Chapter 64 - 57: Warning

Chapter 64: Chapter 57: Warning

The warning from the broadcast still echoed in his ears. Xu Mo stared out at the inky blackness beyond the window. The sliver of confidence he’d gained from breaking through to the Cowhide Realm was replaced by a deeper sense of vigilance.

’Mental derangement... Cognitive impairment...’ Xu Mo mumbled the words under his breath. He was confident he could handle physical dangers—be they zombies, severe cold, or hunger—by relying on his Golden Finger and his ever-increasing strength. But this kind of invisible erosion, one that directly attacked the mind, was impossible to guard against.

Xu Mo tried turning off the LED light in the training room. Instantly, absolute darkness enveloped him.

This wasn’t the darkness of a normal night, where some faint light might still be discernible. It was an absolute, viscous blackness, so thick it felt as if one’s very existence was being erased. His eyes became almost completely useless. All he could hear was the sound of his own long breaths and a faint, deep-seated hum that arose from the depths of his consciousness, born of sensory deprivation.

After just ten-odd seconds, an indescribable sense of irritation and a vague feeling of helpless isolation began to sprout in Xu Mo’s mind. It was as if the darkness was alive, trying to burrow into his brain.

Xu Mo immediately flicked the light back on. The warm glow dispelled the darkness, and with it, the nascent feeling of unease. He let out a long breath, his eyes sharp.

’The official warning was no exaggeration.’ Xu Mo was now certain of this. The Eternal Night was, in itself, a continuous, wide-area psychic attack.

Adapting to this new environment became the top priority.

Xu Mo adjusted the shelter’s lighting strategy. The main activity areas would remain constantly lit, but he swapped the high-power LED lamps for more energy-efficient smaller lights. He also inspected and categorized all his spare batteries and power banks, establishing a strict power usage plan. Non-essential areas were plunged into darkness to conserve every bit of energy.

At the same time, Xu Mo began training in a "simulated dark environment."

He periodically turned off the lights to practice his Posture Stance, drill his kicks and punches, and even work on Power Control exercises in absolute darkness. At first, the suffocating feeling of sensory deprivation and the accompanying agitation were extremely intense, severely disrupting his concentration. But relying on the tougher physique and stronger willpower granted by the Cowhide Realm, he forced himself to adapt.

His breathing gradually became long and steady, his heartbeat slowing. Xu Mo stopped trying to "see" his surroundings and instead focused his attention on the sensation of his skin, the flow of the air, and the minute changes in his own muscles and bones. The Pile Training of the Thirteen Grand Protectors’ Cross Training was a Dharma Gate designed to temper the body and forge the will. In this extreme environment, it actually produced a unique effect.

After a few days, Xu Mo discovered that his control over his body seemed to be more acute in the dark. Every tightening and relaxing of a muscle, every circulation of his qi and blood, felt amplified. The "skin and membrane as one" sensation from the Cowhide Realm became even clearer after he lost his reliance on sight.

Xu Mo even tried circulating his qi and blood in the dark to swell his skin and membranes. Instantly, his exposed skin took on a faint, almost imperceptible yellow sheen, as if his body were draped in a layer of old cowhide. Wrapped in this "cowhide," the invisible mental pressure caused by the darkness seemed to be significantly weakened.

This was an unexpected discovery. While it wouldn’t make him completely immune to the effects of the Eternal Night’s darkness, Xu Mo had at least found a powerful weapon to fight it—his own potent qi and blood and his resilient physique.

During this time, Xu Mo also used the "door" again.

This time, he cautiously chose to open it in a well-lit indoor area. Within sixty seconds, he restocked on some high-calorie food and drinking water, finding nothing amiss. It seemed the "door" itself, and the time-frozen Otherworld, were unaffected by the rules of the Eternal Night’s darkness outside. This brought Xu Mo some peace of mind.

At night, Xu Mo was jolted awake by a series of low growls and scraping sounds.

The sound was like a dull blade scraping repeatedly across a sheet of ice, intermittent yet persistent. It didn’t sound like mindless wandering; it was as if it knew someone was inside.

The vigilance honed by life in the apocalypse brought Xu Mo instantly awake. He rolled out of bed without a sound, his right hand simultaneously fumbling for the switch of the LED desk lamp beside him.

