"Last inquiry." Jairzinho Guzman tapped the metal bed with his fingers without emotion. "Reserve Iago Severtalion, how do you feel?"
"."
"Answer me, reserve. Otherwise I'll treat you as ready."
The boy nodded silently.
At this moment, he was wearing a straitjacket, lying on the cold iron platform, looking nervous.
Of course it's impossible to say he's not nervous - why shouldn't he be nervous?
He agreed to Khalil's words and became a reserve soldier, but he still had little understanding of the things around him and was confused. Moreover, just two hours later, he was already lying in a dark room.
His hands and feet were restrained, and the iron platform was as cold as the corpse of a deceased person. Not only did it make him very uncomfortable, it even made him unable to feel his back. He felt like he had been sweating, but he had no proof of this.
"Very good." The medical officer walked up to him and tapped his forehead with his finger. For some reason, he was wearing iron gloves, and the touch of metal made Savita feel a pain in his forehead.
"You already know what's going to happen, right? Reserve?"
"The twentieth operation?" Savita turned her neck and looked at the doctor.
The latter's gaze was still emotionless, and he just nodded slowly: "Yes, the twentieth operation is also your first operation."
"Am I going to be cut open?"
"Not yet."
"Then what will you do to me?"
"I won't do anything to you, reserve. You haven't reached the stage where you want me to perform surgery on you yet." Jairzinho grinned, his smile was very cold, and he tapped Sevi again with his finger. Ta's forehead was stronger than before.
"And the most important thing you should do now is not to ask questions, but to shut up and wait quietly."
"Will shutting up get me through surgery?"
"uncertain."
"Then why should I shut up?" Savita stared at him. "You keep hitting my forehead, why? Chief Medical Officer Jairzinho Guzman? Is there something wrong with my forehead?"
"Maybe." The medical officer stared back and his voice became very soft. "But I'm not sure yet whether there's something wrong with your forehead or your brain."
"Do you want to come and confirm?"
"Not for the time being, I'm afraid I'll be infected by you, reserve." Jairzinho lowered his head and pressed a button on the side of the iron platform.
It began to change its angle, taking Savita from lying flat to standing upright. He did not really touch the ground, his feet were dangling in the air, and the iron platform itself worked together with the straitjacket to bind him tightly. For a moment, Sevatar almost thought he was lying in a coffin.
Of course, this did not prevent him from refuting the medical officer's words.
"I don't have any infectious diseases. This is what you said yourself before, respected medical officer."
"I make mistakes too."
Jairzinho once again glanced at the recruit who talked a little too much, and suddenly felt funny.
"Save your energy and stay calm, reserve. I really don't hate this kind of personal attack on you, but do you really think I can't see that you are nervous? Shut up and wait quietly for a while."
Sevatar did as he was told, and he was actually silent for a moment before he spoke again - stammering.
"It's so cold." He shivered, his teeth chattering and his eyes rolled up. "Why is it so cold, doctor?"
"It's just cold," Jairzinho Guzman said expressionlessly.
He turned his head and looked at a pair of bright eyes in the darkness. Feier walked out and nodded to him. They walked out of the room, leaving the cold and loneliness inside to Iago Severtarion. There were already two people waiting in the aisle for a long time.
They are similar in height, look similar, and even stand in the same way. At this moment, they were looking inside through the bulletproof glass.
Feir approached them and reported in a low voice. The voice of the chief think tank sounded very different from his before, with a coldness that came from nowhere, as cold as his eyes that were shining blue at the moment.
"Everything is normal, Primarch, instructor. Reservist Yago Savitarion has begun to dream."
"So fast?" Conrad Coates raised his eyebrows, looking a little surprised. "I thought he would wait a little longer before falling asleep."
"Fast is a good thing," Khalil said to Fehr. "How does it feel to control the ritual?"
"Very peculiar," Fair replied slowly.
