Embers of Embers

Chapter 675
The storm and heavy rain gradually dissipated, and Old Dunling regained its calm, but under this calm, there were ruins and corpses, like a doomsday battlefield.
Some citizens plucked up the courage and walked out of the building cautiously, looking at the beautiful scenery after the war. Then more people walked out, but before they could do more observation, gray figures surrounded them. The scavengers scolded and swept them away. They rushed back to the shelter, and with the arrival of the scavengers, the blue mist followed them.
The mist was all-encompassing, easily penetrating the heavy protection and going strangely deep, while the scavengers protected themselves tightly and completely isolated themselves from the mist.
The citizens who were touched by the mist became quiet at first, and then they just felt tired, fell down one after another, and fell into a long sleep. At the same time, the antimemes invaded them and ate their memories.
Scenes like this are happening everywhere in Old Dunling. Dense blue bushes overflow everywhere, and light rain falls. They carry antimemetic substances, purify the city, and will Everyone is exposed to the drizzle, and the nightmares wash away from their minds.
"So...where are your friends?"
The woman comforted the child and whispered to the guy looking out the window.
"Probably...probably still somewhere, fighting those monsters."
Buscalo thought for a while, and could only come to this conclusion.
"They didn't take you with them?" The woman could see the disappointment in the man's eyes.
"Yes, but there is nothing we can do about it," Buscaro smiled calmly, with a bit of bitterness, "We are originally from two worlds, but this crisis happened to bring us together. Together."
Buscaro leaned over and gently stroked the child's sleeping face.
The warm feeling came from the fingertips. At this moment, even Buscaro's own restless heart stopped.
He did it, although it was very bumpy in the middle, but he did it.
"It's such an adventure like a dream."
Buscaro recalled everything in the rainstorm and sighed.
At the same time, a faint blue mist slowly seeped in, and many people fell into a peaceful sleep unknowingly. They were closing in on Buscaro.
"So do you forgive me?" Buscalo thought of something else, and he looked at the woman with sincere eyes.
The woman hesitated for a moment, then smiled, gently stroked Buscaro's bald head, and combed the messy hair slightly neatly.
If it weren't for this damn bald head, it would be really hard for her to recognize this guy who was chasing the demon and killing him as Buscaro.
"You have made changes, I might as well give you another chance."
Hearing this, Buscaro let out a satisfied laugh, and then his consciousness began to become heavy due to inhaling the blue mist.
He really wanted to share this good news with his wonderful friends, but his consciousness became deeper and deeper, and those figures gradually blurred or even disappeared.
The old Dunling fell asleep peacefully, and Watson's will shuttled through it.
[Survivors who are still active, please arrive at the nearest outpost as soon as possible. 】
Watson issued instructions to the survivors. The war was over, but the echoes of the war had not completely dissipated.
The erosion of the old Dun Ling, the corpses of monsters, and the cognition of citizens...
The only thing worth celebrating is probably that Old Dunling was strictly sealed off. Armed trains followed the railway tracks, tightly binding the city and completely isolating it from the outside world.
Watson's words rang in the minds of the survivors, and they also changed the direction of their actions, handing over everything at hand to the scavengers, and moved closer to the old Dunling.
Scattered crowds appeared on the streets. They were all injured soldiers, and some original sin armors were moving with difficulty. Every step they took caused a lot of water splashes.
They approached the outpost hidden in the streets of Old Dunling. The Original Sin Armor was transported underground through the secret passages of the scavengers. The battle destroyed the Bottom of Sorrow, but most of the facilities were still operating stably. This could quickly Remove these ferocious machines from the streets of old Dunling.
The doctors at Black Mountain Hospital also came out of this fierce battle. The fighting was mainly concentrated in the Mechanical Institute. The Black Mountain Hospital, which was deliberately hidden, survived. It is difficult not to guess that this was also planned from the beginning. So that the Black Mountain Hospital can treat the soldiers with all its strength.
It's just that this time the doctors carried similar equipment to the scavengers, with respiratory masks on their faces and white isolation suits on their bodies. They treated the injured soldiers, and soon a blue mist enveloped the soldiers. Devour together.
They fell into a peaceful dream, and threw the hellish nightmare into the depths of their memory, burying it, never to see the light of day again.
This is a good thing for the soldiers. Not everyone has the courage to face the invasion of nightmares and return to that hellish battlefield from time to time in the next few decades.
Of course, these are the most secondary. The real main purpose is to completely eradicate the erosion and connection on the soldiers. They are fighting Roger and suffering from his erosion. Even if Roger is dead now, they must do their best. Blocking the possibility of linking.
In the blink of an eye, blue mist and drizzle filled every part of Old Dunling. This was the last step of the plan, to clean up the battlefield and stop the continuation of erosion. This was also the meaning of the scavenger force's existence.
They are the mourners hiding in the shadows, and they have buried countless evil and treacherous stories.
……
"So where are you taking me?"
Shrike lay on a shaking stretcher and was carried away from the battlefield by medical staff. His eyes were slightly closed, leaving only a gap, looking at the blurry world. He was exhausted, and his words were very weak, but he still stubbornly Stay awake.
"Isn't it the nearest outpost?"
The shrike continued to mutter, but no one paid him any attention.
The doctors gave him temporary treatment, and he could not die for the time being, but he still needed further treatment, but it seemed that there was something more important than this treatment.
There were whispers in his ears, and Shrike felt that he was probably being carried into a closed room somewhere, isolated from the cold wind and rain, followed by more hanging bottles and needles buried under the skin.
Suddenly he felt something, the blurry world became clear, and another figure appeared in the corner of the room.
"Are you the god of death?"
