"You don't know anything, do you, Haymelin?"
In this world, there are many existences that are older than the White Church.
"Where is the leader!" The wind and snow drifted by, and the moment they came back to their senses, Liccardo and Asio beside him were shocked to realize that Haimirning was no longer where they were.
When the cult leader performed some ancient magic that cost him his own body, he conjured something. Just like his words, it is something far beyond human imagination.
This is actually an illusion that is easy to crack.
In this misty snowstorm, the knights stood at such a close distance that they had to shout loudly to hear each other's voices. How could she be able to tell that someone was approaching from a distance? Furthermore, it is full of paradoxes no matter how you think about it, for a mere woman to move forward alone in such a wind and snow that makes it difficult for the tenacious warriors to move forward.
But she saw the weakness of people's hearts.
He saw Hemelning's confusion and wavering.
When he was still a teenager, he once regarded her as his guiding light, the rare beauty in life.
Her words made him who he is today.
This was a direct attack on the weak point, because it was exactly what he longed for in his heart. He ignored everything that was wrong, ignored the knights behind him who suddenly became taciturn, and ignored the unchanging nature in the snowstorm.
When I reacted, I was already lost too far.
Apart from the dim moonlight, there was only him and the blizzard in the entire world.
"What... is going on! -" Haimelning instinctively raised his shield and sword, but he looked around blankly but could not see anything from this unchanging scene.
The howling wind began to rush in through the gap between his neck and helmet, making it impossible for him to open his eyes.
"You don't know anything, do you, Haymelning?" Her voice rang in her ears for a moment, and Haymelning's scalp went numb for a while, but he turned around suddenly but still couldn't see anything. .
No matter how tired and longing affected his judgment, he began to realize that something was wrong.
"Who are you! Why are you pretending to be her!" He shouted loudly, but even this voice was covered up by the "whoosh-" sound of the snowstorm.
"I am what you desire and what you fear," He said in Sania's voice.
"I am a whisper in the ear, a fanatical shout." Then it changed into the tone of Crown Prince Hermes.
"It's something you've always been familiar with, something you've never seen before." This time the voice became another woman's. Although Heimerning had not heard it before, he felt that this voice was warm and giving. My own infinite power.
"Is it a demon?" He tightened his grip on the sword in his hand. Whether it was because of the weather or because of his heart, his fingers were cold.
There are also many records about these guys in the church's holy scriptures. They have extraordinary abilities and are good at confusing people's hearts, and the most effective way to deal with these guys is obviously a firm mind.
"May the world hallow your name, and may we all hold a two-edged sword in our hands." He shouted the prayer mantra loudly, and for a moment he really felt that his mind became It’s Qingming.
The voice disappeared, and Haimirning looked around vigilantly for a long time. After discovering that the existence seemed to be driven away by his firm prayer, he breathed a long sigh of relief.
"You really believe it -" "Ah -!!" The whisper in his ear sounded again, and this time he could even feel his breathing, although he clearly knew that he was wearing a helmet.
"Hehehehe——" He smiled in Sania's voice: "You are such an interesting person, Haimirning."
"Damn it, devil, come out and fight me head-on!" He roared loudly, and at the same time he swung his sword forward randomly, and after slashing twice with the sword, he heard the sound of "grab--!" and a real hit was heard.
"No - this -" Crown Prince Hermes, whose left half of his body was split open, widened his gray-blue eyes in disbelief, and stretched out his hand to Haimirning: "My child... .....You still refuse to forgive me——"
"No, no, no, no, no!" "Hehehehe——" The voice laughed at him in mid-air, and he waved the sword in his hand like crazy, but he couldn't touch anything.
"Tell you a good thing, Haimirning." The voice became cold for a moment.
"No one expected you to be born."
"You're a mistake."
"..." He gripped the sword tightly, but the wavering feeling in his heart was transmitted to the tip of the sword, causing it to tremble slightly.
"A young and frivolous mortal, even now he is a great man respected by people. But he was not like this in the past." The voice fluctuated from left to right, and Haimirning kept facing the place where the voice came from, preparing to seize the opportunity to attack, but His wavering became more and more obvious as he spoke.
"I think it's natural."
"How can a young man who has been neglected by his father grow up and become an outstanding and reliable talent? No, this is impossible. A great man? He has dedicated a lot to the people and the church? No, he was not like this before. . He is young, frivolous and self-reliant on his status."
"This was a mistake from the beginning." The voice once again became that of Crown Prince Hermes, with some vicissitudes of life and emotion. "Shut up!" Haymelin roared loudly to cover up the wavering in his heart.
"Friendship, they say."
"Pure friendship comes from a young man who has just been established as the crown prince for less than a year, has been ignored by his own father, and is arrogant. With one."
"Excellent, the first female bishop in the history of Suomir."
