Night of Despair-Chapter 166 - : Bad Behavior

Chapter 166: Bad Behavior

At twelve o’clock noon, the sky was dim. He carried a freshly polished thick stone slab to the front of the stone castle door, gently set it down, and erected it fitting snugly into the doorway.

“This is the gate wall in front of the main entrance.” He patted the seven to eight-meter-tall thick stone slab, the bottom of which was inserted into the foundation, and on either side. Old Li and Old Zhou had timely brought stones to stabilize and secure it, instantly making it firm.

The stone castle was now completely finished.

It was a rectangular grey-white stone castle that appeared somewhat ancient and primitive on the outside but, due to the use of solid pieces of stone, was very robust. Additionally, each of the bearing columns inside was made by Yu Hong himself.

He first chiseled out a large, thick stone slab, then cut it into columns, and then dragged them over by hand to stand them up, filling the gaps in between with small stones and mud.

Of course, these were just auxiliary pillars—the biggest bearing column inside the stone castle was more than two meters wide, seven to eight meters high, built up dry-stone by stone block.

...

This was the craftsmanship of Old Zhou and Old Li.

“It’s done! Next is the sealing work, you guys handle that, make two more wooden ladders to use alternately. I am going to handle the air purification.”

Yu Hong stepped back, assessing the newly constructed stone castle.

The stone castle was over eight meters high, and both its length and width reached more than ten meters, resembling a large block standing upright in the middle of the inner yard, occupying most of the area.

The wooden houses originally in the yard were demolished and integrated into the inside of the stone castle, where new wooden rooms were built.

Because some parts relied on rebuilt stone walls, there were surplus materials from the wooden houses, and Old Li and others even built two more rooms, totaling five rooms.

Inside the stone castle, apart from the bearing columns, there was nothing else but the two-story hall.

The second-floor hall had bedrooms, and these wooden rooms occupied almost half the space, leaving a small area as a common space.

The first floor was entirely left open to arrange for breeding rooms, toilets, exercise rooms, and other functional rooms.

Yu Hong, who had previously accumulated light bulbs, found a place to use them—every layer of the common areas was equipped with hanging electric lamps.

Water pipes were also temporarily public, and Old Li even considered a drainage system design.

Yu Hong admired the stone castle for a while, watching the rest of the people momentarily lighten their negative moods brought by the abandonment of the luminous stone mine.

He returned to the cave, glanced at the countdown for the food reinforcement, and saw there was one more day before it finished.

He simply sat cross-legged in the basement, quietly thinking about the next steps of development.

“After the Radiation Hand Grenades and the air purifier are reinforced, I need to further enhance the defense array against Black Lizards and Black Wind…'”

“This time, it is a good opportunity to test my previous idea, using synthetic addition of new materials to continuously stack reinforcements on an object.”

Theoretically, the Black Mark couldn’t reinforce an already reinforced object, but by adding new materials and changing it to synthetics, it could bypass this mechanism.

This time, to greatly enhance defense capability, Yu Hong planned a maximum reinforcement.

Maximum reinforcement meant using all his physical energy and focus to push reinforcement to its limits, as had been done previously with the silver talisman array.

As for which to reinforce first between the Black Lizard and the Black Wind defense array, he hesitated.

“If the Black Lizard is enhanced, flexibility, mobility, and even the entire camp’s safe area could be expanded. However, Black Lizard is not suitable when facing large numbers of opponents. Last time, when Speed Man attacked the camp, it proved ineffective.”

“Enhancing the Black Wind defense array, on the other hand, would solidify the absolute safety of the current camp. This array is highly targeted against the dense type of Black Disaster and played a key role when dealing with the large number of shadows driven by Speed Man last time.”

After thinking for a while, Yu Hong decided to reinforce the array first.

First, ensure basic safety, then consider other things.

Extreme reinforcement was bound to take a long time, and the only support during this period would come from the Radiation Hand Grenades, the existing Black Lizards, and himself with his Inner Qi.

At such a time of significantly reduced defensive power, Yu Hong’s only hope was that no new severe Black Disaster would strike!

Otherwise, the current camp would be in trouble.

*

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*

The sky was overcast and grey.

The grey was not a pure hue, but like an old rag repeatedly stained with innumerable impurities, perpetually dirty and uncleanable.

In the northern part of Donghe, on the vast Qin Chuan Plateau, the broad expanse of loess was similarly tinted with a thin layer of grey by the sky.

Amidst the earth’s wrinkled skin-like layers stood a huge fortress entirely constructed of grey concrete.

The top of the fortress was covered with high-strength synthetic glass to block rain and snow.

Inside were grey buildings constructed connected to each other.

Buzz.

Along with a humming sound, a giant door slowly emerged and rose on one side of the fortress.

A group of survivors, wrapped in luminous stone blankets, using wooden sticks as walking sticks, slowly and laboriously walked into the gate, undergoing checks by the fully armed protective personnel layer by layer inside.

At the far end of the checkpoint, on the rooftop of a five-story building, stood two tall men looking down.

Both men were wearing full-body bulletproof suits, a model not available on the market, with the corner marked with the logo of the Aurora laboratory.

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Their faces were hidden inside thick dark red helmets, invisible to others.

