Secret 1

The next day, White Mound Village.

A warm breeze blew, at the hottest time of noon.

In front of the desolate houses of the village, a tall figure wearing a gray-black Anti-Stab Suit was slowly walking on the Gravel road, as if inspecting the surrounding environment.

The figure wore a helmet and carried a black Wolf Tooth Club. The spikes of the club shone with a faint silver light in the sun, looking quite ferocious.

After a while, the figure raised its head, revealing Yu Hong's expressionless, pale face.

His footsteps paused, stopping in front of a slightly larger, dim Stone House.

Without speaking, he quietly took off a backpack from his back, opened it, and took out a palm-sized yellow wooden board.

Embedded in the wooden board was a Jade Quality circular Glowstone Symbol Array.

He gently pressed the Symbol Array wooden board against the Wooden Door of the Stone House, and then gently secured it with nails.

Releasing his hand, he pulled open the door, looked at the darkness inside, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

Before long, his figure disappeared into the darkness, falling into silence.

Time passed by, bit by bit.

Five minutes later.

Bang!!

A figure suddenly rushed out of the darkness, running towards the door.

It was Yu Hong.

His expression was calm, and several spikes on the Wolf Tooth Club in his hand were already bent.

Hiss! Behind him, a black-clothed woman with a caved-in head was rapidly approaching, flickering in and out of existence, reaching out her pale, rotten right hand to grab his back.

Just as the woman's hand was only a few centimeters away from Yu Hong.

Suddenly, he lunged forward and rolled on the ground, just managing to rush out through the slightly opened door, avoiding the grab from behind.

Caught off guard, the black-clothed woman's hand slammed into the door nailed with the Symbol Array wooden board.

Ah!!! A sharp, invisible sonic wave exploded, and the black-clothed woman's right hand rapidly became transparent, twisted, like mist blown by the wind, about to dissipate.

Then her whole body seemed to be strongly interfered with, rapidly twisting, stirring up a large number of ripples.

Poof! A few seconds later.

The black-clothed woman disappeared on the spot.

And the Symbol Array wooden board on the door completely changed from Jade Quality to grayish-white, and the array patterns also broke apart.

After the scream, everything returned to silence.

On the Gravel road, Yu Hong slowly got up, his eyes fixed on the Symbol Array wooden board on the door.

"The effect is actually stronger than ordinary Glowstone. It seems that the power of Glowstone and Symbol Arrays is related to the specific area of the Symbol Array..."

This was not even the strongest Silver Symbol Array, but just an ordinary Glowstone Symbol Array, and one piece could actually offset an Eerie Shadow.

After removing the nails and Symbol Array wooden board, he carefully assessed the range of the Symbol Array's effect.

On the Wooden Door around the Symbol Array wooden board, there was a faint grayish-white trace.

This trace was like a circle drawn with lime, surrounding the Symbol Array itself. This thing wasn't there originally, but after the Symbol Array and the Eerie Shadow touched, it appeared on its own.

Yu Hong reached out and gently touched it, confirming that it couldn't be wiped off; the trace was already imprinted on the Wooden Door.

He thoughtfully retracted his hand, judging the size of this circle. It was about three times the size of the Symbol Array's range.

Taking out a Charcoal Pencil, he recorded it on the newspaper, put away his things, and quickly left.

After walking a distance, he suddenly felt a gust of cold wind behind him and hurriedly turned back to look at the Stone House he had just left.

Inside the Stone House, the Wooden Door was open, and in the shadows, stood a blurry figure of a woman in black.

It was the same female Eerie Shadow that had just been dispersed.

However, this female Eerie Shadow seemed to be reconstructing, her body gradually becoming clearer from the blur.

Yu Hong retracted his gaze, mentally estimating the time, lowered his head to record data, and then quickly left.

Soon he was out of White Mound Village, and he picked up some dry firewood along the way, returning to the Mountain Cave.

He took out the large Glowstone Ink again, filled in the broken Symbol Array lines on the wooden board, and then he reached out and pressed on it.

A black line flashed, and a countdown automatically appeared on the wooden board: 45 minutes.

After doing this, Yu Hong walked to the corner and took out a thin wooden board Symbol Array that he had been making since yesterday.

The board on which this Symbol Array was embedded was very thin, almost only as thick as a mobile phone. And he had made more than a dozen of these boards of this thickness, all piled up in the corner.

Since discovering that Eve was infected with the Black Handprint, he had returned and began to fully prepare to deal with the Evil Shadow.

Ordinary Glowstone definitely couldn't stop it; this had already been tested. The effect of a piece of large Glowstone was at most equivalent to a bag of ordinary Glowstone. And so many people in the Town died overnight; it was impossible that no one had tried using bags of Glowstone.

More likely, bagged Glowstone was completely useless.

Therefore, he needed a more effective countermeasure.

And the Symbol Array was the trump card he had prepared.

Sitting in the corner, Yu Hong picked up a board and began to draw a Glowstone Symbol Array on it.

Crack.

Just then, a faint sound of footsteps came from outside the door.

Crack.

Crack.

The sound was slow and rhythmic, stepping on dry branches and constantly approaching.

As the sound grew closer, Yu Hong stopped drawing, put the board down, stood up, and grasped the Wolf Tooth Club at hand.

He stared warily at the door, slowly moving his feet forward, the sound of footsteps also approaching in sync.

The peephole of the door was closed, and only the faint sunlight coming through the cracks could be seen.

