Vera was calculating in her mind as she walked.
Take the current environment for example. The Depp-Valtina Ice Lake is shrouded in cold storms all year round. Who would have thought that there would be such a quiet moment on its lake surface, with no wind at all, and the aurora lighting everything for them?
Thinking of the legends about this lake and the possible ice and snow kingdom in the center of the lake, Vera couldn't help but feel excited.
The opera says that after Depp entered the world in the center of the lake, he found the temple of the goddess of ice and snow there... Another version says that he found the ice kingdom built and guarded by ice giants.
Are these legends true? It's hard to believe that we are actually on the surface of this icy lake. Are we heading towards the truth of this legend?
For a young man who loves to dream and fantasize, there is no temptation greater than this. Grande next to him seemed even more excited than Vera, and took advantage of the fact that there was no wind or snow and kept talking all the way.
However, gradually, Grande shut up and stopped talking.
That's because they saw the ice sculptures.
The first is a human-shaped ice sculpture. It is worth mentioning that it is not a human, but a group of Arctic wolves huddled together, with their limbs twisted to form a human shape, which is then frozen by ice and snow and remains in this shape.
This scene... was a little weird. With the illumination of the aurora, they could vaguely see the snow foxes merging into the solid ice, and even some of their limbs had disappeared, replaced by solid ice and filled with ice blocks.
"Professor, what is this?" Vera couldn't help but ask Rob in front of him.
"A stupid beast that was infused with too much power by the lake light and couldn't control itself." Robo said without turning his head.
"'Lake light'?"
"It's the aurora reflected by the ice in the center of the lake."
The Aurora is reflected on the ice in the middle of the lake... Is this really possible?
The three looked at each other, skeptical of this statement.
But Robbo did not stop while answering. Now they had already distanced themselves from him, so they had to put aside their doubts and catch up quickly.
"Professor." Vera tried to continue asking questions, "So you have been to the center of the lake?"
How would you know such things if you haven't been there?
"Yes." Robo nodded. "Seven years ago, I came here to seek a way to save Esther. I spent everything I had to get here, and was extremely lucky to have touched upon an ancient myth buried under the ice."
"Ancient mythology?" Vera was stunned. What kind of discovery could be named like this by Robo?
And he said to rescue Esther... Why does Esther need rescue?
Is she ill?
"Do you know kaleidoscope?" Robo asked suddenly.
"Know……"
Of course, everyone knows this. A kaleidoscope is a small toy. It usually has a cylindrical shell made of wood or metal. You just need to rotate the cylinder to see colorful symmetrical patterns inside.
For a while, Candy Count used kaleidoscopes as a free toy for promotion. This toy was not expensive, it just used the principle of mirror reflection, and every child in Wayne Port had come into contact with it.
"Same principle." Robo looked at the aurora above his head.
"The icy lake has remained frozen for who knows how many years. Indeed, no one has been able to break it. But that doesn't mean that the secrets buried deep inside it can't have an impact."
"I guess it was the Aurora... It started with the Aurora in the sky, which sprinkled on the ice. And due to some extremely special coincidence, the snow accumulated on the surface of the lake was swept away by the wind, revealing not only the ice surface, but also the countless layers of solid ice beneath it."
"These ices are arranged according to some mysterious rules," he continued, "which makes them actually form a kaleidoscope, with the same structure as that one. So when any halo shines on the ice surface, the light passes through the ice layer and passes downward layer by layer. There is always a beam of light that can shine at the deepest part of the lake, and then reflect back with some kind of power."
"This kind of aurora that is reflected back and projected in the sky is called 'lake light'."
"..."
"..."
His words contained too much information, and the three teenagers were so shocked that they were speechless.
"So, Professor," Grande asked timidly, "what is that thing floating above our heads now..."
"Aurora." Rob confirmed, "But when these lights disappear and then reappear quickly, or when you feel that they exist for too long, they may no longer be auroras... I advise you not to stare at the sky all the time."
Grande was looking up at the sky the previous second, but when he heard this, he quickly lowered his head and sweat broke out on his back.
Oh my god... According to what he said, those foxes just now looked like that because they saw the lake light?
Is it so scary to look directly at the "lake light"?
Can it actually turn wild beasts into monsters?
“You must be wondering if you will be turned into a monster if you stare at the lake.”
Robbo walked in front with a big smile on his face.
Yes.
The three looked at his back.
Could it be?
"My answer is, it depends on luck."
what?
"'Lake light' is also a kaleidoscope. It carries some mysterious power." Robo narrowed his eyes. "Not just the Valtina Ice Lake, but the entire ice sheet. As long as you stand on it and dare to look directly at those 'ribbons', your sight will be instantly projected into the 'lake light', and then change its internal structure, reflecting another form in the 'halo'."
"This is the wonderful thing about 'lake light' - it passively accepts everything. No matter whether you are a human or a beast, as long as you stare at it, you can project onto it what you are thinking at the time, or even what you have buried in your heart."
“These things change it, so it’s always changing color, it’s like a kaleidoscope that takes the gaze and transforms it, and at the end of the day, it just randomly dumps something into you.”
Doesn’t this sound even scarier?
"Wh...what do you mean by 'infusion'?"
Nette asked in a trembling voice.
"It is to infuse part of the infinite halo into your brain." Robo looked back at her. "This process is completely random. You may be infused with the memory of a wolf, and then you will think that you should be a wolf; or you may be infused with the memory of a bear, and then you will unconsciously carry out the habits of a bear."
"This is not a confusion or overwriting of memory, but a deception of the genes in your body starting from memory. The accompanying mystery will prompt you to mutate, and you will gradually mutate into an appearance that matches your cognitive identity."
Those snow foxes before...
Vera's mouth twitched.
