065 Night Demon

Amid the howls of the night fiends, Li Daniu and Robert, having rested through the night, both felt remarkably refreshed. Robert was long accustomed to such cacophony, and Li Daniu, with his profound inner strength, could not only enhance his hearing but also suppress it at will.

After a simple breakfast, the two gathered their gear and set out—though, of course, the equipment was almost entirely for Robert's use.

“Robert, you’ve lived here longer than I have. Do you know where we could find any night fiends?” Li Daniu asked. He’d seen the movies and knew there was a place swarming with the creatures, but his unfamiliarity with New York left him clueless as to where that horde might dwell.

“That’s something we’ll have to search for,” Robert replied with a shrug. “Night fiends don’t stay in one place. They go out to hunt at night and rest during the day. They lack any sense of time, so as dawn approaches, they simply find the nearest shelter from the sunlight and hide.”

Li Daniu recalled the night fiend lair from the film—the most striking detail was the ground strewn with dollar bills and the vault’s massive security door.

“I think we should check the banks.”

“The banks?” Robert chuckled, then said, “Do you think night fiends care about money? Besides, in this world, what use is money? Even gold and diamonds are worthless now.”

“No,” Li Daniu shook his head, “what I mean is, bank vaults are usually well-hidden and completely lightproof. That makes them a likely spot for any night fiends in hiding.”

To lend credibility to his suggestion, Li Daniu added, “At first, I had companions. When the outbreak began, we all believed the government would sort things out quickly and everything would return to normal. One of my companions went to the bank, hoping to stash some money away, and...”

“I’m sorry to dredge up painful memories,” Robert interrupted gently. He, too, hadn’t started out alone—only a series of misfortunes had left him the last survivor.

“But you’re right. A bank vault is one of the most secure and hidden places in the world. If a night fiend is hiding, its chances are high there.”

After discussing their plan, they decided to search systematically, starting with the banks. If that yielded nothing, they’d move on to the underground parking garages.

Robert, a Manhattan native, had lived in the city for three years since the disaster and knew every corner intimately.

Of course, with Li Daniu reluctant to reveal his superhuman strength, they couldn’t just charge into every dark place they found. They needed bait.

After circling half of Manhattan, they found the herd of wild deer again.

For humanity, the virus outbreak was the end of days. But for the animals, the post-disaster world was a paradise. Though many beasts perished or turned into zombie creatures, without human hunting and industrial pollution, animal populations grew explosively. Their evolutionary adaptability far surpassed that of humans. Newborn humans had to fear infection, but animals did not. The mothers’ immunity passed to most offspring, and animals always gave birth in sunlight, never in dark, infected places.

Thus, any infected newborn animal rarely survived long enough to grow. In three years, animals had reclaimed the cities, roaming freely where once humans thronged, while people now hid in fear.

With the deer herd before them, things became much easier. With Li Daniu’s help, Robert no longer struggled to catch a wild deer.

This time, Li Daniu didn’t use a vehicle mirror as a weapon. He simply gathered some stones and, with little effort, wounded a few deer.

They bound the injured deer with ropes, loaded them onto a truck that still worked, and set off in search of night fiends.

At each target location, Li Daniu would carry a deer into the darkness, untie it but leave a rope secured to the truck outside to prevent escape, and then wait outside.

“Tarek, your nerves are really something,” Robert remarked.

Unlike Li Daniu, who was at ease moving in and out of the dark, Robert remained tense, gun at the ready, cold sweat beading his brow each time.

“I trust my speed to reach the sunlight before a night fiend catches me,” Li Daniu replied. In truth, he wanted to say that three or five night fiends wouldn’t pose a threat—if not for worrying about Robert’s feeble combat abilities, he’d have just gone in alone.

Though he hadn’t yet confronted a night fiend directly, Robert, with his scientific background, had explained their characteristics. A night fiend’s physical strength was roughly two to three times that of a normal human, varying depending on the victim’s original condition.

At first, Li Daniu was startled—if two or three times stronger, would they not run a hundred meters in four or five seconds? He’d thought this would be a one-sided slaughter, a max-level hero mowing down low-level monsters, but now the monsters seemed to have a triple stat buff.

Robert’s further explanation, however, restored Li Daniu’s confidence.

“Doubling or tripling physical strength doesn’t mean speed and power multiply as well. National athletes have twice the physical fitness of an average person, yet the average hundred-meter sprint is about thirteen seconds, while elite athletes finish in ten to eleven seconds. Only a few in the world break the ten-second barrier.

“Speed isn’t just about strength. Air resistance increases with speed, and as muscles grow, so does body weight, which slows you down. It’s a dead end.

“So, I’d estimate a night fiend could run a hundred meters in about eight seconds. After ten seconds, every tenth of a second improvement is a huge challenge—and it gets harder. It’s similar for strength. Even the world’s strongest weightlifters can’t run a hundred meters in under twelve seconds because of their bulk. You can’t maximize both speed and strength.”

Eight seconds for a hundred meters? That put Li Daniu at ease. With his lightness skill, he could outrun a night fiend backwards. He could leap over ten meters in a single bound—he almost wanted to mock the night fiends: “Come and bite me if you can.”

Of course, the human body’s limits aren’t as simple as Robert suggested. But “I Am Legend” was a film grounded in reality—no superpowers, no divine martial arts, no super-soldier serum, and, unlike Resident Evil, no boss-level zombies.

With the power to overwhelm any creature in this world, Li Daniu naturally acted with ease.

“Well, caution isn’t a bad thing,” Robert advised.

But seeing Li Daniu as nonchalant as ever, Robert could only grow more anxious and vigilant as he covered him.

The morning passed as they checked six banks. Not a single deer survived the blood loss, nor did they encounter a night fiend.

After a quick bite, they pressed on.

They arrived at the rear entrance of a bank, reserved for armored trucks. Hearing Robert’s introduction, Li Daniu grew excited; the scene was familiar, likely the very night fiend lair from the film.

Outwardly, he betrayed nothing.

As before, he carried a deer inside, tied it securely, then gave it a hard slap. The wounded deer, stung by pain, let out a series of cries and began to struggle furiously.

As he and Robert retreated outside, Robert wiped the sweat from his brow.

“Tarek, is this how you’ve survived all these years?”

“If you didn’t insist on coming in with me, I wouldn’t even need bait. I’d just run a lap myself.”

“All brawn and no brains,” Robert muttered under his breath.

Li Daniu pretended not to hear—there was no easy way to explain. He couldn’t very well announce he’d mastered the ninth level of the Nine Yang Divine Skill; Robert, a foreigner, would have no idea what that meant.

After a few minutes, the deer suddenly grew frantic, thrashing hard and trying to escape, but Li Daniu and Robert had already blocked the door.

Robert raised a finger to signal silence, but just then, everything inside went still.

At the same time, the rope tethering the deer snapped taut, then, two seconds later, slipped through the door crack to the ground.

The two men exchanged glances, each reading the other’s thoughts.

“A night fiend?”