Night of Despair

Chapter 107: Setting Off
 

“The quiet village, snow drifting,”

“Under a gloomy sky, doves flying~~~”

“White birch trees, engraved with those two names.”

“Mmmm~~~ Mmmm~~~”

In the gray mist, among the mountains and forests, on a gray-white highway stretching into the distance.

A dark green Jeep sped along the road.

The vehicle seemed like a tiny dark green insect on a gray paper strip, moving straight, slowly, steadfastly forward.

Layers of fog were broken in front of the vehicle, then rolled and twisted, tearing a path through.

Yu Hong rested his hands on the steering wheel, softly humming a song to himself.

Throughout the car, other than the motor’s rotation, there was no other noise.

The monotonous droning sound resonated in Yu Hong’s ears for over two hours.

He was alone.

Having listened to the engine for so long, he could even hear his own breathing and heartbeat. His body’s perception had become much sharper in such a lonely environment.

But this sharpness only made it more unbearable.

Driving alone.

The noise of loneliness.

The solitary road ahead.

So he couldn’t help but softly hum his favorite song from his past life.

He had forgotten some of the lyrics, remembered only the general idea, but it didn’t matter; he remembered the tune, and he used hums to fill in the forgotten parts.

The vehicle moved quietly forward, Yu Hong occasionally picked up the map, flipping through it.

The enhanced map had turned into a three-dimensional one, displaying different concentrations of Red Value in shades of gray, black, and white.

Yu Hong could avoid areas with high concentrations of Red Value, to evade encountering more monsters or shadowy Evil Shadows.

As the car droned on, Yu Hong had hummed the song at least dozens of times. He took out his water flask, took a sip, smacked his lips, held the steering wheel with one hand, letting it drive straight on.

The highway ahead of the car window was straight, allowing him some relaxation.

After drinking water, Yu Hong took out a protein bar, stuffed it into his mouth, and was about to chew slowly to fill his stomach.

Suddenly, from the right side, within the gray mist, the dense forest gradually turned into sheer gray rocky cliffs.

The rocks extended upward into the fog, their height unknown, appearing like a huge gray wall.

The rough, layered gray rocks were covered with something blackish resembling vines.

From afar, the vines looked like large clumps of glue sticking to the rock face, their surfaces gleaming wetly, somewhat like peach gum, and somewhat like amber.

Yu Hong drove past the side of it, covering hundreds of meters, and could see this substance hanging on the left cliff face.

“What the hell is this…” The Red Value detector on his collar had surged to the sixties, flashing a warning red light.

Without stopping, Yu Hong slightly sped up and quickly left the cliff area, once again entering the highway surrounded by forests.

But this time it was different from before, the right side cliffs had disappeared, but the newly appearing forests were also covered in that same large patch of gel-like substance.

The black gel-like substance hung on tree trunks, some connecting with the ground, pulling out sticky strands, others covering entire treetops, seemingly digesting the trees.

Yu Hong’s expression turned tense, and he continued forward.

The fog had gradually thinned out by now, making visibility much better than before.

The car hummed forward, quickly exiting the forest, entering a large curved road.

During the turn, one side was a cliff and the other a forest.

Toward the cliff side, he could see farther landscapes.

Yu Hong turned the steering wheel, glancing at the distant cliff through the corner of his eye.

Beyond lay a dim gray land, a blurry, dilapidated city, standing quiet in a basin-like depression.

A dark river flowed like a ribbon, crossing the entire city.

Tall buildings, quiet, without lights or signs of people.

These buildings included luxurious skyscrapers, ordinary hotels, office buildings, landmarks, television stations, etc.

Their shared feature was silence, emptiness, no lights.

Even stranger, most of the city’s buildings were covered with a thin layer of the black sticky substance, like the one Yu Hong had just seen.

“What on earth is this stuff?”

His heart felt heavy, feeling that his passage here might encounter trouble.

He glanced at the Black Mark on his hand; since leaving the safe house, the mark had frequently alerted him that the luminous stone grass bound to the mark would wither and disappear, eroded by the Red Value, one kilometer after he left. If needed, he must revive it by channelling more Inner Qi.

“Is this what mark binding is? A bit troublesome, but it can act as a small guarantee for setting up a temporary base anytime, anywhere.”

Yu Hong calculated in his heart, withdrew his gaze, took a turn, and glanced again toward the city.

Suddenly, his body tensed, his spirit shook violently.

“What the hell!?”

In the distant city, that giant black gel-like substance covering the buildings had just moved.

That black, seemingly lifeless gel material had moved!

