Steel Chang'an

Chapter 30

flare.

The ground is covered with white sand, and black plants grow out of the gravel. The rough petals are hard and cold like rust corroded by time.

He looked up and saw black waves illuminated by firelight.They condensed in the air, rolled up ferocious waves, and pushed forward endlessly until the end of the sky.

The sea seemed to be made of black steel, reflecting the gloomy sky, with dark blue light flickering slightly.

From the distant sea, a cloud of strange shape floated slowly towards the earth, blocking the faint sunlight.The fire suddenly became extraordinarily bright, as if the earth and the sky were burning at the same time.

He blocked his eyes with his hand suddenly, but was surprised to find that his palm was so small, so immature, like a baby.

"There are people there."

"A tiny human being."

"A human child."

"Why is the child here?"

"This is where Nagato fell?"

"The gods have long since died, and this place is just another fragment of the gods."

"There is still a ray of divine thought."

"The last ray of God's mind in this world."

"The last hope of finding Nagato..."

"right here."

He noticed that the light of the fire came from the clouds, and the sound came from there.

He narrowed his eyes.There was a swaying shadow in the jumping firelight, which looked like a strange human face, with the snout protruding forward like a bird.

"That human child..."

"I see."

"God is dead, but man is alive."

"So the war of the gods continues."

"Until the day you die."

"Until the day the world ends."

"Until the day Nagato opens."

The strange face looked down at him silently, motionless like a big brooding bird.He couldn't tell where the dialogue was coming from, or if there was no dialogue at all, he just heard the thing's thoughts.

"That human child..."

"Maybe become a Knight of Light."

"Maybe the fate of the world will change because of him."

"Maybe the existence of this world will be destroyed because of him."

"But maybe nothing will happen."

"Maybe Nagato will never be opened."

"God has been dead for a long time, and there is no way to know God's will anymore."

Suddenly, his consciousness spread and drifted far away, as if he was looking down on this land and the ocean in the desert from a distant starry sky.

He saw on the other side of the cloud, a huge pterosaur looking down at a small, immature figure on the ground.

Then the fire came down from the clouds, and the entire black ocean burned up and turned into nothingness.

His body trembled violently, and his consciousness gathered again.

Mu Yun opened her eyes and found that she was still in the cockpit of the mecha, but the head of the mecha Xifeng was tilted forward severely, almost hitting the ground.

He quickly pulled up the mecha, but heard Li Jing's voice from the channel, "I really admire you, you can fall asleep while walking, are you a camel?"

"Camel?" Su Sheng's voice was full of curiosity, "What is that?"

"Some kind of monster that is said to be able to sleep while walking has been destroyed along with the mother planet of human beings." Li Jing said angrily, and shouted loudly at Mu Yun, "Wake up, the Sea of ​​Thorns is coming."

"Awake." Mu Yun rubbed her eyes, but the nerve sensor made the mecha do the same, revealing the fact that she was not very awake.

Just now... I was dreaming again...

Everything in the dream looked so clear, as if it had happened in real life.But after he woke up, he became as elusive as smoke, and gradually thinned out as time went by, quickly dissipating from his mind.

Only the sea in the desert, like a black sea surface made of steel, that inconceivable scene still remained on his retina.

Is that a memory?Has he really seen the sea?Mu Yun was a little confused.He entered the White Horse Barracks at the age of ten, and was given the surname Mu by the young city lord, and the word Yun was chosen for him by the young city lord Mu Chuan.As for the days before he became Muyun, they didn't leave much shadow in his memory.

Having said that, what is there to remember about the days when an orphan without a father or mother wandered alone in the desert in the northwest?

Mu Yun was fascinated by his thoughts, and he couldn't help feeling a little sleepy, but Su Sheng shouted in a very excited voice, "Look, Sea of ​​Thorns!"

Sea of ​​Thorns!
The so-called Sea of ​​Thorns is not a real sea, but a dark forest formed by endless thorns on the border of Donglin Continent.

