Chapter 126

Ning Zhou’s talking eagle circled far ahead and then returned to its master.

“There’s movement ahead,” Ning Zhou relayed after being told by the eagle.

In the darkness, only some buildings could be seen vaguely ahead. The rich black blinded their vision, and they couldn’t help but feel fear because of the darkness and the unknown.

Ning Zhou looked forward, and on the other side of the street several figures were staggering. Although his night vision was good, he still couldn’t see clearly. The eagle on his shoulder flapped its wings again and flew there in the dark.

“It’s demons,” Ning Zhou said coldly.

Sure enough, as in Nightmare Game, demons began to appear in the Holy City after the night of the new moon began. At that time, Qi Leren had been attacked by these demons and died, but this time he wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes.

“Don’t worry, they won’t find us,” Su He said, and walked on.

This group of solitary demons walked in the dark streets, wobbling, and seemed to have no mind or thoughts. Qi Leren observed them closely. Although the darkness made him unable to see their appearance clearly, he could see that they were walking slowly like zombies.

As a group of people walked into the market area of the Holy City, the number of these demons increased. They had no organization or discipline, but they followed strange instructions and wandered here… Waiting…

“Are the Holy City’s residents ok? Will these demons attack humans?” Dr. Lu asked nervously.

“There are no humans,” Su He’s voice sounded in the dark. “Now, there are only demons left in this Holy City.”

A chill climbed from his foot to the back of his neck, and Qi Leren couldn’t help but feel disturbed. Although he knew that the Holy City would be full of demons after zero, he didn’t expect that these demons… were the residents living here?

“Why is this? Do the residents here know that they’ll become demons? And then, if you don’t sleep…” Qi Leren remembered the previous residents who disappeared on the night of the new moon, and a more terrible guess welled up in his mind.

“Once you fall asleep on the night of the new moon, you will be transformed into a demon after zero. If you stay awake, then…” Su He paused and said slowly, “…You’ll become the demons’ prey.”

As if to confirm Su He’s conjecture, there came the sound of a door in the street ahead. The door of the roadside house opened and a young man screamed as he rushed out: “No, demons! Don’t come near me!”

Behind him, two strange demons staggered after him.

As he escaped from the house, the demons wandering aimlessly in the street were awakened. This group of irrational monsters roared excitedly and chased him in the direction of the four people. The young man ran away crying. In the dark, he tripped, got up, and continued to run, but the greedy predators behind him were getting closer and closer, about to catch him in the next second…

Qi Leren felt the hand on his wrist loosen, and when he turned to look, Ning Zhou had already rushed out.

“Don’t kill them! They’re living people!” Qi Leren shouted.

Ning Zhou didn’t kill them. He hurriedly took the young person who’d fled, kicked away the demons who had pounced on him, carried the adult man in one hand, and grabbed the roof of the nearby house with one hand to pull them both up. More demons were alerted and they rushed towards him crazily…

There was a short melody in the dark, but it wasn’t beautiful. Instead it made one anxious, but in this strange melody, the originally crazy demons calmed down. They stood there blankly, and after standing still for a while, they continued to wander in twos and threes, turning a blind eye to the two living people.

The sound of this melody was too strange. Could it be the little blonde girl? Qi Leren stared in the direction of the sound, where it was immersed in pure darkness, and vaguely saw several figures coming towards them.

Three people in cloaks came to Ning Zhou, one of whom was still playing a flute. The front man looked up at the two people on the roof and said in a hoarse and erratic voice, “Foreigner, please give him to us.”

The frightened young man knelt on the roof, shivering, and shouted with a broken voice: “No, no, no, don’t hand me over… I want to go home, I want to sleep…”

“We will send you home, you will sleep safely until dawn, and then you will forget this matter. Come on, we’ll send you home,” the cloaked man said.

“Who are you?” Ning Zhou asked. He was wary about these three people wearing cloaks because he felt that these people also had strong demon energy.

Qi Leren became nervous and took a step forward only to be dragged back by Su He: “Wait, let’s see what this group wants to do first.”

The cloaked men were silent for a moment, and two of them talked in a low voice. Finally, they said, “You can call us the night watch.”

“Demons?” Ning Zhou coldly asked.

The demon under the cloak smiled bitterly, took off his hood, and showed a ferocious mutated face: “Yes, but we are lucid demons.”

The young man saved by Ning Zhou shook even harder, his teeth rattled in the shaking. He seemed likely to faint at any moment.

“On this night of the new moon, all those who fall asleep will become demons, while those who are awake… will become the targets of demons. Although we’re standing here now, we can walk and talk, but in fact we are also sleeping. It can be said that we’re ‘sleepwalking’. On every night of the new moon, we look for the living who haven’t fallen asleep while we sleepwalk and save them before the demons eat them. We let them forget all this, and then sleep peacefully. Foreigner, promise me to keep this a secret like we do,” the cloaked man said huskily.

“Why don’t you tell people? Aren’t you letting this kind of thing continue?” Ning Zhou asked.

Within the faint flute music, a ferocious yet sad smile appeared on the night watchman’s mutated face.

“The crimes committed by people in ignorance can be forgiven by God. Every night of the new moon, these people who fall asleep take off their clothes in their dreams, become cannibals, hunt their own kind everywhere, then clean up all traces before dawn, put on the cloak of human beings again, and wake up safely… This night has passed for eight years without incident. If one day, this hypocritical peace is broken and innocent people know that they were eating people, then the city will really be finished. They… Us, anyone will fall into hell and will no longer be redeemed.”

Eating people… Once again, Qi Leren remembered the young man who recorded all this in his notebook. Did he end up being eaten by demons? Thinking again about the knock on the door he had heard that last time… the people who appeared in his home that night were probably only his relatives who had already fallen asleep.

Qi Leren felt a tumult in his stomach, as if it were burning. He covered his stomach and tried not to imagine the bloody and cruel picture.

The young man saved by Ning Zhou let out a cry of despair and threw up on the roof. On every night before this night, he slept like the bloody demons and greedily attacked the living. He couldn’t help thinking of one day many years ago, when he’d spent the night of the new moon safely in his dream, he woke up feeling happy and satisfied physically and mentally, as if he had had a beautiful dream. On that day, the old woman next door who’d watched him grow up had disappeared in the disaster of the new moon…

That kind smile reappeared on the demonic face of the night watchmen: “Look. Knowing that you’ve eaten people is far more terrible than the eating of people itself.”