Embers of Embers

Chapter 476 Crossing the Fence
"finished?"
Merlin looked at the sea of ​​fire below. In the blazing white fireworks, the angels were frozen in place like sculptures. With William's death, their movements were frozen at the moment of William's death. They raised their spikes and vibrated their wings.
"probably."
Lorenzo said with some uncertainty. He clenched the nail sword with a stern expression.
William's last words may not have awakened Merlin, but they made Lorenzo think too much. It is normal for shepherds to have the smell of hungry wolves. They are like witchers, who turned into monsters in order to fight against monsters, so Is the so-called end of sublimation just such a dark abyss?
The power he possesses, Gabriel, seems to be a weapon against demons, so is it possible that it is also the way in which the disease spreads?
Lorenzo stopped thinking for a moment, and he observed the movements in the sea of ​​​​fire.
After this brief contact, he roughly guessed the nature of some angels. They do not have advanced consciousness, they are just machines that follow certain rules, which will inevitably cause them to perform many clumsy operations, such as having priority. After the death of William, it is very likely that he will pursue another target instead of these people present.
This is what Lorenzo is betting on. The follow-up of Maruri Port is where his confidence lies. If everyone involved is really eradicated, then Lawrence will be seriously injured. It is even said that the entire Maruri Port will be destroyed by the war, but In the end, judging from the news reports, none of this happened.
"Whether it's life or death, it depends on this time."
Lorenzo said softly.
The angels stood in the sea of ​​​​fire, their godless eyes falling on the charred body. They were still waiting, and the crackling sounds continued until the fire completely turned William into ashes, and they had a new one. trend.
The delicate blood-stained face was lifted up, looking up at the sky from the bottom of the abyss.
Spread your wings.
Lorenzo pushed Merlin away. He sensed the crisis, and his secret blood surged up again.
The gusts of wind blew up, and they flapped their wings vigorously, but the ridiculous thing was that these wings couldn't carry them to fly at all. Just like evil spirits, they kept scratching the well wall with their sharp claws and rushed towards the platform above.
Lorenzo looked at all this and felt a little ridiculous for a moment. These monsters had the divine appearance of angels, but underneath this body was a thick and hypocritical darkness that was difficult to see through.
They are very fast, and the only combat force that can be relied on on the platform is Lorenzo. Most people have lost consciousness in this high-intensity corrosive environment, and he is alone.
The angels are coming.
The holy figures rushed out of the edge of the platform, and they surrounded the platform. With Lorenzo's strength, he couldn't defeat so many angels in an instant.
The spiral spikes were broken and thrown, and the unconscious soldiers were directly penetrated and nailed to the wall of the well. The remaining medical staff had no ability to resist, and it turned into a massacre in the blink of an eye.
"Merlin! Follow me!"
Lorenzo yelled that in this case he could only give priority to protecting those with value. Calculated carefully, everyone in the workshop could die, but Merlin must survive.
As the nail sword advanced, Lorenzo blocked an angel who was trying to get past him, but the angels climbing up from around the platform had already arrived. They were dragging their huge wings, which were like tumors on their bodies. .
The sharp claws swung down, and Merlin relied on the swordsmanship he had learned from kicking other alchemists in his early years to deal with it. However, the folding knife in his hand had already been shaky in the previous battle. The two collided with each other, and this blow directly The folding knife broke, and the sharp claws cut open Merlin's chest.
"Merlin!"
Lorenzo gave up on the enemy in front of him and exposed his back to the enemy defenselessly. He rushed towards Merlin. At the same time, countless spiral spikes stabbed down like a rain of arrows, sealing them off. All potential escape spaces are turned into a closed prison.
When they were about to die, it seemed as if time had stopped, and all the movements of the angels were frozen in the air.
Lorenzo rushed to Merlin's side. The dense armor rose from the body surface and grew wildly along the arms and armpits, like the steel feathers of the Black Angel. The proliferated armor created a strange, shield-like hardness.
The expected heavy blow did not come. Lorenzo looked at the angels, and the next moment they were broken.
