Night of Despair

Chapter 191: Deterioration
 

Xue Ningning forcibly dragged Ou Li away.

They took the enhanced detector sponsored by Yu Hong to determine whether the departure time was still during the “grey hour.”

This exploration aimed to clarify why there had been such significant environmental changes around them, and to ascertain whether the Black Disaster Rift could still guarantee safety.

As dawn broke the next day, the two women took the detector Yu Hong had loaned them and went out.

They draped themselves with a luminous stone blanket enhanced with a Vortex Rune, their faces expressionless as they left the camp.

Xue Ningning was determined, while Ou Li looked clearly terrified and somewhat bewildered.

She had been dragged out by Xue Ningning.

Yu Hong, meanwhile, remained at the campsite, regenerating new black lizards since their sudden demise had greatly inconvenienced his exploration of the surroundings.

So when Xue Ningning and Ou Li went out to investigate during the grey hour each day, he stayed in the cave, replenishing the black lizards and strengthening the new talisman arrays.

Inside the cave, under the bright white light.

The warmth brought by the cooling tubes maintained a constant room temperature of around ten degrees in the entire cave stronghold.

Carved on the thick cave door was a dense array of various rune combinations.

Each type of rune had an effective range, and by exploiting this, multiple runes were stacked together to form a quite complex blending rune. This rune had the dual properties of concealing, like the Pyroxene Secret Room, and storing negative radiation, continuously releasing weak negative radiation.

It was a structure akin to a slow-release device that he created by combining Deceleration and Traction Runes.

This achievement relied not on the Black Mark but merely on his own testing results.

He had now updated the entire cave with such achievements.

“The most original version of the array, which releases negative radiation that repels the Black Disaster, is still necessary. Maintaining this repulsion without preventing the talisman array from accumulating radiation requires careful management,” he thought.

Yu Hong sat on a wooden chair, leaning back, feeling the current defense system.

The cave’s inner walls, including the door, constituted a core layer of defense.

Beyond that was the more external inner and outer courtyard arrays, which were modifications of the Wind and Fire Slaughter Spirit Array strengthened by the Black Mark.

What were originally further outer layers of defense, the black lizards, were now in the process of recovery.

“Three layers of defense, but the black lizards are still too weak…” Yu Hong sighed, looking around the cave.

The double-layered cave bunker remained in a rather safe state. Multiple layers of arrays protected it, making it virtually undetectable to the Black Disaster outside.

The repeatedly reinforced cave walls had a physical strength beyond his imagination. They had been tested against bullets, which barely made a dent. The hardness had been increased by several times.

But when he thought of those clusters of people and shadows… such protection might still be inadequate…

After resting for a while, he got up without exiting the cave to first check the mine soil being cultivated by the Black Mark.

This was his fourth attempt using the Black Mark.

The goal was to quickly cultivate luminous stone ore. Now that the mines had vanished and the Radiation Hand Grenades could not be replenished, the supply of Large Pyroxene graphite powder was critical to many defensive systems at the camp. If the luminous stone couldn’t be replenished long-term, and since the trading group was blocked by the Black Disaster and couldn’t come, he could only rely on his attempts to produce luminous stone.

Inside the basement.

The countdown on the native soil still showed it as grey-black without any changes, although it had dried out a bit.

Yu Hong glanced at the remaining time—12 minutes.

Soon.

He then picked up the stones resulting from the previous three enhancements lying beside him.

Three nail-size stones, all grey-white similar to luminous stones.

Their surfaces were marked with numbers using a charcoal pencil, 123.

Yu Hong took the detector, coming close to check them again.

#1: “11.241”

#2: “9.245”

#3: “5.117”

The three enhanced white stones emitted red-value radiation, though gradually changing towards negative values, they were still far from being luminous stones.

Yu Hong waited a while until the countdown for the fourth attempt ended.

Hiss.

The original soil blurred for an instant, suddenly transforming into a new nail-sized white stone.

He quickly picked it up and attached the detector for testing.

“0.214”

Seeing this value, a hint of relaxation finally appeared on Yu Hong’s face.

“It seems I’m on the right track, adding the Vortex Rune indeed had an effect.”

During his enhancements, while he clearly aimed for the properties of luminous stone, the stones produced were not luminous stones.

“In theory, luminous stone mines automatically emit negative radiation, but the white stones I synthesized…seem to still be lacking something… The Vortex Rune can absorb red values but does not emit negative radiation.”

Yu Hong pondered, pulling out the previously recorded testing data.

He wasn’t sure if the white stones he developed were usable. But comparing data from before and after, he noticed the radiation from all three white stones decreased in red value.

The decrease in red values suggested they were moving towards a negative value. In an environment where radiation levels had around thirty to forty units of red value, the cave, although weak with red value, had recently also reached nearly ten units.

That the three white stones changed suggested there was hope.

“Wait, could it be—the difference lies in…time?”

Suddenly, he had a thought.

His own white stones did have some suppressive effect on surrounding red values but were very weak compared to original luminous stones.

Holding the three white stones, Yu Hong rapidly thought it through in his mind.

“Luminous stone mines have always been soaked in red value radiation. How come they still exist instead of dissolving automatically like ice cubes in hot water?”

“Clearly, luminous stone mines probably also have some special replenishment channel. Luminous stones must inherently have the capacity to store negative radiation, otherwise it’s impossible to explain why there is such a big difference between ordinary luminous stones and luminous stone marrow.”

Thinking of this,

Yu Hong seemed to confirm that his enhancement direction was correct.

“It seems that the problem isn’t with the enhancement of the Black Mark. The effect on the white stones I enhanced is so weak because they lack a long-term soaking and charging process. The old mine definitely had a constant channel for charging negative radiation, filling the luminous stone mines over time.”

