The speed difference between the two sides was too great, and she was surrounded in the blink of an eye.
The left eye is a little swollen and accompanied by slight stinging pain.
Looking at these "Aurora fragments" cautiously, Hitzfeld's eyelids twitched.
If she got closer, she could see them clearly.
Judging from their appearance alone, they are not monsters, but each of them maintains a human form.
But this humanoid figure does not mean that they are human.
They only have the outline of a human being, and their entire bodies have a texture similar to that of plasticine. There are no organs on their bald heads, just like a group of aurora ghosts.
Chapter 37: The Beginning of Everything
Looking at these things silently, Hitzfeld was trying to wake up.
She didn't intend to gamble that these things were well-intentioned towards her. Instead of taking a huge risk to contact them, it would be better to escape from the dream world first and then find a solution after returning to reality.
She really thought so.
But just before she was about to force herself to wake up, she saw one of the Aurora Ghosts reaching out to her, and a woman's face suddenly appeared on the front of its originally bald head.
This is just a trigger.
Looking around, all the aurora ghosts surrounding her were changing... They used their bodies made of light + mud to form arms and fingers, stretched forward, posing as if they wanted to keep her, and then distorted human faces appeared on their faces one by one.
These human faces did not exist forever after they appeared. Rather, it was as if their outer contours were just a piece of skin, and there was another space inside, with people inside, and this person was constantly colliding with this skin. Those contours, including the contours of the face, were the traces left by them stretching this skin.
It was intermittent.
Each face can only exist for a moment. The next moment, the outline is restored. The whole face becomes like an egg and a pebble again, without any organs.
This scene was not only a little scary, but even horrifying. Hitzfeld also used great courage to restrain himself, and based on this feedback, he stopped thinking about waking up.
Of course, it was mainly the pain in her left eye that reminded her.
As her desire to wake up intensified, so did the pain.
It was as if this eye was longing for something, expecting something, and she finally chose to believe it once.
After all, this thing is, after all, an organ that has been "contaminated" by the Sun King...right?
According to the description in the back of the Book of Howling, this Sun Goddess is extremely powerful. The evil god that is an unsolvable problem for mortals is just some kind of experimental subject No. N to her... She can even easily seal the existence that created the evil god.
Judging from the limited space, she felt that this eye would not betray her.
She chose to stay and wait for things to develop further.
The cold feeling was like a thorn in the bone. Just as she made up her mind, the aurora dragon in the distance instantly disintegrated and separated into more ghosts - hundreds and thousands of times more than before, rushing towards her!
This is--
All this happened in silence, and all the images were presented without any movement.
Hitzfeld's hair stood on end. Her senses were particularly sharp in the dream world. She didn't need the stinging pain in her left eye to remind her that these later ghosts had a completely different attitude from the previous ghosts!
If the ghosts in front wanted to contact her and communicate with her, then these behind... wanted to kill her and tear her into pieces!
I don't believe you at all - what are you waiting for if you don't run away?
Not intending to "listen" to the left eye's hint anymore, Hitzfeld was about to run away.
But...something unexpected happened and stopped her.
The ghosts that had surrounded her earlier but had not caused any harm to her, all made a unified move at this moment.
They all turned around in unison, from facing Hitzfeld to facing their companions, and then further tightened their encirclement around her, holding hands with each other, and even twisting and entwining their bodies together, forming a spherical barrier that enveloped her.
They are in——
Hitzfeld opened his mouth slightly.
Whether it was her own experiences, the notes left by her wife, or the special cases that Xia Yibing and Ethan occasionally mentioned to her.
There has never been any example, never seen such a phenomenon: evil spirits actually protecting humans!
This shock was so great, and its significance was so profound that she saw the ugliness and deformity of these things in their entirety—the hands, feet, and bodies twisted together like a pretzel, which normally would only make her feel horrible and disgusting—but now she felt nothing, and instead had a weird thought in her mind: Could they still retain their human consciousness?
There is no doubt that these things are no longer human.
But does this humanoid silhouette, and the attempt to communicate with her and protect her, mean... that they are all people who once died in Worm Village, on Brays Island, and in the depths of the Crystal Sea?
The Aurora Belt is a monster made up of these vengeful spirits... Most of them have had their minds wiped out and turned into pure evil creatures, but there are still some... like them, who have retained consciousness?
So why did they keep me?
Floating in the center of the spherical fortress, Hitzfeld looked around and saw that the walls made of ghosts were constantly bearing severe impacts.
What do you want to tell me?
Or--
Stab it!
A hole was suddenly torn in the spherical fortress.
Hitzfeld looked up and saw that in the gap above him, against the background of endless darkness and rolling gray fog, there was a group of... It was impossible to tell what it was, and its color was constantly changing and wriggling like the colorful aurora. It was an indescribable strange creature standing there.
Just seeing this thing made her eyes go dark.
Her thoughts were in chaos and her logical thinking was cut off by the mysterious existence, just like the DNA chromosomes breaking apart one by one, making her completely forget what she should and could do at this moment.
If there was someone else in this space, from that person's perspective, Hitzfeld was floating there motionless as if stunned, with confusion on her face, allowing that strange existence to get closer and closer to her.
My consciousness is sinking again...
Hitzfeld floated quietly in the air, maintaining only the most basic consciousness, watching the strange thing swimming around him.
It wanted to eat the girl.
But every time it came close, Hitzfeld would unconsciously turn around and stare at it with his golden left eye.
