"Now, we should think of a way to escape from this ghost place..."
At this point, Joseph felt a sense of solemnity in his heart. In fact, he had no expectations for what could be discussed on this topic.
He had tried to return the same way when he led them to escape from Taolin, but the area of Taolin had expanded more than ten times than when they came, and even the terrain had completely changed, making it impossible to follow the previous memory. Find the exit.
Regarding this phenomenon, he couldn't help but think of a possibility - the secret realm. From the moment they entered Taolin, they entered a semi-enclosed secret realm.
"This semi-closed secret realm can be a small alien space parasitic in the normal world, or it can be a small alien world that exists independently, connected to the real world through one or several specific one-way restricted passages. Of course, these passages The restrictions are all traceable... but the core purpose is nothing more than to prevent outsiders who do not meet the conditions from entering by mistake, or to seal and imprison them to prevent things that do not meet the conditions from coming out. But since when we come in Not being hindered means that we must not meet certain conditions, so we cannot go out..."
When Wan Qi heard this, he interrupted with confusion: "Is there a secret realm that does not restrict entry and exit conditions?"
"If there are no conditions for entry or exit, can it still be called a secret realm?" Joseph glanced at him and replied seriously.
Yang Xin was still more concerned about when she would be able to escape from this hellish place, and decisively brought the topic back on track: "Then we will be locked up here forever!?"
Joseph: "As long as we can find conditions that restrict our escape, it is not difficult to escape by bypassing the restrictions..."
Shigure seemed a little desperate when he heard this. He coughed violently for a while before he regained his breath: "If you can't find it, do you have to stay here for the rest of your life..."
Joseph glanced at Shigure who was shivering, and wisely did not say the dejected words "Maybe it won't last that long."
After all, it wasn't him who fought off those fog monsters, but the other party let him go for some reason...
"Do you think it's because we ate the food here?" Zhao Chensi also looked a little unhappy.
However, there was silence in the ruined temple, and no one answered his words.
Seeing that no one spoke, he asked strangely: "Haven't you ever heard of legends about the underworld, the underworld, and Hirazan?"
Joseph was an extraordinary person who faced all kinds of extraordinary events. Naturally, he had heard about myths and legends. However, when he was in the church college, he failed in the two theoretical courses of myths and legends and psychological control, so in He suffered a lot in confrontation with the concept of transcendent level.
Yang Xin and Shigure are basically just lovers of supernatural events. They are very interested in the supernatural events circulating in urban legends, but in fact they have no research on things like myths and legends.
So everyone looked at Zhao Chensi with incomprehensible eyes.
"Isn't this kind of plot often found in myths and legends? In Greek mythology, Hades snatched the seeds from the goddess of the underworld and fed her pomegranates. The goddess could only live in the underworld for a long time because she ate the food of the underworld. Japanese mythology The same goes for Izanami, the Mother Goddess of the Earth. After her death, she fell into the underworld but could no longer leave the underworld and enter the world because of the food she ate there. The same goes for Circe, the witch god..."
Seeing everyone looking at him with blank and confused eyes, Zhao Chensi knew that it would be difficult to continue the next exchange if he did not explain clearly to them, so he could only bite the bullet and tell a few myths and legends concisely.
"To put it simply, these myths and legends all have something in common that they cannot eat randomly. Eating randomly will lead to bad consequences... they can only stay in the underworld or hell, or they can forget everything and stay overseas. On the island, or being turned into a pig by a witch..."
Shigure's small eyes, originally full of despair and sorrow, suddenly lit up. He remembered the animation he had watched in his childhood and adjusted his glasses: "Isn't it a routine in Spirited Away to become a pig?"
Zhao Chensi: "..."
Yang Xin: "..."
Wan Qi: "?" This is a normal reaction for him who has never watched Hayao Miyazaki's animation or read The Odyssey.
Instead, Joseph narrowed his eyes thoughtfully: "Is there a legend that you will be left behind if you eat local food..."
His theoretical knowledge is a bit weak, but his rich practical experience and insights are enough to make up for the gap in this area. Naturally, he can get a lot of inspiration from Zhao Chensi's words.
"Eating in myths and legends is just a symbol. In the supernatural realm, it can be understood as eating something and being marked as belonging to this place... Maybe it is because after we entered this secret realm, we were contaminated by some unfathomable things. The characteristic that allows us to get out is why we are now trapped in a secret realm and unable to return..."