Those snow foxes, the reason they gathered together to form the outline of a human being, doesn't that mean that—
"...If you are lucky and get a random human memory, then you can still be human." Robo's words came quietly.
"If you don't mind becoming a different person from now on and playing him wholeheartedly, this ending isn't too bad."
"Clap!"
Vera and Grande continued walking reflexively, but Nette had already stopped.
Her face was filled with fear, her whole body was trembling, and she stared at the figure in front of her with wide eyes. Her lips kept moving, but she didn't have the courage to ask questions.
"Watson? Nette?"
Grand was the first to notice that she had fallen behind. He looked back at Nette and then at Robb, and shouted, "Professor! Something might be wrong with Watson!"
Then he ignored Robbo, trotted back, looked down at Nette, and asked her quietly: "What's wrong with you? Are you feeling unwell?"
"Walk……"
The girl uttered a word with suppressed fear.
"What did you say?"
"Hold Vera, let's go!"
The volume of the whisper increased, and Nette lost her strength after she finished speaking. She fell limply on Grande, struggling to use her last bit of strength to remind him: "Robo has a problem... Following him is the most dangerous!!!"
what did she say?
Vera, who followed behind, also heard these words. They were stunned for a moment and suddenly understood some things.
Yes, Rob...how could he know so much about the Cursed Ice Lake and know more than the local people of the Ice Lake?
He said he had been here before, but he had never heard of anyone who could go deep into the icy lake and return safely. Did Rob pay some price to do this?
Is he Robo... or is he something else that took on Robo's memories and became Robo!?
After realizing this, the two boys began to tremble.
They didn't even dare to look back at Robo, even though they all knew that they should first confirm Robo's condition, cover up and comfort him, and eliminate his vigilance, but they were really afraid that Robo would turn into some kind of monster if they looked back.
"Don't worry...I'm always Robbo."
There was the sound of creaking footsteps behind me, along with the professor's sigh.
"Even though I was entrusted by someone..."
"Strictly speaking, I was deceived by someone I trusted the most."
"She lied to me and said that doing this would save Esther. I believed her, but I didn't expect that her real purpose was to revive him. She wanted me to take his relics there and trigger his memories and consciousness left there, so that I could become his new carrier. From then on, I would become him... She would find her beloved again..."
When saying this, Robbo's tone was extremely calm.
Too quiet.
Combined with the current environment, the silent surface of the ice lake, without a trace of wind, quiet and peaceful... The three of them only felt that there was something suppressed and brewing under this calmness, and they didn't know when it would burst out.
"certainly……"
Finally, Robbo's voice began to tremble.
He continued with this trembling voice: "I love her too...so I understand, I comprehend...I am even willing to pretend that I didn't see it..."
"But the only thing I can't stand is...she only thought about him from beginning to end...even saving Esther was a lie..."
"I'm also thankful that when I accepted his memory, he could relate to the anger."
Mustering up her courage, Vera turned around and looked back.
But the scene he saw made him step back in horror with his eyes wide open - at this moment, Robo was standing less than three meters away from them, and his face...his face was split in two, the right side belonged to Robo himself, and the left side belonged to another person, a stranger's face!!
What on earth is this——
Before the fear could overwhelm him, the face continued to change strangely.
It really was like a kaleidoscope... Starting from the tip of his nose, all the flesh and blood were curling outwards, and the two faces that appeared were similar to the previous ones, but the biggest difference was that there was something much more in the middle of his nose bridge.
The rolling continues.
The bloody kaleidoscope rolled over a dozen times in just a few seconds, and each time it rolled, the content on the bridge of the nose became more prominent. Vera finally understood that it was a female face full of pain. She was not qualified to share the area of her face like the two faces on the left and right. She could only be sandwiched in the middle, with her distorted facial features squeezed and shrunk on the bridge of her nose, and she was wailing in pain!
Goddess is above!!!
Vera was almost frightened to death.
This is simply the most profound and immersive nightmare!
Am I having a nightmare?
Then why don't you wake up?
I don’t want to experience such a dream for even a moment... wake up... I want to wake up!
"Solo and I both believe she has committed a serious crime."
Robb spoke again with such a scary look on his face.
This time, the sound he made was no longer just his own. It was obviously mixed with the voice of another person, who was speaking along with him.
"We are glad that we can reach a consensus on many things, such as punishing her in our own way, hiding quietly, waiting for the opportunity, all for the purpose of freeing Esther from this pain."
"We were all very nervous when we met Earl Xiyang. We didn't dare to do anything... Fortunately, the beast was afraid of her and chose to go to the front carriage..."
Nette and Grande turned around as he made the strange sound. Grande fell to the ground in fear, while Nette suppressed her fear and asked him, "Then... Professor, can we still call you that?"
"of course can."
"You said before that you would give us a chance to choose... Can we choose again now?"
"Robo hopes that you can leave me." The man opposite said, "I think he still has some concerns...well, the friendship between teacher and student. He can't bear to see what is going to happen to you next, but it's different for me. We don't know each other."
"Let me introduce myself." He raised his chin. "I'm Solo Lawrence, Esther's biological father. Esther's strange fear of heat is inherited from me. It's not a disease, but a mysterious curse passed down from the ice field."
Perhaps fearing that his previous appearance would scare the three people, his face once again changed in a kaleidoscope manner, completely covering the face that belonged only to Solo.
He was a very handsome young man with a high nose bridge, deep eye sockets, and lips that were habitually pursed into a straight line, making him look too cold and mean, but his eyes were full of passion, and his long eyelashes were enough to capture the hearts of countless girls.
"If Aisuen Hitzfeld were here, she would definitely think that I was the one who first triggered the Ice Lake Curse."
he smiled.
“But that’s not the case.”