Only their bear-like, bulky, and heavy suits conveyed a strong sense of oppression.

“Has communication not been restored yet?” the slightly shorter man asked in a low voice. “We don’t have much time left, and according to the satellite observation cloud map, of the four high-risk Black Disasters, two are already moving this way.”

“Commander, the scope of the bad code’s impact is too large. Although we have temporarily recovered, other bases might be caught off guard and attacked…” the other person respectfully answered.

“How many Donghe strongholds can we confirm still exist?” the person called the commander asked again.

“Before the high-risk Black Disaster outbreak, there were seventy-four. Now, according to the special unmanned drone radar scans, only forty-two remain. The main issue was the mass migration to the new Aurora City of the upper levels, which took too many various resources and weapons, causing the defense lines to collapse prematurely, with too many casualties,” another person replied.

“Based on my last communication results, have we located the underground nuclear base where Guan Cao is?” the commander spoke up again.

“We have located it. According to the detection, the Red Value radiation concentration inside has already reached over eight hundred. With this concentration, it’s impossible for anyone to have survived…”

This response silenced the commander.

He had few friends. As people around him grew more fearful of him, as his rank became higher, and as the mutations in his body became more serious—even surpassing the laboratory’s speculative progress.

Now, no one at the stronghold dared to look up and talk to him.

Guan Cao, Wei Song, were his only friends and now, one of the two had vanished.

“What about Yu Hong? We’ve confirmed the location of Baiqiu Village, can we make contact?” he paused, then asked.

“This… I’m afraid not. That area is currently under the domain of a high-risk Black Disaster Speed Man. Moreover, there’s also a highly dangerous Insect man nearby. As you know, Insect men are among the most dangerous types at level eight—they often live in groups, similar to Multi-eyed Birds,” the other hurriedly replied.

“Make it quick. Yu Hong at Baiqiu Village possesses a lot of valuable information and is a top-level research talent akin to myself. Have the lab increase the production of expulsion fluid. If that doesn’t work, we’ll just have to force our way through, even if it means more people will die,” the commander said solemnly.

“But, the current output from the bait material extraction has already reached its limit…If we increase it more…I’m afraid it won’t hold up…” the other person said, troubled.

“No matter. If it’s not enough, we’ll just capture more. In this world, as long as people can survive, many are willing to do anything…” the commander suddenly raised his head, looking towards the distant city outskirts.

On the distant yellow-gray land, a group of survivors riding motorcycles, with tattered cloaks of luminous stone flapping against the fierce wind, were making loud noises.

This was a group of about twenty survivors. They had luminous stone cloaks, weapons, gear, food, and water.

Clearly, these were people who had just escaped from a stronghold.

But they were running for their lives now.

Two human-shaped figures composed entirely of gray-black small insects were rapidly chasing them from behind.

Suddenly, one of the figures dashed forward, its body dispersing into a cloud of insects, and in an instant, swooped over two people on motorcycles.

The two screamed, their bodies inflating rapidly like balloons, growing larger, and then—

Boom!!

In just a few seconds, their bodies exploded, releasing large numbers of black-gray small insects.

These small insects quickly formed a new Insect man.

“Insect men are here, close the gate,” the commander said calmly. “Send out Blood Induction Team Nine with expulsion fluid to lead them away.”

“Team Nine has already been wiped out, commander.”

“Then send Team Eight, and later you’ll reorganize Team Nine from the newcomers,” the commander stated calmly, “To get food, water, and medicine, they’ll have to gamble with their lives.”

*

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*

Yu Hong carefully watched the countdown on the food box nearing its end.

Inside the wooden box used to store dried meat and wild vegetables, a dark red countdown timer was just about one minute away from ending.

Cough, cough…

Yu Hong himself suddenly couldn’t help but cough twice.

His throat suddenly felt itchy, which made him frown, feeling something was wrong.

‘Even I can’t withstand it anymore? This air…’ He thought he wouldn’t need a breathing valve, but now…

Just then, the wooden box suddenly blurred for a moment.

When it cleared up, the food inside had completely changed.

Tubes of nutrition paste, just like before, were stored in the wooden box, wrapped in light blue plastic sealed packaging.

The usual instruction label was placed on the surface.

Yu Hong picked it up and read.

“Nutrition Paste: Also known as comprehensive multi-functional meal replacement paste. An adult only needs to consume one tube daily to supplement all necessary nutritional elements.”

“It worked…” he sighed with relief, quickly counted, and found exactly six hundred tubes in the box, a neat number sufficient for six adults to consume for three months.

Calculating the output boost from before, one month’s food was enhanced to last for three months.

‘Next is the air purifier.’

After confirming the nutrition paste was fine—probably another copy from Black Mark—Yu Hong quickly moved to the purifier.

The stone castle was built, the food crisis temporarily resolved, now to deal with the air problem.

He extended his hand and pressed it on the purifier.

‘Enhance purification system, target: filter and detect airborne substances harmful to the human body, specifically targeting the special substances causing coughs in the current outside air…’

Yu Hong didn’t know what was causing the coughs, but he decided to try pointing the Black Mark directly at it. As long as he could promptly resolve the air issue, he could begin his extreme enhancement plan.

After all, the array was the key to the camp’s security.