Returning from the abyss

Chapter 277 Asymmetric Time

The woman raised her normal hand and took off the silver mask on her face. That face belonged to Sera, and Lu Ning saw a third expression on her face—an empty but clear smile.

"Long time no see, Lu Ning."

"It shouldn't have been a long time." Lu Ning looked at her and realized a fact, "Have you become a devil?"

"Yes, but it doesn't matter to us, does it? Let's go back to town and talk slowly."

Sera let some crows fly to Lu Ning. These crows were so powerful that only a dozen or so crows lifted Lu Ning into the air. The two sat on the flock of birds and flew to Baihu Town, looking down from the sky , except that the vegetation was all withered, the rest remained unchanged.

It took only ten minutes for the two of them to land at the gate of the town. The old buildings had already become more dilapidated, but before Lu Ning took a closer look, a scene that surprised her also appeared.

A piece of wall skin suddenly fell off from a house not far to the left, but this is not accurate, because what Lu Ning saw was that a piece of wall skin suddenly disappeared, and a pile of black dirty pieces appeared on the ground, which is strange What's more, she completed the whole process of the peeling off of the wall in her mind.

"Don't look at that thing for too long, or you will have doubts about the authenticity of this world." Sierra pulled Lu Ning and walked forward quickly.

No one can be seen on the street, and the houses are all abandoned and ashes. It was not until Lu Ning returned to the tinned flagon that Lu Ning felt that the place hadn't changed much. This is one of the few buildings in the town that has not been abandoned.

"Everyone doesn't come out very much, but they still keep some old things... I remember you seem to like drinking mead?"

It feels weird.Lu Ning looked at Sera, and the other party's tone seemed to be greeting an old friend whom she hadn't seen for many years. Although it was true from the time point of view, didn't she also attack her in the forest not long ago?

Lu Ning asked this question.

"that is you?"

Selah's answer made her startled, and then she remembered that she had been sitting in the driver's seat, and Selah appeared from behind the car, of course she didn't see who was driving.And the caravan was probably already blurred in her memory.

"Yes."

"I just got the call for the coordinates by accident, and then I went over to take a look and chased it a little." Sera took out the well-maintained bartending tools from behind the bar, "If I knew it was you, I probably wouldn't have chased it."

She didn't start to mix the wine, but poured out a glass of mead from another barrel. After years of polishing, the wine became more mellow and thicker, but Lu Ning didn't intend to taste it, and just frowned.

"What's going on here? The house just now..."

"Before that, why don't you tell me what you know? I'm curious what you knew at that time... We are all demons, and we don't need to hide any secrets." Sera began to mix drinks, and This time the process was more complicated than anything Lu Ning had seen before.

Lu Ning took a deep breath, the sweet scent calmed her mind down a bit, she eliminated the previous abnormality from her mind, and expressed her guess, of course, keeping the part about the identity of the distribution center.

After she discovered the lakeside hut and learned some information about the witch from Lima, she had a conjecture, which seems to have been basically confirmed now.

First of all, the biggest information trap set by the distribution center for tourists is the witch and the devil.

There is not a word in the information content of the human side that is related to the witch. Except for the title of the scene where the witch returns, all the clues pointing to the mission are demons.And the problem of solving the root cause in the optional task is naturally and logically attributed to "solving the witch". It is not uncommon for this kind of distribution center to give some prophetic information in the scene.

This is wrong. The first mistake was pointed out by Inawara Ayano before. The root cause of the human solution is not to solve the witch, but to eradicate the town where the witch has been entangled for a long time, but she did not realize that the second problem, which is the source of the first error.

The "witches" that tourists perceive are all demons.

With the help of the metaphorical information from the distribution center, the human side had the most serious cognitive split with the townspeople, that is, they treated the witches in the townspeople's legends as the so-called returning witches in the mission.However, what the distribution center thinks of the witch and the townspeople don't think of the same thing at all. Those who have mastered the power in the previous legends are all demons born under resonance. If any human tourist realizes this, then all previous related The witch's information would probably be immediately counted as information about the devil—but no one thought of this, and felt that it was normal for information to be hard to find.

