Forces of Temptation

Eternal Day

Eternal Day was the debut work of a horror cartoonist 23 years ago.
The cover of the first comic officially released showed the protagonist, a young man with his hair in a ponytail.
He bit his black hair tie as he sat in front of the mirror, combing his hair.
His name was Nan Zhou.
He was the only protagonist of the comic ‘Eternal Day.’
The story of Eternal Day was set in the fictional Never Town.
In this closed off and warm town, the time of night was related to the moon.
Every month, there was a full moon on the 15th day and day and night were half:half.
Using the 15th as the dividing line, the hours of the night were shortened in turn.
The first day of the month was the only day without any night.
On the day, the snow-white sun would turn Never Town into a city of sunlight where nothing could be seen.
It wasn’t only darkness that covered people’s eyes but also light.
Therefore, the first day of every month became a day of rest for the residents of Never Town.
No matter what day of the week it fell on, the residents of never Town would rest at home.
Office workers and students were suspended.
There were few vehicles on the streets shrouded in white sunlight.
Only the constant light from the traffic lights was scattered by the blazing sunlight into light color ripples that swayed shallowly in the hot air.
This weird, abnormal light gave birth to a monster called the light demon.
The light demon was born from an irreversible source of infection called light bacteria.
They had the same appearance as humans but they were extremely aggressive and flexible. They also possessed the same intelligence as ordinary people.
In normal times, they firmly believed they were ordinary people living in Never Town.
At the beginning of every month, on the day of ‘extreme sunlight’, the self-awareness of the light demons would awaken.
In these 24 hours of white, chaotic light, they could choose to transform into their true selves and randomly hunt the residents of the small town to continue their lives.
If ordinary people were bitten and infected by the light bacteria, another light demon would be born.
However, once the light bacteria entered the human body, the light bacteria would form its own variants due to different physical techniques. It also formed a self-protective spiritual strain that occupied the brain.
Therefore, one of the characteristics of the light demon was mental fragility.
In other words, once the light demon treated another light demon like a human and bit them, it was possible to become infected and die themselves unless their strain was stronger than the other one.
It was like drawing a lottery ticket.
On the other hand, they could absorb the nutrients from the opponent’s body. This was huge luck and they wouldn’t need to hunt for three months.
Perhaps they wouldn’t need to hunt all their lives.
Of course, the light demons had limits.
They didn’t know they were monsters in ordinary times and they couldn’t identify or perceive their own kind.
As a light demon, they had a strong animal nature to occupy territory and hated the existence of the same kind.
They gave priority to eliminating their own kind when seeing them.
Therefore, the living environment of the light demons wasn’t very easy.
They were afraid of being killed in ordinary times and they were afraid their family members would know their identity after turning into monsters and regaining their memories. At the same time, they needed to beware of the seemingly ordinary targets. If the target was a light demon, biting them could take their own life.
They lived in terror and loneliness in Never Town with human food that knew nothing.
Strange deaths frequently occured in the town.
Like the plot of other horror comics, the police in the town didn’t care.
Like the plot of other horror comics, nobody chose to relocate to save their lives despite their fear.
If the comic was just this, it would probably be a normal curious comic that focused on visual spectacles and incorporated vampire elements.
Fortunately, there was Nan Zhou.
Nan Zhou was the only character in the comic who realized he was a comic character.
Lin Zhisong remembered this section very well.
When Nan Zhou was young, he thought he belonged to the world.
The first time he found out he was different was when his mother took him to get an injection.
He was clearly very good and didn’t cry.
He held his mother’s arm and was afraid his mother would be sad, so he hid in his mother’s arms and repeatedly said in a soft voice, “Mom, I love you, I love you.”
However, his mother turned a blind eye to his obedience and understanding.
She blamed him for being spoiled, like a robot following a set program.
She naturally thought that she was holding a normal, crying child unwilling to get an injection.
Nan Zhou was a very clever child.
At this time, he gradually realized that everything around him was wrong.
In the entire town, only he grew up.
His little sister was always an immature 5 year old.
His parents were always young.
The intelligence of his first grade friends stayed at the age of 8 forever.
