Embers of Embers

Chapter 311 The Original Demon
In the hazy rain curtain, dark shadows chased the speeding train, and raging steam overflowed from the gaps in the machinery, like sharp blades, easily piercing the wind and rain.
Lorenzo jumped high from his horse and grabbed the edge of the train. The sharp nail sword penetrated the gap in the steel. With Lorenzo's force, the door was slowly pried open. This was a train compartment. Lorenzo pried it down to a size barely big enough for one person to enter, and then got in.
The goods did not fill the entire cargo box, which gave him a little resting place. He leaned against the goods, and rain and cold wind poured into the cargo box through the cracks opened.
Lorenzo panted heavily. After resting for a while, he slowly sat up. Although the movement was slight, it still pulled the wound, making him grin.
Fortunately, Lorenzo was only affected by Cantrera, and the deadly poison would not kill him. Coupled with the healing of the secret blood, Lorenzo has improved a lot, but he still has nosebleeds from time to time.
After simply wiping, he looked out of the carriage. The rain covered everything. Lorenzo felt that this train was traveling in a world of nothingness and would never reach the end.
After being in a daze for a while, Lorenzo took out the notes from his arms, which Shermans gave to him at the end. With the old man's angry look at that time, he seemed to be holding on until then, just to get this out. Give yourself a copy of the notes.
"Cursed knowledge..."
Lorenzo thought about this sentence. This was not the first time Lorenzo heard this sentence. Although the expression may be different, it often has this meaning in alchemy.
As if he had touched something, Lorenzo's breathing couldn't help but quicken.
The notes were thick and plain, with a little blood stains on them. Lorenzo could no longer tell whether it was his own or Shermans's.
He was about to open the note, but then he saw the bookmark sandwiched in it, located on the last few pages of the note.
Lorenzo recalled the situation when he sneaked in. At that time, Shermans was writing something in his notes, and then he was assassinated.
He had reason to believe that this note was precious. In everything Shermans had just experienced, all he had done was protect this note, or in other words, allow himself to take the knowledge of this note away from that Jedi.
Opening along the bookmark, the ink on the page has not completely dried. It seems that this is the last word written by Shermans. The handwriting was very neat at first, but something seemed to be wrong with Shermans himself. Later on, his handwriting became more and more scribbled, and there were even large bloodstains covering the page.
Lorenzo felt a little pressure. The demon hunter of the New Order had already been thrown off by him, and he was sitting on the speeding train. He was already safe, but as he read Shermans' handwriting, a strange A sense of crisis gradually fell on him.
"What exactly is a demon...?"
Demons are a very special thing, and even with the knowledge accumulated by the Demon Hunting Order over the years, it is difficult to get a good overview of them.
But to put it simply, the demon is an extremely powerful creature, with outstanding strength and speed, terrifying vitality, and bloodthirsty desire. But in the end, it is just a powerful creature, but when it comes to erosion When the nature of the monster is changed, the horror of the monster ushered in a qualitative change.
Every monster is a source of pollution that carries erosion. The weird pressure can drive a person crazy until he turns into an abominable creature like a monster. If the conditions are right, as long as there is high-intensity erosion involving a wide enough range, the entire city can be destroyed. people turned into monsters.
This is why even if humans master technology, it is difficult to fight against demons. Swords and gunfire can easily destroy demons, but they cannot kill the invisible erosion, which can penetrate solid armor and destroy reason. into the abyss of madness.
Therefore, the demon hunters of the Demon Hunting Order, the high-ranking knights of the Purification Mechanism...these people who were resistant to erosion through experiments or blessings with alchemical potions appeared, and they became the main force against the demons.
After the steam engine set off the industrial revolution, human beings no longer lacked weapons to fight against demons, but lacked the reason not to be engulfed by erosion and to face despair.
Lorenzo grasped the notes tightly, trying to remember every character firmly in his mind. The more he read, the more he could feel the fear of seeing the truth.
The wind and rain became colder, and thick rain and fog surrounded the train. Except for the lonely railway under the feet and the endless green fields around it, there was nothing.
