The vehicle was travelling through the night haze, and the navigation didn't re-sound for quite some time.
Henry deliberately slowed the car down a little, wondering, "It can't have run away when you saw it."
Middendorffi said, "But your navigation hasn't auto-corrected."
"That's true. This navigation is set to a destination still in that farmhouse, and if it had reverted to normal, it would have said, 'You've yawed and thought you'd re-route'." Henry said, "It looks like the road is still open anyway, so let's drive for now. If it doesn't move in a few more kilometres, we'll have to head back, or I'm afraid I won't be able to refuel after going too deep."
After a few hundred metres, the navigation finally came back on.
Henry asked Middendorffi, who replied, "It's that thing."
"Okay." Henry then followed the navigation and kept driving. The vehicle gradually went into the narrower and narrower mountain roads; both sides of the road were mountain forests, pitch-black; the headlights hit the past and only saw a few trees on the side of the road. The navigation managed to guide the car to the dirt road that was not hardened; the economic forest on the side of the road was almost crowded into the road, and it was tough to travel in the darkness of the night. Eventually, Henry's big-bodied off-road finally had to stop after driving a few hundred metres and getting stuck by two trees.
"Tch, can't go any further." Henry switched his headlights back and forth, confirming, "This road is probably repaired by the forest owner for the tractor; the width is uncertain, and the road is a bit bumpy. There's no way a private, broken road like this would be included in normal navigation; what does this thing want?"
Middendorffi looked out the window, which was pitch black and theoretically impossible to see anything with the naked eye. "I'll go down and have a look."
"Huh? Don't." Henry looked around as well, "It's still flesh on iron, so going down there could be direct contact. Why don't we wait a little longer, and we'll leave if there's no movement? It's a big night, and we're short on people and props, so we'll easily lose out."
"Never mind, Eli's with me." Middendorffi grabbed Eli's hand, "He can protect me."
Eli, for the first time, was held by him of his own accord and, sweeping the two men's joined hands, said, "Well, I'll guard him."
Henry said, "Ugh, this is facing the unknown, the last red moon. Well, at least you guys saw it ..."
"A few more men, a few more guns, no different than one me." Eli said lightly, then looked to Middendorffi, "Let's go."
According to Eli's intention, he said this is already more polite; in fact, the combined "collector" department is not enough for him.
As soon as Eli said go, Middendorffi's hand was on the door handle, and he looked at Henry, signalling to unlock it.
"Hey, you two are a real piece of work. Don't ever kick the can down the road for you." Henry thought about going but decided to bring his gun down with him, and the action recorder on his shoulder and night vision turned on, "Alright, alright, I'll join you guys."
The car door locks unlocked, and the three of them get out of the car front and back.
Henry was in the front, still able to dip into some headlight illumination; the back was just really dark. The illumination from the tail lights was about equal to nothing in this almost engulfing darkness.
Even if he didn't sense anything, Henry was still creeped out by that endless blackness in the woods. He touched his belt pouch, where he had hung his gun, with one hand and looked around warily, while asking in a loud voice, "You see anything over there?"
"Not yet." Middendorffi answered him back, then tugged at Eli and whispered, "I'm going to 'check it out'."
Eli wasn't going to get in the way or question it like Henry did and gave a low 'hmm' as well.
The black mist then dispersed from under Middendorffi's feet. In this thick black night, the black fog has become invisible, noiselessly scattered in all directions. Middendorffi's black fog body has been considerable and extensive and can now extend very far. Eli looked at the darkness of the mountains, sensed Middendorffi's body spreading out wider and wider, and always felt as if, in the next moment, Middendorffi would swallow all these mountains, but it would not be able to do so. I was about to destroy all these mountains.
Eli would not underestimate Middendorffi's black mist. The black mist can swallow anything: volume, hardness, and toxins, but nothing but energy can affect the black mist. It is an endless abyss, what humans call a "black hole". The bigger the fog grows, the closer it gets to being genuinely unbeatable, and the more it chills one's guts when one looks at it.
But Eli doesn't regret feeding him and will continue to do so.
"I'm focusing on scouting the direction in front of the road to see what's waiting for us." Middendorffi continued in a low voice, "But I didn't catch anything unusual clearly near the ground. I'll try another direction."
"Hmm." Eli nodded, "Go ahead and don't worry about anything else."
The black fog surged up again.
The mountain wind blew through the trees; the leaves rustled as they rubbed together; the advance of the black mist was not affected by the wind in the slightest and was even quieter than the wind. Utterly oblivious to the iffy black mist on the ground nearby, Henry turned away from the front of the car, stepping over the shallow mist that clung to the ground and coming to Middendorffi and Eli's side.
"How?" Henry asked, "Find anything yet?"
"Not yet ..."
"Distance to target ahead, one thousand metres."
Middendorffi's words were interrupted by the sudden blaring of a female navigational voice from the car, and Henry jerked back to look inside, "What's going on? What's it saying?"