Despite the bright and warm light, a strong, bone-chilling coldness still slowly rose from Yu Hong's heart.

Crack.

Crack.

The footsteps were still approaching.

Finally.

The sound stopped.

The owner of the footsteps seemed to have stopped not far from the door.

The figure seemed to be considering, hesitating, and stopped moving.

Yu Hong also walked behind the Wooden Door, holding the Wolf Tooth Club in his hand, and holding two large Glowstones in the other, gently propping them against the Wooden Door.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

There was no movement outside at all.

Yu Hong's tense nerves slowly relaxed. He glanced at the Glowstone placed behind the door.

This large Glowstone had silently consumed half of its energy, but now it stopped and returned to silence.

Huff. He breathed a sigh of relief. He reached out and pulled open the viewing window baffle, looking out through the window.

Outside, it was sunny and bright, with a gentle breeze, empty and desolate, with nothing there.

Seeing this scene, Yu Hong exhaled a long breath, replaced the large Glowstone behind the door, and then reached out to pull the baffle back into place.

Bang!!! Just then, a pale face suddenly pressed against the iron mesh of the viewing window.

With a loud noise.

The face's rotten features squeezed hard into the iron mesh, pressing the mesh to creak, as if it was about to break at any moment.

The face stared at Yu Hong, and with another burst of force.

It actually squeezed through the iron mesh, forcing its way in through the viewing window!! Buzz!!! In an instant, the large Glowstone behind the door instantly turned into white powder. At the same time, the other two Glowstones in Yu Hong's hand also shattered.

These large Glowstones could not stop the face from entering at all.

And just at this moment.

The Silver Symbol Array on the door suddenly lit up with a trace of silver light.

This higher-level Symbol Array, which had taken two days to strengthen, suddenly burst out with pure and powerful invisible fluctuations at this moment.

The fluctuation was like a ripple, instantly spreading across the entire door, and even the entire Mountain Cave stone wall around the door was covered.

As the fluctuation covered it, the rotten face flashed instantly, like a phantom, and disappeared from the spot in the blink of an eye.

Everything was quiet in an instant.

The iron mesh of the observation window on the door remained damaged, but the human face from just now had completely disappeared.

Huff! Huff! Huff! Yu Hong's body was stiff, and only now did he react, gasping for breath.

Just now, he was completely unable to control his body.

Too sudden!

The oppressive feeling of the other party's attack was too strong, to the point that he was startled and didn't react at all on how to deal with it.

By the time he came back to his senses and prepared to act, everything was already over.

'No!! There's also a special force, forcibly immobilizing me!' Yu Hong recalled carefully. Logically speaking, he was no longer the newbie who had just arrived in this environment. Even if he was terrified, he shouldn't be completely unable to move.

But that feeling just now made him feel like he was back at the beginning.

That feeling of fear... He looked down at his body. On the jacket on his chest, there was a faint gray-black handprint slowly fading and disappearing.

"The Withered Woman?"

He guessed.

Compared to the Eerie Shadow, the intensity of the attack just now far exceeded it by too much.

If the Silver Symbol Array hadn't taken effect, he would probably have been caught just now, encountering unknown dangers and threats.

He bent down and carefully checked the Silver Symbol Array, discovering that the silver on the Symbol Array was a bit lighter, obviously because some of its power had been consumed.

"Tomorrow is the High Tide Period, it seems that I can't go out casually anymore."

Yu Hong checked the extent of the damage to the observation window, reached out his hand, and prepared to strengthen and restore it, but suddenly remembered that there was still something counting down, so he could only wait for now.

So he simply pulled over a stool and sat down in front of the door to recover his strength.

Not long after, when the countdown ended, he began to reach out and press on the door, repairing the broken wire mesh.

Soon the wire mesh was repaired, and Yu Hong began to replenish the consumed Silver Symbol Array.

It took a full two hours for the Silver Symbol Array to return to its original state, and everything looked almost the same as before. But in reality, inwardly, Yu Hong had a rough estimate of the strength level of the Withered Woman Evil Shadow.

...Inside Jenny's cave.

Eve used a wet towel to vigorously wipe the Black Handprint on her buttocks, but no matter how she wiped, the handprint remained motionless, as black as ever.

Her face was panicked, even a little flustered. Seeing that she couldn't wipe it off, she directly wanted to grab a knife, trying to cut off her own flesh.

Pa! A stick struck her hand hard from the side, knocking the knife to the ground.

The stick was held by Jenny, her face cold, with a hint of panic, nervously paying attention to her surroundings.

"Don't do meaningless things! You're not dead yet, there's still hope! Don't give up on yourself!"

"But Mom!" Eve's face was pale, she raised her head, her eyes already swollen and red from crying. "Even Lao Yu is dead... I can't escape."

"Go into the Isolation Room. Quick!" Jenny said sternly.

Eve was startled, but still gritted her teeth, turned around, and quickly came to a wall in the bedroom.

She pulled aside a bearskin hanging on the wall, revealing a silver metal door underneath.

Pushing the metal door open sideways, Eve slipped inside and closed it behind her.

"From today on, you can only stay inside," Jenny said in a deep voice, "until the handprint completely disappears. Did you hear me clearly!?"

"...Heard you clearly," Eve's voice came muffled from inside the silver metal door.

"Tomorrow is the High Tide Period, I'm going out now to find a way for you." Jenny put down the stick, stepped forward to put down the bearskin, then picked up a bag of Glowstone, looked at the clockwork clock, and quickly walked out of the mountain cave.