As if they were statues that had been eroded by wind and water for hundreds of years, their smooth and white skin began to turn yellow, peeling off like the bark of dry and decayed trees. Endless time passed by their bodies, and their flesh and blood rotted into gray-black hardness. The quality is wrapped around the fragile bones, and finally the hollow skeleton is revealed.
The fireworks rolled, and the angels' bodies collapsed into ashes on the ground and returned to dust.
"Is this... leaving?"
Merlin held the wound on his chest and said in a weak voice.
"Don't say anything yet. Enough technical chiefs have died today!"
Lorenzo ignored the movements of the angels, as saving Merlin's life was the most important thing.
After tearing open the clothes, you can see Merlin's body covered with alchemical inscriptions. He once said that this is an alchemist obsessed with the truth. At some point in the past, Merlin used himself as an experiment subject to [sublimation] ], but unfortunately he failed, and even more fortunately he survived this disaster, although he became this weird look now.
"This reminds me of the days when I was an apprentice. My teacher and I went to kick each other out, but we couldn't beat each other. The bastard used a mace. He had alchemical modifications on his arms, and he also took an alchemical potion before the fight. , broke my sword with one hammer, and the broken sword also cut my chest open like this."
Merlin's voice was weak. This guy had almost no facial expressions due to the failure of his previous experiment. It was also for this reason that Lorenzo couldn't tell for a while whether he was really in love with the scene or whether he was really about to die. Talking bad things before.
"doctor!"
Lorenzo shouted to the few surviving medical staff. They were all frightened and were trembling in the corner. After being scolded by Lorenzo, they took a few seconds to react and picked them up from the pool of blood. He picked up the medical supplies and rushed to Merlin's side.
"So how did you escape?"
Lorenzo gave up his position to the medical staff and continued to ask Merlin to stay awake.
"I didn't run away. That guy died. Everything has a price. Lorenzo, that lunatic used too many potions. After that blow, his old heart couldn't bear the pressure caused by the potions. And it stopped."
Merlin coughed a few times as he spoke. Lorenzo guessed that this guy wanted to laugh just now, but unfortunately he had lost his expression a long time ago.
"No...that's not quite right, Lorenzo. If William is their priority target for eradication, then we who got the information from William...although we may not know as much as William, judging by the order, we It should also be the next target after taking care of William, right?”
Merlin asked Lorenzo as he became serious again after telling that wonderful story.
"It was fully capable of killing us just now...at least it killed me. It just needed to be harder, but they just left like that?"
Merlin just came back alive with his life. He couldn't believe it and couldn't understand it.
From Lorenzo's words before, Merlin also vaguely guessed the logic of the angels' actions, but now these guys just left, leaving when they were about to kill everyone completely.
"So they don't have high-level autonomous consciousness. They are just machines that execute commands, and the machines will have the possibility of aging."
Lorenzo gathered his thoughts.
"In other words, this machine made an error? Let us go? At such a critical moment, so precisely?"
Merlin thought it was impossible.
"Of course not. Machines will make mistakes, but they will also be corrected... Do you remember what William said? Relying on human power, we are far from capable of fighting monsters. It can be said that the main battlefield with monsters is never within the scope of our human understanding. Inside."
Lorenzo recalled Shermans' notes.
"Is there a possibility that another thing that is far higher than our priority appears, for which all the shepherds have to be driven out, and this also shows the limitations of these machines, they can kill us again Walking, but completely dominated by orders..."
Merlin's voice gradually became louder. He was losing blood.
Listening to his conjecture, Lorenzo gradually fell silent. He raised his head and looked at the dome, and bright lights flashed.
With the departure of the angels, the locked workshop opened again. The scavenger troops who had been prepared for a long time poured into the workshop. They blocked the scene and then cooperated with the medical staff of Montenegro Hospital to transport the injured. Lorenzo The platform under his feet was also slowly descending, and the medical staff had prepared a stretcher to receive Merlin.
