Night Journey

Chapter 1 Prologue: When the Doomsday is In Progress

In the year 434 of the city-state calendar, the Waiyan border is approaching.

The young man crushed an air-dried skeleton and leaned against the rock wall to look into the distance.

A mirage-like white light floats on the distant horizon.

According to his teacher, it is the "Second Fierce Sun" of the Fire Keeping Secret Cult, the largest torch lighthouse in the civilized world today. Even in the distant Outer Flame Frontier, its burning can still be seen.

The smell of rust and carrion floats in the air, like someone inserting a rusty knife into a rotten apple. This is a common smell in the wilderness.

The boy took a deep breath and shouted the teacher's name into the wilderness.

"Nun!"

"Nun Sofrova!"

The voice echoed in the empty wilderness without any response.

After a long time, the boy reluctantly accepted the fact that the strange sandstorm caused him to lose contact with his teacher Nunn.

The young man looked at the sun that was gradually setting in the west, and then at the shadows spreading over the horizon. He calculated the distance between himself and Baiya Town, and then thought of the dead realm that would emerge from the wilderness after nightfall...

He relived his experiences in the past ten years since he came to this world. He drew out his sword angrily and smashed the cracked ground.

Cillian said hoarsely.

"I've had enough!"

......

As a time traveler, Cillian Sofrova's memory began when he was seven years old.

At that time, Nunn picked up Cillian, who was only seven years old, from the wilderness and brought him back to White Cliff Town.

The townspeople praised Cillian as a lucky child.

In the dangerous wilderness, Cillian was neither eaten by demons nor contaminated by chaos. Except for the fact that he was a little dehydrated by the sun, there was nothing strange about him.

Nun adopted him, named him Cillian, and gave him his own surname.

The townspeople sang and danced around Cillian, and the young Cillian was also full of expectations to welcome his new life.

Until one night a year later, Nunn said "It's time for you to see the cruelty of the world" and took Cillian to the high wall of White Cliff Town, looking into the dark night.

Recalling the imagination of various time-travel stories in his previous life, such as counterattack in life, invincibility in the world, and leisurely swimming... It was not until that night that Cillian realized what kind of joke fate had played on him.

"Is this journey to another world too difficult?"

While complaining loudly, Cillian finally found a shelter from the wind just before nightfall.

That was the ruins of a building. Cillian had no time to think about the grandeur and history of the ruins. Ruins like this were everywhere in the wilderness of the Outer Flame Frontier.

Cillian collected hay and dead branches, moved stones, and built a simple bonfire.

The warm light of the fire calmed down Cillian's sense of crisis a little, but before he could breathe a sigh of relief, the last ray of sunlight at the end of the horizon disappeared into the darkness.

Cillian was stunned for a moment, opened the jar, poured out wisps of dust-like red crystals, and threw them into the bonfire.

The crystals burned together with the flames, producing some kind of flame color reaction. The flames turned into pure white, soothing the chill from the dark night.

That chill is enough to freeze the soul.

After solving the basic security issues, Cillian checked his remaining equipment.

Besides the gun and sword, food and water, there is a small jar containing red crystal powder.

After confirming the equipment, Cillian breathed a sigh of relief. Spending the night in the wilderness was suicidal, but with these things, he might be able to survive.

Maybe...

Grabbing the sword and holding the gun handle tightly, Cillian sat down against the corner of the ruins, with a bonfire burning in front of him.

The night got darker, and he did not feel sleepy at all, his eyes always staring at the darkness in front of him.

"You are already here, right?"

Cillian said to himself, his expression became solemn, and the muscles all over his body became tense.

There were bursts of whining and whistling sounds in the darkness, as if in response to Cillian's greetings.

A disaster called the Dayless Catastrophe once broke out in the world. Since then, whenever night falls, a thick gray fog will cover the world, and those chaotic creatures will also come from the gray fog and sweep across the earth.

Cillian whispered their names.

"Demon..."

Darkness boils outside the firelight!

In an instant, a strange roar filled Cillian's eardrums.

The sound did not come from the mouthpiece - it was a chaotic symphony of bones rubbing, organs squirming, and carapace cracking.

The outlines of the demons twisted like molten metal against the firelight, sometimes swelling into mountain-like tumors, and sometimes collapsing into spheres with thousands of compound eyes.

The deformed clawed forelimbs tentatively pierced into the light of the campfire.

In an instant, the demon's flesh and blood started to spontaneously ignite strangely, as if it had been burned by fire. The scales immediately curled and peeled off due to the burning, revealing the bloody flesh and bones underneath, but more thorn-like appendages sprouted from the wound.

Cillian held his breath.

The fire crackled and a spark exploded, illuminating the face closest to Cillian.

A row of jawbones stood vertically where the head should have been. Each mouth held half a human finger bone. The mucus dripping between the teeth eroded honeycomb-shaped holes in the ground.

