Heroes' Prison

Chapter 705 - 676 Hide and Seek

The sky was actually raining blood, as Huang Yi stared blankly upward at everything outside the window.

"Whoosh whoosh!" Before long, a torrential downpour began outside the window, with blood-red droplets falling in buckets, enveloping the entire town within, and washing the ground and wall tiles with blood-red rain, turning the streets into rivers of blood. Looking up, the gloomy sky had changed from pitch black to an endless red.

The townspeople seemed to be accustomed to the blood rain, showing no surprise. They didn’t even take shelter, continuing to walk the streets, letting the blood wash over them.

They were quickly turned into ’blood people,’ soaked by the blood rain, with droplets flowing down their hair onto their faces and clothes, like they were covered with wounds, dripping with fresh blood. Yet they remained peaceful and serene as they slowly moved along the streets.

Blood and tranquility, at this moment, fused in a very eerie way in this town.

Huang Yi’s gaze swept over each person, knowing a normal town should not be like this; something must have happened to these people. For others, it would probably take a great deal of thought to investigate. But Huang Yi was different; he had the Eye of Time and could see what these people had been through.

Huang Yi casually fixed his gaze on a passerby outside the window and used the Eye of Time on them, observing what they had experienced before.

The Eye of Time would improve as Huang Yi’s strength increased, and now his skills could see events from a very long time ago in an NPC’s past. In Huang Yi’s view, the passerby outside the window seemed to rewind like a movie, revealing his past experiences.

Gradually, the scenes from one hour ago, then two hours ago, began to appear for the NPC. Huang Yi saw nothing of value; the NPC seemed quite normal.

However, when he saw the scenes from before 5 a.m. today, he was startled!

Before 5 a.m., when it was still dark, the passerby had fangs and was covered in rotting flesh, resembling a Ghoul wandering the streets. His Level was incredibly terrifying, reaching Level 194!

After dawn, his corpse-like appearance suddenly changed into that of a normal person. His Level also dropped to a mere Level 94, having lost a full 100 Levels.

Huang Yi was greatly alarmed and, despite the shock in his heart, continued to watch. At night, in his Ghoul state, the passerby was extremely furious, an outright monster. He would leave the town and go to the wilderness to catch cattle and sheep, drinking their blood raw.

As time rewound to yesterday evening at 5 p.m., the NPC returned to normal, taking the guise of an ordinary person, seemingly with no memory of becoming a Ghoul at night, and with significantly lowered intelligence, akin to a walking corpse.

It seemed that during the day, the NPC was normal, but at night, he would become a powerful Ghoul at Level 194.

Thinking it over, Huang Yi switched to another passerby and used the Eye of Time on them to see their past.

The same scene unfolded again! This NPC, before 5 a.m., was also a Ghoul, with a Level of 193, quite similar to the previous passerby.

Then, Huang Yi used the Eye of Time to observe a group of passersby and discovered the same process with each one of them. Each passerby turned into a Ghoul at night between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m., and their Levels were uniformly over Level 190. As soon as morning came, they would revert to their original form, completely unaware of their nightly transformation into Ghouls.

Huang Yi felt a chill creep up his spine. He had not expected this peaceful and serene town to harbor such a great secret. If he hadn’t been alert and had continued to stay, once night fell, being surrounded by a horde of Ghouls over Level 190 was simply too frightening to contemplate.

Now, sitting in the tavern, Huang Yi felt uneasy. The once peaceful townspeople around him seemed to have become Ghouls, sharing the same roof as him. Just thinking about their true forms made Huang Yi restless, eager to leave the town immediately.

Huang Yi glanced at the time; it was half-past four in the Secret Realm Time afternoon, with only half an hour left before nightfall.

"Boss, I would like a jar of Honey Wine!" Just then, a woman hurriedly walked into the tavern, speaking with a slight urgency to the bartender.

At that moment, the woman, too, was soaked by the blood-red rain, her hair dripping with blood, which ran down her face and dropped off her cheeks, giving her a terribly gruesome appearance, as if her head were Bleeding.

But within that blood-stained face, her eyes emitted a hint of worry and urgency, her gaze darting around, vigilantly observing everyone nearby.

