Night of Despair

Chapter 172: Threat 170
 

Standing at the start of the lane, with his back against the outer courtyard fence, Yu Hong glanced at the murky gray mist ahead, took a deep breath, and confirmed the time.

“10:12 a.m.”

Under normal circumstances, it would take him at least two minutes to run from here to the highway; this was after the road had been cleared and made passable. By regular walking, it would usually take a good ten minutes or so. The road’s uneven lifts and falls, the possibility of encountering Black Disasters, and some steep slopes made it difficult to navigate.

But now…

Yu Hong looked ahead through his goggles, concentrating and calming his mind.

Thunderbolt Inner Qi filled and swelled within his legs.

Hiss!

In an instant, the ground behind him exploded into a small pit, and he was already gone from his original spot.

A gusty wind howled past his ears while Yu Hong kept his eyes fixed forward, the mist rapidly thinning and splitting to reveal the clear forest floor.

The ground and everything to the sides blurred into one, with only the path directly ahead remaining clear.

The dense trees rapidly parted, retreating and being left behind.

Soon enough, the path ahead suddenly cleared, and the road sloped downward.

Swoosh!

He took a small jump, landed softly, surged forward a few meters to release the force, and crouched to a halt on the cracked highway.

Huff…

Two trails of hot white breath sprayed out from the sides of his respirator.

Yu Hong stood up and glanced at the time on his detector: “10:13 a.m.”

“One minute, maybe even less,” he thought with satisfaction.

He knew that his greatest improvement this time was his movement speed: in such a dangerous world, running fast meant a significantly higher chance of survival.

He looked around. The highway was even more broken than before, with no sight of any flat surface.

The ashen-white road surface was like shattered porcelain, covered in cracks and footprints.

The whereabouts of those two solar-powered jeeps parked by the road were unknown, whether moved by someone or flung away by a Black Disaster.

Yu Hong scanned his surroundings and could faintly make out a charred bus on the distant road.

He decided to walk toward the direction of the bus.

The sky still held some sunlight; it was the brightest time of the day.

The pervasive fog on the mountains and fields was grayish-white, not the grayish-black of night.

Yu Hong approached the side of the bus and stopped about seven or eight meters away.

The readings on his detector began soaring, jumping from dozens to the five or six hundred range.

“Before confronting an Insect man, it’s better to take care of these potential hazards first…”

Yu Hong looked at the bus, at the charred windows, and at the remains of the melted plastic on the windowsills.

Swipe!

Suddenly, a blurred white face popped up in one of the windows.

The appearance of the face was extremely abrupt: there was nothing one second, and the next, it appeared at the window like a flash.

Boom!!

In an instant, Yu Hong stepped forward and delivered a powerful front kick.

The impact exploded on the spot, his leg striking the waist of the bus, the enormous force accompanied by the crash speed, instantly twisting the bus’s metal body, tipping it to the side, and making it roll.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!!

Propelled by the giant impact, the bus rolled over several times on the side of the road and then fell down the slope next to the highway.

As the bus continued to roll, there soon came another loud noise.

The bus had hit a tree.

Everything came to a halt.

Yu Hong stood on the road, feeling a burst of Inner Qi being consumed from within, and a flush of exertion crossed his face.

He hadn’t expected his own strength to be so great.

That sudden appearance of a face had startled him. Without thinking, he just kicked out at it straight away.

With the burst of Inner Qi, that kick flipped the whole bus into a rolling motion.

“Such a bus weighs at least five tons… even if it was burned out and lightened, it should still be three or four tons.”

To overturn something weighing three or four tons with a single kick, without any discomfort in his legs…

Yu Hong now finally had a sense of his own decent strength.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Suddenly, a series of heavy footsteps came from behind, echoing off the road.

It appeared that the loud noise had attracted something, and out of the grayish-white fog behind him, a massive creature six or seven meters tall slowly emerged from the mist, revealing its colossal form.

“Elephant worm…” Yu Hong turned to look and recognized the creature.

His mind stirred, and he readied his Inner Qi without releasing it.

Hiss!

He turned into a shadow and dashed toward the elephant worm.

At the same time, the elephant worm lifted its spike-like long leg and violently stabbed down at him.

Crack.

Before the elephant worm’s long leg could fully come down, still in mid-air, Yu Hong’s kick had already snapped it.

Not just that, he also swept past and broke off a row of legs on its right side.

Before it could roar and rise, a human-shaped shadow leaped from behind, rolled into the air, and a battle axe-like kick thundered down.

Boom!!!

The elephant worm’s body sank sharply, its back shell collapsing and bursting on impact.

Its massive body slammed into the ground with a grating and unpleasant metallic crushing noise.

Before it could let out a roar.

A blurry human form appeared once again beside its head.

One kick.

Thud.

The elephant worm’s triangular head was instantly kicked off, flying into the air.

Its enormous body also, at this moment, completely shattered, turning into countless wisps of black smoke that dissipated into nothingness.

“Three strikes.” Yu Hong felt the three strands of Inner Qi that were expended from within his body.

Looking at the massive creature before him, silence now larger than Big Skin, silently disintegrate, vanish from sight.

The fear he had in his heart for the Black Disaster diminished yet another layer.

“Elephant worm, if not using Inner Qi, requires a long time to deplete, to break its carapace; with Inner Qi, only three moves are needed.”

Elephant worm is a third-level Black Disaster…

For other enhanced humans, level three represented the very limit of what they could wrestle against unarmed, even when working together.

“Theoretically, I could have dealt with the elephant worm before, as I did with the Multi-eyed Bird, but it definitely wouldn’t have been as effortless as now.”