Starting from the edge of the dense forest where Mu Yun and his party walked out, the original green vegetation was gradually replaced by dark and hard thorns, and the huge trees under the thorns hung down with dry branches, using their withered bodies to spread out a path that exudes decay. Smell of the forest road.

At the end of the forest road, under the silvery moonlight, black thorns twine and grow, like turbulent black waves sweeping across the earth, rushing towards the endless distance.

"This is the Sea of ​​Thorns..."

At some point, Su Sheng got out of the metal back, stood on the shoulder of the armor Xifeng, and looked towards the horizon.

"It's so big... there's no end in sight!"

Mu Yun narrowed his eyes.The scenery in front of him felt inexplicably familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

In the dream, a voice reminded him of the Black Sea in the desert.

Mu Yun shook her head, it was just a weird dream.He had never heard of the sea in the desert.What's more, the sea is so vast that it seems to swallow the entire desert. If it really exists, how could he be the only one who has seen it?Even those veterans in the White Horse Army Camp who like to talk about ancient times have never mentioned that there was such an ocean in the desert.

But the Sea of ​​Thorns actually exists.

Mu Yun took a step forward.Su Sheng screamed on the shoulder of the mecha, and quickly stabilized his figure.Mu Yun stretched out his hand, and the mech made the same movement, holding the black thorn in front of him, but was surprised to find——

The tight grip of the mecha's fist did not crush the thorns!

On the contrary, the originally motionless thorns were wrapped around the mechanical arm of the armor Xifeng, and were still growing at a speed visible to the naked eye, climbing forward!
Mu Yun was startled, and quickly charged the mechanical arm of the mecha, clenched his fist again, and pulled hard——

It wasn't until the fifth-level blue power grids of the mechanical arm were all lit up that the twisting thorns were pulled down abruptly and turned into powder in the palm of the mechanical arm.

But on the shell of the battle armor Xifeng, there were also several black traces where thorns crawled over.

Mu Yun spread out his palms, those black powders shone with a metallic luster under the moonlight!
These thorns... are alive?

"Don't be stupid," Li Jing's faint voice came from behind, "If I can open my way in this sea of ​​thorns with my bare hands, why should I carry this thermal weapon for a whole day?"

"Boss, are the thorns in this sea of ​​thorns made of iron? Why are they so hard?" Su Sheng said, jumping off the shoulder of Xifeng's armor, but he didn't dare to get too close, but kept away from it. Squatting down, he poked the pile of black powder that Mu Yun crushed with a small wooden stick.

"Hehe, you ignorant boy," Li Jing smiled, "This patch of thorns is not a plant, but a machine."

mechanical?Mu Yun glanced at Li Jing's direction, thinking that I don't read much, so don't lie to me, okay?Even if this sea of ​​thorns has been formed for 1000 years, it can't change from a plant to a machine, right?Is your biology taught by the physical education teacher?

Not only did Mu Yun think so, even Su Sheng, who had always admired Li Jing, was a little puzzled, "Boss, be honest, you are actually dozing off in the mecha, are you talking to us in your sleep?"

"Hey, don't you all know?" Li Jing's voice sounded sober, and it didn't seem like he was talking in sleep at all. "It seems that this year's students are not good. I have to help you make up history lessons."

What do you mean this year's students can't do it!When Mu Yun heard this, his heart went crazy: When did I worship you as my teacher? Don't just be someone else's teacher casually, okay?

Of course, Li Jing couldn't hear Mu Yun's voice, and even if he heard it, he might just ignore it, and the history class started as usual.Fortunately, the history since humans came to the Pangu Continent is not long, and it is only more than 1000 years since the establishment of the capital Chang'an.Even if Li Jing wanted to review it from the beginning, it would not take much time.

So Mu Yun also put on a posture that you say what you say, and the breeze blows the hills, to see what Li Jing can say - anyway, he can still take a nap in the mecha at worst.

