Nightmare Light

Chapter 74 Village Arrival
White Cat and Azhi alone cannot make the village completely "descend" into this world.

To complete the final step, the entire village needs to be burned with fire to completely dispel the evil aura left by the end of the dawn and dusk.

The flames started.

The white flames spread across the entire village like a stream of light, flowing across the earth and igniting the village walls. In the village, the small pieces of paper left by Azhi turned into tiny bits of ashes in the burning white flames, floating up into the sky and falling again.

When the ashes fell to the ground, all the buildings in the village had completely merged with the earth, completing their rebirth and becoming indistinguishable from each other.

The whole process is full of solemnity and sacredness.

"Ashes fall...return home..." Old Joe suddenly murmured.

"Captain Qiao, what did you say?" a soldier asked.

"I remembered a word from an ancient religious text," Old Joe said. "Legend has it that one day, our world will be destroyed by a devastating fire, and the world will be reduced to ashes. But Mother will protect us and allow us to return to our true homeland."

"Captain Qiao, this is the story of the Temple. Our group and the Temple are not on good terms."

"It's just a story." Old Joe shook his head. "Let's go into the village."

He led the soldiers to Lin Wang, who was praising his two companions:

"Well done, really well done!"

"The little piece of paper you spilled is also crucial..."

"What? You said I did a good job? Thank you..."

"Thank you! I don't eat mice! Wait, where did you catch that mouse? Throw it away! You're not allowed to eat mice!"

Old Qiao's face trembled, and he coughed, interrupting Lin Wang: "Ahem, Brother Lin..."

Lin Wang and the other two stopped communicating.

Lin Wang turned his head and looked at Lao Qiao with a relieved expression on his face.

A line of comments appeared above Azhi's head: "I also want to eat old..." The word "rat" at the back was gradually turning back into a piece of paper.

The cat girl reluctantly threw the mouse away and took out a small fish: "Then I'll give you a small fish as a reward!"

"...It's like this, Brother Lin." Old Qiao abruptly changed the subject. He pointed at the village and said, "There's a serious problem."

After everyone's attention was focused on him, Lao Qiao said, "Brother Lin, we can enter the village now, but... this way, the village will completely come into this world."

Lin Wang understood Lao Qiao's "hidden meaning": We came here to solve this incident and save these villagers at the same time, but now, they have completely fallen into this world.

Lin Wang shook his head and corrected Old Qiao: "That's not a precise statement—they had already fallen into this world when Dawn and Dusk finished hunting them."

"We are just tearing back the curtain of the cultists."

As they were talking, everyone walked towards the village.

The moment they set foot on the village path, they saw the real target they had been looking for all along the way: the Mist Tribe.

The old man, with mist covering the right half of his arm, was wearing a plain grey cloth coat. He sat under the eaves, holding a small axe in his right hand, and with a bang, he split the firewood into two halves.

Not far from him, there was an older woman on the roadside, with kind eyes and a big smile on her face, her chin misty and her tongue hanging out, still shouting out her wares.

There were a few other villagers, greeting each other, and the whole village was filled with a lively atmosphere.

But the expressions of several Light Chasers' soldiers were not very good.

"That big sister... she pounced on me six times before."

"When the old man blew himself up, he killed Xiaoguang..."

Old Joe interrupted them: "Calm down! These are real villagers, not the monsters we fought in the fog! They just look like them!"

The soldiers were all tough warriors who had experienced many battles. After hearing what Lao Qiao said, although their expressions were still not very good, they quickly adjusted their mentality.

When they looked at these villagers again, including the Light Chasers and Gu Shuochuan, everyone felt a little relieved.

The people in front of me finally looked like real, living people.

Only Lin Wang frowned.

He walked towards the vegetable seller. When he was about four or five meters away, the woman turned her head and grinned at Lin Wang with a warm smile: "Young man! Buy some vegetables! Fresh vegetables!"

