Night Journey

Chapter 56 The demons dance wildly
Cillian climbed the high wall and gazed at the distant wilderness. This was the first time he had witnessed the entire process of the energy tide descending.

A thick blackness appeared at the edge of the horizon, indiscriminately staining the sky and the earth, like a silent sandstorm completely engulfing the city of Hel.

The starlight fades, the two moons disappear without a trace, only the torch and lighthouse still stand and burn, supporting a dust-free pure land.

Ciri exhaled a puff of white mist, and cold frost covered the ground and walls, spreading across his sword sheath.

First, absolute silence descended upon the earth, followed by a terrifying prelude woven from countless eerie, hoarse roars emanating from the darkness.

The demons have arrived.

At the edge of light and darkness, numerous swaying and twisting figures emerged, some resembling humans, others beasts, covered in dense scales, or soft, scarlet flesh.

The fire of the soul essence scorched their flesh and blood, the fat crackling and burning, emitting a putrid and ashes-like stench.

Soon, the first batch of demons spontaneously combusted at the edge of light and darkness, their corpses burning into black shells that shattered on the ground. But then, even more demons swarmed in.

The putrid blood and flesh, piled up like a carpet, gradually compressed the boundaries of the Soul Essence Light with the help of the chaotic gray mist, advancing towards the foot of the high wall.

"The demons have reached the buffer line."

The commander's voice came through the communicator assigned by the city garrison.

"Fire! Fire!"

Someone shouted.

Before the words were even finished, the cannons covering the high walls awoke one after another, spewing flames into the boundless darkness. Fleeting fireballs evaporated the demons into ashes.

A large number of demons were burned to ashes by the light of the soul marrow, but these ashes piled up on the ground and formed another form of ash cloud, which sheltered the subsequent demons, allowing them to cross the so-called buffer line and gradually approach the high wall.

"Alright, Cillian, it's time for us to move out."

Daelin patted Cillian on the shoulder, and Cillian gently cut open his palm. Blood brushed across the blade, creating a streak of blazing white flame.

Artillery fire can deal with distant demons, but those that arrive at the foot of the high walls via the cloud of ash require extraordinary beings like Cillian to slay them.

"If these demons are not dealt with in time, they are very likely to gather together and form an even larger, giant chaotic creature."

Dailin wiped the ashes off his face. "At the same time, the ashes burned by the demons, if they spread into the city, will also bring some chaotic pollution."

"I thought that as long as we kept them outside the high walls, that would be enough."

This was the first time Cillian had ever heard of such a thing in all the years he had patrolled White Cliff Town at night.

“You’ve always been traveling with tour groups, so naturally you don’t understand these things.”

Daelin continued, following Cillian's earlier lie, "The demons have an unproven characteristic: they attack according to the size of a city-state."

"The larger the population of a city-state, the more demons it will be coveted by when night falls. Towns with very small populations are less likely to be disturbed by demons."

While both were energy tides, the demon tide that Hel City encountered was far more intense than the situation in White Cliff Town at the time.

Dalin strode forward, calmly swinging his iron fist and smashing the head of a demon. More superhumans joined the battle, successfully halting the demons' advance amidst the sweeping cloud of ash.

Not to be outdone, Cillian took up his gun and sword and met the challenge head-on.

For others, fighting demons is more out of duty and survival, but Cirion has one more reason than they do.

Pure, burning hatred.

The burning boiling sword sliced ​​through the deformed bodies, tearing them into large pieces of limbs, abruptly silencing the shrill screams in their throats.

Cillian could no longer increase the concentration of soul essence in his body by killing demons, but he could still get a near-mad pleasure from the fighting.

Sever the arm, cut open the waist and abdomen, pierce the throat...

Cillian fought his way through the demons, and he continued to push forward, almost reaching the boundary between light and darkness, and stepping into the turbulent gray space.

This unusual behavior attracted the attention of those around them, who all turned to look.

"Who is he?"

"Judging from their uniforms, they should be from the City Guard Bureau."

"When did the City Guard Bureau produce such a madman? If I'm not mistaken, he's only at Rank One, right?"

The crowd was first amazed by Cillian's bravery, then stunned by his madness.

As if he felt neither pain nor fatigue, Ciri relentlessly reaped the heads of the demons. His soul fire was so intense that wherever it went, the gray mist was easily evaporated.

Judging from the intensity of this battle alone, it's hard to imagine that Cillian is merely a first-rank torchbearer.

