78. Chapter 78: Handling II
Li Runshan had just witnessed his daughter's unusual behavior, and his face paled in shock.
He endured the pain as he gently laid her down on the bed.
After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up.
"I'll go find the host! I don’t have enough Great Brightstones here, so I’ll rely on you to help! Consider it two debts I owe you!"
Without saying a word, Yu Hong nodded heavily.
The danger posed by the language entities was too great; they needed to deal with it quickly.
It was clearly more appropriate for the more experienced Li Runshan to head out and search for the bodies.
With the situation confirmed, the two men split up, Li Runshan swiftly setting off to search.
Yu Hong cradled Aisenna in his arms, taking some food from the stone house before quickly returning to the safety of his cave.
He ran as fast as he could.
Just before the heavy rain began to pour, Yu Hong dashed into the cave, laid Aisenna down, and tied her up tightly with ropes to prevent her from biting her tongue.
He stuffed a clean piece of cloth into her mouth.
Quickly, he placed several talismans around Aisenna, including a few silver talismans.
Once he completed his preparations, he hurried to recharge the third silver talisman.
Recharging didn't take long; just two hours were needed for a simple boost.
‘How much time is there from infection to outbreak again?’ Yu Hong picked up a piece of paper to check. ‘Twelve hours!’
He quickly disinfected Aisenna’s wounds and, while the Black Shadow was still inactive, began to reinforce the new talismans.
Strengthening a silver talisman required two days, which was clearly too long.
However, reinforcing a regular talisman was feasible.
Yu Hong immediately began focusing on crafting more talismans.
A regular talisman could be completed in just forty-five minutes, making it the best method of enhancement right now, especially since even a Great Brightstone took three days to improve.
Once he confirmed the reinforcement had started, he breathed a sigh of relief, sitting down to contemplate his next steps. ‘The silver talismans won't be enough; I need to find a stronger countermeasure.’
The outbreak strength of the language entities was too high, reaching levels above ten thousand, which was absurd.
If he didn’t have the reinforced techniques for dealing with the language entities, he would surely face dire consequences next time something similar happened.
‘First, I need to enhance the detection device for the red values.
The current one isn’t enough to trace the language entities.
Next, I need to create something even better and stronger than the silver talismans.’
Though he spoke these words, Yu Hong knew that each silver talisman took two days to create, and solely relying on the Black Shadow for this wasn't an option.
If the dark shadows attacked together, he would be in big trouble.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, he pondered deeply. ‘If only there were a way to recover energy on my own without relying on the Black Shadow, I could produce them continuously.’
A flash of inspiration crossed his mind.
The Brightstone Grass was an excellent example.
After enduring consumption, they would wither and die, only to regenerate after some time and recharge naturally.
Wasn't this the exact type of resilience he needed?
‘Additionally, internal energy and heavy leg techniques boost my strength against humans, but they don’t improve my ability to face the dark shadows and the blood tide.
I need a way to strengthen myself to ensure my safety against future threats.’
He continued to reflect, organizing his thoughts so that once he passed this danger, he could begin implementing them.
Originally, he thought his prior preparations were sufficient, yet the sudden surge in power from the language entities nearly tipped him over the edge.
The dark shadow's deceit was too potent.
Time continued to pass.
Eventually, the rain began to pour heavily, accompanied by booming thunder, transforming downpours into a thick mist.
As Yu Hong reinforced his talismans, Aisenna awakened just as the third was almost finished.
He stood up and wet a towel that Li Runshan had given him, quickly wrapping it around the little girl to calm her down before laying her back down.
While finishing the sixth talisman, the skies outside darkened.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
He heard a knock at the door.
"No need to respond, just listen to me! I need your help with Aisenna; my supply of Great Brightstones is insufficient. I'll come back tomorrow morning," Li Runshan's voice called from outside.
Knock.
Yu Hong tapped on the door in response, then waited six seconds before speaking.
"Did you find the host? If so, knock once; if not, knock twice."
Knock! Knock!
He heard the knocking outside, and his brow furrowed.
"Let's survive the outbreak first, then we can talk. I'll keep Aisenna safe with the Great Brightstones and talismans," he continued.
Knock.
Another knock followed, seemingly a response.
After five seconds, a voice came from outside.
"Please!" Li Runshan pleaded before standing at the door for a long while, until the sky was nearly enveloped in total darkness, at which point he swiftly turned to leave.
The sound of his footsteps mixed with the rain, soon fading away.
Yu Hong sighed, picking up tools to mix the Great Brightstone powder again, realizing he was running low on the ink needed for the talismans.
He needed to replenish it quickly.
This attack from the language entities left him feeling drained and made him even more aware that he needed to strengthen techniques like heavy leg methods that could enhance his combat power against dark shadows.
Otherwise, relying solely on the talismans wouldn’t suffice, and if he encountered greater dangers, he wouldn't have time to react.
Thunder roared, marking the complete arrival of night.
Yu Hong lit the fireplace, the warm glow from the fire and lamps keeping the creeping black bugs outside at bay.
In the outer yard, the Brightstone Grass glowed softly, warding off the approaching blood tide bugs.
Everything remained unchanged, which relieved Yu Hong.
He opened the spy window to check outside, confirming there were no threats, before preparing to work overnight on the talisman boards.