Looking at this woman, Huang Yi felt something was different. While everyone in the town was calm or even listless, this woman seemed frantic and anxious, more human-like in her emotions, unlike the others.

Huang Yi couldn’t help but use the Eye of Time to observe her experiences.

This woman lived in a broken house in the eastern part of the city. She too would transform into a Ghoul and hunt outside the city at night, just like the others. But as daybreak came every day, she would weep, seemingly in extreme agony!

This abnormal scene immediately piqued Huang Yi’s interest. The woman cried and was in pain, which suggested that she knew about her nightly transformation into a Ghoul and was distressed by this change!

This was an exception. The rest did not remember the happenings of the night, but she did! It was a significant breakthrough!

Soon, the tavern owner brought a jug of Honey Wine to the woman. She didn’t pay for it and left straight away with the bottle, and the owner didn’t get angry at all but stood there woodenly just as before.

Seeing this, Huang Yi’s eyes darted around, and he stood up and left the tavern without paying as well. The tavern owner and servers didn’t stop him, as if it had always been free.

Outside, it was still raining blood from the sky, and the Stone Slab Road was covered in blood water. Passersby had long turned into blood-drenched figures, moving at their own steady pace, unrushed. Only that woman was running hard, contrasting sharply with the slow-moving world around her.

Standing under the eaves outside the tavern, Huang Yi reached out to touch the blood rain pouring from the sky, which felt cool against his skin but otherwise unremarkable.

He then dashed out from the tavern onto the street, getting soaked in the blood rain like everyone else. He quickened his pace, brushing past the other pedestrians, always following the woman from a distance. The sight of the two rapidly moving figures formed a unique scene in this small town.

Gradually, Huang Yi followed the woman to a dilapidated wooden house on the eastern edge of the city. The house’s exterior had been stained red with blood, its windows shattered, barely shielding against the elements.

The woman quickly opened the door and walked in, while Huang Yi stealthily approached the window of the wooden house, peeking inside.

Inside the wooden house, the woman stood in front of a little boy, passing the Honey Wine to him from a distance but firmly resisting the urge to get closer.

The little boy joyfully accepted the Honey Wine. His big eyes sparkled with innocence as he immediately opened the cap and took a sip, seemingly famished.

Seeing the boy’s pure gaze, Huang Yi felt as if he had found a pristine lotus in the mud. The townspeople, all Ghouls, had dim, lifeless eyes, but this little boy’s gaze was clean and flawless.

"Darling, it’s time to play hide and seek again!" the woman said softly to the boy, her eyes shimmering with tears, filled with endless tenderness. She reached out as if she wanted to touch the little boy but withdrew halfway, maintaining a distance, "After hide and seek starts, you must stay in the cellar all night. No matter what sounds you hear outside, don’t come out, even if Mommy calls you, okay? For every night you hide, Mommy will tell you an extra story."

"Mm! Mommy, you must tell me a story!" the little boy obediently nodded, then gazed at the woman with wide eyes.

Then, holding the Honey Wine, he went to a corner of the wooden house, lifted a wooden plank from the ground to reveal a dark cellar, and was about to climb down.

"Darling!" At that moment, tears streamed down the woman’s face, "Darling, if one day you wait until dawn and Mommy hasn’t come back, you should follow the tunnel in the cellar and leave this place, okay?"

"What about you, Mommy?" the little boy asked, turning his head, his little face slightly puzzled.

The woman chuckled tearfully and said, "As long as you remember Mommy, then Mommy will always be with you. Now, go and hide. Mommy’s coming to find you!"

"Okay, Mommy!" the little boy immediately climbed down into the cellar and disappeared from the wooden house.

The woman hurried over to cover the cellar, then placed a heavy cabinet on top of it. Having done all this, she lingered with a longing look at the cellar entrance, then quickly left the wooden house and locked the door.

Afterward, she ran toward the distance with all her might, rushing away from the place. Under the blood rain, amid the slowly moving crowd, her sprinting figure was so unique, so unparalleled.

Huang Yi checked the time; there were only ten minutes left until the evening fell at five o’clock.