Cillian's terrifying combat capabilities are thanks to the Blessing of Anger and Evil.

With this blessed power, as long as he could continuously kill demons and please the Ouroboros mark, Ciri could swing his sword almost like a perpetual motion machine. Ciri heard no judgment from the crowd; he was consumed by rage.

After killing an unknown number of demons, Cillian suddenly realized that the concentration of his soul essence had finally increased by a tiny bit.

The improvement was so small as to be barely perceptible, but Ciri was certain that, after countless sacrifices by demons, it had finally made progress.

Cillian was not pleased by this. Relying on slaughtering demons to increase the quantity was far too slow, especially under the special circumstances of the energy tide.

Instead of wasting time on this labor, it would be faster to hunt down a few Chaos believers.

As Ciri cleaved another demon in two, a powerful malice surged from the deep darkness, and at the same time, the commander's shouts came through the communicator.

"Chaotic creatures discovered!"

Without him saying anything, Cillian had already seen the monster.

Behind the layers of ghostly shadows, something is lurking.

Cillian raised his jet revolver, and the Soul Essence Bullet plunged straight into the mist, detonating. In the fleeting flash of fire, the hideous figure was briefly illuminated.

It was a monster as big as a small mountain... no, it could no longer be called a monster, but a giant chaotic creature.

It resembles a giant maggot slowly wriggling on the earth, its enormous and deformed body seemingly kneaded and pieced together by countless evil forces, its entire body covered with densely packed, twisted limbs.

Their limbs varied in length and shape; some were as withered and brittle as dry tree branches, while others were covered with grotesque protrusions like inflated balloons. They swayed wildly and erratically, and with each movement, they emitted a chilling "creaking" sound, as if countless rusty swords were rubbing against each other.

"It's...it's the Mountain of Decay!"

Terrified screams came through the channel, but the commander calmly interrupted the noise.

"Focus fire on it, we absolutely cannot let it get close to the high wall."

A burst of cannon fire came from the high wall, and several streaks of fire struck the Rotten Mountain, carving out hideous bloody holes. Then, one after another, demons crawled into the bloody holes and merged with the Rotten Mountain, healing their wounds.

The shelling continued, but this time the decaying mountain disappeared into the murky darkness, losing its target. The shells simply toppled wave after wave of demons in vain.

"It seems that we are the only ones who can carry out the decapitation."

Dai Lin looked stern.

A sharp scraping sound rang out from the other side, and the figure of the decaying mountain appeared. Dark red blood, like a flood bursting its banks, was squeezed out wildly from the gaps in its flesh, carrying a pungent stench, and flowed down its ugly body.

Corrosive blood rain fell from the sky.

The blood rain was like a series of sharp blades; wherever it touched, the grass and trees withered and died instantly. It fell on the high walls, making a "sizzling" sound, corroded the bricks and stones, leaving them riddled with holes, and the metals aged and rusted rapidly.

The difference between a chaotic creature and a demon is like the difference between a superhuman and a mortal; it has already possessed certain superhuman powers, enough to threaten the safety of the city-state.

Dailin led his team forward, venturing into the murky gray fog, slowly advancing the battle line toward the Rotten Mountain.

Swords clashed and spears clashed; mountains of corpses and seas of blood flowed.

Dailin swung his fists with all his might, smashing the heads of one demon after another.

Suddenly, he realized that someone was killing faster than him and had already reached the front of the group.

“Cillian?”

Dalin shouted, "Damn it, Cillian, are you insane?!"

Before anyone knew it, Cillian had bypassed everyone and fought his way to the front, where he was only a step away from the Mountain of Corruption.

Everyone is afraid of death. If it weren't for duty, no one would want to fight this bloody battle.

But Cirion seemed possessed, focused solely on killing his enemies. Daelin could even glimpse Cirion's manic laughter in the flickering firelight.

"This person... is most likely truly insane."

No sooner had Daelin finished speaking than Cillian had already severed the head of the last demon and stood beneath the deformed mountain of flesh.

With the igniting of his inner soul essence, Ciri dried the blood from his palms and gripped the sword hilt tightly once more.

“This is a terrible world,” Cillian muttered to himself. “Good people don’t get rewarded, hard work doesn’t pay off, and perseverance doesn’t guarantee success.”

"but……"

Ciri stared with delight at the grotesque body of the Rotten Mountain, as if he were looking at a graceful beauty.

"I really do get stronger by killing enemies!"

(End of this chapter)