In the God-abandoned land, on a night with very low lightning frequency.
Several human-like creatures cautiously approached a fleshy mass with six legs and over a dozen eyes.
Wrapped in animal skins or crude clothes of indistinguishable material, they moved through the deep, boundless darkness with the help of a few lanterns, their expressions all solemn.
On their faces, some had a dozen or twenty fleshy tumors, some had eyes almost squeezed together, some had no nose at all, with a black hole in that spot.
After a fierce battle, they took care of the monster relatively smoothly, then split into two groups, one on guard and one collecting spoils.
During this process, the man with many fleshy tumors on his face, while dissecting the monster's corpse to gather edible parts, suddenly stopped.
"Adar, what's wrong?" asked the noseless woman in confusion.
The man called Adar slowly pulled back his right hand, revealing an item he had found on the monster.
It was a stone-carved talisman with many traces of corrosion.
"This..." the man with eyes almost squeezed together seemed to understand the reason, hesitating without finishing.
Adar looked around and said:
"Xin, Rus, I gave this to my father when I was a child.
"He felt he could no longer control himself on the day I came of age, and chose to leave the city on his own, going deep into the darkness..."
Xin and Rus fell silent, able to understand Adar's feelings.
In Moon City, this often happened.
Because they lacked safe food sources, they had to pick mutated plant fruits and collect monster flesh to sustain themselves.
This caused them to accumulate toxins and madness, and once their physical condition declined, they would either die quickly or gradually lose control.
To avoid affecting their surroundings and damaging the city, the latter, upon noticing their deteriorating state, would typically arrange everything, take a torch and a small amount of food, leave the defense perimeter, and go far into the never-ending darkness, never to return.
What their fate would be, the residents of Moon City could imagine: either killed by monsters or turned into monsters, no other possibility.
After seven or eight seconds of silence, the noseless woman Xin hesitated and said to Adar:
"Maybe that's the monster that killed your father."
"It has an animal skin belt wrapped around it..." Adar's voice gradually lowered, then he raised the white bone dagger in his hand and thrust it downward vigorously, cutting out a piece of relatively normal flesh.
The hunting team members skillfully collected spoils in the silence, until Rus, with his squeezed eyes, suddenly spoke in a low tone:
"Among the newborn children, the deformed are increasing..."
The price of accumulating toxins and madness over generations was not merely a decline in average lifespan. Those who still maintained a normal physical condition would gradually develop mutations, like Adar with many tumors on his face.
Similarly, the accumulated toxins and madness could be passed on to offspring, resulting in deformities. Rus and Xin in the team fell into this category.
Their lives would be even shorter, and they were more prone to losing control and mutation.
The rising number of deformed infants meant something the hunting team understood well: perhaps in just two or three generations, before the residents of Moon City could mature and reproduce, they might lose control.
In that case, even without external attack, Moon City would quickly perish, leaving only stone buildings, wall murals, and such as proof they once existed.
"Hopefully the High Priest and others can find a new direction..." Adar stood up with his lantern, his answer exceptionally weak.
Over the past two or three thousand years, Moon City had not stopped seeking ways out of their predicament. They sent out exploration teams into the depths of the darkness. Some returned after suffering severe setbacks with nothing, others disappeared without a trace, vanishing into the boundless darkness.
Additionally, a distance east of Moon City, there was a gray-white mist covering the sky and earth.
It was like an invisible barrier, not only blocking the view but also preventing any living thing from passing through.
The residents of Moon City once considered this as hope, thinking that the land under the gray-white mist was a normal realm, that beyond the mist was land unaffected by the curse.
They tried over and over to enter the gray-white mist, but all attempts failed:
They dug long tunnels trying to pass through the ground where there was no invisible barrier, but the corresponding area deep in the earth was also covered by the same mist;
They found ways to gain the ability to fly, attempting to cross from above, but they could never see the top of the gray-white mist, until they were struck by lightning;
They mobilized all the demigods and sealed artefacts, attacking the target repeatedly, accumulating force day after day for two or three thousand years, yet they could not wear down the invisible barrier even a bit...
Hearing Captain Adar's words, the hunting team members felt both despair and grief, as if they were slowly sliding off the edge of an "abyss", unable to save themselves.
Those who were deformed originally belonged to a type that struggled to control their emotions, and now more or less felt something suppressed inside, about to burst out.
— In Moon City, two or three hundred years ago, the deformed could not become Beyonders and join hunting teams; they only did gathering tasks. But as manpower became increasingly tight, the High Priest and the other leaders relaxed the restrictions.
"Let's go, this isn't enough food." Adar looked around, lifted his lantern, and walked deeper into the darkness.
They didn't dare to extinguish the light and let monsters surge from the darkness, because those could be beyond their ability to handle.
In the silence that felt suffocating, the members of this Moon City hunting team couldn't help but feel that the darkness had no end.
It was like Moon City's current situation: they could never find hope, and the time the lanterns in their hands could burn grew shorter and shorter.
When the last glimmer of light vanished, they would be silently swallowed by the darkness.