"This is an information hazard. Any exchange of information with relevant personnel is prohibited. Violators found to be in violation will be detained on the spot."
A leading scavenger warned through a loudspeaker, and then he blended into the crowd. They were all dressed the same and it was difficult to tell them apart.
Everyone was silent, not even making eye contact with the survivors in the workshop.
The scavenger wore a heavy gas mask and could only make a low breathing sound. He wore earplugs on his ears and his pupils were covered by dyed goggles. He acted completely according to the training rules and avoided any contact with the outside world as much as possible. Information exchange.
"Another priority..."
Lorenzo still stopped where he was. There was a rush around him, but none of it affected his thinking.
"What's more important than us? It's so important that they all leave at the same time..."
Lorenzo suddenly felt terrible.
"For example...the wolves crossed the fence."
……
Viking Kingdoms, Caucasus Mountains.
The cold wind came from the gray mountains. It brandished swords and guns, carving scars on the old man's face. The old man seemed to have been numb to the pain of the cold wind. In this gloomy and gray world, he had spent a long time. Staring at the end of the mountains, he sighed helplessly.
The Vikings have many legends about the mountains called the Caucasus Mountains. It is said that there is a warm and sacred land at the end of these mountains. The Hall of Valor where God Odin held a banquet was after this cold, but as decades ago After the arrival of the Jiuxia fleet, people in the Western world learned that behind these nearly endless mountains was a land called Jiuxia.
However, these did not hinder the Vikings' fantasy about the mountains. They sometimes called the mountains Jinlunga. In the Viking mythology, it was the rift trench that separated ice and fire. They were in On the cold side, behind the mountains is the warm side.
"Are you still going to the party?"
A young voice sounded, and the attendant came up and asked the old man.
The two of them were staying on an observation deck. Under the mountains was a not-so-prosperous village. Behind countless huts was a huge longhouse, which was brightly lit and seemed to be holding some sort of banquet. Even from this distance, the old man could hear laughter.
"No, these lunatics in The End of All Things can no longer bring me any benefits. I'd better leave here."
The old man shook his head, thinking of the appearance of those lunatics, he felt a little uncomfortable.
"Is that so? I think they are pretty good." The attendant said tentatively.
"Where is good? Death? Kill yourself, atone for your sins, and then go to the sacred Hall of Valor?" The old man looked at the young man, as if looking at a fool, "When you think these madmen are good, you have already I was brainwashed by them."
"But...but it's not bad, the Hall of Valor! Don't you yearn for it? The endless banquets, and the beautiful Valkyries..."
The attendant's voice gradually became excited.
"So what's the price? My child, God Odin gives you these, what do you have to pay?"
The young man was asked.
"It's an endless fight, setting out in the early morning, dying, and then waking up the next day to repeat the process again, and it's still useless. The twilight of the gods is destined to come, and each of us will die completely. That is real death, there is no so-called Hall of Heroes and feasts, there is just absolute death, a cold ten thousand times colder than the Silent Sea."
The old man didn't want to say anything more to the bewildered attendant. Looking at the slight fanaticism in his eyes, the old man was considering whether to kill him and throw him into the sea. He had done this kind of thing many times when he was young. Although he is old, he is still skilled.
"And the most important thing is, no one knows whether all this is true or false, right? Dead people can't speak."
After speaking, the old man walked towards the longship that was docked on the shore. The Viking countries were divided into countless islands by the sea. On the frozen soil where technology has not yet been covered, longships are still an important means of transportation.
After boarding the long boat, the sailors rowed the oars vigorously and took the old man away from this hellish place. They seemed a little nostalgic, or maybe they were curious about the strange way those madmen would die. The old man turned around and saw In the direction of the longhouse.
The pupils of his eyes were frozen, reflecting brilliant firelight and blurry black shadows. The next moment, invisible air waves stirred up snow dust and overturned the long boat.
The old man was immersed in the cold sea water. He could feel nothing, but he could feel everything.
Mixed and strange emotions echoed in my heart like the devil's whisper.
(End of this chapter)