A Night of Desperation-Chapter 249: Secret

Gray City Base.

In the vast space beneath the parking lot,

a group of figures wearing thick protective suits stood silently before three bodies lying on the ground.

In the dim space, gray and black concrete walls surrounded them. The only light source was the safety lamps hung on the walls at intervals.

Green safety lights, the stiffness of the corpses, the cold air moving with a faint stench.

Together, they painted the reality of the base’s looming demise.

The crowd placed their hands over their hearts, mourning in silence.

“The temperature is too low… We’re barely holding on with just the standard warming measures,” someone spoke somberly.

“If we continue, even breathing will become a serious problem;some of the gases in the air will freeze and liquefy…” another person said, “Yesterday, when I went out for the inspection patrol, I already felt some difficulty breathing.”

“There’s no sun, the extreme cold, and the inevitable decrease of oxygen,” the person in the front spoke out. His voice was clear, cold, and detached;it was Zhang Kaijun.

“Does the research department have any solutions? We won’t survive if this continues!” someone exclaimed in desperation.

“We have produced the oxygen equipment, but we can’t achieve portability;there are too many missing components, making production difficult,” Zhang Kaijun replied.

“Can’t we just put together a plastic bag or something?” the previous person said helplessly.

This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.

“We could, but plastic bags won’t work,” Zhang Kaijun answered.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a clump of transparent plastic bags, giving them a gentle rub.

Crack.

The once flexible plastic bags were easily crumbled into pieces by his gentle touch.

Suddenly, the crowd fell silent.

“Starting now, we must strictly follow the low-temperature response plan provided by the research department. Every isolation room must maintain its electric heating pads running twenty-four hours. The nuclear power engine’s cooling water pipes are insufficient to fight off the low temperatures across all areas,” Zhang Kaijun ordered.

“What if we seek refuge elsewhere?” a woman couldn’t help but ask.

“In Aurora City, the number of people freezing to death daily is in the hundreds;they’re also trying their best to implement warming measures. If we wanted to seek refuge in other places, most of us would die on the way from the Black Disaster,” Zhang Kaijun replied.

“What about Mr. Yu at the Black Wind Camp?”

“The Black Wind Camp has been under siege recently;the Eternal Life Association has targeted them. The stone castle within the camp has been destroyed, and the living environment can no longer guarantee safety,” Zhang Kaijun continued.

“But if we keep this up, we won’t last much longer,” the woman’s voice carried a trace of despair. “The Black Disaster keeps invading, and now even our weapons are becoming unusable. If the temperature drops even lower…”

“If we can’t change the external, then let’s try to change ourselves,” Zhang Kaijun said calmly.

He turned around to face everyone.

“We will systematically transform into strengthened humans in batches. Only if we all become strengthened humans will our resistance to temperature greatly increase. At the same time, we will completely seal the only passage to the outside. The supplies we’ve stockpiled in advance should be enough to sustain our current consumption for at least ten years.”

His words stunned everyone present.

It was known that becoming a strengthened human would reduce one’s lifespan and alter one’s temperament. But now, if they didn’t adapt, they might not even survive to see the next month.

In this light, becoming a strengthened human might indeed be the only solution.

For a moment, everyone fell silent.

*

*

*

January 2023,

Yu Hong gently marked the current time with his hand.

It had been well over half a year since he arrived in this world.

He set down his notebook and glanced at the silver crescent mark on his left hand, the newly strengthened Moon’s Call, which granted him the privilege to select a summoning entity of his choice.

This was a powerful Secret Technique obtained from purifying the original Moon’s Call with the Black Mark, a technique from the Infinite Demon Palace.

‘Less than half an hour has passed since the last attack;it’s nearly time to head to the wooden bridge and quickly deal with this Black Ship invasion.’

He suited up, rose to his feet, and scanned the entire layout of the cave.

‘To deal with the lure attacks from the Eternal Life Association on the camp, there are a few methods. One is to enhance the camp’s concealment and defense so that the Black Disaster can’t detect it, and the Association can’t pinpoint this location, followed by relocating afterward.

The second is to deal with the Association individuals who deploy the lures beforehand. The third is to neutralize and counter the lures.’

He opened the door with a snap.

He stepped out of the cave, closing it behind him with a backward swing.

Taking a deep breath, his feet explosively cleared a pile of snow beneath him.

Seconds later, he was already on the other side of the cave, turning on the atomic lamp to illuminate the misty wooden bridge behind him.

The wooden bridge was still old and grey, but the handrails on both sides had been improved by Yu Hong, giving it a much more formal appearance, akin to a dock or pier.

With a breath,

White steam spewed from the sides of Yu Hong’s breathing valve as he stepped onto the bridge, walking deeper into its depths.

He walked through the Black Fog and soon arrived again in front of the large, decrepit Black Ship.

With a leap, he landed on the deck.

The Black Ship slowly pulled away from the dock and sped away through the wide, black river, disappearing into the distant Black Fog.

The ship rocked and swayed in the black waters. After traveling for over ten minutes, the fog ahead finally cleared.

A grey and white stone dock loomed into view.