Lorenzo stretched out his hand, gripped the nail sword tightly, and held it in his arms. Although there were no enemies around, it seemed that doing so could bring him some sense of security.
Vaguely, it seems that Shermans' old voice can be heard again. He was writing this terrible truth while mumbling it.
"How do you differentiate between the strength and weakness of demons?
Due to erosion, even after nearly a thousand years, we still have not established a sufficiently detailed classification of demons... It is also possible that we have tried in the past, but just like the knowledge lost due to erosion, they have not been handed down. .
However, despite this, the approximate types are recorded in the Demon Hunting Order. According to the types of monsters and specific effects, they are named Wei Zui Grass, the Illusion of the Evil Realm...
But this is just a type, and there is no distinction between the strength and weakness of specific individuals. Some monsters are very common and can be killed easily, while others are very powerful and difficult to defeat.
They had wanted to differentiate the monsters based on their size and strength, but I think they should be graded based on erosion intensity.
Yes, erosion intensity, in the final analysis, this invisible mental contamination is the most terrifying thing about demons. Sometimes I even feel that their monster bodies are just shells, and what is truly terrifying is their crazy will. "
Whether it was sweat or rain, a crystal liquid slid across Lorenzo's forehead. He wiped it. Even though the weather was so cold, he felt extremely hot.
Lorenzo looked around in panic. After realizing that he was alone here, he felt slightly relieved, but only after that did he realize the ridiculous behavior he had just committed.
What are you afraid of?
Lorenzo lowered his head and looked at the notes. There was no sense of erosion. The book was not contaminated. But just like the well-known cognitohazards, the more Lorenzo read, the more uneasy he would feel. Unease stemming from intuition, the uneasiness of human beings. Wild instinct warned him.
what on earth is it?
Lorenzo couldn't help awakening the secret blood, and the tyrannical power surged in his veins.
It takes time for a demon hunter to awaken the secret blood. When the secret blood is not awakened, the demon hunter is only stronger than ordinary people. But when the secret blood continues to awaken, the forbidden power is given to him. Once this body is broken and the critical value is crossed, it is moving towards demonization.
This is a very dangerous process, so every demon hunter will awaken the secret blood according to the strength of the enemy, rather than raising it to the limit as soon as the battle begins.
"What's even more strange is that the demons we have encountered over the years are all mutated from humans, yes, that's right.
So far... at least to my knowledge, we have not encountered a pure demon, the [primordial demon], so does it mean that the [primordial demon] born from nature does not exist?
If you think about it from this perspective, what seems to be a struggle with demons for thousands of years is actually a human killing each other. A strange force alienates humans into demons, and then this demon transforms more humans into demons. , so we drew our swords and faced each other.
Rather than saying that demon is a name for a creature or an unknown, it is better to understand it as some kind of... disease?
Just like the Black Death that once ravaged Yin Erweg, on a certain day in history, a disease called the Demon broke out. It spread and swept the entire world. We hid in the darkness and resisted powerlessly, because of the erosion. Its existence and information about it were forgotten. In the end, we even forgot what the monster looked like and became accustomed to this world where monsters exist. "
Shermans' handwriting had turned into scrawled symbols at the end. Lorenzo could barely make out the text, but then he suddenly discovered that countless scrawled symbols formed a strange pattern on the entire page. A cumbersome picture scroll.
Lorenzo didn't think Shermans had the time to draw with handwriting when he wrote this. It was more like he was influenced by something while writing.
In his career as a witcher, Lorenzo encountered this situation. A group of corrupted guys saw crazy hallucinations and thought they were favored by gods.
"But... is this theory really correct? If the [Original Demon] does not exist, then what is the [Holy Grail] that we have captured, the source of the concept of demons? And what was the reason at that time that made them think [ Is the Holy Grail the source of all demons?"
The following text has lost its basic logic. Lorenzo can now vaguely feel the madness of Shermans at that time. He seemed to be maintaining his last sanity. The words he wrote were all fragmentary. What came to mind? Write what.
"If this is really a plague, then who is [Patient Zero] that caused all this? [Original Demon]? Or the so-called [Holy Grail]...
