The Fourth Eternal Night

For a moment, he was dazed.

Chen Fan's thoughts stalled, and the world before him seemed to fall silent.

But just then—

A trickle of icy Rain down his neck, along with Zhou Mo's bellow from inside the City Wall, snapped him out of his daze.

"Station Master!"

"Chen Fan!!"

Inside the City Wall, Zhou Mo stood beside the Wooden Hut with the Great Knife in hand, shouting at the top of his lungs in a desperate attempt to wake the men on the wall.

From his perspective,

the Station Master and the others had suddenly fallen into a trance.

Wang Mazi had even undone his trousers and started jerking off.

Eternal night, torrential Rain, strange entities, masturbation.

These four utterly unrelated things had come together in the scene before him. Though he admitted that jerking off was enjoyable, this really wasn't the time.

This bizarre sight made it obvious that the Station Master and the others had encountered a strange entity capable of inducing hallucinations.

"Get down!"

The first to regain his senses, Chen Fan saw the waterfall of black hair behind the Female Wraith extending toward them, stabbing forward as fast as lightning. He quickly shoved Wang Mazi and the others to the ground behind the Parapet.

People could be made to hallucinate.

Buildings couldn't.

The moment the Female Wraith entered the Camp, the Crossbow Mechanisms on the Arrow Towers had begun firing nonstop.

Bolt after bolt shot through the rainy night toward the Female Wraith outside the wall. Though her hair whipped through the air and knocked most of them aside, there were enough Arrow Towers for some bolts to find their mark.

As long as her needle-sharp hair didn't kill them immediately, the Female Wraith couldn't withstand the Arrow Towers' damage.

Clearly,

the Female Wraith intended to tank the Arrow Towers' attacks and take out their leader first.

Once he died, the Arrow Towers would immediately stop working, and the Eerie Fire would slowly gutter out and disperse.

However—

He had woken up and evaded that attack.

That left the Female Wraith with only one fate: death.

The Level-3 Arrow Tower imbued with the fire element, built specifically to counter this Female Wraith, began showing its might. Bolt after bolt shot toward her, too fast for her to dodge.

They pierced straight through her body.

No blood flowed from the holes, only patches of charred flesh remained.

A few breaths later,

the battle was over.

Once the Female Wraith's strongest ability failed to deliver a decisive blow, she became a lamb to the slaughter. She endured only a few volleys before being shot dead inside the Camp.

By then,

Wang Kui and the others had already broken free of their hallucinations.

"Fuck."

Wang Mazi pulled up his trousers, his face flushed with embarrassment, anger, and lingering fear. "That thing's abilities were fucking terrifying!"

Fortunately, Zhou Mo had been inside the Camp and hadn't seen the Female Wraith outside the wall, allowing him to wake the Station Master. Otherwise, who knew what might have happened? This Female Wraith could actually induce hallucinations. It was truly terrifying.

Not a single strange entity remained in the Gray Fog.

"Go get some sleep."

Chen Fan looked at Zhou Mo as he climbed onto the City Wall. "You've got fieldwork tomorrow morning. Get some sleep first. Leave this to us."

Only then did he turn to Crippled Monkey and the others.

"Clean up the battlefield quickly. The night's still long. More strange entities might attack."

Over the past few days,

the people in the Camp had already learned to work together.

At his command,

Crippled Monkey and the others rushed down to dig eerie stones out of the corpses and gather the dropped exotic treasures. Harvesting ghost materials could wait until daylight.

Chen Fan, meanwhile, immediately set about repairing the damaged City Wall.

The repairs required seventy-eight eerie stones.

The City Wall had suffered fairly serious damage this time, so the repair cost was higher.

But...

Screw repairing it.

Only a four-meter stretch of the City Wall had been damaged. These strange entities had focused their attacks on a single spot. He simply demolished the damaged section on the spot and built a brand-new four-meter stretch, spending only forty eerie stones.

Repairing it cost more than rebuilding it.

Afterward,

the men took turns standing watch in the Wooden Hut on the City Wall. This kept them from spending too long in the cold, damp, clammy air and reduced their chances of catching a chill.

