Secrets of the Number One Genius Girl Witch Alliance Hierarch
The next day, Baiqiu Village.
A warm breeze was blowing, at the hottest part of noon.
In front of the desolate bungalows in the village, a tall figure clad in a grey and black stab-proof suit slowly walked on the gravel path, as if inspecting the surrounding environment.
The figure wore a helmet and carried a black Wolf Fang Club, its spikes glinting with a faint silver in the sunlight, looking quite ferocious.
Before long, the figure lifted its head, revealing Yu Hong's expressionless, pale face.
He paused and stopped in front of a slightly larger gloomy stone house.
Without a word, he quietly took a backpack off his back, opened it, and took out a palm-sized yellow wooden board.
Embedded in the wooden board was a jade round Great Luminous Stone Array.
He gently affixed the talisman array wooden board to the stone house door and then nailed it in place lightly.
After lowering his hand, he pulled open the door, gazed into the dark blackness inside, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
Soon, his figure disappeared into the darkness, plunging into silence.
Time ticked away.
Five minutes later.
Bang!!
A figure suddenly burst out of the darkness and ran towards the door.
It was Yu Hong.
His expression was calm, and several spikes on the Wolf Fang Club he was carrying were bent.
Hiss!
Behind him, a woman in black with her head smashed in was rapidly closing in, flickering, extending her ghastly pale, rotting right hand toward his back.
Just as the woman's hand was mere centimeters away from Yu Hong,
Suddenly, he rolled forward on the ground and rushed out through a crack in the door, narrowly avoiding the grasp behind him.
Caught off guard, the woman in black smashed her hand against the door nailing the talisman array wooden board.
Ahh!
A sharp impalpable sonic wave burst forth, and the woman in black's right hand rapidly translucent, twisted as if being blown by the wind like mist, about to dissipate.
Then her entire body seemed to be subjected to intense interference, twisting rapidly and stirring up numerous ripples.
Puff!
A few seconds later.
The woman in black disappeared from the spot.
And the talisman array wooden board on the door turned completely ash-gray, and the array patterns also frayed.
After the scream, all returned to calm.
On the gravel path, Yu Hong slowly stood up, his gaze fixed intently on the talisman array wooden board on the door.
"The effect is even stronger than that of the common large pyroxene stones... it seems that the power of the luminous stone and the talisman array is linked to the specific surface area of the talisman array..."
This wasn't even the most powerful silver talisman array but rather an ordinary Great Luminous Stone Array, and it managed to fend off a shadow.
After taking down the nails and talisman array wooden board, he carefully assessed the range of the talisman array's effect.
Around the talisman array wooden board on the wooden door, there was a faint ring of ash-gray marks.
These marks, like a circle drawn with lime, surrounded the talisman array itself. They had not been there originally but had emerged on their own after the talisman array made contact with the shadow.
Yu Hong gently touched the marks, confirming they couldn't be wiped off; they were already etched onto the wooden door.
He withdrew his hand thoughtfully, judged the size of the circle. It was about three times the size of the talisman array.
After jotting down some notes on a piece of newspaper with charcoal, he gathered his belongings and quickly left.
After walking some distance, he suddenly felt a cold breeze behind him and quickly looked back towards the stone house he had just left.
Inside, with the wooden door wide open, stood a blurry female figure in black.
It was the same woman shadow that had just been dispersed.
But the woman shadow seemed to be reconstructing, her body gradually becoming clearer from the blur.
Yu Hong diverted his eyes, estimated the time, recorded the data, and then hurried away.
He soon left Baiqiu Village, picking some dry branches on the way back to the cave.
He took out the luminous stone ink again, completed the broken lines of the talisman array on the wooden board, then pressed his hand on it.
The lines flashed, and a countdown automatically appeared on the board: 45 minutes.
After completing these tasks, Yu Hong went to the corner, took out a thin wooden board talisman array he had been working on since the day before.
This talisman array was embedded in a very thin board, almost as thick as a mobile phone. He made over ten such boards, all piled in the corner,
Since discovering that Aifu was infected with the Evil Shadow handprint, he had begun to fully prepare for fighting the Evil Shadow.
Ordinary large pyroxene stones definitely couldn't block it; this had already been tested by others, and the effect of a single large pyroxene stone was at most equivalent to a bag of ordinary luminous stones. And with so many people in the town dying overnight, it was impossible that no one had tried bags of luminous stones.
Most likely, bag-contained luminous stones were completely useless.
Therefore, he needed a more potent solution.
And the talisman array was his prepared trump card.
Sitting in the corner, Yu Hong picked up a board and began drawing a Great Luminous Stone Array on it.
Click.
Just then, faint footsteps were heard outside.
Click.
Click.
The sound was slow and rhythmic, stepping on dry branches and steadily approaching.
As the sound drew nearer, Yu Hong stopped his drawing, carefully placed the board down, and stood up, clutching the Wolf Fang Club beside him.
His gaze warily fixed on the door, he slowly moved forward, his footsteps synchronizing with the approaching sound.
The peephole in the door was shut, only allowing glimpses of dim sunlight leaking through.
Despite the bright and warming light, a strong, bone-chilling cold steadily rose from within Yu Hong's heart.