The car's doors and windows blocked the sound of the navigator; Henry knew it spoke but couldn't really hear it; Middendorffi, of course, heard it and instantly repeated it back to him.
"A thousand metres? Where is that?" Henry pulled out his phone and scratched the map, "Tch, no, the map looks like it's all hills and scattered villages. Hell, if I know what's there. After all, it's the middle of nowhere, and I'm not even sure this location is accurate ..."
"Something's coming." Middendorffi interrupted him, "It's approaching fast."
"Huh?!" Henry tensed up again in a flash, and his hand undid the lock on his holster, "Which way?"
"This way." Middendorffi pointed in the direction the rear of the car was facing, "Several points, fast."
Eli stepped up to the front of the line, gripping the sheath with one hand; the other still needed to be on the hilt.
"Bear, get to the back!" Henry also stepped forward, gesturing to Middendorffi, "No, get in the car ..."
With that, he directly helped Middendorffi open the car door, and just as he opened it, he heard the front navigation speak again, "Distance to target ahead five hundred metres."
Henry was confused: "Fuck, why is it getting closer?!"
"The target it's talking about should be those things." Middendorffi wouldn't get in the car, "I don't want to be alone with that navigation."
Henry thought so and closed the car door as soon as possible while Eli distracted himself by inclining his head and pulling Middendorffi over, "Stand behind me and don't move."
Middendorffi took two obedient steps closer as he held her hand, then added, "A few energy points focused together."
"Hmm." Eli only responded calmly as if he didn't care about any of this at all. But Middendorffi hadn't spoken to him in the first place, and it had been talking to Henry and his recorder.
Henry listened to the nervousness and pulled out the gun, but also stood beside Middendorffi and even took a step outside. Eli and Middendorffi are here, and he has to prevent accidental injury.
"Distance to target ahead, two hundred metres."
The female voice of the navigator was still ringing out; Middendorffi had withdrawn all of the black mist and was giving Henry a distance report in the process, "Two hundred metres."
"Distance to target ahead, one hundred metres ... Zip ... Currently, the signal is weak. Please drive with caution ..."
The navigator seemed to have been affected by something affecting the signal, but it didn't do much anymore. Henry suddenly developed an intense ringing in his ears, and realising that the thing might be affecting his vision and wakefulness, he immediately retracted the gun blindly into its holster, and lowered his voice, "I'm developing strong tinnitus! It may be blinding and cerebral, and I cannot judge the situation."
Middendorffi sniffed and immediately grabbed his wrist, "Don't move."
Henry wasn't trying to be brave now. He stood beside Middendorffi and sandwiched the youth between himself and the car so that he could at least serve as a meat shield for Middendorffi on the periphery, adding, "Please, Eli."
Eli still had that same clouded attitude, "Don't worry."
Middendorffi added, "Closer, they're slowing down like they're becoming one. They give me a somewhat familiar feeling ..."
Middendorffi spoke in a tone that was too flat, and Henry's tinnitus was still causing him not to hear too well. A thought flashed through Henry's mind untimely for a moment: Bear's voice can sound even less like an average person than the navigation AI voice ah ...
Eli asks: "Familiar? Like what?"
"Red Moon." Middendorffi throws down those two words and quickly picks up again, "Here it comes."
"... Red Moon?!" After a second's pause, Henry subconsciously glanced at the sky - there were neither stars nor moon - and back to Middendorffi, who was tugging at him, "Did you say the red moon is here ...?!"
Before he could finish his sentence, the ringing in his ears instantly peaked, and Henry covered his ears with one hand, frowning tightly. A ball of light had appeared ahead of him in his vision!
Surrounded by darkness, Henry was unable to compare sight distances. Eli had already drawn his longsword and rushed out flat on the ground, like an arrow out of a string!
With another blow, the ball of light was hit, but instead of splitting in two like what happened to Red Moon last time, it just went "BOOM!!!" It exploded with a loud bang, and the fragments were splattered in all directions!
The fragments were still glowing, but they suddenly and neatly disappeared in the next moment as they flew through the air.
Henry was baffled. Even those sect heirs he had seen occasionally didn't have such a powerful stance as Eli. Earlier, Eli said that he had instantly killed Red Moon from several hundred metres away, and now that Henry had seen it with his own eyes, he was convinced.
"It's over." Middendorffi suddenly spoke. By this moment, Henry also snapped to attention; as that ball of light disappeared, the ringing in his ears and headache also disappeared. His body had become all normal, and it appeared that the ball of light had been responsible.
He looked at Eli, who had stopped before him, and asked loudly, "Eli, how's it going? What was it?"
"The wreckage has disappeared again." Eli had just finished pounding and attacking; his breathing remained steady, and he didn't have to breathe, "It's an instrument in there; it is the same as the Red Moon."
Middendorffi started to walk towards him, and naturally, Henry followed.
"So that lacklustre navigation is the same as the weird video when Red Moon appeared?" Henry reached near Eli and took a shot of the ground and his surroundings, "It, or rather they ... are after Bear?"
Eli puts his sword away, "Just worthless ants."