"Ha, although I'm sure I won't live to see that day," Wang Xiyi raised the can in her hand towards Sun Hang, "I still wish you success."

"Then I wish you a good meal and drink too, I'm going to head upstairs and sleep now." Sun Hang pulled out a tissue to wipe off the crumbs of puffed snacks on his fingers, "That ragged army cot at Longquan Base makes all my bones ache."

"Go on, go on, don't block my view of the TV." Wang Xiyi waved her hand repeatedly, "Remember to get up early tomorrow, reckon a bunch of tasks will be thrown our way first thing."

Sun Hang yawned, and walked up the stairs to the second floor.

After a while, he came back down, tossing a blanket he was holding at Wang Xiyi who was lying on the sofa: "I'm not sure if your physical constitution will catch a cold by sleeping without a blanket, but I thought it'd be better to give you a blanket, lest people say I'm not much of a gentleman."

"Hahaha..." Wang Xiyi laughed as she caught the blanket and quickly scrunched it into a ball, placing it under her head, "If you really want to be a gentleman, you should let the lady sleep in the master bedroom, while you sleep on the sofa or the secondary bedroom—I've seen young ladies online saying that."

"Then I'll change my words—giving you a blanket, lest people say I'm a poor host."

"Don't forget, this house is requisitioned by me, now you're the 'guest.'" Wang Xiyi said as she tore open a large bag of chips with a "crunch."

"Then having the guest sleep in the master bedroom while the owner sleeps on the sofa is reasonable." Sun Hang replied.

"Alright, hurry up and go to sleep." Wang Xiyi said, watching the monster on screen get blasted into a fireball with one "Zaiperia Light," she roughly ruffled her hair, "I'll sleep after watching this last episode."

...

...

Five minutes later, Sun Hang, having freshened up, was finally lying on the soft bedding, the fluffy pillow emitting a faint detergent fragrance.

Aside from the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, all the bedding, furniture, and decor in the bedroom were new. The belongings of the previous owner of this house had mostly been removed by the staff from the research institute—judging from the contents of the trash at the door that day, the previous owner was probably a young girl.

"If I die, my personal belongings should also be cleared away as trash…" Sun Hang muttered quietly, "No… I don't have any personal belongings at all."

Thinking of this, he reached his hand into the seam of the mattress, feeling for the plaque he had transformed into gold.

With a thought, the gold on the plaque seemed to oxidize bit by bit, gradually fading away to reveal its original stainless steel sheen.

Compared to the last time he turned steel into gold at the cost of hours of unconsciousness, Sun Hang's feeling this time was merely a bit of fatigue… He wasn't sure if this tiredness was a side effect of using the ability or if it was just the sleepiness present in his mind.

Although he didn't manage to successfully devour that wraith, Sun Hang could clearly feel he was getting stronger.

He didn't know how to describe that feeling, but using this ability doesn't consume physical power, it depletes something akin to "spiritual power," a kind of "resource"; using gaming terminology, it would be the "mana bar," or "MP value."

Each time he successfully eliminates a wraith, his mana bar extends a little, the more powerful the wraith eliminated, the greater the increase in the mana bar.

The biggest constraint limiting his abilities is the upper limit of the mana bar.

When the "mana" required for using the ability exceeds the "mana bar limit," a "overdraft" situation occurs, which manifests in Sun Hang as either severe brain splitting pain or direct unconsciousness.

Sun Hang thought that unconsciousness might be a kind of self-protection mechanism of the body... If he kept overdrafting like this indefinitely, maybe his head would really be torn apart by an invisible force, or explode like a bomb.

But where exactly does this ability come from?

The only reasonable explanation so far is that Taotie once consumed a wraith, absorbed this ability, and then passed it on to him through the Deceit Virus...

"If the 'mana bar' were long enough, could I directly turn eternal night into day?" This thought flashed through Sun Hang's mind, and in the next second, he felt a biting chill.

It was as if a bullet had just whizzed past his heart.

This was the threat of death, and the source of the threat was Sun Hang himself.

"I get it." Sun Hang muttered to himself looking at the ceiling, "With my current level, trying to reverse eternal night is akin to suicide... But does this mean that when I'm strong enough, I can indeed make spoken words come true?"

Spoken words come true… Just hearing that ability makes it sound quite incredible. If it belonged to a wraith, it should be a Class A rule-type wraith.

Really wonder how Taotie managed to devour that wraith...

Sun Hang thought while his eyelids gradually drooped, the stainless steel plaque slowly slid from his fingers, falling beside the pillow.

...

...

The next day, "morning," 8:30 AM.

Sun Hang was woken by the continuously looping broadcast outside. Eternal night is something that cannot be hidden — when the sun should rise but doesn't, fear begins to spread and ferment among the populace as time passes.

The only thing the Disaster Response Committee can do is to stabilize the emotions of the citizens as much as possible while coordinating a large supply of resources from other city states to be shipped into Shuzhou overnight.

"...Starting today, Celestial City will implement a 24-hour lockdown protocol, in non-emergency situations, residents are advised not to go out. Celestial City Management Committee will establish a designated material supply group to distribute essential living supplies door-to-door based on population count. If you need to go out due to special circumstances, please call the emergency contact hotline of your street's administrative department; if you discover wraiths or suspected wraith traces, please contact Celestial City Anomaly Investigation Bureau immediately; if encountered by criminals, please seek help from district security bureaus or City Defense Guard…"

The wireless broadcasting system within Celestial City had completely collapsed, these announcements were solely broadcast by thousands of vehicles equipped with loudspeakers circulating on various streets, and the broadcast sound Sun Hang heard was intermittently near or far.

After a quick wash-up, Sun Hang went down to the first floor, Wang Xiyi was already gone, the blanket he gave her was neatly folded on the sofa, the rubbish on the coffee table thoroughly cleaned, and the whole set of "Ultraman Tiga" DVDs were placed beside the VCR, topped with an unopened can of cola that held a note.

"Gift for you." The note said.

Sun Hang took out his phone, the signal icon in the top right corner was still at zero bars— the Disaster Response Committee seemingly had no intention to repair the damaged communication base stations, otherwise, given the engineering standards and infrastructure capacity of the Xiazhou Federation, communication should have been restored by early morning today.

Even if the old communication base station had been razed by wraiths, they could easily erect a new temporary base station in no time.

Judging by this, civilian communication in Celestial City is likely to remain in a paralyzed state for a long time.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.