"Blood...flesh..."

An indistinct voice sounded from its mouth, and the demon hungrily approached Cillian, but was blocked by the fire and could not move forward at all.

After a cry of loss, the restless darkness calmed down, and the ferocious face disappeared into the darkness.

Cillian did not relax. The demons did not leave. They were in the darkness a few meters away from him, quietly spying on him like predators, waiting patiently...

Waiting for the moment when the soul marrow is burned out and the bonfire is extinguished.

"This world is really terrible."

Cillian complained as he picked up the small jar and poured some red crystals called soul marrow into the bonfire again.

The flames rose a few times, and the demon retreated a little more, disappearing into the hazy gray mist.

After confirming that it was temporarily safe, Cillian looked up at the night sky.

Unlike the land covered by gray fog and demons, the night sky is extremely beautiful.

Whenever he looks at the deep night sky, Cillian will clearly realize that this is no longer the world he is familiar with.

In the world in Cillian's memory, there was only one moon in the night sky, but in today's world, the sky is split by two cold moons.

The broken moon, as pale as the pupils of a dead baby, hangs high in the east, with a faint blue glow seeping out of the cracks, like poison injected into the veins.

The Blood Moon, as scarlet as a rotten organ, occupies the west, with asphalt-like shadows floating on its surface. Whenever the shadow surges, there is a scream like a metallic hiss that penetrates the atmosphere.

A shallow star ring runs through the double moon, like a clear dividing line, across the night sky and surrounding the planet.

If you forget the terrible situation, this is indeed a good view.

Cillian added some more soul marrow to the bonfire to ensure that the firelight could still resist the approach of the demons.

The soul marrow is refined from the blood of the torch bearer. After burning, it has the power to resist the invasion of chaos.

Xillian’s teacher, Nunn, is the only torch bearer in White Cliff Town. When night falls, in order to ensure the safety of White Cliff Town, he will inevitably return to White Cliff Town to conduct night watch patrols.

So when Cillian realized he would have to spend the night in the wilderness, he didn't expect Nuln to venture out to search for him.

Nun is obviously more concerned about the survival of the entire White Cliff Town than his personal life.

Looking into the vast darkness, after a period of searching, Cillian could vaguely glimpse a faint point of light, which was the light emitted by the torch lighthouse in Baiya Town.

The Torch Lighthouse will burn a large amount of soul essence, and the light will envelope the entire Baiya Town, preventing the invasion of chaos and allowing the residents of the town to spend the night peacefully.

But not Cillian.

Ever since he was eight years old and was introduced to the existence of demons by Nunn, he has not had a good night's sleep.

Nun took on all the security work in White Cliff Town. Cillian, a cheap kid who was picked up, naturally became his student and went on night patrol with him.

Thanks to the experience accumulated in so many years of night patrolling, ordinary people who spend the night in the wilderness are afraid that they will be eaten up by demons as soon as it gets dark. However, Cillian relied on his rich experience to last until the second half of the night.

Mere accumulation of rich experience cannot solve real-world problems.

"It's bottomed out..."

Cillian turned over the jar, and there was only a shallow layer of soul marrow left in it.

If consumed at this rate, the soul marrow carried by Cillian will be burned out before dawn.

In order to extend the battery life, he reduced the input of soul marrow, at the expense of lower burning brightness.

As if the firelight had faded, the pure white light gradually disappeared.

At the same time, the outline that should have been dissolved by the night became clear again, shadowy.

The demons noticed the weakness of the flames and tried to cross the fire again. Enduring the strong burning sensation, they stretched out their deformed palms eagerly to scratch the fresh and delicious souls in front of them.

Cillian clung to the wall, maintaining a confrontation with the monsters.

"You look so hungry and thirsty, you look so sick... stay away from me!"

When talking about the bad joke, Cillian responded for more than ten seconds and carried out an extremely harsh psychological struggle.

Eventually.

Cillian successfully convinced himself that removing the bullet from the gun was the ultimate solution to his current life dilemma.

Rather than putting bullets into his own head, Cillian would rather stuff them into the demon's throat.

But he was still forced into a desperate situation.

The five fingers sank into the hilt of the sword, and the knuckles rubbed against the rusty scab on the hilt, making a rough sound.

"People always say that the dayless catastrophe that broke out one dark millennium ago has ended."

Cillian questioned the terrifying faces, and all he received in response were meaningless moans.

"But the Dayless Catastrophe is over, why are you still walking on the earth?"

Cillian waved a twisted pale, the sharp metal calmly cut off the claws, and embedded it in the demon's head.

"It's better to say——"

While dragging the sharp blade to split the demon's skull, Cillian happened to finish the last syllable.

"The end is still going on!"

The moment the fire dims, pull the trigger!

Dark red blood spurted out from the demon's eye sockets, casting blood scabs like bronze masks on Cillian's face.

(End of this chapter)