But Li Jing's first sentence made Mu Yun almost cry:
"What are you thinking about? Of course what I want to talk about is not the history after Chang'an was established as the capital, but the unknown dark age before Jian'an."

Ignoring Mu Yun's mood, Li Jing began to really talk about ancient times.

"On Pangu Continent, the recorded history of human beings started from the moment when Chang'an City was established, with "Jian'an" as the first year of the year. But in fact, before Jian'an, human beings had already survived on Pangu Continent for 1000 years. For many years.

"It's just that the past 1000 years have been the darkest era for humans on the Pangea continent. Perhaps because of this, this era that symbolizes the failure and shame of mankind has left few records in the history of the continent. People When it comes to this period of history, it is generally referred to as the Millennium War.

"The formation of this sea of ​​thorns is naturally related to the Millennium War."

The history of this Sea of ​​Thorns actually starts from such a long time ago?

Millennium War...

When he was in the northwest desert, Mu Yun also heard the veterans of the White Horse Barracks talking about the Millennium War.According to legend, it was a war between humans and the Immortal King.According to those veterans, before the era of machine armor civilization since Jian'an, there was still an era of mechanical civilization on Pangu Continent.The so-called Immortal King is the supreme king of that mechanical age.

That dark age that has not been recorded in history is also the age of mechanical civilization in the mouth of veterans.At that time, humans invented various machines on Pangu Continent to assist humans in rebuilding their homes on this new continent.This was supposed to be a bright era. Human beings' research and development of machinery has reached an unprecedented height. They combined super artificial intelligence with mechanical creatures, and finally created the supreme mechanical king—that is, the legendary immortal king. .

The mechanical army led by the Immortal King is called the King's Legion by humans.It was a real king's army, a powerful army composed entirely of mechanical and biological soldiers.They fought side by side with human beings, destroying the primitive giant beasts that threatened the survival of human beings on the continent, opened up habitats one after another, and turned this barren continent into a paradise for human beings.

However, the humans made a mistake: they relied too much on the wisdom of the Immortal King, and even followed his advice, handing over the rulership of the King's Legion to him.The relationship between the Immortal King and the King's Legion is like that of a queen bee and a worker bee. The actions of the legion are directly controlled by the Immortal King. This makes the King's Legion's combat capability stronger, but it also makes this terrifying legion completely out of human control.

The Immortal King who broke away from human control wanted to establish an eternal kingdom on Pangu Continent, an immortal kingdom composed of mechanical creatures.The ancestors of human beings fought against the Immortal King on the Pangu Continent, and this tragic war lasted for thousands of years.Humanity finally won, took away the energy spar of the Immortal King, and let it fall into eternal sleep.

Human beings who have learned the lesson, while sealing the Immortal King and the King's Legion, in order to prevent future generations from making the same mistakes, they destroyed all the records about the Mechanical Age.

Since then, the battle mechas completely controlled by humans that fought against the King's Legion of the Immortal King have become the main force on the battlefield.With the establishment of Chang'an, the first human city on the Pangu Continent, the era of mecha civilization was born.

In the White Horse Barracks, Mu Yun had heard old soldiers singing ancient songs. The knights who fought bravely in the Millennium War were rarely remembered now.Their legendary stories are only sung in the drunken ballads of bonfires and spirits, and gradually disappeared in the history of Pangea.

However, history can be erased, but the traces left by civilization on this land cannot be completely erased, such as——

Sea of ​​Thorns!
"The flames of the Millennium War eventually spread to the entire continent. Even if the ancestors of mankind wanted to erase the existence of mechanical civilization from history, the remains of the battlefield left by the Millennium War on this continent are not so easy to bury.

"This sea of ​​thorns is the evidence that humans tried to bury the Millennium War." Li Jing's voice came, "After sealing the Immortal King, the ancestors of humans tried to bury the remains of the King's Legion underground. They buried it with sand. For the entire battlefield, a large area of ​​thorns was planted above, so as to prevent people from setting foot here again and straying into the tomb of the king's army.