He turned around and heard a steady stream of noises approaching from a distance. Without hesitation, he flashed toward the direction of the camp and swiftly sprinted away.

The third layer Thunderbolt Leg Technique gave him a feeling like his body had become much lighter; a casual step would send him darting a great distance.

In the mountain forest, Yu Hong moved lightly like a shadow, quickly traversing through the mist.

Before long, a fuzzy black human-shaped figure appeared about ten meters from his side.

The black figure was lying on top of a Big Skin, seemingly feasting. Suddenly, it raised its head to look in Yu Hong’s direction.

Insect man!

Yu Hong came to a halt, also stopping to face the other.

He had previously witnessed the speed of insect men through encounters with black lizards, and knew their pace was comparable to his own.

This would be a good opportunity to understand… the specific capabilities of this terrifying Black Disaster.

A hundred meters away from the camp, Yu Hong took a light breath, regathering a fresh surge of Inner Qi, infusing it into his legs.

He kept his gaze fixed on the insect man ten meters away, while a corner of his eye scanned the detector.

“Red Value: 133,891.522.”

One hundred thirty-three thousand…!

Yu Hong’s scalp tingled, knowing he absolutely couldn’t let the creature touch him.

Trying to counter this foe with a Radiation Hand Grenade would be impossible. Unless he simultaneously threw dozens of them in overlaying blasts, and even then, the insect man would need to stay in one spot for it to work.

Considering the insect man’s speed… the idea was pure fantasy.

In an instant, Yu Hong and the insect man both moved.

Both turned into blurs, one advancing, the other retreating, sprinting fast in the direction away from the camp.

In this chase, Yu Hong could clearly perceive the difference.

In wide open spaces without obstructions, his speed was clearly faster than the insect man’s.

But the forest always had trees blocking the way. In such circumstances, he needed to dodge and weave, while the insect man could simply disperse into flying insects, crossing over obstacles and reforming without impedance; thus the terrain favored the insect man.

After running wildly, Yu Hong simply took to the highway.

With the insect man in tow, he dashed away from the camp, covering ten or so kilometers.

He calculated the distance and suddenly threw out a Radiation Hand Grenade.

Boom!

The grenade with over seven thousand negative radiation units hit the pursuing insect man squarely.

But aside from blasting some black fragments from the insect man’s body, the Radiation Hand Grenade was useless for anything else.

Seeing this, Yu Hong’s heart chilled, knowing he couldn’t confront this thing head-on.

He was unsure if an outburst of Inner Qi could block the creature, and if it couldn’t, he would be gambling with his life.

Now, having roughly estimated the insect man’s maximum speed, an idea formed in his mind about how to shake it off.

Looking around, Yu Hong quickly remembered Huafeng City, half-seen along the way, completely covered in black slime.

Without hesitation, he headed toward Huafeng City.

With his current speed of at least a hundred yards, it wouldn’t take long to get there.

Time trickled by.

Soon, the mist ahead grew thinner.

The vast, black-painted buildings of Huafeng City came into view within Yu Hong’s line of sight.

He suddenly paused, slowing his steps, and looked back.

The inky humanoid shape of the insect man had also stopped thirty or so meters away, staring far ahead at Huafeng City, no longer advancing.

“Sure enough!” Yu Hong’s expression was calm, confirming his own judgment.

“High-risk Black Disasters indeed have their own territories. The insect man stopping could very likely be due to an encounter with a high-risk Black Disaster within Huafeng City, setting territorial boundaries…”

Watching the halted insect man, Yu Hong slightly smiled, continued to distance himself until it completely vanished from his vision, and then took a detour, returning to the camp from another direction.

The Thunderbolt Leg of the third layer enabled him to leap two or three meters lightly without making much of a commotion.

Although he could previously do that, it was by sheer force, but now it was different.

Quickly, in just twenty minutes, he was back outside the camp, confirming that the insect man from before hadn’t returned.

Back in the cave, Yu Hong finally had a sense of his rough level amidst the Black Disasters.

“I can handle Black Disasters alone that are still above level four; I haven’t encountered higher levels to test against. But judging from the elephant worm’s backlash, the maximum won’t exceed level five.”

“The danger rating doesn’t reflect the strength of the Black Disasters, but using it as a crude division works well enough.”

“Next, I need to train the Thunderbolt Leg to higher levels as fast as possible; to be faster, stronger, and with more Inner Qi. This way, once the Array is strengthened and my Inner Qi is more ample, it will be able to support the Array for longer.”

Afterward, Yu Hong and everyone in the camp stayed indoors, only moving around inside the stone castle and the cave.

With the purifier, everyone gradually recovered from their coughing fits.

Li Rushan began expanding the scale of the breeding boxes, taking advantage of the space in the stone castle to create ten more mushroom boxes, leading to a slow increase in food production.

Time once again slipped by.

Having confirmed his speed was slightly faster than the insect men’s, Yu Hong personally led away the insect men that approached the camp twice more, each time drawing them to the vicinity of Huafeng City and its dominating presence. After trapping the insect men, he looped back to the camp.

Using this method to bide time, and as Yu Hong’s Inner Qi in the third layer was close to forming a second strand, the fortification of the Array was nearly finished.

Old Zhou, who had been gone for a long time, also returned successfully.

Yet contrary to what was expected, he hadn’t found any luminous stone mines, nor his family.

Instead, he scavenged a collection of assorted food and daily necessities.

What was thought to have been a failed outing due to its seemingly meager rewards turned out to be unfounded, as Old Zhou returned smiling, unflustered. Once inside the stone castle, he called everyone together for a meeting.