Most of the above thoughts have been omitted, while Lu Ning and Sera are talking about the latter point.

If those are demons, where did the witch go?

"Yes, I didn't understand until today, but I didn't expect you to have thought of this at that time... Is it because of the devil?" Sera asked.

"No, because I have seen many crazy scenes and encountered time difficulties, so I have opened up my mind a little bit." Lu Ning picked up the wine glass and took a sip, moistening her throat.

"A witch is a phenomenon, not an individual."

She concluded first.

"Specifically speaking, it is a time phenomenon. Issues such as concurrent space and resonance are also by-products of the witch phenomenon. We may define it as a kind of life, but it is obviously not the same as the life in conventional cognition. .And from the point of view of the current White Lake Town, 'it' should exist on the entire timeline from the past to the future of White Lake Town, so it cannot leave, um...cannot leave in the way we know."

"continue."

"Because it coexists 'simultaneously' at all times, it can easily know the plight of all people, and it can easily pass on knowledge from the future to the past, or 'it' has a mind of its own, and is captured by this People hit or brushed by a thought will resonate. As for the barrier of space, it is meaningless at all, so I don’t know why the lakeside cottage and this mine exist. And the return ceremony..."

"That's not a return ceremony." Selah finally began to tell what she knew.

"Ok?"

"It's not accurate. In your words, for us, it's a return." Sera shook his head, "It's the material carrier that the witch has been looking for for herself in countless times, and it's what makes up a human being in her conception." Five elements, that is, shell, memory, heart, spirit, life and death. Plus a coordinate to determine its 'return' to the material world."

"What do those things represent?"

"The witch's clothes, a human shell." Sera said in a melodious tone, "The witch's oath represents memory; the witch's heart represents the preserved soul; the witch's pupils represent the window of a person's spirit; The skeleton, representing the reincarnation transformation between life and death; the last is the witch's key, a coordinate."

"The first five are easy for me to understand. What do the coordinates mean?"

Sierra laughed.

"This is the reality of this world that you don't know yet."

She raised the feathered hand that was free, and Lu Ning noticed that the feathers on her hand had fallen off a lot, revealing the fair skin inside again, but it was too pale, and even the blood vessels inside could be seen clearly.

"Most of your guesses are correct. The only problem is that the witch does not exist in the timeline of White Lake Town."

"Oh?"

Sera took a bamboo wire brush from the corner and put it in front of Lu Ning.The toughness of the brush is very good, but after so long, except for the end tightly bound by a circle of iron hoops, the other parts are radially warped, and it looks like a badminton.

Lu Ning was stunned for a few seconds, then realized what Sera meant, and her eyes suddenly widened.

"It exists in the countless 'pasts' associated with this present, and those pasts can never reach the present you see in front of your eyes, but they can rely on accumulation to form an impact on the present. Do you understand?"

It took a while for Lu Ning to understand the meaning of this sentence.

"You mean, that house is..."

"There is also my hand. It is estimated that in some past, my hand was cut off, so now, as a demon, I need to spend some extra energy to restore my limbs... This sudden change caused the situation just now."

With her words, the feathers have completely fallen off, and a brand new hand has been born.

"Because the number in the past is too large, even if the impact on the present is less than one-thousandth, it will always cause a certain amount of damage when superimposed to a certain extent. The house you saw probably encountered problems such as fire or explosion. "

"So nobody in town is because..."

"Because there are not many demons." Sera clenched his fists, "If it is an ordinary human being who suddenly loses a certain part, he will die soon. We don't even need to dig a grave for him, because this person The moment of death will be corrected by time to the state of having been buried."

Feeling a little cold behind her back, Lu Ning picked up the wine glass and took a sip.

