Chapter 144 Madman

372

After 1,000 heartbeats, Derrick waited for a while before he felt that he had entered the silent and peaceful temple.

As soon as he opened his eyes, one scene after another flashed through his mind, as if some external force had instantly refilled all the lost memories into his head.

Those scenes include: collapsed city walls; intertwined white and blue buildings; a temple of the "Fallen Creator" similar in style to Silver City; murals detailing the scene of doomsday and the "Fallen Creator" resisting the six evil gods and protecting the remaining humans; beautiful murals A dangerous "mushroom"; an unusually strange boy with blond hair named Jack who comes from nowhere.

This scene was repeated over and over again, five times, but each time there were some differences in details:

The first time, all the animal skin lanterns were extinguished outside the Temple of the Fallen Creator, almost causing a tragedy. The second time, someone couldn't control himself and almost swallowed the "mushroom". Fortunately, Chief Colin stopped it in time. Three times, the little boy Jack told a story, that is, he and his father were searching for the sanctuary of the Creator in the endless ocean, and encountered a huge storm. The fourth time, Joshua was nowhere to be found. The little boy Jack, who had mutated without warning, was seriously injured. For the fifth time, the temple collapsed completely, blocking the exit to the underground area.

And every time, it ends with the "demon hunter" Colin killing the little boy Jack, and starts with resting in the camp and preparing to enter the ruined city, starting from end to end, and repeating the cycle.

We have explored the temple five times...we are living this experience with no real way to end it! The more Derrick understood his sudden extra memories, the more frightened and creepy he felt.

"Justice" Audrey, who was sitting on the other side of the long bronze table, originally wanted to say hello to Mr. Fool and everyone as happily and briskly as usual, but when she glanced around, she immediately realized that the mood of the little "Sun" was not right, and immediately He opened his mouth and asked:

"Mr. Sun, what happened? The operation to explore the real, uh, Temple of the Fallen Creator did not go well?"

Derrick "The Sun" seemed to have grasped hope, and quickly described what happened in general, and finally said:

"After the little boy was eliminated by His Excellency the 'Chief', we all closed our eyes and then woke up in the camp outside the city, ready to start a new exploration without any memory of the previous one."

"This process was repeated five times, with only slight differences in details."

"If Mr. Fool hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't have even known that I had been living a repetitive life during this period."

He took it for granted that the extra memories he had after coming above the gray fog were due to Mr. Fool's reminder, so he stood up and solemnly saluted the vague figure sitting at the top of the long bronze table.

It was only after I listened to your description that I understood what happened... "The Fool" Klein has been a little confused from just now to now.

He maintained his original posture and nodded slightly in response.

Without understanding the cause of the problem, the superior cannot easily express his position or speak rashly... Klein secretly reviewed the knowledge he came into contact with when he was a keyboard expert in his previous life.

Seeing Mr. Fool's deep ancient well without waves, Derrick "The Sun" felt a lot more relieved, feeling that the matter could finally be solved.

He turned to look at "The Hanged Man", "The World", "Justice" and "The Magician", and asked sincerely:

"Everyone, do you know the source of the problem? How to solve it?"

After brainstorming, everyone immediately began to think in order to help "The Sun" get out of this cycle as soon as possible. "Justice" Audrey wanted to help, but she had never experienced such an extraordinary event and had no clue. The same was true for "Magician" Forsi.

Klein boldly made a few guesses based on the supernatural horror movies he had watched. He wanted to control the "world" and express his thoughts. However, no one around him spoke, so he remained low-key and motionless, waiting. Others speak first.

Finally, the experienced "Hanged Man" Alger took the initiative to speak. He combined the actual situation encountered by Derrick and inferred based on his own experience to give two tentative guesses:

"I can only think of two possibilities. One is that you have encountered nightmare or hallucination abilities that exceed the demigod level. After you retrieve your memory with the help of Mr. Fool, you should be able to detect it as soon as you return to the real world. If something goes wrong, the problem will be easily solved.”

"The second is that you were forced or actively entered a strange space or state at a certain node, where time maintains a certain degree of flow, but is fixed within a certain range, repeating the cycle and continuing in balance. That is, relatively still.”

"In this case, there are not many ways to end the cycle. Either there is an external force that forcibly breaks the balance, or we find a key point that connects the time distortion."

