Chapter 1 The Fleeting Darkness

As the gentle glow of "Am" gradually faded, the Continent of Cardothius would welcome the only few minutes of dark night in a day. Everything was dormant in the darkness, watching the last ray of the gaseous giant planet leave the sky, and then ushering in the magnificent morning sun.

A day on the Continent of Cardothius only had sixteen hours. It was not the plane with the shortest daylight hours, but it was the shortest among the planes with a large population. Therefore, people who came here for the first time needed a period of time to adapt to the rhythm of life here. Hao Ren was still lying on the bed in the hotel, sleeping soundly. On the cabinet next to him, a small mermaid had already been awakened by the sunlight. Doudou crawled out of the washbasin and waved her tail at the data terminal next to her to say hello, "Mornin', 'terminal bwicks'!"

The data terminal had been watching Doudou all night to prevent the little guy from running around after waking up. Now, the first greeting in the morning was this, and it was immediately furious: "You little rascal, don't learn from your dad!"

Doudou didn't understand what a "little rascal" meant at all. She thought it was a compliment, so she happily accepted it. Then, she looked at the gradually bustling streets outside and began to daze. After a while, the little guy felt bored, so she opened her mouth and sang the tune that Nangong Wuyue had taught her.

The little guy's singing was completely irregular, without any lyrics – the teacher herself was a half-baked musician who couldn't remember the words. It was already a gift to be able to learn the tune from that mantis shrimp siren.

Hao Ren heard a soft, small, but unusually beautiful singing voice in his ear while half-asleep. At first, he thought it was Wuyue humming a song downstairs, but when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was his adopted fish daughter singing. Doudou was趴着 (pā zhe – leaning) on the window, her small hands supporting the simple wooden window lattice, with a peaceful expression on her face, humming songs that only she could understand. The morning sun shone on the little guy's tail, rippling with circles of golden-red light.

A small mermaid singing to the sky in the morning sun – this scene made Hao Ren couldn't help but hold his breath. He found that Doudou was indeed worthy of the mermaid race. Even at such a young age, her singing already revealed a kind of spirituality, almost making people feel that even if she suddenly raised a few magic circles from her side while singing, it wouldn't be out of place. Hao Ren didn't want to disturb this short, peaceful scene, so he pretended to be asleep, squinting his eyes to watch the little guy sing. Doudou didn't notice it at all, and still hummed the few tunes she knew intermittently, humming a section or two and then resting, lowering her head to gnaw on the window frame a few times, and then continuing to hum.

Hao Ren felt that he had to wake up... This window wasn't his own!

"Papa! Wake up!" Doudou noticed Hao Ren getting up, and immediately pounced on him happily, slapping him on the face with a "pa ji" sound, "Food!"

Hao Ren looked at the uneven window lattice that had been gnawed by Doudou, sweating on his forehead, thinking that the little guy was indeed growing up. He would have to explain the problem of the room window to the hotel owner later... He wondered if there were rats in this world...

When he went downstairs to meet with the others, Hao Ren found that Lily and Nangong Wuyue were both yawning, obviously the short night was not enough for them to rest. On the other hand, the other three people were still full of energy: Vivian belonged to the kind of magical species that never slept for a thousand years and slept for a thousand years. Her biological clock was an active skill. Yizaks and Lanina could no longer be considered as conventional creatures. It was hard to say whether these two slept at night mainly to rest or to relieve boredom...

"Yawn... Landlord, I want to sleep a little longer..." Lily was the one most affected by her biological clock. At this time, she was basically talking to Hao Ren with her eyes closed, relying on constantly sniffing to determine the location of other people. She sniffed for a long time, squatted on the ground next to Hao Ren's feet, curled up like a puppy, "Two more hours of sleep... Just stuff food into my mouth when it's time to eat... I'll eat in my dreams."

Vivian pulled Lily up with a mixture of amusement and annoyance: "This good-for-nothing... Once she doesn't get enough sleep, her intelligence drops to before she became a demon!"

"Let's go out for a walk. The sunshine of Cardothius is very uplifting," Yizaks' loud voice made people feel refreshed. He stood at the door and pointed outside, "I've already paid the bill. Let's go to the inner city to take a look today."

Lily looked at Yizaks with sleepy eyes, and was immediately energetic: "Big guy, your face is really refreshing heh~!"

Everyone: "..."

"I don't think her intelligence has improved..." Vivian mumbled, "Could it be that intelligence is also linked to the biological clock?"

