South America.
A group of unique visitors had come to the little-known town.
With the address provided by Wayne, Hao Ren had arrived in this place ahead of Wayne, and chosen to stay in a homestay to avoid any unwanted hassle.
Wayne Walter had to return to his family to attend to some business before he would join them in the town two days later. Meanwhile, Hao Ren and his team could move freely. After checking into the accommodation and familiarizing themselves with the homestay environment, Hao Ren and Vivian left to hang out in the town.
The atmosphere of the town reminded Hao Ren Southern Suburb. Though the architectural style of the town looked very different, it was an economic backwater, where time seemed to be stagnant as everything here—the houses and streets—looked old and rundown. The town was at least 100 years old. When Hao Ren and Vivian walked on the street, they saw old and traditional brick houses with the mottled exterior wall, and the roads were in bad condition. The town was built along a two-lane-wide paved road, which was the thoroughfare of the town. Houses did not look uniform, moss and mildew had grown all over the walls. In the historical town were modern street lamps and billboards that seemed somewhat out of place. Though this town was not related to the ancient times, Hao Ren could not help but think of it as a place that befitted the ideal location for the old hermit family.
The century-old town, as well as the otherworldling families from the ancient times, were all forgotten and equally out of place in the modern society.
"I didn't expect Hessiana to stay back in Athens at last." Hao Ren recalled the little bat demon still clung to Vivian's legs before they left. He could not help but smile. "I thought she would want to follow us and kudos! You dissuaded her."
Vivian instantly felt a headache when Hessiana came to mind. She rubbed her forehead. "That kid is getting out of hand. Letting her stay at our home was a mistake. She would only become the more greedy and disobedient."
Hao Ren was helpless when it came to the relationship between Vivian and Hessiana. He just smiled and looked up into the air.
A blue, star-like object swept across the sky.
The MDT was scanning the terrain of the entire town and the surrounding areas in the air and sharing the visual with Hao Ren in his mind. Hao Ren was essentially multitasking now, seeing the place in his mind's eye from a few hundreds of meters in the air.
Looking from above, the town by the hillside had a population of only a thousand people and wilderness in the surrounding area. Built along the gentle slopes of the hills, the town appeared like a gorgeous necklace lying at the foothill at night. It did not look bizarre at first glance; the bare stone hill or the old town at the foothill was unremarkable. After much carefully observation, Hao Ren found that the layout of the town was somewhat incongruous with its surroundings. All building construction stopped abruptly on the hillside.
Though this phenomenon could be understood from the standpoint of cost and convenience that people did not build their houses on a higher altitude, the boundaries where the construction stopped was just too neat to be natural. It formed a clear dividing line between the dark and the bright side on the hillside with humanmade light stopping right on that dividing line as if it was avoiding something.
The dark side was not empty though; there were a few abandoned houses on the north of the demarcation line. They were like outcasts of the town that had been left behind for many years. There was no road to access the abandoned houses from the town, but some tracks were still visible lying between the abandoned houses. When the MDT zoomed in the visual, Hao Ren saw some things like cement blocks and broken bricks scattered further up the hillside.
Vivian did not pay attention to the image that the MDT had sent her. She just looked at the quiet town in thought. "The atmosphere here is a little unbelievable. This territory of the Ancattero family is less creepy than I thought."
"The otherworldlings must be hiding their tracks. Look at the size of the Athens' sanctuary and the liveliness of Athens, and you would get the picture," Hao Ren said casually. "What's more, the Shade of Chaos does not attack humans."
"You may be right," Vivian whispered. "I don't know how the Ancattero family hides. I couldn't find any signs of the mysterious realm nor where its entrance is. It looks like we have to depend on Wayne's guides."
Hao Ren replied with a "Hmm" as he cast his eyes to the end of the street, which was sloping upwards to the hillside. Lights were illuminating the dark hill. "There may be something north of the town, where the abandoned houses looked very suspicious. Would you like to check them out? Maybe they were the property of the Ancattero family," Hao Ren said.
"Check them out?" Vivian blinked. "But the Wayne family's guides would only arrive two days later."
"We're idle anyway." Hao Ren shrugged his shoulders. "The demon hunters might be active in the town and after the Ancattero family. If we can find them, we would be in a better position later."
Ordinary otherworldlings would avoid the demon hunters like the plague, just like how Hao Ren behaved in the beginning. Now, his style had changed. With the many encounters with the demon hunters and the experience in handling a dangerous situation, Hao Ren was more accustomed to thinking of more positive solutions. He even chose to actively engage the demon hunter to avoid falling into the defensive. What was more, Hao Ren had nothing against the demon hunters—he was not an otherworldling like the vampire and werewolf, he was neutral as an inspector. He just happened to have adopted a bunch of demons, which unwittingly put him in an awkward position in dealing with demon hunters.
Vivian had objected to Hao Ren's decision. She also held an indifferent attitude towards the demon hunter. As Hao Ren walked toward the end of the town, she followed him.
Soon, they came up the hillside, where the road had ended.
A fence was in the way and extending out to both sides and disappeared into the darkness as if it was a wall separating the town from the hill. It was brightly lit on the south of the fence, while it the dark hillside on the other side. Looking into the dark side, Hao Ren could see a few shadowy structures lying in the dark. Those were the abandoned houses the MDT had observed from above.
There was a red No Entry sign hanging on the rusty gate of the fence. Hao Ren stepped forward and shook the gate a little, and it squeaked. The gate had not been opened for years, and the hinges were full of rust.
Vivian looked around, knowing that no strangers were around, she burst into a swarm of bats and fog and flew across to the other side. Hao Ren did not want to be left behind, with little effort, he jumped across the two-meter-tall fence.
"We should have gotten information from the local people first," Hao Ren said to the swarm of bats around him. "Asking them why they need to fence up the town would not appear suspicious, after all, we're outsiders."
"That's a little too late," Vivian said, emerging from a swarm of bats. "Let us check out the abandoned houses there. Oh, wait a second!"
"What happened?"
Vivian's brows knit together as she looked at the abandoned houses. It looks like somebody was in there."