The night soon passed.

Only a few dozen scattered strange entities entered the Camp during the latter half of the night. They never formed a strange tide and were easily dealt with.

With the Camp's current strength,

unless a sizable strange tide formed or a high-ranking strange entity led the attack, ordinary wandering strange entities entering the Camp were simply delivering eerie stones. They couldn't pose the slightest threat.

Day broke.

The darkness was suddenly peeled away like a layer of milk foam.

Another cross was marked on the Eternal Night Calendar in the Wooden Hut.

This was the fourth eternal night they had survived in the wilderness during the rainy season.

At first light,

Zhou Mo set out again with his men and the Great Knife, preparing to bring back resources from several nearby destroyed Stations.

Only then did Chen Fan and the others relax and sort through last night's battlefield.

Because they had taken turns keeping watch,

none of them were particularly sleepy.

They could sleep later.

Qi Chong and his partner had already begun dissecting the strange entities' corpses with practiced ease. Useful ghost materials, such as mantis arms, Monkey hides, and bamboo pole entity Skeletons, were collected and piled in the Warehouse, while wraith blood was gathered in Porcelain Crocks.

It was worth mentioning that,

even during eternal night, the Flesh Wraith Parent-Child Seed planted in the Farmland still needed to be watered with wraith blood.

Qi Chong and the others hadn't forgotten to water it last night.

Fortunately, the battle hadn't lasted too long, or they would have needed to make more Copper Pipes.

Outside the City Wall,

Wang Mazi stood in the drizzle, gazing at the Female Wraith lying silently on the ground with several holes through her body. He crouched and squeezed her forearm to test its firmness, then remarked with a hint of wistfulness,

"I really did lose my composure last night."

"But I have to admit, she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She's countless times prettier than the top courtesan at Osmanthus Tower in Northbank City. Calling her a celestial beauty wouldn't be an exaggeration."

"Just a reminder," Crippled Monkey said expressionlessly. "She's a Female Wraith."

"I know. But she doesn't look like she has any strange entity mutations, does she? She looks just like a normal woman. What a shame."

"Another reminder: she's dead."

"I know... Why do you keep reminding me... You're making it sound like I have other ideas..."

"I saw you licking your lips."

"My lips were a little dry."

Just then—

A Le strode over from nearby. Using a mantis arm as a blade, he knelt beside the Female Wraith and expertly stabbed into her scalp. As though butchering a cow, he swiftly worked the blade along her joints. Before long, he had peeled off the entire Wraith Hide in one piece.

Her thick, long black hair came away intact with the scalp.

The Female Wraith, who had still possessed a trace of forlorn beauty a moment ago, became a heap of mangled flesh in the blink of an eye.

"What are you...?"

Wang Mazi, who had still been sighing over her, stared at the scene in utter bewilderment.

"Skinning her."

A Le looked up at Wang Mazi and said in his rumbling voice, "The Station Master ordered it. This hair's good stuff, so we have to strip it off. Want me to save you a wraith fleshlight? You could ask the Station Master to make you a Copper Pipe in the right size."

"Thanks, but no need..."

Wang Mazi said sheepishly, "I was just making conversation. You're all making me sound like some kind of..."

"I was just hallucinating last night."

"But you were the only one who took his trousers off."

"You tied yours with fixed knots. I used a slipknot."

"Heh."

"This is all good stuff."

Chen Fan cheerfully made the rounds, checking on each group's progress. The Bamboo Pole Entity leader, in particular, had an exceptionally sturdy Skeleton, perfect for the frame of an improved Cart.

All these strange entities had brought in a good number of eerie stones.

They had also dropped three exotic treasures for him.

One had been found on the Bamboo Pole Entity leader.

The other two had been recovered from the Female Wraith, and one of them was an exceedingly rare Building Blueprint.

As for the Mantis Entity leader, it had dropped nothing. Pretty poor.

Last night's haul had been substantial.

And with so many strange entity corpses, the newly built Sacrificial Tower finally had a chance to prove its worth.