"How ridiculous and ridiculous." The voice became that of the third woman, but it was no longer as gentle as before, with a completely cold and gritty tone.
"This union is not her original wish. She is devout in her faith and should serve the gods, so she will naturally remain chaste for this purpose." The voice turned into Sania's voice again - or at least what Hemelning thought should be Sania's voice. : "But she is not qualified to choose. She is just the bishop of Suomir, a small country. And he is the crown prince of a neighbor of the empire."
"And they call this." He said, switching to the voice of Crown Prince Hermes, but it sounded younger and full of frivolity: "Friendship, hahahahaha——"
"You made a mistake, a huge mistake that should be covered up."
"He realized this and started trying to save it, but it was too late."
"She's dead." The voice turned into the female voice that once made Haimelning feel warm, but it was cold and emotionless. He suddenly realized whose voice it was.
"Mother?" Haimirning's voice trembled slightly, and it was difficult to hold the shield and sword in his hand tightly.
"Because of difficult labor."
"Because of you." The voice became gritty again and it was obviously directed at him.
"The empire covered up all the facts and did not hesitate to use deadly tactics to eliminate most of the insiders, just to help him, who had just been listed as the crown prince, save face."
"This is a scandal, a scandal that should not be known to outsiders."
"So they began to hire writers and troubadours to constantly promote the pure friendship between the two."
"History is written by the victors. Under the empire's overwhelming power of propaganda, the truth is quickly overshadowed by lies."
"Thousands of people have believed the lies fabricated by the Empire. Perhaps they are acting, or perhaps out of guilt in their hearts?" He continued to explain in Sania's voice: "He has indeed changed, at least on the surface. , and became an outstanding and great figure who is respected by others.”
"But the people of Suomir have not forgotten."
"Those believers who mourned the loss of their most beloved bishop, the very few who escaped from the sword of the executioner of the Empire."
"Not forgotten."
"Do you know now, Haimelning?" The voice rang in his ears again, and Haimelning got goosebumps, but he was frozen in place and unable to move.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha" the voice laughed wildly.
"This is, revenge..." The shield fell to the ground, his knees weakened, and he knelt in the blizzard with a dull face.
"Yes - the cultists you think, the cultists you think are planning to murder the beloved crown prince - your respectable and amiable father. They are just a group of avengers filled with grief and anger."
"This is their justice, Haymelin, the so-called heretics you think should be damned, the so-called heretics you kill without hesitation."
"They were born to avenge your mother."
"Hahahahahahahaha——" The wild laughter echoed endlessly in the air, but Haimirning had already put down the shield and sword in his hands, and his legs and feet were too weak to even stand up.
"Which side are you on, Haymelning?" The voice rang in his ears again, but Haymelning was trembling all over, but couldn't say a word.
"Is this the woman you expected, the knight you were looking forward to?" the voice sounded again, and suddenly Sania, holding a lamp and wearing a bishop's costume, appeared in front of Haymelning.
"Sani -" he knelt on the ground and stretched out his hand forward, "no -" her face, illuminated by the firelight, was full of fear: "Don't come near me, you monster!" she yelled. Then he turned around and rushed into the blizzard, never to return. Haimirning was stunned on the spot, and he didn't even have the strength to stand up and chase after him.
"You chose the wrong side, Haymelin."
"You think you are fighting for justice and protecting the people, but you are facing each other with swords. The person you brutally killed is the person who is really seeking justice for your biological mother."
"Is this the person she expected?"
"Who are you...?" Haimirning's voice trembled, and there was almost no sanity left.
"I?"
"The power required to take revenge against the unattainable crown prince cannot be possessed by divided believers. But no matter how devoutly praying to your hypocritical gods, it will have no effect."
"So they."
"Changed a prayer object." The voice kept changing, and at this moment it became the voice of the retired former head of the Silver Guard Knights: "You kid can understand it, right? When people fall into despair , always trying to achieve his goals at all costs.”
"They come one after another just to fulfill this long-cherished wish. To seek justice for the bishop who died in humiliation."
"For this reason, they would not hesitate to walk on the one-way road to hell. These people have this level of awareness."
"And you, Haymelin."
"You are driven forward by life and don't know where to go. The hidden past is just a lie."
"What level of consciousness do you have?"
"I-I-" He was speechless.
"He knows all this, do you understand?" The voice sounded in his ears again, like a whisper in his sleep, lightly invading his soul.
"He knew these people were here to kill him because of the sins he had committed. But he sent you to fight these people."
“Without saying a word to you.” “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Hemelning threw the knight sword in his hand fiercely, and it was stuck in the blizzard. Then it was swallowed up by night.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" slapping the ground and surrounding areas with his shield like crazy.