"With such a huge base, even if the witch wants to 'return' in the past, she must determine which past it is, right? Therefore, a coordinate is needed, which is what the word means."

"Wait, if I go back the same way..."

"If you don't have coordinates, you will be randomly sent to an unknown past, but I don't think you will make such a mistake?"

Lu Ning nodded.

"Okay, let's get down to business." Sera clapped her hands and let the wine on the side age slowly, "The witch stretches time, making the past and the present two parts that are close at hand but never reachable. Do you understand what that means?"

"That time will extend indefinitely, and what happened during that time will continue to happen and cycle indefinitely."

"That's right, no matter how hard the people in the town try, they will go to the Witch Trial for various strange reasons, kill a large number of suspicious people, wake up, try to bury the past, revitalize the town, and start the Witch Trial again like this a process."

"But people's hours are still normal."

"Yes, people's time is still flowing normally, they will never know the existence of this place. And everyone's position will not change, understand? The witch's cognition of human beings I said before is also applicable to the town. During the period of your existence, there must have been three sisters who opened a tavern, there must have been an innkeeper with his wife and children, there must have been two noble families in the town, and there must have been a large influx of tourists."

And it doesn't matter what these people are called or what they look like, as long as they have the five elements and roughly meet them.

The Sera in front of him may have had countless names.

"I hope this will not make you feel that I have become a stranger. The memory between you and me is still relatively fresh even among the many memories." The wine was finally prepared, and Sera poured a small amount into it. into a goblet and bottle the rest.

Lu Ning took the wine, but didn't smell anything, so she tried to taste it.

Indeed... tasteless.

She just felt that she saw countless times piled up in this White Lake Town, as if rushing from thousands of sources, converging in one place at a distant point, and crouching on this long river was a phantom , it lifts up a section of the river, and the light is naturally stretched and extended, but it will not break.

"how?"

Sera's words brought Lu Ning back to reality. She hadn't recovered from the unimaginable magnificence, and she was still in a daze.Sela couldn't help laughing.

"The witch's oath?"

Fortunately, Lu Ning came back to her senses very quickly. She glanced at the bottom of the glass and there was not much wine remaining, and suddenly felt a burst of regret welling up in her heart, and even the thought of going to see that magnificent scene again at all costs began to appear.

The basic quality of the tourists allowed her to quickly find herself. She finally knew why the legendary bartender who brewed that glass of wine wanted to reproduce this glass of wine all his life, and Sera also regained it through bartending. found it.

"Yes, for a witch, there are too many ways to make this kind of wine, but it's a pity that senior can't finish exploring in his life." Sera put the bottle by Lu Ning's hand, "Don't drink it, I believe you Resist the temptation."

"I know. Tell me, what do you want me to do?" Lu Ning put the small bottle in her pocket.

"Go back in time and let the witch return in your time."

"But I don't know how to find other materials."

"You will know. After you go back, you will get information and rewards from the witch at that time, and then just follow the method it said."

"I have another question... What is the significance of the witch's return?"

"I can't answer you instead of it, but according to my guess, if a creature like it can exist at one time, it can exist at all times, and in this way, maybe it can get rid of the relationship with the White Lake. Towns are entangled in this state."

Sera wiped the wine glass that Lu Ning had finished drinking, and tapped it lightly, the crisp sound of the glass echoing around.

"But understanding that doesn't mean much to me. As long as I live now, I will continue to have new memories to make up my past. This kind of life experience speed no longer requires unnecessary thinking. The current White Lake Town is very suitable for me. .”

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After bidding farewell to Sierra and Baihu Town, Lu Ning walked towards the lakeside hut. Among the two passages connecting time and space in this asymmetrical time, only the lakeside hut has the safest coordinates.

She put the key in the lock, opened the door, entered, then turned and walked out.

It's a beautiful autumn season outside, with blue skies.

(End of this chapter)