"Um...I've been wanting to ask this from the beginning..." Shigure weakly raised her hand to interrupt Joseph's thinking. The little girl pointed to the statue with only one leg left in the ruined temple, "Here It should be the legendary temple that worships the immortal, right? Do you think the immortal will leave any clues to escape..."
yes! If the method of immortality is true, then the immortal who passed down the method of immortality should have some clues!
Shigure's words unconsciously woke up a few people, and everyone quickly started searching the ruined temple.
The ruined temple was not very big. After searching together, they quickly turned the ruined temple upside down.
There are only three things found:
A rectangular wooden box with a rotten outer surface was found from behind the immortal statue, a tattered tablet found under the offering table that had unclear writing, and a book that Shigure turned out when he was inspecting the tattered futon that looked to be old. For a long time, even the binding thread was almost worn out.
These three things were placed smoothly on the altar table, waiting for them to discover the secrets hidden within them.
"Let's take a look at what's in the box first..." Joseph first picked up the rotten wooden box, gently blew away the dust accumulated on it, and then held his breath and gently pushed the lid open.
Zhao Chensi wanted to go over and take a look, but his attention was attracted by a violent cough in his ear.
Shigure coughed again, perhaps because she was irritated by the dust. This time she coughed harder than before, and she was a little out of breath. Zhao Chensi couldn't help but cast a worried look, and stretched out his hand to pat her back to help her calm down, but his hand froze in mid-air.
This time, as Shigure coughed, Zhao Chensi saw something unexpected.
With every sound and every cough, something like dust and mist could be seen coming out from between her fingers...
…………
Changsheng Village, in Xincun Village.
The originally peaceful and peaceful mountain village was now shrouded in ghosts.
The continuously gathering and dispersing smoke and dust shadows came from west to east. They let out roars full of pain and anger, twisted their smoky bodies, and transformed into various strange and terrifying evil spirit images, covering up the bright white moon above their heads. Covering the bright Milky Way in summer. The sky, the ground, and the village are filled with twisted ghosts walking through them.
It's like a picture of a group of demons dancing around and a hundred ghosts walking around at night.
Where these twisted ghosts passed through the village, the houses decayed, collapsed and finally disappeared. The crops also withered and died, decomposed to the point where not even ashes were left, and even the land was reduced and disappeared layer by layer as they passed through, revealing uncultivable rock formations several meters below the ground. These ghosts carried with them already visible to the naked eye. The dust particles blew up a storm in the village!
Wu Ming stood in the center of the storm, with the slightly shiny shield and life-support module protecting him and Elizabeth and Zhao Sida behind him. He looked coldly at the smoke and dust blocked by the shield, grinning in an incompetent and furious manner. .
"It's fresh... blood!"
"The flesh and blood of outsiders! Ah..."
"Walls in the way!"
"Let me eat you! Let me eat you!!!"
"Body...warm body..."
From his extraordinary perspective, the smog in Changsheng Village was now rolling like boiling water. A huge mass of activated mist swallowed them and the entire village like a great beast. In the belly, the smoke and dust shadows wandering around are also made up of countless tiny dust particles. They seem to be hitting the shield with their bodies again and again, but in fact they are made up of those dust particles that are constantly vibrating at extremely close range. , the attack effect produced by eroding the shield.
As for Old Man Xie, he didn't even last a second in front of this active mist ball. As soon as the latter appeared, he let out a scream and became a part of the opponent. There was no resistance in the whole process, as if He was born unable to resist this kind of assimilation, and most of the remaining villagers who stayed in the village were not able to escape this fate.
Not only the villagers, but also the buildings, land, and crops in the village are camouflaged by countless dust particles. Everything in this secret realm is simulated by these living dust particles.
After seeing this scene, Wu Ming suddenly understood that there might not be even a single truly normal creature in Changsheng Village.
Even if a person has died, his body will turn back into dust and return to heaven and earth due to decay. But their spirits are still alive, divided into small parts, evenly distributed on every dust particle, and they are enduring the horrific pain of their bodies being chopped into dust by thousands of knives every moment. In an unimaginable life form, he continues an eternity that is more terrifying than death.
These ubiquitous dust particles are the bodies of these 'people'. They are eager to touch and erode the flesh and blood of normal people, and they are eager to return to their integrity. Even if ordinary people just stand here and breathe a few breaths of the air in the village, these dust particles will They can invade the human body through the respiratory tract, through the skin and pores, and even through the conjunctiva, and then start to erode and touch the human lungs bit by bit from the inside, transforming the flesh and blood there into their kind...
Although he remained calm and composed on the surface, Wu Ming had already begun to mobilize the power of the support team in the spiritual link: "Can anyone give me a trick? What should we do with this thing next?"
