The Night Hawk Arrives Abruptly

The Reading Potion was still taking effect. Even though Hope deliberately controlled his reading speed, the words still scrambled into his eyes, jostling to be first.

This article was four or five hundred words long, yet he still finished reading it in just over ten seconds.

Hope clutched his head. He had prepared himself in advance, which was the only reason the newspaper didn't slip from his fingers again.

Because after finishing the previous article, his brain hadn't gotten enough rest. This shorter piece actually brought him more fatigue.

This report was a critique of Dunwich's residents—"inbreeding and wallowing in depravity"—and the Whateley family was held up as the prime example:

"...the precocious Wilbur... the albino Hope and his mother... neither child has a father... Old Whateley, obsessed with witchcraft... just a microcosm of the small town of Dunwich."

Hope clutched his head... Even though there wasn't a photo of me in there, based on the reporter's description, I should have looked like a normal four-year-old at the time. Wilbur's development speed was just too fast to understand...

No wonder he rarely called me "big brother," and the few times he did, his tone was strange. Who would want to call a little brat their big brother...

No father... The reporter also interviewed other residents, and their answers were all "never seen Lavinia's husband." The reporter listed this as one of the various chaotic phenomena in Dunwich...

Old Whateley seemed to care a lot about Lavinia. I'm afraid he's already sacrificed poor old dad to the Evil God...

Old Whateley was obsessed with witchcraft... This rumor had probably been circulating for a long time. So when he met the reporter, Old Whateley probably didn't bother to hide it. And judging by the reporter's tone, he probably just thought the old man was superstitious about ghosts and gods...

Compared to all this, what bothered me most was that the Whateley family actually agreed to be interviewed. Weren't they worried the report would spread too widely and outsiders would discover the family's secrets?

This was completely different from the caution Wilbur showed... Wilbur was still young back then. The family affairs were probably decided by Old Whateley alone. Maybe Old Whateley didn't care, or maybe something forced him to accept the interview.

One eleven.

Time was up. The second Reading Potion was ready.

In appearance, it was no different from the previous one. The taste was the same too.

After swallowing it, the cooling sensation was much weaker than last time. Hope guessed it might be because the handwriting was sloppy—he had tried his best to imitate it, but it was a language he had never encountered before, and he didn't know the correct strokes.

Hope took out Number Four Hope's note...

It failed. The things on it were still like crawling earthworms, showing no discernible meaning.

Though a bit disappointed, it was within expectations.

Old Williams's Reading Potion was just something Hope had stumbled upon by chance. If it could solve the translation problem so conveniently, Hope would really have to shout at the sky, "I am the Chosen One!"

But since the Reading Potion was ineffective, Hope only had two hopes left:

One was the Whateley family. As a family of heretical cultists, Hope believed they possessed many strange potions or spells, some of which might be what he needed.

The other was Professor Armitage. Since he could give something like the Wooden Amulet to Elizabeth, he probably wasn't short of peculiar items.

Moreover, although Miskatonic University in the news report was just about teaching, educating, and research, since someone like Professor Armitage worked there, the university itself should have some connection to extraordinary matters.

Naturally, he had more hope for Professor Armitage's side. But considering the time issue, if the professor never showed up, Hope hesitated whether he should use some sneaky methods on the Whateley family without being discovered.

Since he had confirmed the Reading Potion was useless, Hope prepared to return to the Whateley house.

Before that, he placed the Contract of the All-Seer behind the mantel clock. He couldn't use this thing for now, and leaving it in the Whateley house would only increase the risk of Wilbur finding it.

As for the Steel Pen, Hope planned to...

"Tah! Tah!"

The bird calls in the forest outside suddenly grew louder. The originally gentle, subtle sounds became noisy, interrupting Hope's thoughts. He immediately recognized them as the calls of night hawks.

Compared to the Great Night Hawk, they weren't as loud, but more fragmented and continuous, rising and falling one after another—the calls of those smaller, more common birds, about the size of a hand.

Hope frowned in annoyance. The sound was unpleasant to begin with, and after seeing the Great Night Hawk, Hope hated them even more. Now, hearing this noise made his head dizzy and swollen, suppressing even the cooling sensation brought by the Reading Potion.

"Tah! Tah! Tah!"

These creatures had gotten even closer.

Hope temporarily placed the Steel Pen on the table where the gas stove sat and covered his ears. He suddenly realized that his dizziness might not just be because the sound was unpleasant... The places on his back where feathers grew on his shoulder blades were becoming warm.

A dozen blurry dots appeared in the distant sky, shifting positions, gradually approaching.

The night hawks that had been calling earlier had formed a flock, flapping their wings as they flew over. Their calls continued during the flight, growing louder and louder in Hope's ears.

Covering his ears, Hope felt like he had a high fever. It wasn't actually painful, nor did he feel dizzy, but he couldn't concentrate, his thoughts couldn't connect, and it was extremely uncomfortable.

The feathers on his back continued to heat up, soon feeling like warm patches stuck to his skin. The cool summer night had been pleasant, but now with this temperature, Hope felt somewhat restless and hot.

...Curse of Darkness... Hope bit his thumbnail. His thinking became sluggish... Was this the Curse of Darkness?

A blurry black figure suddenly appeared at the edge of his right field of vision, only two or three meters away from him.

"Who's there!"

He turned his head to look at the figure, but saw it also floating away, neither fast nor slow, always staying at the edge of his vision.

Hope stubbornly snapped his head back, trying to shake off the black shadow, but the shadow moved as fast as his head turn, still floating there. Hope could neither look at it directly nor get rid of it.

Hope slowed his movements, continuing to shift his gaze. As his gaze passed over the table, the table appeared at the edge of his right vision.

The table occupied the position where the black shadow had been. Hope thought this would force the shadow to change position.

But the shadow didn't move. It still floated there, coexisting with the table in a strange way, neither blocking the table nor being blocked by it.

They occupied the same spatial position, yet remained distinctly separate.

The black figure and everything else seemed to exist in different dimensions. In Hope's vision, it appeared abrupt and unnatural, as if it weren't a real thing at all.

It was like the frame of a pair of glasses—no matter how he turned his head, it was always right there...

Hope blinked. He seemed to understand now. This wasn't a real shadow, but an illusion—not something that truly existed, but a phantom inside his own mind.

An illusion left behind by the Great Night Hawk. Though it was a human silhouette, Hope felt it was the Great Night Hawk from last night.

He had killed the Great Night Hawk, but now it had latched onto him.

The so-called "Curse of Darkness" wasn't dizziness from hearing the night hawk's cry—it was the soul of the Great Night Hawk itself.

The night hawk fed on the souls of Beyonders, and because Hope had killed it, the night hawk's soul was now trapped within him.

This soul was normally invisible, but now, because of the night hawk's call, it had revealed itself.