Yu Hong stared in disbelief as, up on the city’s tallest building, the gel covering the upper half of the building lifted something resembling a tentacle slowly reaching toward another uncovered building.

“That thing, it’s alive!?”

A chill surged rapidly in his heart, spreading through his entire body.

Driving his car, he unconsciously began to speed up, hurtling down the road, away from that city.

After driving for more than half an hour, the eerie city was left behind in his mind, swallowed by the mist, no longer visible.

Yu Hong finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He picked up the map to check.

“Huafeng City.” That was the name of the eerie city he had just passed.

“This place is best avoided in the future… there’s definitely something majorly wrong inside,” Yu Hong murmured softly.

In this extremely monotonous environment, he involuntarily chose to remind his ears by speaking to himself, not to fall into some mysterious silence.

In an extremely monotonous sound environment with no variation, people can adapt and even begin to perceive phantom sounds.

The adaptation can cause individuals to perceive the monotonous environmental sounds as silence.

Phantom sounds, on the other hand, are a natural physiological response that occurs when there’s no variation in the environment.

It gradually got darker.

Yu Hong did not continue forward but quickly found a relatively open area along the road to park his car.

After stopping the car, he took out an energy-free atomic lamp, casting a faint green glow inside the vehicle.

Then he quickly took care of his personal hygiene, sealing it in a plastic bag to prevent any smell from escaping.

He also covered the car windows with black cloth to prevent the light from shining outside.

Click.

Yu Hong opened the car door, carrying the bag of waste as he stepped out.

Around him was a stretch of overgrown weeds, patches revealing that this area used to be farmland.

The shortest weeds were knee-high, and the tallest were over a meter, densely blocking much of the view.

Hu.

Yu Hong breathed out a fine white mist through the valve, feeling the increasingly cold temperature. He walked to the side of the road and buried the bag in a hole.

Then he headed back to the car.

Click.

Suddenly, behind him, there was a faint movement in the bushes.

Yu Hong’s footsteps halted, and he swiftly turned to look back.

The bushes behind him swayed with the wind, empty and devoid of anything.

He looked around to make sure there were no issues before turning back and continuing towards the car.

Sitting in the car, he covered the atomic lamp and quietly lay down on the back seats, listening to the noises outside.

In the enclosed space, he had to change the air every so often.

Therefore, he had to ensure he always remained alert.

Not long after,

a faint sound, almost like singing, drifted in from outside.

Following that, were sounds like sticky substances continuously sticking and separating.

Yu Hong squinted, leaned close to the window, and lifted the black cloth slightly to peek outside.

He saw on the road outside, a two-meter-tall pitch-black humanoid monster, seemingly made of countless viscous substances, stepping down the road, passing by the car.

As it moved, droplets of black viscous liquid continuously fell from it.

With each step forward, the humanoid did not notice Yu Hong but simply trudged forward, gradually disappearing into the mist ahead.

Yu Hong breathed a sigh of relief. Facing an unknown monster, he didn’t want to act rashly. The capabilities of these monsters and Evil Shadows, and their level of danger, were used only to assess their threat level, not their strength.

Fortunately, after the humanoid monster passed, there were no other movements outside, and Yu Hong could finally rest well on the seat.

Thanks to the alert from the Red Value detector, he managed to get some shut-eye.

A quiet night passed.

The next morning, the car started again, moving forward along the highway.

Humming a song, and after driving for another hour or so, buildings of rural farmhouses started to gradually appear on both sides of the road ahead.

These buildings were all dilapidated, covered in dust, some visibly damaged.

Between the buildings, patches of field were filled with black viscous liquid, devoid of weeds, emitting a certain rotten flesh-like stench.

Yu Hong estimated the battery level; after driving for so long, the car had at most one-third of its battery left; he figured he’d need to recharge it well before returning.

Buzz.

The car drove past patches of black fields, and the houses on both sides slowly became more frequent, forming silent streets composed of low flat houses and small low-rises.

It seemed he had entered the range of a small town.

Yu Hong unconsciously slowed down, carefully observing the situation on both sides.

The streets were littered with randomly parked electric bikes, tricycles, and the occasional car that also had smashed windows and twisted bodies, as if something had run over them.

“Help… help…”

Suddenly, a faint sound came from the right side up ahead.

The voice belonged to a young girl, tender and pitiful, seemingly enduring pain.

Yu Hong furrowed his brow, turning his head to the right.

In the doorway of a two-story gray building crouched a little girl with long hair, naked.

She hugged her body, squatting on the ground, looking up towards the car with a pitiful expression and pale skin, smeared with a bit of mud.

“Please save me … please help!” she cried out loudly.