"Bang bang bang——"
"Bang bang bang——"
The snow was flying, and Haymelin was hit until he couldn't breathe and collapsed on the ground.
"Ha-ah-ha-ah-" He breathed in the air, like a fish that had dried up in a pond, lying under the scorching sun trying in vain to get oxygen.
"Isn't this the answer you've been looking for?" The voice paused for a long time, and when his breathing finally calmed down, he said in the voice of the former captain: "You must have doubted it too. Why can the other party sacrifice so desperately? Is it possible that I am the wrong party?"
"Stop-haha-shut up-" The intense oxygen consumption made his eyelids heavier and heavier, and he could no longer even refute.
"You don't know your direction, you just move forward based on other people's words. You hesitate, you don't know where you should go, do you?" This time it was Sania's voice.
"However, there is actually the simplest answer to all this." A gentle voice like a mother rang out. In this ice and snow, Haimirning felt more and more like to indulge in it: "Child."
"There is only one direction you should go."
"Grab your sword, my dear."
"Grab your sword, then."
"Piercing" the gentle mother's voice is persuasive.
"His heart."
"Huh——" He took a deep breath, his whole body was shaking, his eyes were dull, and something began to erode his soul, but at the moment when that existence thought that the goal was finally achieved——
"I sensed the fluctuations in magic power. I thought they had created something high-level, but it turned out to be just an inconspicuous nightmare."
A cold female voice came from a distance, followed by lightning and thunder in the blizzard.
Haimirning, who could not move most of his body, turned his head with difficulty, and then his gray-blue eyes were filled with some kind of light.
The wind and snow parted automatically in front of her, and the short silver hair of the visitor grew longer in an instant. Then some kind of runes lit up on her body, and purple-blue electric light began to flash on her body. Eventually it turned into a snake surrounding the silver-gray spear in his hand.
"How-could-" The voice that had been bewitching Haimirning lost all disguise and turned into a tone with echoes that made it difficult to distinguish between male and female.
"Wait a moment, young man." She looked at Haimirning with pure golden eyes, and then waved her spear lightly.
forward.
Take a step.
“BOOM!!!!!”
In an instant, the night sky was as bright as day.
The scattered lightning shattered the blizzard into pieces, and something shapeless in it struggled and fell into nothingness in front of the thunder.
"Crack————" The shattered pieces of charred soil fell back to the ground, and in an instant the night turned into day. After the lightning disappeared, Haimirning's eyes became temporarily blind.
He couldn't see anything, but the feeling of being out of breath finally disappeared at this moment: "Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" He breathed in the air, and when his senses gradually recovered, he realized that his The area between his mouth and nose was filled with blood at some point.
"Iluna (ancient proverb: light)" the cold voice sounded again, and then a soft white light lit up in front of Haimirning. He blinked and tried hard to adjust, and finally saw the scene in front of him clearly.
"You..." The person in front of her was naturally the silver-haired woman who claimed to be a mercenary. There was nothing special about her at this moment except the glowing spear in her hand. But Haimelning still couldn't forget the scene where his whole body was wrapped with lightning and his eyes were shining.
"Well, I know, I have a lot to explain to you." Erica shrugged.
"first."
"Have you ever heard of the World Guardian?" She spoke to Haymelin word by word, without any hint of joking in her tone.
"No - no." Heimerning, who had not yet recovered from the shock, reacted a little sluggishly.
"Well, how should we start talking about this?" Erica touched her chin and poked the spear into the snow as a light.
"Humans are actually prohibited from possessing magic, did you know?"
"Huh? Huh? No, I don't know-" Haimirning's reaction was still slow.
"Curiosity is human nature, but there are some things in this world that should not be explored. Magic is one of them." Erica continued, but Haimirning, who had received too much information overnight, still had no idea. She could calm down, but she didn't seem to care about it, and just continued to speak: "This kind of power far exceeds human cognition. It is true that the elves have better magical abilities than humans, but they know how to control themselves, while humans do not. "
"The result of blindly pursuing power often leads to misdirection. Changes in the celestial phenomena and many magical disasters are caused by this."
"The so-called ignorance is bliss. Human beings always think that this is an excuse for other races who are stingy in sharing their knowledge, but this is really a fact."
"The elves have spent many years preventing humans from coming into contact with magic. But it was all doomed to fail from the beginning. Because human curiosity cannot be eradicated. No matter how deep it is hidden, there will always be someone who wants it. Find them."
"This goes hand in hand with the concept of certain... 'things'." Erica's eyes became colder as she said this, and her tone became much lower.
"Magic is not given to humans by God." She looked down at Haimirning from a high position, and the white light reflected in her eyes for a moment seemed to be an objective existence in a higher plane.
"We still don't know how to deal with all this. All we can do is restrain humans from destroying the balance. What we are trying our best to avoid is the situation you encountered today."