When they heard the external force breaking, everyone couldn't help but think of Mr. Fool. But "Sun" Derrick didn't say anything. Telling him about the memory he had lost in five cycles was already a gift from the gods. Mr. Fool is undoubtedly a benevolent god, but he can no longer continue to pray for help without knowing what is wrong.

Derrick realized something, thought about it and said:

"Mr. 'The Hanged Man', let's assume it's the latter situation. What do you think is the key point connecting the time distortion before and after?"

Without waiting for "The Hanged Man" to reply, "Justice" Audrey guessed with interest: "That little boy Jack?

"When you face him, can't you kill him?"

"The Hanged Man" Alger nodded: "It's possible."

He thought about it and said hesitantly:

"The description of Jack and his father in 'The Sun' reminded me of something."

He turned to look at Miss Justice: "Did I mention that I once hunted down a 'listener' from the Aurora Society on the sea. His goal when he went to sea was to find the sanctuary of the 'True Creator'."

Audrey recalled carefully and said uncertainly: "It seems that there was such a thing."

"The Hanged Man" Alger immediately said in a deep voice:

"The 'listener' also brought his child, whose age is very close to the Jack described by 'The Sun'."

"You mean, that Jack came from your world to the area around Silver City?" Derrick "The Sun" asked in shock.

After a brief pause, he felt inexplicably happy.

Because this means that the area where Silver City is located has not been completely sealed off, and there is still a chance to connect with the normal world where "The Hanged Man" and "Justice" live!

"I can only say that it is possible." "The Hanged Man" could not give a definite answer.

He thought for a while and suggested:

"You can find an opportunity to mention Sunya Sea, the Kingdom of Loen and the port city in front of the little boy Jack. There may be different reactions. Of course, try to avoid the chief of your Silver City.

"Also, the key point does not necessarily lie in the little boy Jack. We should also consider other possibilities. If you tell us the specific situation, such as the details of the mural, maybe we can find something useful."

Having said this, Alger began to look forward to the information he could obtain.

373

Wen Xia walked on the streets of the town carrying a bucket. It was clearly afternoon, but every household in the town had their doors closed.

There were no children playing on the road, and the shops on the street were not open. Occasionally there were one or two passers-by in a hurry. The old man sat by the door and squinted his cloudy eyes to rest. The young and middle-aged people were missing. The whole town was lifeless.

After walking on the road for a while, Wen Xia pulled up her veil and hurried towards the path leading directly to her house. Because soldiers often ride by on the road, if you bump into them or are noticed, your life may be in danger.

There was no one along the way, and Wen Xia breathed a sigh of relief.

She pushed open the creaking wooden door and opened the closed window, letting the sunlight shine in from outside, adding a little light to the dark interior.

There is a sketch of a family member placed on an old cabinet. It is not framed, and the sketch paper is yellow and brittle.

The Bailang people would retrieve the bones of their deceased elders, pick out the most meaningful pieces as a souvenir, and make utensils to place in the most eye-catching places in their homes. However, Wenxia's home was empty.

Her father went to a distant place to dig gold mines for foreign businessmen, which was a relatively lucrative job. However, after his father left for several years, he no longer had any money to send.

When his father was still alive, Wen Xia could still go to the city to learn reading, writing and painting, and he and his younger brother worked part-time jobs to make money after school. Her mother's eyesight was still good and she was able to work as a tailor to supplement the family income. That was the best thing in Wen Xia's memory. What a wonderful time.

Later, I don’t know when, the family became more and more constrained and could no longer expect the living expenses from my father. My mother became increasingly silent. Finally, she was kidnapped by a slave trader when she went out to buy food, and she and her father disappeared together. In Wen Xia's life.

The disappearance of his younger brother became the last straw for Wen Xia. The activities of slave traders became more and more rampant, and young men continued to disappear in the town. The police station didn't accept it at all, and some people even swore that they saw them trading people with Loen's soldiers.

She had obviously told her brother not to go out, and she had tried her best to keep him with her, but after only two hours of separation, her lively, well-behaved, and lovely brother disappeared.

In just 6 years, his family fell apart.

Wen Xia went around the town like crazy, asking from door to door, but when she knocked on the door, all she saw were faces with similar sad faces to hers.

Finally, she finally got the news from her friends: her brother was last seen in the small post office in the town with two other children in the town, saying that he was working in a company in the town. people to introduce them to jobs.

Later, people in the town found out that that person was a member of the trafficking team. Not only was Wen Xia's brother, but more than ten people in the town had left with them before disappearing.