Shrike asked, the other party really looked like the god of death in the story, appearing so abruptly without making a sound.
"probably."
Watson walked to Shrike's bedside, stretched out his hand, and gently touched his forehead.
"What are you doing?"
The shrike had no strength to resist. When the doctors sawed open the twisted armor and pulled him out, he was covered in blood and had multiple fractures. It was a miracle that the shrike could still breathe.
But soon, the airtight room collapsed, and wind and snow poured in from the gaps. Gradually, the ice-covered world overlapped. The cold wind made the shrike tremble, and then he found that all the injuries on his body had disappeared. The hospital bed under him was gone, and he was in the snow.
"here……"
Shrike looked around, feeling an inexplicable sense of familiarity in his heart.
He remembered where he was here, and his mind was captured by another fear. Then he looked at Watson aside and realized the truth.
"This...this is my [gap]."
"Ah."
Watson responded calmly.
"what are you going to do?"
As the trigger was triggered, Shrike's forgotten memories were also retrieved. He remembered that there was no step of invading his [Gap] in the plan.
"The final steps of 'Deus Ex Machina'."
Watson's voice was devoid of any emotion, as if what Shrike was facing was not a living person, but some kind of colder existence.
"I will use antimemetics to erase your memory... It won't erase too much, it will just eradicate everything with 'Deus Ex Machina' and all the battles you have experienced."
Shrike was confused at first, and then he seemed to understand something.
"In order to completely isolate the existence of erosion, is it?"
"Ah."
The conversation fell into silence, and Shrike took a deep breath. He could understand Watson's actions. Someone must deal with the reverberations of this disaster, and in order to eradicate everything, they must get rid of Roger's influence, even if Roger is dead.
Erosion linked them to darkness, and this time the darkness ended with the scarlet Hundred Eyes.
"Where are the others? Is this the case?" Shrike asked.
"Soldiers will only be treated with simple antimemetics, and they will forget what they saw and heard on this day. Of course, such large-scale antimemetic effects cannot be controlled so precisely, and they may forget more. .
But don't worry about them, they just accept orders and then execute them. They don't know the existence of 'Death Row' and 'Deus Ex Machina'. They know very little, so they are safe. "
"Is it because I know too much that you came here in person?" Shrike asked again.
"Absolutely, but mainly because you are a high-ranking knight and have a certain degree of resistance. Ordinary antimemetic infection has little effect on you and requires targeted treatment."
Watson responded like a machine.
"So... you're not just talking to me now, are you? You're still dealing with other people, so busy."
Shrike thought and recalled that in fact the battle with Roger was not long, not even a day. When he was lifted out of the Original Sin Armor, Shrike could still see the sunny sky.
But such a short time seems so long, with steel and flesh, fireworks overflowing, and only pure death remaining.
"In other words, no one will remember all this, right? Those dead people, the pain all over the ground..."
All of this, just like the history covered up by the keepers of secrets, no one knows or remembers.
Facing the Shrike's inquiry, Watson nodded mechanically.
"You should know this very well. Even without my participation, the purification agency will eventually choose to use this method to make it 'forgotten', right?"
Shrike was silent. He looked at Watson and then at the world where snowflakes were falling.
"Please give me some time to reminisce for the last time..."
Shrike said, nightmares and death flashing through his mind.
This is all he can do as a mortal, minimal... mourning.
"But...even if we all forget, there will still be people who remember, right?"
He asked hopefully, it was like a small and beautiful wish. Even if Watson was deceiving himself, he still wanted to get that answer. This might give him appropriate relief from his restless heart.
"Yes, someone will remember, no one will be completely forgotten."
Watson assured him.
After hearing this, Shrike felt a little light as if he had been relieved of a heavy burden.
The power of the antimeme began to spread, setting off torrential snowflakes, gathering into a gray storm, and swallowing everything.
On the hospital bed, Shrike's frown relaxed. He fell into a beautiful dream and fell into a deep sleep. When he woke up, he would forget all the pain.
Among the ruins on the top of Dunling Tower, Watson withdrew her attention from Shrike. She looked aside. At some point, Lorenzo had woken up, but his face was still full of unresolved fatigue. The ruins Under the shadow, with injuries all over his body, he looked at the city wrapped in blue mist.
He said nothing.
Watson looked down the tower, only to see her long-awaited guests arriving late in the hazy mist.
There was more than one message she released, for different people, they would hear completely different voices, and there were not only the Shrike, but also other resistant people who wandered in the old Dunling.
Sa Liang Xi looked sad, following Rhodes and Eve beside her, and at the other end, Sa Liang Ye came wading into the water. Like Sa Liang Xi, he knew the moment the trigger was triggered. everything.
Then there are more people, Kestrel and Joey, Night Owl, Robin, Blue Jade...
All the high-ranking knights of the purification agency rushed here. They didn't know what was waiting for them next, and they were filled with doubts and confusion.
"The shrike was very resistant...I guess they are like that too, right?"
Watson said suddenly, breaking the long silence.
"Probably... We all don't want to forget anything. We grab a handful from the left and a handful from the right, making our lives bloated. But when we peel off the layers, we find that we have very few things."
Lorenzo sighed, remembering those dead faces, they were living people with complete and real life trajectories, but now they will be forever forgotten and completely erased, they will become the missing persons announced to the outside world Population, the line of innumerable extensions, will be terminated in this storm.
He is also very afraid, afraid of forgetting, no matter what is forgotten, he is very afraid.
"So have you decided?" Watson asked.
"Of course," Lorenzo affirmed, "I hate forgetting things, once is enough."
In the depths of that sea of ​​silence, Lorenzo could be sure that he had indeed forgotten something, perhaps precious, perhaps worthless.
(End of this chapter)