Night of Despair
Chapter 140 - 140: Development

About ten minutes later, Black Lizard No. 2 crossed the highway and crawled into the gorge on the roadside.

There were overturned jeeps here, clothing and items left by the dead, blackened traces from fires, and more.

But even here, the detection remained clear.

Yu Hong, through Black Lizard No. 2, saw the chaos in the gorge.

"Keep going," he thought, controlling the lizard to continue crawling further into the distance.

Very soon, it exceeded a kilometer range, and the detection quickly weakened. The images couldn't be seen anymore, but besides that, he could still control the lizard's movements, just without visual feedback.

Yu Hong didn't stop but continued to let Black Lizard No. 2 advance into the distance.

It wasn't until it approached a radius of two kilometers that the lizard's status sensing became increasingly blurry, to the point where sensing was becoming difficult.

"It seems the control limit is two kilometers...." Yu Hong thought unexpectedly satisfied.

*If catalyzed with Inner Qi, each Black Lizard could lay one egg every three days. By this estimate, these lizards should be able to form a dense combat force quickly,* he calculated in his mind.

He currently had two Inner Qi channels, both of Second Layer Cultivation Technique quality, each capable of nurturing one lizard egg.

*With my Inner Qi recovery rate, producing enough should be feasible, but I wonder if the imprint control limit of the lizards will have a cap...*

Doing as he thought, the urgency in Yu Hong's heart escalated with the impending crisis and the inability to rescue Stammering Yiyi.

He simply sat cross-legged at the entrance, closed his eyes, and continuously infused Inner Qi into the black lizard in the second imprint.

After using up two channels of Inner Qi, he managed to nurture exactly two lizard eggs.

The recovery time for Inner Qi was over three hours, slower than before, and it was evident that the quality of Inner Qi was much higher, thus the recovery was also much slower.

Three hours later, Yu Hong once again nurtured two lizard eggs, and so on until the sixth egg was produced.

The second imprint could no longer input Inner Qi.

*The hatched lizards, plus the eggs, totaled exactly nine.... Is this the second imprint's limit?*

Yu Hong opened his eyes, pondered for a moment, and opened the cave door.

He descended the steps and walked directly to the edge of the courtyard wall.

The yard was empty; Zhou Xueguang and Aisena had each returned to their quarters to rest, and he could faintly hear their steady breathing.

Yu Hong didn't wake them, standing at the courtyard wall with his hand outstretched, palm facing up.

Flap, flap.

Suddenly, from the misty mountain forest outside, the sound of wings flapping approached rapidly.

Soon, a shadow the size of a small cat flew out, landing precisely in his palm.

The shadow revealed its form, surprisingly an enlarged version of the black lizard.

It was Black Lizard No. 1, the first imprinted creature to hatch.

Compared to its initial palm size, it now extended to the length of an adult's forearm.

Its pair of withered yellow eyes embedded in its entirely black body, with transparent insect wings folded beneath a black hard shell, made it look eerie and cold.

As he held Black Lizard No. 1, Yu Hong thought for a moment and gently tossed it, letting it fly back to the forests, disappearing into the mist.

*"Patrol around the courtyard in circles, expel all shadows,"* he commanded, intending to thoroughly test the combat capabilities of the grown lizards before the high-danger Evil Shadow arrived.

Upon receiving the order, Black Lizard No. 1, the only nearly adult specimen, began to crawl rapidly around the courtyard.

Meanwhile, Yu Hong monitored the situation on the map in his mind.

Surrounding the courtyard, under the previous patrols of Black Lizard No. 2, three difficult areas had already been marked out.

These posed threats that the lizard couldn't expel on its own.

The first spot was along a waterway towards Baiqiu Village.

The second was a segment on the path heading toward the luminous stone mine.

The third was under a withered old locust tree on the left of the road heading towards the post office.

On Yu Hong's mental patrol safety map, these three spots were marked as dark patches, representing hidden Black Disaster threats exceeding ordinary shadows.

Quickly, Black Lizard No. 1 encountered its first threat.

In the misty grey forest ahead of it, a thin woman perched on a horizontal branch.

The woman wore a tattered, oversized dress, gray and stained with blood patches.

As Black Lizard No. 1 discovered her, she also noticed it.

Wham!

Suddenly, Black Lizard No. 1 lifted its head and instantaneously sprayed venom.

The black venom shot like an arrow, spanning over ten meters to hit the woman's dress precisely.

Ah!

The woman's body contorted and melted like a candle under high heat, struggling and within three seconds, dripped from the branch, dissolving into a black sticky puddle.

*Impressive!* Yu Hong felt a wave of relief; he hadn't expected that after the lizard matured, its lethality would still be quite proficient.

*It seems that although ordinary shadows can regenerate endlessly, with the lizards patrolling, I can maintain a relatively safe residential area,* he noted in good spirits.

Then he watched as Black Lizard No. 1 moved forward and swiftly sucked the black melted liquid into its mouth, swallowing it down.

It continued its patrol.

The second encounter involved two shadows appearing together, hand in hand, seemingly brothers, silently drifting through the mist.

Upon spotting Black Lizard No. 1, they actively charged, swooping in to grab the lizard.

Hiss!

Smoke began to rise from the contact point between Black Lizard No. 1 and the shadows, the black mist causing the silhouettes to waver slightly.