"What human ancestors didn't expect was that the excavation and burial of a large amount of sand changed the terrain, causing groundwater to seep out, and this is how the quicksand under the Sea of ​​Thorns was formed.

"When the groundwater spewed out, it also brought out the solution of the mechanical creatures corrupted in the wreckage of the King's Legion, and the entire land was polluted. The thorns and roots growing on this land absorbed the biological crystal fluid of the mechanical creatures. Rather than saying that they are plants, it is better to say that they are alienated mechanical creatures.

"To put it more romantically, this sea of ​​thorns is the flower of death that bloomed from the corpses of the King's Legion."

Li Jing was still in class, but Mu Yun was a little distracted.He thought of the black sea that appeared in the dream.

Could it be that the remains of the Millennium War are also buried under that sea?
But the area of ​​the Sea of ​​Thorns shown on the map was not as exaggerated as the Black Sea in his dream.

The sea in that desert is so huge. If it was the battlefield of the Millennium War, how many corpses of the king's legion were buried under that solidified black sea?

However, the veterans of the White Horse Barracks never mentioned that there was a battle that took place in the northwest desert during the Thousand Years War.

Mu Yun shook her head, feeling that she was thinking too much.Where does the sea come from in the desert? He has never even heard of it from Baima City to Chang'an in all these years.It was really just a dream of his.

"Then below this sea of ​​thorns, that legendary castle of the dead is the remains of the battlefield of the Millennium War?"

Mu Yun recovered and heard Su Sheng asked excitedly.

"That's right," Li Jing said, "It is said that the Castle of Death below the Sea of ​​Thorns is one of the few well-preserved battlefield relics on the mainland. If we are lucky, we might be able to pick it up when we pass through the Castle of Death. A weapon or two from the Legion of Kings of yesteryear."

"Then let's go in now?" Hearing what Li Jing said, even Mu Yun was eager to try.

However, Li Jing used a micro-manipulation, precisely pinched Su Sheng's strap with two Wuming fingers of the battle armor, lifted him up from a thorny thorn, and said to Mu Yun: "Come out first, rest!" Rest and go, once you enter the Sea of ​​Thorns, you will have no chance to rest."

Mu Yun broke away from the neural connection system of the mech, walked out of the cabin, and stepped on the solid ground with both feet, and then he really felt a wave of fatigue sweeping through his body.

After setting off from Wuge City, they first fought with high intensity, with fewer enemies and more enemies, and killed Hu San's Jin Ge team, and then rushed through the dense forest without stopping.After a whole day, marching in the mech, the burden on the body is extremely heavy.Even a young man like Mu Yun was exhausted, he had already dozed off in the mecha before.

On the other hand, Li Jing, who is getting old, modified the mecha with Su Sheng the day before and changed it all night. It is not easy to hold on now...

As Mu Yun thought about it, she felt a little ashamed, so she inevitably glanced at Li Jing a few more times.

Li Jing also walked out of the cabin, stood on the ground, and immediately stretched without any image.When they left Chang'an, they left in a hurry. Li Jing was still wearing the uniform of the Chang'an Knights, but he turned the cloak over his body to cover the coat of arms.

Now, Li Jing took out the cloak and shook it in the air. The side with the emblem of the Chang'an Knights faced down and spread it directly on the ground. He sat down and greeted Mu Yun and Su Sheng: "sit down."

"Nothing good." Li Jing unpacked a pack of compressed biscuits and gave them to the two of them. "It's too big a target to start a fire, and there's nothing to bake, so let's make it for now. Let's find another place when we come out from the dead castle." Have a good meal."

"En." Mu Yun took the biscuit and thanked her.He was originally born as a poor child in the desert, so he still has the ability to endure hardships and stand hard work.