Thinking of this, he quickly fetched his tools and drew Vortex Runes activated by Inner Qi on three white stones using large pyroxene graphite powder.

Then, he waited for the results.

After completing this, the Black Mark was free. The resurrection of the shadow lizards didn’t occupy the Black Mark.

Yu Hong went down to the first floor, picked up a talisman array he had tried to assemble from the wooden table.

The wooden board messily bore the characters for ‘two,’ representing the second Array.

“With the newly acquired Traction Rune as the main body, and the Vortex Rune as the core, supplement it to the outside Wind and Fire Slaughter Spirit Array as the second auxiliary array, to enhance the total radiation storage of the main array. This idea doesn’t seem problematic.”

He recalled the scene when he had encountered a large number of grey figures before.

The destructive power of the Array was sufficient; it was just that the total amount of radiation was too little and was quickly depleted by the numerical advantage of the Black Disaster.

Taking the wooden board of the second Array, Yu Hong walked out of the cave, exited the passage, and stood in the empty inner courtyard.

Under the white lights, it was still pitch dark outside the outer courtyard fence.

It was now gray hour, and Xue Ningning and Ou Li were still investigating the surroundings. The camp was deserted.

Crouching down, Yu Hong placed the board on the ground with one hand.

“Enhance the Black Wind Protection Array, direction…” Yu Hong envisioned the coverage, range, intensity of the second auxiliary Array in his mind, linking and stacking it at the edge of the main Array.

Soon, his own design received the basic approval from the Black Mark, deeming it capable of fundamentally supplementing the total radiation storage.

Thus, it gave permission for further enhancement.

“Enhance the Black Wind Protection Array?”

“Yes.”

A countdown appeared, with the time: 1 day, 7 hours, 53 minutes.

Yu Hong stood up and breathed a sigh of relief.

Now, all that was left was to wait, see the results after the enhancement ended, and if possible, he planned to enhance several more auxiliary arrays linked to the main array as backup energy packs.

After completing these,

He continued towards the inner courtyard and started expanding the size of the breeding room cave right next to the mountain cave.

Which is simply known as mining.

Because the stone castle had been built, this temporarily used mountain cave breeding room had been shelighted.

This time, he planned to further expend the camp chambers to make at least a temporary shelter within the Array that could provide protection from wind and rain.

Such a dwelling could house visitors and preliminary members among the formal members.

The outer courtyard was still too dangerous; whenever the Array and Black Disaster clashed, it would impact potential members like Xue Ningning.

Shortly after he started digging, subtle footsteps came from the outer courtyard amid torrential rain, as two figures draped in thick luminous stone cloaks entered through the fence gate, drenched in rain.

They quickly entered a wooden shed in the outer courtyard, shook off the rainwater from their bodies, placed down some items they had found, and then approached where Yu Hong was.

Soon, the two entered the brightest area illuminated by the lights, revealing two young faces wearing breathing valves.

It was Xue Ningning and Ou Li.

“Mr. Yu, we have completed the verification this time,” Xue Ningning approached and quickly said, “The Black Disaster Rift remains unchanged; the changes manifested during the black hour and the new Black Disasters don’t impact the distribution of the existing Black Disasters at other times. It’s like they exist in two different realms, two different spaces, without interfering with each other.”

“Yes, when we went out during the gray hour, at the same places and areas, we encountered the same as before. But during the black hour, these locations are replaced with a whole different set of Black Disasters. The danger level is far beyond previous encounters,” Ou Li said gravely.

“So, does the black hour turn originally safe places into extremely dangerous areas? Then during other times, would originally dangerous areas possibly become safer during the black hour?” Yu Hong put down the chisel and hammer he was holding and asked solemnly.

“That’s unclear. Plus, regarding the wooden bridge in the back of the camp that appears only when illuminated, we’ve also discovered it, but we did not experience any inaccuracies in distance or direction,” Xue Ningning continued.

“How did you do it?” Yu Hong asked curiously.

“By shining a flashlight from a distance, we could faintly see the bridge’s existence, probably because the distance was too great, and no Black Disasters attacked,” Xue Ningning answered.

Knowing the exact locations of the Black Disasters significantly secured their safety.

“We’ve confirmed that there’s no issue with the Black Disaster Rift, and next, we plan to investigate the cause of the change in the Black Disaster’s intensity,” Xue Ningning continued.

“What is your plan?” Yu Hong asked.

“Based on earlier intelligence, the initial outbreak site of the Black Disaster must still bear traces of why it erupted. Plus, the Meisha family definitely holds crucial secrets. We plan to first investigate the origin site and then track down the Meisha family.”

Xue Ningning’s words, to Yu Hong, sounded like a far-fetched fairy tale. Given the dangerous outside world, just the two of them benefiting from enhancement, not fully enhanced individuals, their strength barely stronger than ordinary people’s, they actually intended to travel that far, chasing after the investigation source.

He fell silent.

For he felt that the two of them were bound to die.

After a moment of inner contemplation,

“Just going like this…” Yu Hong said. “You will die.”

“There must be someone to do this. If I can investigate useful intelligence before I die, it can also reduce the burden for those who come after,” Xue Ningning said calmly with steady eyes. “That way, at least I won’t die meaninglessly.”

“But I… don’t want to…” Ou Li couldn’t help but contort her face, but didn’t dare to speak too loudly, thus was ignored by Xue Ningning.

Yu Hong thought for a moment.

“Wait a moment.”

He quickly turned around and entered the cave.

He turned on the communicator.

“Zhang Kaijun, are you there?”

“Of course, to make contact with more intelligence from various places, I’m always here,” Zhang Kaijun’s voice came from the other side.

Source: Webn0vel.com, updated on Novg0.co