Behind the dock stretched a vast expanse of grey and white rocky terrain, resembling an island composed entirely of stone.

Quiet, with fog enveloping it, surrounded by black waters, it lay empty without a soul in sight.

Thump.

The Black Ship gently docked, bumping against the wooden piles.

Yu Hong deftly jumped down from the Black Ship, landing on the dock’s hard rocky surface.

He knelt and touched the ground.

The surface was jagged and coarse, like countless grains of sand cemented in place, immovable;it was somewhat abrasive to the touch.

He stood and took a few steps forward.

To his right, there was a sign in the ground.

‘Prison Island’

The sign was metallic, with a yellowish background, its edges missing large chunks of flaking paint, revealing a brown undercoat.

The three characters of Night Text emitted from the translator, causing Yu Hong to pause mid-step.

“Prison? A place where something is detained?”

He frowned slightly.

Continued walking forward.

The fog ahead dispersed.

More than ten meters away on the island, a massive gray-black high wall blocked his path.

To the sides of the high wall, it extended into the fog, with no visible end. Above, the top was equally out of sight, as if limitless.

Yu Hong carefully sensed his surroundings to confirm the absence of any living creatures, then approached the high wall.

Walking up to the wall, he stretched out his hand and gently touched its surface.

Rough, cold, hard—a very ordinary feeling of stone relayed back to his mind.

He lifted his hand then brought it to his nose to sniff, but there was no smell.

Thump.

Suddenly, Yu Hong clenched his fist and punched the wall.

His fist struck the wall forcefully, knocking loose a scattering of stone debris, but that was all.

The hardness of the wall far exceeded his expectations;besides leaving a shallow fist imprint, there was no other change.

“We must find the origin, resolve the core of this island, otherwise the erosion of the bridge by the Array won’t stop.”

Yu Hong looked left and right, then forcefully pushed off his feet, accelerating quickly to the left.

The sound of rushing wind continuously buzzed in his ears.

Ahead in the thin fog, the high wall kept stretching, as if it had no end.

After running non-stop for five minutes, Yu Hong paused.

“If I keep running like this, and if I still can’t find an edge, it will be troublesome returning…”

He scanned the surroundings once more, verifying the emptiness and silence, then refocused his attention on the high wall.

His gaze wandered along the wall, searching for clues.

Soon, he noticed a small black window situated more than thirty meters up the wall.

The window was round, looking from below upwards, it was hard to see clearly what was inside.

Yu Hong looked around, then grabbed the rough surface of the high wall with his palm, and the spikes on the heels of his boots shot out with a hiss, piercing slightly into the wall.

Then, he slowly climbed upwards, inching closer to the window.

Although it seemed possible to reach it with a single jump, Yu Hong still chose to approach slowly and observe.

Bits of stone powder were clawed out by his fingers, falling downwards.

Two minutes later, Yu Hong reached just below the round window.

Snap.

He grabbed the edge of the window with his right hand, leveraging himself upward, slowly shifting his view to look inside.

Within the window, a thick, blurred piece of glass was installed.

Inside the glass, already covered with white ash and grime, he could barely make out a room.

A simple, prison-like room.

Dark, empty, a row of rusted black metal bars formed the prison door.

The door faced the window directly.

Through the prison door, one could see a gloomy, horizontal prison corridor.

Thud-thud.

Yu Hong reached out and knocked on the glass, attempting to smash it with force.

However, strangely enough, his powerful current strength, even when increased, could not break the glass.

After several consecutive strikes, even using his Inner Qi and confirming that it couldn’t be shattered, he turned to check elsewhere.

Thud-thud.

Suddenly, someone inside the window was also knocking on the glass.

Yu Hong was taken aback and moved closer again, looking through the glass.

A pale face with disheveled hair appeared on the inside of the window, exhibiting an expression of urgency.

The other person was also knocking on the glass, seemingly mouthing something, but no sound could be heard.

Yu Hong touched his translator, but this time, the translator gave no response.

He ran his hand along the edges of the glass window, trying to find a gap, but unfortunately, the window’s edges were tightly sealed, seamlessly integrated.

“Hey, can you hear me?” Yu Hong shouted against the glass.

But the person on the opposite side shook their head, pointing to their own ears showing they couldn’t hear anything.

Yu Hong glanced at the detector on his collar;the value was only a couple hundred, clearly inadequate for the bridge that could erode the base’s Array.

If the Red Value was so low, the Array wouldn’t be eroded so easily.

Obviously, this person was not the source.

He thought for a moment, then continued to climb upward.

Passing the round window, all the way up.

The knocking sounds were quickly left behind.

Upward, upward, upward.

Yu Hong didn’t stop for a second, his speed increasing, ascending higher and higher.

He didn’t know how much he had climbed, only feeling that looking down to the fog beneath revealed an endless sea of black clouds.

Continuing to climb.

He refused to believe this wall had no end at all.

After climbing several hundred meters more, finally, another window appeared on the wall to the right and above.

The window was the same circular shape.

Yu Hong moved over to it, checking the detector.

“-1232.441”

The Red Value was over a thousand. This signaled to him that his direction was correct.

Reaching the window, he peered through the grimy, dirty glass and looked inside.