The doctor's house was somewhat secluded, situated on a high slope surrounded by woods on three sides. After walking a short distance along the bluestone road, Lu Yuan's field of vision suddenly opened up.
The terrain before him descended in a series of steps, layer upon layer, stretching down until it reached the sea.
Various Gothic buildings with rounded tops and pointed roofs stood there, cascading downward and arranged neatly according to a specific pattern.
Rows of electric lamps stood on both sides of the bluestone streets, their glass covers stained with rings of gray soot, though the light they emitted remained relatively stable.
The distance between the lamps was very short, ensuring that nearly every inch of the bluestone road was bathed in light.
Seeing this made Lu Yuan feel a sense of doubt.
'Aren't the streetlights here a bit too dense?'
A thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.
'Is it possible that there's something else lurking in the darkness of this world?'
'Probably?'
Lu Yuan felt a slight urge to turn back, but the thought of the smell emanating from that fish and the so-called "Strange Dream" filled him with a sense of unease.
Looking ahead, the street was empty, and there were only a few scattered buildings nearby.
"Is there no one around?"
Lu Yuan looked around and made up his mind; he had to move as quickly as possible.
Returning to the small building, he pushed the small bed out and headed toward the sea along the bluestone road.
Although Lu Yuan had pre-emptively torn bedsheets to wrap around the rusted iron wheels, the bed still produced a dull, vibrating sound as it rolled over the gaps in the bluestone slabs.
"Rumble... rumble..."
In this silent night, the sound was deathly loud.
Lu Yuan could only hope for good luck as he quickened his pace.
Fortunately, there was indeed no one on the road, which saved him a lot of trouble.
However, after turning a street corner, the light ahead grew significantly dimmer.
The glass cover of an electric lamp on the left side of the street had cracked at some unknown time, its filament flickering intermittently, barely casting a small, dim yellow circle of light.
Further ahead lay a stretch of complete darkness.
Lu Yuan stopped in his tracks.
Because he heard movement coming from the darkness.
It sounded like something was moving at an extremely slow pace in the dark, accompanied by a sticky, splashing sound, as if it were drenched in seawater. It carried a thick, fishy stench even more pungent than that of the "doctor" on Lu Yuan's bed.
Lu Yuan looked toward the sound. Even though the area wasn't completely pitch black yet, he couldn't see anything clearly. The darkness seemed to have come alive, lurking in places the light couldn't reach, hungrily surrounding Lu Yuan who stood within the circle of light.
Watching that seemingly squirming darkness, Lu Yuan fell into a brief silence.
In that patch of darkness, a line of twisted small characters slowly emerged at the edge of his vision:
【Abyssal Kin · ?】
【Abyssal Kin · ?】
The text was brief, but each word shimmered with ripples like the surging tide of the sea.
Those few lines of text continued to drift back and forth in the darkness, like sharks in the deep sea that had caught the scent of prey, preparing to hunt.
Lu Yuan didn't know what "Abyssal Kin" were, but they certainly weren't anything good.
Suppressing his inner anxiety, Lu Yuan took a few small steps back toward the lamp behind him. At this moment, only the light could provide him with a sliver of safety.
But the things hidden in the darkness seemed to have sensed something.
The next moment, a pair of eerie green eyes materialized out of thin air in the darkness.
Lu Yuan's gaze met theirs.
A series of strange syllables suddenly squeezed out of the darkness, sounding like someone choking on water and about to drown, straining their voice to speak.
"...See... see..."
Lu Yuan couldn't tell if those strange syllables were a language or just the mindless roars of those 【Abyssal Kin】.
At that moment, a sentence was mysteriously pieced together in his mind:
"Can you see us?"
Lu Yuan wasn't sure if it was them in the darkness asking, but he somehow understood it.
And he didn't need to answer, because in the next instant, more green-glowing eyes lit up one after another, turning the darkness before him into a sickly starry sky.
Lu Yuan could barely make out a silhouette—a twisted figure hunched over as if crumpled into a ball.
Its body was covered in shimmering scales, and those green eyes were embedded in various parts of its body, blinking as they stared at him.
Looking at the almost continuous expanse of the green starry sky, Lu Yuan didn't know what was happening.
The world before his eyes seemed to be warping, the surrounding air grew incredibly hot, and the oxygen seemed to be constantly being drained away.
"Water! I need water!"
Lu Yuan struggled and muttered to himself.
But in the next moment.
"Clang—"
"Clang—"
"Clang—"
Three long, heavy tolls of a bell rang out from a distant clock tower.
Lu Yuan's consciousness was snapped awake in that instant. He jolted, like a diver about to drown, gasping for fresh air.
At the same time, a small grayish-white box popped up in the corner of his vision. After jumping several times, the numbers on it finally settled.
【Forbidden Lore - Gazer: 5/10】
"..."
Everything just now hadn't been an illusion.
The things hidden in the surrounding darkness were still approaching, but to be precise, they were coming for the doctor on the bed.
Lu Yuan realized the intention of those 【Abyssal Kin】.
"You want it? Then take it."
Without any hesitation, Lu Yuan quickly untied the ropes securing the corpse, pressed his hands firmly against the head of the bed, and shoved with all his might, taking advantage of the downward slope!
"There you go!"
The small bed carrying the corpse shot out like an arrow from a bow, whistling as it crashed into that thick darkness.
Bang!
Rip!
The crisp sound of tearing fabric and the wet chewing of some slippery flesh echoed from the darkness.
The bed suddenly felt light, nearly flipping over. Lu Yuan was quick and grabbed the end of the bed, forcibly pulling the empty iron bed back from the edge of the darkness into the light.
However, the corpse on it had vanished into the dark.
A long time passed until only the slight hum of the electric lamps remained on the street.
Scanning with his peripheral vision, the surrounding darkness no longer warped. The places that should have been visible gradually revealed their outlines in the dark.
They were just ordinary flowers and grass, along with a few scattered trees standing on the ground.
The words 【Abyssal Kin - ?】 no longer appeared.
Lu Yuan was still leaning against the lamp post, his fingers stiff and his palms drenched in sweat.
He stared at that section of darkness for a long time. Only after confirming there were no other abnormalities did he relax his tensed muscles.
At the same time, the fourth heavy toll of the bell echoed from the distant clock tower.
Appearing along with the sound of the bell was a small line of text and a prompt in his vision.
【Sanity II: 2/50】
【Sanity: You are gazing into the abyss, and the abyss is gazing back at you. Increasing Sanity can improve your mental resistance, allowing you to survive a little longer in this mad world.】
Lu Yuan was now certain that in this single short day, he seemed to have acquired quite a few skills.
"Surviving a great disaster brings good fortune, I suppose..."
He chuckled mockingly to himself.
Rate on N.U.