CLICK. A soft but steady white light instantly banished the darkness from the room.

Almost at the exact moment the light came on, the irritating growls and scraping from outside the window ceased abruptly. Immediately after, Xu Mo’s keen ears caught the CRUNCH of footsteps on pressed snow, followed by the faint, chaotic patter of what sounded like an animal fleeing, rapidly moving away.

Xu Mo’s eyes narrowed. Without a hint of hesitation, he grabbed a high-intensity flashlight and the assault rifle by his side, then quickly and cautiously made his way to the rooftop terrace.

The wind was bitingly cold. Under the inky-black sky, only the snow reflected the flashlight’s eerie glow. Xu Mo vaguely saw several blurry black shapes disappearing at high speed down the end of the street, melting into the boundless darkness. Though he couldn’t get a clear look, their agile forms and pack movements allowed him to make an immediate judgment—it was wolves, the same pack that used to roam only on the outskirts of town!

’How did they get into town? And how did they find my location so precisely?’ A deep sense of confusion rose in Xu Mo’s heart.

His shelter was in a relatively hidden part of town, and the wolf pack had never ventured this deep before. After the Eternal Night fell, could their sense of smell still be so sharp in such extreme cold and with so much snow on the ground? The explanation felt a bit thin.

Xu Mo climbed down to the second-floor window and inspected the frame, which he had reinforced with thick wooden planks. Sure enough, near the corner of the wall, he found clear claw marks and bite marks. Luckily, the planks were nailed flush against the wall, giving the wolves no leverage. The damage was minimal, amounting to little more than some scraped-off wood shavings; the core structure was unharmed.

Despite this, Xu Mo’s heart sank. This wasn’t a random incident. The wolves had shown clear purpose and aggression. Furthermore, they seemed unusually adapted to the darkness, yet abnormally sensitive to light.

He didn’t dare let his guard down again and decided to forgo sleep. He sat in the training room, cradling his rifle, with only a small desk lamp casting a glow. He was like a leopard lying in wait, silently watching in the stillness, ready to deal with the wolves should they return.

However, hours passed according to his watch, and the wolves did not reappear.

Silence returned, and the only sound in the room was his own breathing. Xu Mo suppressed a flicker of anxiety. To distract himself and gather information, he turned on the radio.

After tuning the channel, through the familiar static, came the slightly weary but still serious voice of a woman. What she said made him understand everything instantly:

"This is an emergency broadcast from the Jiang City Shelter: I repeat, last night, the outer perimeter of our shelter was attacked by a group of unidentified wild animals, causing damage to some external defense facilities and resulting in casualties. The exact numbers are still being tallied. Observations indicate that these animals are abnormally active in the Eternal Night environment and exhibit extreme aggression, but they also show a clear photophobic characteristic. If encountered, please activate a high-intensity light source immediately. This can be effective in driving them away..."

The woman’s voice continued with more warnings and words of encouragement, but Xu Mo had already grasped the core information.

Photophobic beasts, nocturnal attacks, pack behavior...

It all added up.

The creatures that attacked the Jiang City Shelter and the ones that came after him tonight were likely the same thing. Or rather, it was the same wolf pack—or perhaps all wild animals—that had mutated during the Eternal Night!

"So the Eternal Night didn’t just bring darkness and mental pressure—it’s mutating the animals, too?" Xu Mo muttered to himself.

The fact that the wolves could find him so precisely might not be entirely due to their sense of smell. The darkness of the Eternal Night itself might have granted them some sort of bizarre tracking ability, or perhaps a perception of "life force."

Xu Mo turned off the radio. The room returned to silence, with only the light of the desk lamp holding back the boundless, inky blackness outside.

The nature of the threat had changed once again. In addition to the intangible mental erosion, there was now a tangible threat: a wolf pack lurking in the darkness. And his shelter, which had been relatively safe, had probably become a conspicuous target in the eyes of the wolves.

Xu Mo tightened his grip on his rifle, his gaze sweeping over the eternal darkness outside the window, his eyes as sharp as a blade.

The shelter’s defenses had to be upgraded again. He felt he needed to build some traps to hunt and kill the wolves.