Lu Mingfei stood in front of the guardrail beside the porch. A firelight lit up beside him. Fingel, who walked to him, struck a match on the brim of his hat and protected the fire with his left hand to prevent sporadic flames from spreading in the desert at night. Extinguished by the wind, the cigarette in his mouth was slowly lit, and a few green smoke rose in his breath.
The desert is very quiet at night. You can only hear the whistling of the wind. Several parallel generators on the side of the wooden house are operating and making some noise. Tumbleweeds are rolling across the sand dunes. Two old men stand under the eaves of the wooden house and watch. This dark, starless, moonless world maintains each other's silence.
"I'm sorry for bringing up unhappy things at the dinner table." Fingel took a puff of a spicy cigarette and lowered his head, while the fingers of his left hand gently rose and fell on the guardrail.
"No...it's just a surprise."
Lu Mingfei admitted that his pig brain was overloaded. Sometimes when bad news is too terrible, people who cannot accept and understand it will think it is a bad joke.
Just like when you turn on the TV one day, the female anchor on the news network tells you matter-of-factly that the third Orion cantilever will explode tomorrow and everyone will die. Of course you won't feel scared or sad about this bad news, because you can't imagine that scene at all. You will just stand there in a daze like Lu Mingfei, not knowing how to react.
But at the dinner table, Lu Mingfei saw Ling's silence and Fingel's dejection, letting him know that this seemed to be no joke, this was a cruel reality... It was just because he was too far away, so he felt a little difficult. Get sad.
"What do you think?" Fingel still couldn't help but asked in a low voice when he saw Lu Mingfei still didn't speak.
"It's a bit unrealistic." Lu Mingfei replied in a low voice, "Why did a good person die suddenly?"
Fingel opened his mouth, with a trace of sadness on his face. He didn't know where Lu Mingfei's simple words touched him, causing huge fluctuations in his emotions.
He flicked the ashes from his cigarette and exhaled, "It's not uncommon for people to die in this world."
In this world now.
Lu Mingfei seemed to have asked a long time ago, what is going on in the world now? But he didn't know how to ask politely, but soon he found that he didn't need to ask, and the other party gave him the answers he had always wanted to know.
"Vate Alheim is over, and the last Garden of Eden at the Spine of the World has been lost."
Fingel turned to look at Lu Mingfei and said calmly, "After you left, the hearts of the people in the Garden of Eden gradually became disorganized. Once the hearts of the people dispersed, it would be difficult to lead the team. First, there were internal conflicts over decentralization in the first few months. The faction is ready to continue digging into the hollow point under the North Pole, using more than 10,000-year-old ice as the carrier of the alchemical matrix to recreate the World Tree under the ruins of the academy, isolate a mimic Nibelung root, and actively destroy the fallen to create a secluded underground courtyard.”
"But on the contrary, the radicals believe that this is a shameful act of surrendering without a fight and abandoning the entire world to dig holes and hide. They reject this cowardly approach and advocate uniting the few remaining human forces in the world to completely Release the bloodline transformation technology. The knowledge that the vice-principal brought back from the big library with his life has been able to initially simplify the process of "Twelve Gospel Spiritual Constructions". Physical transformation can be carried out directly on the operating table, although the effect is weaker than the original version. It is dozens of times higher, but at least it can make the average subject reach the level of the first three generations of Genesis. Three to one, there is a good chance of winning against the dragon stalker. "
Lu Mingfei listened with no expression on his face. He wanted Fingel to explain, but when the other party did start to explain, the huge amount of information almost overwhelmed his brain core. He had to seize every second and turn with all his strength. The melon seeds in my head absorb these stories that sound very bizarre and apocalyptic.
"The staunch conservative is the current Minister Watt Alheim. The more advanced he is in the development of alchemical weapons and ultra-modern technology, the more he feels that current humans have no chance of winning compared with the dragon civilization that has gradually recovered. We are now The most powerful hydrogen bombs, the 'Holy Child' and the 'Oxygen Destroyer', are no longer able to cause a fatal blow to the next generation species, and the initiative in the war has already fallen into their hands."
"The representatives of the radical faction are Caesar and Nono. Since you left last time, Caesar has taken over your responsibilities. Although the current situation is not optimistic, he believes that there will still be a counterattack.
The way to win is like looking for the dawn in a dark desert. It is hidden in a corner of the desert. We have not found it just because the time has not come. "
"It's very similar to what Caesar would say. This should be taken from one of his speeches?" Lu Mingfei asked.
Fingel nodded silently, "But it was after that speech that turmoil occurred. Within the Garden of Eden, radicals and conservatives had a violent conflict for the first time. The reason was that a small group of fanatics from the radicals intended to destroy it." World Tree, the alchemical matrix, placed bombs on the ice to explode at fixed points in order to destroy the retreat that the conservatives have always insisted on."