Lin Wang looked down at the vegetables, then smiled and nodded at the vegetable seller: "Your vegetables are quite fresh! Did you pick them from your own fields?"

"Yes! They were just picked this morning, so fresh! Would you like to buy some, young man?"

Lin Wang smiled and responded, then turned around and walked over to the old man: "Old man, your firewood..."

"They cut down trees in the back mountain! We should cut some trees quickly since winter is just over, otherwise the rainy season will come..." People realized that something was wrong and gathered around Lin Wang.

"Brother Lin, what's going on?"

Gu Shuochuan also frowned, his tone anxious: "I also feel something is wrong, but I can't tell what is wrong..."

Lin Wang thought for a moment and pointed at Gu Shuochuan: "Aren't you from the Wu tribe? Go and communicate with these villagers."

Gu Shuochuan followed his words, stepped forward to stop a few villagers, and had a random conversation with them for a while.

After returning, he was even more confused: "It's very strange... I can't explain how strange it is."

"Tell me more specifically?"

"First of all, I feel like they are indeed real, truly alive. But at the same time... I also feel like... there's something indescribably wrong with these people."

"It's like..." He gestured with his hands, "It's like these people are so focused on their own things, and chatting with me is just a side topic."

Lin Wang thought about it and turned to look at the old man again.

The old man in front of me was still holding the axe, chopping the wood in front of him again and again.

Lin Wang suddenly raised his hand and threw all the logs in front of the old man away.

With a loud bang, the logs were thrown far away.

This time, everyone was shocked.

"Brother Lin, how could you treat an old man like this!"

"How dare you attack my people!"

"Shh, don't talk, just watch carefully." Lin Wang waved his hand, interrupting everyone and pointing at the old man.

Everyone was stunned for a moment, and their attention returned to the old man.

They saw that when Lin Wang threw the log out, the old man was stunned at first.

Afterwards, he still maintained the previous action, stretched out his hand, grabbed the place where the log should be, put his empty hand in front of him, then raised the axe and chopped it into the air!
After chopping like this for two or three times, the old man slowly stood up, walked to the logs scattered outside, picked up the logs one by one, returned to the eaves, arranged the logs, and continued his chopping.

A chill ran down people's spines.

"What's going on?" Old Joe's face looked terribly ugly.

Lin Wang didn't answer. Instead, he turned to the cat girl and said, "White Cat, go to the village entrance and see if there are any villagers pushing carts or anything like that into the village. If there are any, observe the supplies they are transporting."

The cat girl agreed and ran out of the village. Everyone sat down in an empty space in the village and began to rest.

During the whole process, the surrounding villagers remained busy and lively, but no one disturbed them, and no one expressed surprise at their sudden visit.

"These people are like... performing a play," Gou Ge said. "The curtain opens, the actors appear, and no matter what the audience does, their performance cannot stop."

A mercenary laughed and said, "Brother Gou, from the way you talk, it's as if you've heard a play before!"

"The most he's ever heard is the stilt walk he's on!"

"Hey! You little brats, who are you looking down on?" Gou Ge glared and patted his chest. "I think Gou Ge was also a big shot in the past... and I've seen a lot of things!"

The mercenaries burst into laughter.

Lin Wang looked at the mercenaries laughing and grinned.

A group of living people...

This feeling of relaxation...

He felt that his soul's connection with this world had deepened a little.

At this time, the cat girl came back.

"Meow, I saw it!"

The cat girl sat down next to Lin Wang and rubbed her face against his sleeve. "An uncle! He walked in from outside the village pushing a wooden cart! All the firewood, vegetables, and other things appeared from the cart!"

"I asked him to turn into a mouse, but he ignored me... Meow!" Lin Wang put his hand on the cat girl's head, interrupting her nonsense, and then stood up. "I know what's going on in this village."

He looked at the people around him and said slowly:

“It’s a sandbox.”

(End of this chapter)