No, something is wrong. If you look at it this way, with the ability of demon erosion to spread, even if the current number of demon hunters expands more than ten times, we will not be able to contain the tide of demons... There is something limiting the number of demons...
Everything should have a starting source, but I can't find it, I can't find the source, I can't find the source of the story..."
Lorenzo's eyes tightened and his heart beat violently. After reading the last scrawled handwriting, he slowly closed the note and then carefully put it into his arms.
He let go of the nailed sword, wiped the cold sweat from his palms, and clenched it tightly again.
In such a short period of time, Lorenzo felt as if he had experienced a terrifying storm. His understanding of the world and monsters had been torn apart and then put back together again.
The world is not as simple as it seems.
"So...will I die from some strange accident next? Or will some damn monster appear out of thin air and bite me to death?"
With secret blood rising, Lorenzo kicked open the car door. The cargo was dragged by the strong wind and thrown to the rear. Ice-cold rainwater poured into the car, and the howling wind kept ringing in his ears.
Lorenzo remembered Shermans' intention to die, as he wrote in the last paragraph of his notebook.
Shermans Borgia is not an outstanding person. Apart from his belief in God, he is only able to achieve his current status because of the power left by his family to help him. Even such a mediocre person can succeed. After discovering these historical doubts, how could those great sages not discover them?
No, they found out, but they all died after they found out.
These were the last words in Shermans' notes. He believed that there was some unknown barrier that restricted us and restricted everyone's exploration of the truth of the world. Everyone who touched it died, so Shermans went to He warned himself so solemnly before he died.
"Knowledge is cursed..."
Lorenzo looked around vigilantly. If what Sherman thought was true, then Lorenzo had touched the unknown barrier, the boundary of human cognition. As he touched, those sleeping things also began to stir. Woke up.
The darkness rolled slowly in the corner that he couldn't see, as if some entity was about to appear from the darkness, but then all these seemingly strange changes stopped.
Lorenzo was a little confused, but this was actually happening. The extremely uneasy feeling was dissipating, as if the gods of death had suddenly given up hunting Lorenzo.
The train broke through the endless rain curtain, and a huge gray silhouette appeared at the end of the horizon, with the old Dunling in sight.
Lorenzo felt a little surprised. He sat on the edge of the carriage and looked at the endless wilderness. The gloomy clouds seemed to connect the sky and the earth.
The train took Lorenzo away, but left behind something else disturbing.
Heavy rain poured down on the earth, and among the thousands of rain streams, one could barely notice that the falling raindrops seemed to be distorted by something invisible.
They stood on the railway track, looking at each other from a distance. Under the majestic rain curtain, two disturbing shapes were outlined in the air.
"who are you?"
There was a voice in the void.
"When the will of nothingness has an entity, it can interfere with matter. But similarly, if it has an entity, it can also be interfered with..."
The other person asked without answering the voice, just talking to himself, seeming to confirm the current situation.
"You...are not 'us', how is that possible?"
The voice sounded again in the void, this time it seemed confused and uneasy.
And the man still didn't answer it. The man was silent. In the rain curtain, the two ghostly existences were wary of each other. Until the next moment, there was a rapid drum beat, which was the sound of the heart beating. Under the lonely rain curtain, there was Two invisible hearts beat violently.
In an instant, the terrifying erosion detonated everything. The invisible force rolled around the whole world. It pulled the heavy rain and wind, gathering into a storm. The earth collapsed under this force, and the grass and soil seemed to be cut by invisible sword blades. When flipped up, the steel rails danced wildly like snakes, and were finally fixed into a twisted shape.
The unknown force came to kill Lorenzo, and everyone who touched the boundary would face such an end. But this time the Death God was blocked, and the blockage came from another Death God.
The unknown beyond the unknown fought here, a more violent impact appeared, and then the entire storm that had just emerged collapsed.
Everything was so sudden, it was a doomsday scene just now, but now everything has disappeared, the heavy rain is still falling, but this time there are no ghost-like invisible figures under the rain curtain.
(End of this chapter)