"I don't know how to describe this feeling, instructor. The formations themselves are craving spiritual energy to light them up, and I seem to be just a generator. I can feel the spiritual energy leaving my body and entering the ritual formation. and gradually building up to sleep. But beyond that, I can't do much more."
Khalil nodded to him: "This is enough, Feier. This is the best."
He turned his head back, and behind the bulletproof glass, a dark but scarlet light lit up.
Conrad Coates closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and tensed his muscles.
May you succeed, Reserve Yago Savitarion. He said silently in his heart.
——
As always, cold, never-ending cold.
The wind without emotion and consciousness blew indifferently from the far end of the pale world. Everything was silent, and even the sound of the wind did not exist at all. Savita was wrapped in the cold, but he didn't particularly care.
He could clearly feel that he was dreaming. This thing was very strange, but it did not prevent him from being shocked by the scene in the dream.
In front of him was a majestic mountain range, covered with thick white ash, making everything look like it had only one color, one color. The color is lifeless and instinctively uncomfortable.
Are those things ashes? he asked himself, and then immediately overturned this idea in a few seconds - no, no, not ashes.
Yes. Ashes.
Yes, ashes.
Sevatar started walking forward. He still remembered what happened before. Chief Medical Officer Jairzinho Guzman said that he would undergo the twentieth operation, and this twentieth operation was actually his first operation.
Savitar didn't understand why they reversed the order, but he seemed to catch some subtle clues now.
He walked along the mountains, surrounded by silence, extremely quiet. Sevatar tried to make some noise by walking, but he failed. Even if he stomped his feet deliberately, no sound was born in this pale world.
The boy breathed a little uneasily, instinctively wanting to move his fingers to relieve this anxiety. This was his past habit, and he would do it whenever he felt uneasy - and this time, he actually succeeded.
Savita immediately realized what was wrong with the question.
Isn't he wearing a straitjacket? His hands were crossed and tied together, making it impossible to move each other.
He lowered his head and stared, only to realize that the clothes on his body had completely changed. At this moment, he was wearing a white robe, with straps on his hands and feet. His boots were also white and looked brand new.
Savita knelt down and touched it. The touch from his fingertips was very dry. He felt that the thing was like some kind of skin. He stood up again, feeling a swaying feeling in his waist.
Sevatar reached out and touched a kettle hanging from his waist, as well as an ancient-looking paper roll. Its surface is so rough that it almost hurts your fingers to the touch.
Sevatar silently took the kettle and shook it. He didn't hear the shaking sound, but the quality of the kettle itself told him something. He unscrewed the screw cap and took a small sip.
The water itself had no taste, but it was pretty good compared to the water he'd been able to drink in the past. Savita immediately covered the knob and hung the kettle back on his waist. He took the parchment again, spread it out, and began to read.
"Cross the White Mountain to the City of the Dead, Argo Severtarion."
"."
Sevatar frowned.
The eternal night is above - what does this mean?
He pursed his lips, looking a little annoyed. But he still put away the parchment roll, put it in his chest, and started walking forward.
The mountains were silent, so quiet that it was a bit eerie, but Savita walked forward regardless. The road was smooth at first, but quickly became rocky. The slope rose steeply and began to become more and more intense.
Savita also changed from simply walking to walking with difficulty. In the end, he was almost crawling and needed the help of his hands to continue upward. Crawling forward every short distance required him to expend a lot of energy.
He tried to rest for a while, but rest did not restore his strength. He also raised his head to observe how far he was from the top of the mountain, but no matter what he tried, the distance on this road did not seem to shrink at all.
The boy stopped in frustration, grabbed the side of the surprisingly steep road with one hand, and took out the kettle with the other hand. He grabbed the twist cap with his teeth and took a second sip of water.
In an instant, Saiweita's spirit was lifted up, and his physical fatigue disappeared in an instant.
--what's the situation?
He doubtfully closed the screw cap of the kettle with his teeth again, but after all, he still did not put into practice the idea of taking another sip. That might answer his question, but it might not.
Rather than wasting a mouthful of hard-earned precious water for the answer to a question, Savita felt that he should keep the answer to the question.
