one-time full mind and body rest. During this respite, your fear, guilt, pain, and sorrow will all drift away, and you will be reborn… Only through rebirth can one be filled with strength anew, to set out on the desired journey home…”
Rustle.
Yu Hong crumpled the paper back into a ball.
This resembled some kind of flyer from a cult seizing an opportunity for promotion…
The contents couldn’t be trusted at all.
Taking the luminous stone powder, he returned to the inner yard of the camp and moved all items into the mountain cave safe house, quickly starting to strengthen the Large Pyroxene graphite powder to make various runes.
To save time, he used a portion of the enhancement and fetched more as needed.
The mastery of Vortex Runes, Stealth Runes, Luminous Stone enhancement, Deceleration Runes, etc., allowed him to lay the groundwork for researching and combining compound arrays on his own.
What he had to do now was to create a second set of arrays to further enhance the endurance of the protective arrays.
The sound of rain continued unceasingly.
Inside the cave, he crouched over a wooden table, quickly drawing different rune patterns with a pen.
With an existing array to copy from, in less than an hour, a new array was designed.
“The function of an array primarily consists of three actions: absorption, storage, transmission. That is, three Vortex Runes, one Deceleration Rune, and one Stealth Rune can form a basic storage unit.”
“From the finished secondary array outside, I counted about thirty Vortex Runes arranged in a 3-1-1 design. If I proportionally add several more array units myself… Should it significantly shorten the time needed for the Black Mark’s enhancement?”
Yu Hong pondered this in his mind.
The time of enhancement by the Black Mark depended principally upon the number of steps needed to complete an item.
He had already confirmed this.
So by completing some work he could do on his own in advance, he could reduce the enhancement process.
After producing the array units, he tested them with the Black Mark to ensure there were no issues and then continued replicating.
Copying the arrays, then strengthening them with the Black Mark to integrate them, ultimately became a physically taxing task.
Time passed unknowingly.
Yu Hong busied himself in the cave all night until the darkness had fully passed, ushering in a new day.
The murky light outside pulled him from his immersion in work.
“Is anyone there?”
Suddenly, a somewhat familiar voice floated from outside the camp.
“Is anyone there?” The voice belonged to a woman, tinged with sobbing and a hint of despair hidden in her tone.
Yu Hong frowned, stood up to stretch his back, and walked to the front door to pull open the peephole to look outside.
But this angle did not reveal everything.
“It seems I need to install the surveillance system to monitor all the blind spots around here.”
He thought about it for a moment, hearing the voice again without haste.
“Perhaps it’s the Evil Shadow,” he thought.
Assured that the array was functioning normally, Yu Hong put on his suit, still clinging to a sliver of hope, and walked out of the cave and through the tunnel to the yard.
Standing in front of the stone castle in the inner yard, he looked out toward the outside.
There, beyond the fence, stood a person.
The dragon lizard had not attacked this individual, so they appeared to be alive.
Yu Hong exhaled, checked first if the weapon enhancement was finished, and, confirming it was still ongoing, stepped toward the individual.
Reaching the outer yard where the fog was much thinner, the person’s features became clearer.
“Please…,” the person wrapped in a thick black cloak, trembling, lifted their head showing a pretty, clean face.
Her lips were purple, skin pale, but oddly, underneath the cloak, she was wearing a clean, snug pink sweater accentuating her fuller curves.
Dressed in a white knee-length silk skirt, her rounded legs were covered in thick white pantyhose, showing a few rips and runs, but it even more so made her seem like she had just escaped from another stronghold.
“Help me… I really have nowhere else to go,” the woman pleaded, unconsciously tugging at the hem of her white skirt, subtly revealing the area above her knees.
“Are you… Wei Shanshan??” Yu Hong had not expected, after all this time, to once again encounter Wei Hongye’s daughter, Wei Shanshan, who had left a lasting impression on him before.
“You weren’t with your parents?” Yu Hong asked in surprise.
He looked at the detector to confirm that the other party wasn’t an Evil Shadow. It was a real person.
“….!?!” Wei Shanshan’s eyes faltered, seemingly recognizing Yu Hong’s voice.
The camp had changed so much that she hadn’t recognized it as Yu Hong’s original stronghold earlier.
She was struck as if by lightning, her hand clutching her skirt loosened, and she stood there dazed.
“Yu… Yu Hong sir??!” a groan barely escaped Wei Shanshan’s throat.
Her pretty face turned even paler, a ghastly white akin to that of a dead person, devoid of any blood.
“I… I…!” Suddenly, she stepped back, turned around, and dashed into the fog.
“Wait!” Yu Hong was stunned, quickly climbed over the fence, and chased after her.
Being able to walk here alone, he wondered if Wei Shanshan either possessed special qualities or had found other Black Disaster Rift routes; either possibility was of great intelligence value.
Since Black Disaster Rift routes are prone to change, double-checking was never too much.
Pu.
Yu Hong landed, entered the fog, and pursued her.
But just as he entered the fog and the secondary safe area, a dragon lizard materialized and followed alongside.
Ahead, Wei Shanshan’s figure had already disappeared.
“Wei Shanshan!” he yelled loudly.
His voice echoed in the foggy mountains and woods, unanswered.
Yu Hong, with a thought, commanded the dragon lizard to spread out and chase, but even after rushing two kilometers out, they found no trace of Wei Shanshan.
Standing at the spot, Yu Hong’s expression turned grave as he glanced around and then looked down at the spot where Wei Shanshan had just stood.
But on the black soil, there were only his footprints.
‘Shadows leave no footprints…’ Yu Hong looked up and sighed.
Thinking of her unusually clean dress, he’d already formed a dire guess.
He returned to the cave, engaged once again in the effort to replicate the replica array, but Wei Shanshan’s image intermittently flashed before his eyes, making it hard for him to calm down.
‘I wonder how Old Zhou is doing, and how Yiyi is holding up…’
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He sighed, put down his pen, turned, and went to the basement to practice his movement techniques to calm himself.
Thunderbolt Leg was about to reach five channels of Inner Qi, and after the ninth, it would be complete at the sixth layer. Then he could learn other Cultivation Techniques to strengthen himself.
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Li Rushan’s throat tightened, he opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say.
The talismans and such that he had been carrying had been used up days ago. The remaining weapons and tools, just a barely useful luminous stone blanket, were all that were left.