"Boss," Su Sheng chewed the biscuits, "are we really going to Dead Castle?"

"Otherwise?" Li Jing said without raising his head, "What do you think we came to this sea of ​​thorns for?"

"Look at the terrain of this sea of ​​thorns... Actually, we can lay an ambush here." The map of the sea of ​​thorns that Hu San passed to Li Jing before, Li Jing also passed to Mu Yun.At this moment, Mu Yun was pulling out a holographic map from the biological plug on the back of his neck to study.

"If the next pursuer is still at the level of the Jin Ge team in Wuge City, maybe we can lay an ambush." ​​Li Jing did not directly deny Mu Yun's thoughts, "I'm afraid that the next pursuer will not So easy."

"You mean... the Northwest Wolf?" Mu Yun frowned.

"If the Northwest Wolf comes, do you think my old subordinates won't follow?" Li Jing smiled, "Even if not all of them come, just one or two with a tactical mind can figure out our firepower output. , they will not give us a chance to defeat them one by one. On the contrary, they will use their tricks to trap us in this sea of ​​thorns."

"So instead of ambush in the sea of ​​thorns to fight guerrilla warfare, it is better to go directly through the sea of ​​thorns, enter the dead castle, and take the way to Donglin." Li Jing said his plan, "if you are lucky, you can get one or two pieces of equipment in the dead castle , increase the firepower. When we get out of the dead castle, if we encounter the Northwest Wolf or my old subordinates, we can also surprise them."

It seems that there is no better way.Mu Yun thought to himself.

For some unknown reason, Mu Yun felt an inexplicable sense of uneasiness about entering the Fortress of Death, perhaps related to the strange dream before.He had almost completely forgotten the content of the dream, but the feeling of uneasiness still lingered in his mind.It seems that there has been a voice trying to tell him that everything is wrong, all the legends about this continent are wrong, and some things have been erased, as if he became Mu Yun's memory before he became Mu Yun.

The night wind blowing from the Sea of ​​Thorns was cold outside, and Mu Yun shivered involuntarily.In the hazy night, he seemed to see thorny branches stretching out and winding on the ground, as if trying to take them off guard and drag them into the darkness.

Is it because I haven't woken up yet?Mu Yun thought about it, rubbed her cheeks that were sore from the cold again, and hugged her arm tightly.

"Is it cold?" Seeing Li Jing and Su Sheng standing up, Mu Yun also stood up.But Li Jing picked up the cloak on the ground and threw it to himself, "Put it on, Su Sheng doesn't need to keep out the cold anyway."

"Eccentric." Su Sheng muttered in a low voice.

"What about you?" Mu Yun was a little embarrassed.Under the moonlight, Li Jing's face was a little paler than when he was in Chang'an City. Although he looked no different from his usual listless look, Mu Yun always felt that Li Jing, who was leaning on the mech, had a kind of weakness that couldn't be concealed.

"Are you okay?" Mu Yun asked involuntarily.

"Hehe, students finally know how to care about their teachers?" Li Jing squinted his eyes, and his smile was still very annoying, "As a teacher, in order to take care of students, I can only suffer from cold. You know that being a teacher is not easy." Just fine."

"Pretend I didn't ask." Mu Yun immediately closed her mouth and turned her head away.But I was a little surprised in my heart: When did I start to care about this guy?

Speaking of it, it seems that since leaving Chang'an, along the way, I have become more and more trusting in Li Jing.

teacher...

Seeing Li Jing leaning listlessly on the mech with his arms folded, Mu Yun really didn't want to admit that she had received a lot of advice from Li Jing without knowing it.

But Li Jing chose which pot to open and which pot to lift, "To ensure safety, let me teach you a lesson before entering the sea of ​​thorns!"

Why do you have to go to class again?Mu Yun shouted in his heart: You bastard, you are addicted to being a teacher, right?Don't forget that I haven't worshiped you as my teacher yet!

(End of this chapter)