The look seemed to have real magic.
Whenever it was locked in this eye, it would immediately retreat, twitching and trembling, and then continue to swim around unwillingly, trying to find a way to break through.
During this process, the colorful, constantly changing and distorted lights were also constantly absorbing the first batch of ghosts.
Their bodies softened little by little, turning into the purest light and being integrated into this thing.
The entire army is about to be wiped out, and Hitzfeld is about to lose all his barriers.
At this moment, a ghost suddenly approached Hitzfeld and its body squirmed and turned into a woman.
She grabbed Hitzfeld.
In front of the unknown monster, he pulled her... into his body.
……
Startled, Hitzfeld looked up.
The surrounding environment has completely changed.
There was no more darkness and gray fog, but a clear sky.
This is at sea.
On a ship.
"Bonnie, have we reached the Crystal Sea yet?"
Following this lively laugh, a tall and handsome man skipped out of the cabin and hugged the black-haired woman standing in front of the railing.
"Just a little longer..."
The woman was a little shy and obviously resistant to close contact.
"Linde... they're still watching, can you please stop doing this?"
"Oh, that's what I was saying, don't do this to me."
The handsome man looked down at her.
"I am willing to give you everything I have..."
"Whether it's my life or my faith..."
Chapter 38: The Refugees
As a noble lady, Britney Skye is far from being cut off from the lower classes.
She provided relief to the poor and even stood by the boiler to feed porridge to the refugees.
She also tried to enter the factory for inspection, but the terrifying scene, like a steel forest, shocked her greatly.
But all this could not stop her yearning for fantasy and romance. She felt that she still preferred to be an explorer, just like the protagonists in knight novels, who harvested love in the process of constant adventure and exploration.
Baron Skye failed to notice her mentality in time. When he realized something was wrong, Britney had already entered the Northern Parish with the companions she had met over the years, where they organized another expedition team to move towards the Crystal Sea.
At first glance, it might not seem like a wise choice to choose the Crystal Sea as a target, as too many people have gone missing there, including some well-known explorers or bounty hunters.
But they decide to do it anyway because they have Lind, a mysterious ranger who claims to know something about the mysteries of the Crystal Sea.
Linde is indeed very mysterious. This expedition team has been formed for two years, but no one else can find out his background. But he is indeed experienced and knowledgeable, and with good skills, the team quickly accepted him at the beginning.
Britney and Lind did not fall in love at first sight, but they developed feelings for each other as they got along. Compared to Britney's reserved attitude as a lady, Lind was much more open from the beginning. He spent nearly a year in the past two years tirelessly pursuing her.
When they actually went out to sea, which symbolized that Britney had finally completely abandoned the burden of her past, he thought that this journey of pursuit should come to an end, so he captured her with a kiss in front of everyone.
After sailing on the sea for some time, the expedition team called a meeting.
They are:
Ranger Lind.
Musketeer Britney.
Bounty Hunter Mogali.
Felix the knight-errant and poet.
Sailor Blue and Carl.
Six people in total.
"We have all held a private meeting, Lind. We all agree that you can't go on like this. This kind of life is even more difficult than my previous prison life!"
The oldest Blue protested as soon as they met - against the obscene music that had been coming from a room for a while.
"Shut up, Blue!" Britney had just taken off the rapier from her waist, and immediately slammed the table with the scabbard in hand. "If you say that again... I'll sew your mouth shut with a fish bone!"
The atmosphere in the cabin was quiet for a moment, but it didn't last long as a burst of laughter broke out immediately.
"What's wrong... Well!" Britney finally couldn't stand it anymore, and stomped hard on the deck with a red face, "You bad guys... I'm going to throw you all to feed the fish!!!"
"Okay Bonnie." At this time, the team's backbone and captain Linde also walked in. Seeing this scene, he curled his lips and roughly guessed what had happened.
There was no way, he and Britney were in the period of passionate love. Physical impulses and needs were unavoidable. It was inevitable that he would be teased.
He held the little woman he had just captured in his arms to comfort her, then sat down in the main seat.
"Everyone." He took a deep breath, allowing everyone to see his seriousness and determination. "It was my idea to have this discussion today, because I plan to announce the secret information I currently have: why the Crystal Sea has become a dangerous place."
The others suddenly fell silent - this was indeed the secret they cared about most, no doubt about it.
For most people, exploring a dangerous place is a life-threatening experience. No one wants to leave their bodies behind in a foreign land, and the more information they know, the more likely they are to return with a full load.
Britney also looked at her lover, but unlike the curiosity and thirst for knowledge in the eyes of the others, there was only deep worry on her face.
But now everyone was staring at Lind and failed to notice anything unusual about her.
"First point." Linde pointed out a finger, "There will be abnormal hurricanes on the outskirts of the Crystal Sea and at the borders with other seas."
"Don't take it lightly. I swear it's definitely not an ordinary hurricane. When it sweeps over, you might even think it's the end of the world. It connects the trench and the sky, almost like the power of God."
"Linde." The slender girl Mogali raised her feather hat. When she twisted her body, the barrel of the musket hanging on her side hit the stool and made a crisp sound. "You mean, all the people who disappeared in the Crystal Sea encountered this kind of storm?"
"Yes."
"Then why are we going to the Crystal Sea? Are we looking for death?"
Natural disasters are definitely not among the difficulties that explorers can solve. Many people nodded, and they were already a little hesitant.