The language, expression and body movements of the teachers who taught class 1 and class 2 were exactly the same.
Nan Zhou was a very lively child.
His reticence started when he found that his family could only respond to him using a specific program.
Slowly, he discovered the existence of the dangerous creatures called the light demons.
He was in a panic.
On the day when the light demons hunted, someone else’s day would skip two or three frames.
If they were killed then they would occupy a close up frame.
Meanwhile, Nan Zhou had to hide in the darkness. He gritted his teeth and shivered while surviving the difficult 24 hours.
Calling the police and persuading his parents to move away was useless. This made him ride a bike and take his younger sister all the way to the edge of Never Town, trying to escape from this place.
However, his bicycle hit the edge of the comic book.
The first comic ended here.
The young Nan Zhou stood in the field.
The wind lifted his mid-length hair, revealing his pale face.
He raised his hand and gently stroked the wall that didn’t exist in the air.
From a reader’s point of view, his beautiful face was directly facing the fourth wall. His fingers were placed in front of him and it looked like he was making an oath.
From Nan Zhou’s perspective, he wanted to protect himself and his family.
His family’s love for him might be a set-up and was false, but they were his unique family in this town.
***
After roughly speaking about the plot and background of the first volume of Eternal Day, Lin Zhisong finished drinking a cup of herbal tea.
The mobile phone he brought in had no signal and was like a waste product, but there were over two dozen cached comics and novels.
They were the original works selected for adaptation by Forces of Temptation.
For the Eternal Day comic, only the first volume was included in the original app.
Liang Shu saw the cold and delicate beautiful boy who looked like Nan Zhou and the loneliness and determination in his eyes and she couldn’t help her heart palpitating.
Did he really live alone in that world for 23 years?
The Bronze Brigade was silent for a moment.
He Yinchuan put down the mobile phone that Liang Shu had handed him. “What happened later?”
Lin Zhisong bit the straw and recalled it. “Then...”
“He recorded and observed all the abnormal human conditions in the town and started to practice self-defense.”
“He got close to the three most aggressive and dangerous light damages. During the time when they are normal people, he passed on misinformation to them and provoked infighting, letting them kill each other.”
“He pretended to be a light demon and killed other light demons.”
“He killed many light demons that coveted himself and his family on the night of the full moon when the light demons are the weakest.”
“Um, yes, he also studied art.”
“There is no university in the local area so he went to Xinhua Bookstore to study by himself.”
Lin Zhisong pointed to his head.
“He knew that he was a character in the book so he used the principle of osmotic pressure. As long as he sleeps with a book under his pillow, the text and images will flow from a place of high concentration to a place of low concentration, directly entering his mind.”
“He relied on this to finish reading all the books in the bookstore.”
At first, Lin Zhisong had been quite envious when reading this imaginative plot.
He Yinchuan bypassed all of that. “That... what was the end?”
“It is a tragedy story.” Lin Zhisong briefly summed it up. “He fought hard until he was 19 years old when he was bitten.”
He added, “His sister did it.”
The Bronze Brigade were dumbfounded.
Lin Zhisong scooped up the ice cube in the cup and broke it. “His sister has always been a light demon. She is the source of the town’s light bacteria. For example...”
He glanced at Lu Bifang. “She is the queen of the zergs.”
“She was too young to know she could transform.”
“Her nature never flared up because she had a lot of light demons as worker bees. They gave her nourishment and she wasn’t hungry.”
He Yinchuan continued for him. “Then her brother started hunting the light demons?”
“Yes.” Lin Zhisong nodded. “...She was hungry.”
In terms of appreciation, the scene in the comic where Nan Zhou showed an incredulous expression as his 5 year old sister bit him on the neck was beautiful.
A strain formed in his mind.
The shape of his strain resembled a white peacock made of light.
Once the strain finally blossomed in his mind, it was breathtakingly beautiful.
The day he transformed was the day of extreme sunlight.
On a day where the burning light almost melted people, Nan Zhou walked toward the edge of the small town step by step.
He came to the end of the small town that he had visited countless times but could never break through, and knelt down slowly.
At this point, his eternal day had come.
A word that symbolized hope had become his eternal curse.