But just as he closed the window, a bizarre buzzing noise reached his ears from outside.
Yu Hong's expression shifted as he pulled back the spy window panel to look.
In the pouring rain, a mass of red-eyed flying bugs, resembling moths, swept through the dark sky, like a cloud of red lights rapidly approaching.
These flying pests radiated red light from their eyes, each one twice the size of the black bugs.
As they flew, their gray wings flapped swiftly, producing a faint humming sound.
"Devourers!" Yu Hong's expression darkened.
This was a monster he had heard about on the radio, one of the few blood tide insects with detailed information.
These flying bugs could consume anything except for Great Brightstones, be it metal, wood, flesh, or soil.
Without a sufficiently strong defense, encountering a Devourer was tantamount to serving up a feast.
‘But Devourers typically appear in densely populated areas; how did they end up here? There are only three of us, so the attraction should be far less than in Hope City,’ Yu Hong wondered.
With a swift motion, he closed the window panel, pressing his hand against the door.
If the situation became dire, he planned to try repairing the door while under attack.
One second.
Two seconds.
Boom!!!
Suddenly, a violent force struck the wooden door as if a giant had slammed against it, causing it to shudder.
Yu Hong braced himself against the door, startled by the sudden power.
Almost immediately, dozens of sharp sounds began echoing from outside as the Devourers started gnawing at the door.
His expression turned serious as he waited silently.
After a while, he could hear the gnawing growing louder and closer in some spots, guessing that the wood might soon be breached.
Using his mind, he silently focused on strengthening the door.
‘Repairing, is it?’ the Black Shadow inquired.
Yu Hong let out a breath of relief.
‘Yes!’ he confirmed in his heart.
In an instant, a countdown appeared over the door: 3 hours and 12 minutes.
However, this time the timing seemed off, increasing as the bugs gnawed away at the wood.
Just a short while later, Yu Hong noticed that instead of decreasing, the time had jumped forward by over ten minutes.
‘Does this mean the extent of the damage that needs to be repaired?’ he thought silently, pulling open the spy window panel to let the inner light shine out.
In that moment, a torrent of flying Devourers surged in, crashing into the light.
Immensely, they dissolved and evaporated into black smoke.
The cave's lamps and flames also dimmed slightly, with electricity draining much faster, and the fire burning more rapidly.
Throughout the night, Yu Hong struggled to hold on under that tense atmosphere.
It wasn't until dawn broke, when the blood tide receded and the Devourers were gone, that he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
However, the attack from the Devourers had set back his talisman-making progress.
The repair time for the door was now extended to past 3 hours.
Exhausted, Yu Hong collapsed and fell asleep.
Just moments after closing his eyes, a piercing scream jolted him awake.
"Ah!!!"
At that moment, Aisenna screamed, her body convulsing violently, with clear, gelatinous liquid pouring from her mouth, nose, and eyes.
As soon as the liquid appeared, it was systematically neutralized by the glowing talismans surrounding her.
The invisible radiation surged forth once more, forcefully suppressing the gel-like substance spilling from Aisenna.
Simultaneously, every talisman in the safety cave lit up with fluorescence, aiding in the suppression efforts.
Yu Hong stood in a corner, nervously watching the scene unfold.
He had experienced a similar incident before; this time, he was merely an observer.
Suddenly, something unexpected happened.
Aisenna's body twisted intensely, releasing an indescribable force that caused her to burst free of her bindings.
Whoosh!!
The ropes snapped and flew off, hitting the walls.
A massive surge of transparent gel erupted from Aisenna's mouth, forming a twisted humanoid upper body.
It was as if a transparent figure was trying to escape from the little girl.
Yu Hong's expression changed as he rushed forward, seizing a silver talisman and striking it down on the figure.
Buzz!
The silver talisman erupted in a blinding silver light, crashing down on the figure's head, but astonishingly, it was blocked by the figure raising its hands.
Yu Hong felt the immense strength in his hands, never expecting such power could be wielded by Aisenna, a mere little girl.
This force rivaled that of the white python he had faced before.
Ah!!!!
Aisenna screamed anew, her eyes glazed over as if her body was being forcibly controlled.
Ah!!!!
But Yu Hong was enraged.
After narrowly escaping the last attack, now this entity dared to confront him directly.
Just thinking about how he had almost been tricked out of the safety cave ignited an indescribable fear that transformed into a blazing fury within him.
He roared angrily at the transparent figure.
The two faced each other, both shouting in wrath.
“Get out of here! You wretched thing!!” Yu Hong screamed, grabbing a second silver talisman and hammering it down on the figure with furious blows.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!!!
Each strike smashed from the figure sent waves of gel-like substance flying off.
Silver light and gel intertwined, instantly dissipating into an formless mist.
The transparent figure attempted to resist, but the multitude of talismans glowing brightly around the cave created an invisible force field to bind it.
It became like a large mass of gelatin, continuously shrinking and thinning with each strike, sending rippling waves across its surface.
Before long, after several minutes of this relentless onslaught, Aisenna became stiff, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed, unconscious.
The gel-like substance that had emerged from her body disappeared, losing its humanoid form and vanishing completely, evaporated into nothingness.
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(The chapter ends here)