Click.
Click.
The footsteps were still approaching.
Finally.
The sound stopped.
The owner of the footsteps seemed to have stopped near the door.
He appeared to be pondering, hesitating, standing motionless.
Yu Hong also reached behind the door, holding a Wolf Fang Club in one hand and two pieces of Large Pyroxene Stone in the other, gently pressing against the wooden door.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
The outside had become completely silent.
Yu Hong's tense nerves gradually relaxed. He glanced at the Large Pyroxene Stone placed behind the door.
This piece of Large Pyroxene Stone had silently consumed half its volume; now it had halted and regained its calmness.
He sighed with relief. Reaching out, he pulled open the viewing window's cover and looked outside through the window.
Outside, the sun was shining brightly, the day was clear and empty, nothing in sight.
Seeing this, Yu Hong exhaled a long breath, replaced the Large Pyroxene Stones behind the door, then pulled the cover shut again.
Bang!
Just then, a ghastly white face fiercely pressed against the viewing window's iron grid.
With a loud noise,
the rotting face squeezed into the grid, making the grid squawk, almost bursting at any moment.
The face stared intently at Yu Hong, making another push.
It actually managed to burst through the iron grid forcefully and squeezed into the room through the viewing window!
Buzz!
In an instant, the Large Pyroxene Stone behind the door turned into white powder. At the same time, the other two luminous stones in Yu Hong's hand also shattered.
These Large Pyroxene Stones could not stop the entrance of the face.
And at that moment,
the silver talisman array on the door's back suddenly lit up with a hint of silver light.
This higher-order talisman array, which took two days to enhance, suddenly erupted with a pure and powerful invisible fluctuation.
The fluctuation spread like ripples, instantly covering the entire door and even the surrounding cave walls.
As the fluctuations covered the area, the rotting face flashed momentarily, vanishing like an illusion, disappearing from its spot.
Everything instantly quietened down.
The viewing window's iron grid still remained damaged, but the face from just a moment ago had completely vanished.
Sigh!
Sigh!
Sigh!
Yu Hong, his body stiff, was just then catching his breath in big gulps.
He had not been able to control his body at all just now.
It was so sudden!
The intense oppressive feeling from the attack had startled him, leaving him no time to react or handle it.
By the time he snapped back to his senses, prepared to act, everything was over.
"Not right!! There's still a special force, forcibly holding me!" Yu Hong recalled carefully. Although he was no longer a newcomer to this environment, even if he were scared again, he shouldn't have been completely immobile.
But the feeling just now brought him back to the beginning.
That feeling of terror...
He looked down at his body, on the front of his jacket, a faint black handprint was slowly fading, disappearing.
"Was it the Withered Woman?"
He guessed.
Compared to the shadow, the intensity of the attack just now was far too overwhelming.
Had it not been for the silver talisman array's intervention, he might have been seized, facing an unforeseen and dangerous threat.
He bent down to examine the silver talisman array carefully, noticing that the silver color on the array had faded a bit, evidently some of its power had been consumed.
"Tomorrow is the peak period, it looks like I shouldn't go out carelessly anymore..."
Yu Hong checked the damage to the viewing window, stretched out his hand, ready to reinforce and restore it, but suddenly remembered there was something else on a countdown, so he had to wait.
So, he simply pulled over a stool and sat down in front of the door to recover his strength.
After a while, when the countdown ended, he began to place his hands on the door, repairing the broken iron wires.
The iron wire was quickly repaired, and Yu Hong began to replenish the spent silver talisman array.
It took a full two hours for the silver talisman array to be restored to its original state, looking almost the same as before. However, internally, Yu Hong had a rough estimate of the potency level of the Withered Woman Evil Shadow.
*
*
*
Inside Jenny's cavern.
Aifu was aggressively wiping her buttocks with a wet towel, but no matter how much she scrubbed, the handprint remained unmovable, stark black as ever.
Her complexion was filled with panic, even appearing somewhat frantic. When her wiping efforts failed, she directly tried to grab a knife to cut the flesh off herself.
Smack!
A stick struck her hand from the side sharply, knocking the knife to the ground.
The stick was held by Jenny, her expression icy, with a hint of panic, vigilantly watching her surroundings.
"Don't do pointless things! You're not dead, there's still hope! Don't give up on yourself!"
"But Mom!" Aifu's face was pale, and she looked up, her eyes already puffy from crying. "Even Old Yu has died...I can't escape..."
"Go into the isolation room. Now!" Jenny said sharply.
Startled, Aifu still gritted her teeth, quickly went to one wall of the bedroom.
She moved aside a piece of bear skin hanging on the wall, revealing a silver metal door beneath.
She pushed the metal door sideways, squeezed in, and quickly shut it behind her.
"From today onward, you can only stay in there," Jenny said sternly, "until the handprint completely fades. Did you hear me clearly!?"
"...I heard you..." Aifu's muffled voice came from behind the metal door.
"Tomorrow is the peak period, I'm going out now to find a solution for you." Jenny put down the stick, picked up a bag of luminous stones, glanced at the wind-up clock, and quickly walked out of the cavern.