He pointed a broken glass fragment at his neck.
No one knew if he cut himself or not.
The comic ended with this open ending.
Lu Bifang pursed his lips. “Then... he is really pitiful...”
Zhou Ao asked a rare long sentence. “What about the instance? Is it the same story?”
“His previous story was absolutely perfect and there was nothing more to tell.” Lin Zhisong explained, “In the setting of Forces of Temptation, it commemorated Nan Zhou’s 23rd birthday, four years after he completely transformed into a light demon.”
“Then what about the high mortality rate?”
At this point, Lin Zhisong completely frowned.
“Didn’t Forces of Temptation run smoothly for half a year after it opened? In those six months, strategy groups for various instances never stopped and a dedicated strategy forum was established.”
“For the Eternal Day instance, one player was the first to post a clearance strategy on the forum.”
“He said that the boss Nan Zhou is actually very easy to deceive.”
“Just get close to him and become friends with him. Then kill him when he was the weakest on the night of the full moon and help him gain ‘freedom’.”
“Later, in order to gain the full achievement of the instance, players followed this method to clear the level.”
“The result...”
As a result, it was far from the case.
Players followed the guide. After several successes, the death rate of Eternal Day rose without warning. It directly jumped to the instance with the highest death rate among all the instances since the server was opened.
It was said that Nan Zhou’s attack method was very fierce. He came up and twisted people’s necks directly.
Players couldn’t restore their health in time and were forcibly ejected from the instance. The capsule compartment they were in lit up with the red ‘death.’
According to one player who had his neck tragically twisted by Nan Zhou, this boss’ brain was actually good and the concentration of intelligence was too high.
Not only did he do sneak attacks and dig traps for them but he also made immediate responses based on their various words. This was different from other NPCs who only had repetitive conversations with them.
Some players found this interesting.
Some players felt that the official degree of restoration was high. After all, Nan Zhou was originally a smart character.
However, some players shuddered at this.
Some players were distressed because they couldn’t get the full achievement. They complained to the game officials that ‘Nan Zhou’ was too strong and asked him to be restricted to reduce the difficulty.
At this point, Lin Zhisong took a deep breath.
“I don’t know how he got out.”
“I do know that he is a person he doesn’t socialize well.”
“An NPC with the highest death rate record is running around outside. I am worried it will affect other players.”
Lu Bifang was still reluctant to fully believe in Lin Zhisong’s judgment. “This is too mysterious...”
Lin Zhisong asked, “Isn’t everything we see now mysterious?”
Lu Bifang glanced at the little hen NPC busy receiving guests and chose to remain silent.
Lin Zhisong continued, “I’m worried about one thing.”
He Yinchuan motioned for him to finish it.
Lin Zhisong told them, “You have all seen Nan Zhou’s intelligence. Combined with his strength and it isn’t surprising that his chances of winning this game are very high.”
Liang Shu understood his concern. “You are worried about...”
“Yes. It is his wish.”
“I don’t know what strange wish he will make. If he really wins the championship, what does he want to do? What will he do?”
“Does he hate the world outside the comics? Does he hate the players who tricked and killed him? Will he spread the light bacteria to the real world? All this is unknown. It is too uncontrollable.”
He Yinchuan stared into this person’s eyes. “So what is your plan?”
Lin Zhisong bluntly stated, “I want to use the world channel to warn everyone to be careful of Nan Zhou.”
“No.” For the first time, He Yinchuan used a tough tone and directly rejected Lin Zhisong’s suggestion.
“Have you ever considered the consequences? First of all, we aren’t completely sure that he is really that Nan Zhou. Now you want to tell everyone this inaccurate message that a highly dangerous NPC has escaped? You will just bring panic to everyone. In addition, what if he is wronged? He isn’t this comic book character at all or he doesn’t have such plans. How do you plan to end it?”
Lin Zhisong finally relaxed a bit.
“Then Captain, what do you think?”
He Yinchuan held his head slightly and sighed at the situation that was completely beyond his expectations. “Find a way to contact people in other groups first.”

Author’s note: the little yellow book placed under the pillow allowed Nan Zhou to gain strange new knowledge from the human world.