Hao Ren remembered that there was still a window in the room that had been gnawed by Doudou that he couldn't explain, so he quickly dragged Vivian out, "Don't talk about the biological clock, let's get down to business..."

The short alternation of day and night on the Continent of Cardothius was difficult for outsiders to adapt to, but the locals were already familiar with it. At this moment, the streets of the outer city of Cardessa were already bustling with activity. Merchants and travelers from all over the planes formed the main flow of people in the outer city.

Apart from the inner city, which was mainly inhabited by permanent residents, most of the people in the outer city were actually outsiders like Hao Ren and the others.

In addition to the fixed shops along the street, the most common were the various stalls set up by merchants. Even races such as elves and spirits, who usually didn't show their faces much, would set up stalls here to sell their own race's handicrafts, which was rare to see elsewhere. The group walked along the wide avenue that ran through the inner and outer cities towards the inner city, stopping frequently at the dazzling array of stalls along the way, partly out of curiosity and partly to gather information.

After all, Yizaks and Monina had been away from this world for more than half a year. The development of the world situation after the end of the Ten-Year War must be rapid. They were already far behind in information and now had to know the situation of the various races in the human world. It was not realistic to directly inquire about the inside story of the Allied Forces, but they could hear a lot of useful news from these people from all over the world: as long as you had the heart, you could always piece together the whole world from the gossip of the peddlers and vendors. This was the charm of gossip.

"Although I don't want to admit it, the human races are indeed far superior to demons in terms of civilization development," Lanina said honestly behind Hao Ren, pretending to be a servant, while muttering, "Every time I come to the human world, I am amazed by the prosperity and changes here... The demon world is always chaotic and without progress for thousands of years. The guys who fight back and forth are not interested in building anything. It was not until the king established an empire similar to the human world that there was some change."

Vivian stopped in front of an elf's stall. She curiously fiddled with the wooden ornaments on the stall: "What is this?"

"A talisman blessed by the forest," an elf who was so handsome that it was almost impossible to tell whether he was male or female immediately introduced enthusiastically, "It has been blessed in the sacred spring of my hometown and can drive away disasters and protect..."

"I'll buy it!" Vivian's eyes lit up and she immediately decided to buy it, then pointed to another bead next to it, "What's this?"

"A talisman blessed by the ancestors," the elf stall owner smiled. Obviously, living in a human city had made him very different from his conservative compatriots who rarely left their homes. He looked like an experienced businessman, "Handmade by the elders of my clan with blessings, wearing it on your body can ward off evil..."

Vivian's eyes immediately lit up like Lily seeing a bone: "I'll buy it!! What about the one next to it..."

Hao Ren quickly held the vampire down: "Okay, okay, two are enough – we still need to save money for travel expenses, okay!"

This unlucky ghost still hadn't given up on using talismans to turn around her fortune, but it was useless even though she hung a bunch of evil-repelling stuff on her body. Why didn't she learn her lesson – even the couplets written by Crow 12345 herself didn't stop her from losing money at her door. Vivian's unlucky fortune was obviously the will of the great universe. What was she still resisting...

The group wandered around the outer city for a while and didn't find out any important information, but at least they had some understanding of the changes in the world after the end of the Ten-Year War: after the end of the war, the Allied Forces directly stayed in the demon plane, and there were no signs of a large-scale withdrawal; of the Seven Heroes, except for the Dwarf King Urok, who was seriously injured and returned to his country for recuperation, the other six heroes had not yet returned. It was said that the human hero Gregory and the elf general Kashiutina were very likely to be the next generation of supreme leaders of these two races. Currently, the human Supreme King, who was too old, was already drafting the process of abdication; many kingdoms that were completely destroyed by the demon army suddenly emerged with many self-proclaimed royal descendants with pure bloodlines. They were striving for the recognition of the Seven Heroes in order to restore their countries; the dark elves and orcs had new frictions on the border, but under the call of their respective heroes, the frictions were quickly eliminated. These two races might hold a special meeting to truly calmly discuss the long-term problems faced by the two races. Currently, many people were optimistic about this meeting...

And after hundreds of years of harassment and rule by the demon army, many planes in the human world needed to be rebuilt. The reconstruction of culture and the removal of the influence of demons were also very important topics of recent gossip.

After hearing these things, Yizaks only gave one comment: "It seems that the world can still turn without anyone."