In the folklore of Bailang, the boundary between the living and the dead is not clear, and dead relatives will come back and live with the living. But if the bones of a loved one cannot be enshrined at home after death, then the soul of the loved one will not find its own home.

There is not a single bone in Wen Xia's family. Even after she dies, she will not be able to reunite with her family.

This was a huge blow to her. She was confused for a long time and almost went crazy. Finally, her playmates who grew up together couldn't bear to watch anymore and pulled her to join a prayer meeting of a group of desperate young people.

She also prayed without hope for a few days. She thought it was just nonsense, but she didn't expect that she actually got a response.

She sat down on a single chair, held a piece of red candle in her arms, and stared at it dreamily.

At this moment, someone suddenly knocked on the door. The visitor shook the dilapidated wooden door, causing dust to fall from the door.

Wen Xia shuddered, friends would not knock on the door so rudely! She quickly picked up the hatchet leaning against the door, stood by the window, and shouted in the direction of the door: "Who is it?"

Someone whispered something outside the door, but it wasn't Du Tanyu, so she couldn't understand it.

The knocking on the door sounded more violently, as if the door was being kicked down, and the wooden board seemed to be kicked down in the next second.

Wen Xia was so frightened that she wanted to scream. She tightened her grip on the hatchet, the only thing that made her feel safe.

Suddenly, the kicking on the door stopped, and there was no sound outside the door. Wen Xia was nervous and didn't know what to do.

After more than ten seconds, she mustered up the courage to take half a step forward and stretched her head to see what was going on at the door.

At this moment, a pair of strong arms suddenly stretched out from the window behind her. One hand covered her mouth, and the other hand grabbed her arm and pulled her upper body out of the window. !

Wen Xia struggled in fear and saw a pair of cold and impatient eyes in the violently shaking sky. She suddenly didn't know where the strength came from, and stabbed the eyes in the direction of the eyes with the hatchet in her hand!

Resistance came from the tip of the knife, as if it had indeed hit something. The hand holding him suddenly let go, and Wen Xia fell heavily from the window. Fortunately, the window was not high and the ground was soft soil. The situation was now dangerous, and Wen Xia immediately rolled over to prevent himself from falling to the ground on his back. A foot wearing leather shoes suddenly appeared in her field of vision. Before she could stand up, she was kicked two or three meters away. The smell of blood filled her nose and mouth.

The fierce man had a small hole in his chest, and blood was pouring out. He kicked her hard while cursing and saying something. Wen Xia couldn't understand a word, but he knew that they must be insulting words. After more than ten kicks, one of Wen Xia's eyes could no longer be seen. The man finally let out enough anger, poked her face in, cursed something, and wiped himself off her body in disgust. Mud and blood stains on leather shoes.

When her consciousness was blurred, Wen Xia suddenly understood what the man said:

"Damn it, wasted effort."

"In total, this face is still worth a few dollars, and it's still rotten now."

She heard the sound of a hatchet being picked up.

Huge fear and despair devoured her soul in an instant. She could no longer hear the sound. All she could see was the man's mouth opening and closing. The hatchet was raised, and the reflection was as bright as the sun. She wanted to run away, but the flames of pain and hatred were growing wildly in her heart.

When the man squatted down and pointed the hatchet at the girl's neck, eager to see if he could cut off her neck with one blow, the corpse-like piece of flesh suddenly moved, and she sat up suddenly, her flesh and blood blurred. The humanoid face made the man instantly break into a cold sweat. Just as he was dazed for a moment, the hatchet was released, and the body fell on him, throwing him to the ground.

Wen Xia bit the man's throat.

Severe pain came, and the man beat her back crazily, tearing her hair desperately, and bloodyly tore off a lot of black hair along with her scalp, but Wen Xia had almost lost all consciousness and could only bite her tightly. throat, closing his mouth little by little.

clatter.

The teeth click together lightly.

The smell of blood surged up, and the man opened his mouth in vain. Finally, he kicked his legs a few times and died with his eyes wide open in disbelief.

The piece of meat slipped from his mouth. Wen Xia used her last strength to turn sideways, fell on the warm soil, and slowly closed her eyes.

It was so quiet before death, even the sound of the wind stopped.