Whoosh, another spurt of venom erupted, and Black Lizard No. 1 somersaulted to evade, watching the two shadows twist and dissolve into another large black puddle of liquid.

As it continued forward, a faint sense of weakness emanated from itself while it consumed the liquid.

Apparently, the contact with the shadows had not been without harm.

*Three is the limit?* Yu Hong fixed this data point in his mind.

By this estimation, nine adult Black Lizards should be able to clear a zone with thirty shadows.

Considering other roaming Black Disasters and varying shadow regeneration speeds, Yu Hong roughly delineated the future patrol area of the nine Black Lizards on his mental map.

This area conveniently covered a circular range of 200 meters around the courtyard.

*Once all Black Lizards hatch and mature, this new safe zone will be established... Then tasks like acquiring humus and building materials will be relatively easy,* Yu Hong felt somewhat relieved.

The utility of the Black Lizards surpassed his expectations, effectively creating a constantly adjustable activity area which could probe the incoming direction of high-danger Black Disasters.

*Standard sentinels,* he finalized the definition for the Black Lizards.

After a brief rest, Black Lizard No. 1 continued its clean-up command while Yu Hong refocused his sensing vision on the distant Black Lizard No. 2.

Moments later, he suddenly reacted with a slight "Oh," his expression one of slight surprise.

*"Someone?"*

As Black Lizard No. 2 re-entered the one-kilometer radius, it began to patrol discreetly.

Unexpectedly, it detected an overturned bus.

A gray bus.

This vehicle had tipped over from the road into a deep ditch, its exterior sealed with thick metal plates, closing off all windows.

From a distance, it resembled a withered pod.

Inside the bus, several figures groaned painfully, struggling to crawl out of the twisted frame.

Their legs were injured, bleeding everywhere. Inside the carriage, they dragged long streaks resembling calligraphy brushed with blood.

Through Black Lizard's vision, Yu Hong determined roughly that among the survivors, five were in total, with only three likely to survive. The other two had their lower bodies crushed, hemorrhaging profusely, inevitably unstoppable.

The three survivors were lightly injured, not too hindering their movement.

After a pause, Yu Hong decided to go check overall, judging the character of these individuals. If they weren't of a vile nature, saving them might even add to his manpower.

He couldn't leave by himself at this moment and had to rely on others to dispatch missions, due to a serious manpower shortage.

With the decision made, Yu Hong immediately instructed Black Lizard No. 2 to patrol nearby, expelling shadows to ensure their safety.

He himself donned the reinforced gray lizard suit and quickly left the courtyard, heading towards Black Lizard No. 2's location.

Several minutes later.

He arrived near the overturned bus.

Before he could approach, the survivors spotted his presence.

"Over here!"

Someone waved at him excitedly.

As Yu Hong neared, he suddenly paused.

He recognized one of the surviving trio.

"Doctor Xu?? Is it really you??!"

The remaining three were all women, or rather, everyone on this bus was female.

From the bodies at the bus door, Yu Hong judged that they were likely a women's refugee convoy formed for self-preservation.

This was discerned from the uniform styled outfits and firearms left on the corpses.

Such female groups were something Old Li had previously mentioned during such chaotic times; many women became victims as disadvantaged groups. With the collapse of rules and order, many women huddled together voluntarily, forming small groups with self-protection as the goal.

Some had even voluntarily undergone partial luminous stone radiation surgeries.

"Yu Hong!" Doctor Xu's one arm hung powerless at her side, her hair messy, her face bloodied; if not up close, her facial features were indistinguishable.

Upon seeing Yu Hong, she became instantly emotional.

"Lend a hand! I'm dying! Ah... the pain is killing me!!" she yelled, clutching her arm in anguish.

"Wait there. Don't move." Yu Hong glanced at the other two.

Both wore helmets, clad in gray-white female suits, supporting each other, one holding a submachine gun, all facing him with cautious postures.

"If you need help, just wait a bit." Yu Hong kept his distance from the two and approached, grabbing Xu Ruoying's shoulder.

"It hurts! My bones are cracked here too!!" Doctor Xu screamed.

Yu Hong was left with no choice but to grab her by the hair with one hand and seize her collar behind the neck with the other, lifting her up with dual force.

"Good thing you're still yelling; at least the pain means your nerves are still working." Yu Hong sighed, turning with her in hand, and began walking back towards the safe house.

"I'm miserable, Yu Hong... truly, I'm too miserable...." Doctor Xu was far more emotional than when she was leaving.

Back then, she had been full of anticipation for her trip to Hope City.

But now...

*"My herbal patent was stolen, reduced to a pharmaceutical machine, working non-stop from dawn till dusk, only sleeping five hours, using the bathroom in a completely transparent cubicle... I escaped nine times! Each time being caught and beaten, haha, I think being killed by the Black Disaster would be better than living in that hellish nightmare!"* Xu Ruoying, dangling in the air, was emotionally fragile.

As she recounted her ordeal, tears streamed down uncontrollably.

*"In the end, I kind of got used to it. Ah! Being beaten so much, it didn't even hurt anymore. Who would have thought that by not trying to escape anymore, the opportunity to get out came!"*

She started laughing as she spoke.

Yu Hong keenly noticed something.

*This person... seemed a bit unstable mentally.*

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