"If you play with magic randomly, you will release things far beyond human imagination. Even if they are just inferior, the abilities of these ancient beings cannot be covered by ordinary people's common sense. In front of them, human swords are immature and weak, and shallow rationality It will be easily torn into pieces upon contact."
"You're better off. At least you look like a frightened hamster, but you still have some sense and haven't turned into an idiot."
"Maybe one day you can fight alongside us." Erica shrugged.
"You...you?" Haimirning, who finally began to come to his senses, still had a dull look on his face, but he at least reacted to the other party's words.
"So I said it, called the Guardian of the World." Erica turned around and seemed to be planning to leave. "Dang" she grabbed the metal body of her spear, and then she seemed to suddenly remember: "Ah, a more widely known name."
"Druid."
"In this case, can you have an idea?" She said, and it was only at this moment that Haimelin finally came back to his senses and began to blink his sour eyes. Because of the tears oozing out, he began to feel that the scene in front of him was blurry. Unclear: "Wait a minute, wait a minute - what is that guy -"
"Devil, even though it's just a lower-level nightmare." Erica's figure clearly began to move away from the light.
"Then what it says-"
"It's all true."
"——" Haimirning stopped.
"Their abilities far exceed human cognition, so the so-called secrets do not exist in front of demons."
"They really can read people's hearts. Does this make your hair stand on end?"
"Devils can't lie, because they understand that only the truth can make people believe in it fervently. When it comes to manipulating people's hearts, no politician can compare to these guys." Her voice gradually faded away, while Haymelin continued to blink and work hard. Adapt to the darkness.
"I'll let you digest it yourself, young knight. This is also a good thing for you, if you still fight with half-hearted consciousness."
"Sooner or later you will die of your own indecision."
"When you calm down, come to me at the Mercenary Guild in Heinzwom. Then, goodbye -" the voice disappeared into the darkness, and the exhausted Heimerning blinked, and when he finally finally When he came back to his senses, a loud noise also appeared in front of him.
"Captain!" Asio shouted loudly, holding a torch.
"Where did you go? You disappeared for a whole day! Cough, cough, cough -" Ricardo took a breath and then started coughing again.
"A whole... day?" Haimirning was stunned, his eyes quickly adapted to the light of the torch.
"My God, what happened here? Did you do something outrageous and get thundered?" The firelight caught the big hole on the ground, and the scorched marks and the powerful impact made Haimirning confirm again and again. What happened was not an illusion.
"What the hell is this -" "Don't touch it!" Asio approached some kind of sticky debris on the ground and subconsciously wanted to pick it with his sword, but the moment Haimirning opened his mouth to stop him, he had already touched it with the tip of his sword. Touched.
"Zi——!!" "What the hell is going on!" The liquid flowing out of the black translucent remains that was poked open by the sword tip directly corroded the surrounding snow and soil, and the sword tip that Asio picked was also In an instant, the whole sword was corroded by rust and turned into a rounded and blunt tip because of his curiosity.
"Oh my god...what's going on?" Liccardo, who had always been unruly, had a dull look on his face at this moment.
"Did you kill this?" The knights looked blankly at their captain, who looked like he had gone through a great battle. Haimirning stood up holding his shield and shook his head helplessly: "Is it possible!"
"That is?"
"Just think that I was saved by a passing god. I still don't understand the situation myself." Confused, he prevaricated at random, and then brought up the topic again:
"What's been going on all day? Where's Gedo?"
"Who knows! Shouldn't I ask you this question?" Liccardo looked annoyed: "Last night when we were retreating together, you disappeared in the blink of an eye. Who knows where you went on a one-way street with only one direction? . We had no choice but to continue moving forward, and we met the separated friendly forces later. Gedo's side has been taken care of by the other side. We followed the friendly forces to the nearby villages for a while, and then came back to find you. , and killed that monster on the way."
"By the way, speaking of this -" Liccardo suddenly snapped his fingers.
"There's someone there who says he knows you."
————
————
After a long journey, it was already the morning of the next day when we returned to the small village that served as our temporary stop.
He saw her almost as soon as he entered the village.
Wearing white church clothes, he was holding a book and explaining knowledge to the young children in the village.
The devil's omniscience makes people feel a little trembling.
But just at this moment, he was somewhat grateful for this fact.
At least she really exists.
Consistent with that illusion, she was actually here.
The black-haired girl stroked one side of her hair, then finished the last paragraph and closed the textbook.
The moment I inadvertently raised my head, I met his eyes standing in the direction of the entrance not far away.
"ah--"
"Long time no see." She held the book in her arms and smiled at him.
"Haimernin."
"Sage——" Someone in the distance suddenly called out this title in Laman language.
"Miss Sage-" The two of them turned around together, and then a young man ran over with a tattered notebook and asked her questions.