She thought she would be like the old man in the town said, seeing pictures of her whole life flashing before her eyes, but her eyes were filled with darkness. It turned out that her life was so short that there was not even a single picture of her life. She also thought of the mythical stories her parents had told her. More than a hundred years ago, this land was favored by the God of Death. The dead would go to the river where the God of Death slept, and gain eternal peace with the God of Death.

But when the gods of the Northern Continent captured this place, the favor of the God of Death disappeared. When I was very young, I once watched soldiers execute cultists collectively. The people who believed in the God of Death were so quiet that the soldiers were afraid, and they remained calm in the face of guns and cannons. They should. Everyone has gained some peace.

Her consciousness was hazy, rising and falling, and then she saw a red candle.

Are you going to light it? Someone seemed to be talking behind her.

Light it up and you will gain power. From now on, you will live by hurting others.

She was silent, confused, and didn't speak. She suddenly saw something next to her feet, a corpse. The left eye of this corpse exploded and deflated into the eye socket. The teeth were broken, the mouth was full of blood, and the nose was crooked to one side. Almost all the hair disappeared, and the entire scalp was bloody. who is this? She suddenly realized, this is Wen Xia, this is me.

I died because I had no power. I want power, I want to kill those who hurt me.

She stretched out her hand towards the red candle, and the moment she touched the candle between her fingers, the wick lit up with a blue flame.

Someone suddenly pushed her from behind and she fell. In a flash, Wen Xia sat up, and what came into view was the hideous death of the slave trader who came to capture her.

She reached out and touched her cheek in disbelief, her face which was intact but covered in blood, her tattered and dirty clothes, her teeth and her black hair, which were torn apart. The headband was at her feet.

At the same time, Wen Xia felt that a lot of knowledge appeared in her mind. Following her instinct, she reached out and grabbed the man's spirit body from his head.

Wen Xia didn't feel much panic. She felt like she could do a lot of things now. She ate the man's soul and understood the cause and effect of the matter. She stood up unsteadily, jumped upward, and actually floated up like a weightless cloud.

Wen Xia turned into a translucent ghost. She followed the route in the man's memory and drifted to the outskirts of the city, arriving at a remote warehouse.

There were several men with guns standing outside the warehouse. Wen Xia floated down and merged into the body of one of them. The man immediately turned around and shot his accomplice standing next to him.

Immediately afterwards, the accomplice whose head was blown slowly stood up again, raised his gun, and aimed unskillfully at the other accomplices who were already scared to death.

After several gunshots, only living corpses were left here.

The living corpses touched their waists and took out the key to the warehouse. Opening the door of the warehouse, Wen Xia saw that the small warehouse was packed with people, the smell was overwhelming, and there were dead bodies in the corners.

Facing the kidnapped people who looked at them in horror, the living corpses smiled stiffly, walked away step by step, and lined up to walk into the river. After a long time, people poured out of the warehouse and fled in all directions.

Wen Xia came back from her trance. Her body fell uncontrollably and turned into an entity and landed on the ground.

She felt that the gift of the gods was about to disappear from her body, and in the last few minutes, she took the red braided rope from her wrist - the red handrope had her brother's hair woven into it.

She closed her eyes, prayed for the attention of the great being, and slowly spoke the words of divination:

"Where my brother Shai is now."

She lowered her head and fell into sleep. Wen Xia saw the blue sea and a cargo ship.

While the freighter is moving, occasionally crew members will open the secret door on the deck and throw some food inside.

The dark, hot, closed, and dirty environment, coupled with severe hunger and acclimatization, caused several cargoes to become ill. To prevent them from infecting more cargo, they were disposed of.

Wen Xia saw her brother who had been missing for two months. Her cute and well-behaved brother was so thin that he was almost out of shape. He was dragged out of the dirty and hot cabin by the crew. The crew ignored his cries and pleas, tied him with several other patients, and threw him into the sea.

Her Shai died on the third day after his disappearance.

Buried in the sea, no bones found, no way to return home.

Wen Xia opened her eyes and fell to the ground in tattered bloody clothes. A strange smile gradually appeared on her face.

She laughed, first in a low voice, and then suddenly burst out laughing so hard that her shoulders shook and her whole body twitched, as if she was going to tear her vocal cords apart. The creepy laughter echoed in the remote wilderness.

Laughing, laughing, Wen Xia's voice gradually weakened, lowered, and turned into a sad cry.

She leaned back, fell to the ground, and pulled at her hair, becoming a madman.

TBC

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The heavy smog is right in front of us... I'm so stuck...!