He began to continue upward, and this assisted crawling finally turned into climbing after a certain critical point. Savitar sensed this through the changes in slope and gravity, but did not turn his head and look back to confirm whether his perception was correct.
What a joke.
Argo Severtarion licked his chapped lips in annoyance, tasting the blood that remained on them.
Looking back now is the same as committing suicide - he will not test his willpower for no reason. It would be better if he doesn't look at it. If he does, God knows if he still has the courage to continue this climb?
After all, he still had a city of the dead to go to.
The boy gasped, taking a deep breath and starting to continue upward. There wasn't much water left in the kettle, and he knew it. It was no longer as heavy as before, and he had to climb over the mountain before the water in it dried up completely.
If he couldn't do it, he would surely die.
Sevatar was not afraid of death, but he did not think he should die here. So he kept going up, cursing in his head as he did so.
After a period of time, his fingers began to become sore and numb, and every movement and exertion of force would cause pain in his wrists and forearms. The same goes for his legs. The process of bending them to exert force became a terrible torture.
His knees began to protest, and his muscles swelled, pounding along with his heart. He paused with a gasp, took down the kettle with trembling hands, and drank the last of the water.
This saliva smelled of blood and was unspeakably bitter, as if it were the embodiment of pain and was unpalatable, but Savita swallowed it hard.
There was a burning pain in his throat, and in contrast, his hands began to become more stable.
Savita bit the kettle, took a deep breath, and began to climb up.
He no longer looked up to observe, and he had no water to drink - he crawled, non-stop. He was furious, in great pain, and his muscles seemed to be torn, but he still forced himself to climb.
There was a strange willpower bound to this body that made him refuse to stop.
Why stop?
damn it.
Yago Severtarion cursed in his heart - Why should I stop? You bastards throw me into a hellish place like this and still call it surgery?
I think your brain is the most suitable for surgery! Let the medical officer who saw the ghost come first! Inexplicably, he keeps tapping my forehead with his finger. Is he using my forehead as a table? !
Unconsciously, he had forgotten the fact that this was a dream and began to devote himself wholeheartedly to it.
He was angry, sleepy, tired, in pain, and confused. He didn't know when this climb would end. He opened his mouth and took another deep breath, but because of this action, the kettle slipped from between his already stiff masseter muscles. The space slipped.
Sevatar sneered and said nothing. The emotions surging in his heart exceeded a certain limit at this moment, and he finally roared out.
"asshole!"
He hissed and roared at the seemingly endless mountain top. His voice resounded through the originally silent mountain top, echoing endlessly like thunder. But he himself didn't notice it at all.
With red eyes, he continued to climb, filled with resentment - and then, in the next second, the things in front of him suddenly distorted. An extremely strong feeling of weightlessness came, causing him to scream uncontrollably.
He fell, then abruptly returned to the ground.
There was no pain, just a sense of peace of mind after landing safely. Savita blinked, climbed up from the ground, and saw a ruins shrouded in darkness. There was a faint light shining in front of him, it looked like a street lamp.
The boy lowered his head in silence and began to explore his body. He quickly confirmed one thing.
All his injuries and fatigue disappeared, and the parchment roll on his chest was hot.
He immediately took it out, and the ancient paper scroll was actually glowing, as red as burning. The characters are dark and the edges are twisted as if they are burning, which is very strange.
"Congratulations, Reserve Yago Sevitarion. You have successfully crossed the White Mountain and arrived at the City of the Dead. Next, you need to pass through the city and go to the Altar of the End. There, you will Witness everything.”
Come again? What are you doing? Is it over yet?
Savita's face twitched suddenly, and she instinctively wanted to curse a few more words, but she immediately stopped herself. For no other reason than he heard a whisper. This sound was all too familiar to him.
They are not human voices.
Yago Severtarion clenched his fists silently and began to take a deep breath.
Also, but I don’t recommend waiting. I plan to stay up late today and write out tomorrow’s update.
(End of chapter)