"The turmoil was huge, and there were technical problems with the fixed-point blasting of the bomb. Not only was the alchemy matrix destroyed, but also the outermost mirage of Watt Alheim, but this was not the worst. Really The reason that pushed everything to an irreversible abyss was the accidental death of "Key" during the civil strife..."
Fingel took a deep breath and smoked a cigarette. The key has always been in charge of the detonation authority of the global nuclear weapons warehouse. This is the last guarantee that mankind has not been completely exterminated. The explosion of nuclear bombs cannot exterminate the dragon clan, but it can exterminate them. The earth's environment has been carefully transformed, and it is precisely with this layer of protection that Watt Alheim can become the final Garden of Eden. "
"How did 'Key' die?" Lu Mingfei's expressionless face finally couldn't hold back anymore, because he realized that things seemed to be really out of control... even though the world itself was spiraling thousands of miles out of control. .
"I don't know. A stray bullet that no one expected? A well-prepared sniper attack by conservatives who wanted to destroy radicals and took advantage of the chaos? Or maybe there were dragon spies in the Garden of Eden... That bullet penetrated Nono He killed the key in her arms. The first person to discover the bad news was Caesar. He kept a weasel next to Nono as a warning. Once Nono was in danger, the weasel would Kamitachi would come back to him to warn him, but this time Kamitachi acted as a warning bird."
Lu Mingfei was a little out of breath. If this was a script, he would definitely burn it with a smile and a curse. He couldn't imagine the moment when Caesar suddenly heard the cry of a death bird on the battlefield at the front line, and the expression on his face when he looked back. what does it look like. Is it collapse or anger, or is he so numb that he doesn't even realize that his golden eyes shed tears? Just thinking of that scene made him feel a little bored.
"After Nono's death, the voice of conservatives reached its peak. Although the information blockade was in place, the intelligence was still lost. Without the global nuclear weapons warehouse as a threat, Eden was quickly approached and accepted. Caesar, who had undergone twelve surgeries, rushed to the first defensive line with his last radical 'Atonement,' but..."
"In the end, the Garden of Eden could not escape the end of being purged. The spread of the Mimicry Nibelung was torn apart. The leader of the dragon army that raided the Garden of Eden was none other than... He killed Caesar and the advance troops face to face. Although I heard that Caesar said something to him on the battlefield when he took action, it was obviously of no use. When he took action, he cut off Caesar's head instantly, declaring the end of the war. The ending." Fingel took a deep breath.
"Are you kidding?" Lu Mingfei asked.
"I also hope I am joking. You have fought against him. You know that he can do these things...and indeed will do these things. He is no longer the reliable friend we knew." Fingel lowered his eyes.
The corners of Lu Mingfei's tight mouth twitched violently. He probably guessed who "him" in Fingel's mouth was, but he couldn't understand at all how he could stand against the hybrid and even kill him with his own hands. Friends!
"We can't stop him, no one can stop him (when he said this, Fingel glanced at Lu Mingfei, his eyes had a complicated meaning), he almost killed all the survivors in the Garden of Eden, and at the most dangerous time Chu Zihang, Ryoichi, and Eriki rushed back to Watt Alheim. Chu Zihang had an impotence during the battle. Even if he didn't undergo surgery, he used forbidden knowledge that he didn't know where to find. I broke through the limits of hybrid blood refining technology and came close to the impossible fourth degree of bloodshed. I fought him head-on for three minutes, but I still lost."
"The last person to face off against him was Eri. With 'Judgment' fully activated, he was able to face off against Chu, who had four violent blood attacks.
After Zihang fought hard, he also suffered a lot, and EVA also seized the opportunity to activate Watt Alheim's fire system, forcibly creating the possibility for her to kill him in one shot..." Fingel said When I got here, my expression was a little bitter, "But she was so soft-hearted."
"Professor Manstein saw everything in the control room, and finally resolutely lit the "Holy Child" under Watt Alheim. "
Lu Mingfei didn't know who Ryoichi was or who Eriyi was, but he was extremely sensitive to Chu Zihang and subconsciously asked, "Where is Chu Zihang? Is he still alive now?"
"Still alive... Ryoichi used the word spirit amplification effect of the pyramid to strengthen the Wuchen Land, and the evolved "Glass Brahma City" withstood the explosion of the 'Holy Infant', and protected Chu Zihang and the last batch of survivors. people. Now they have moved to other places to escape the pursuit of the Dragon Warrior Stalkers." Fingel said slowly, "But the others are basically dead, the entire Watt Alheim, the entire last Ka Sayre College."
Lu Mingfei took two steps back, his legs bumped into the chair by the window, and he couldn't help but sit down.
Behind him, the window with warm yellow light echoed vaguely with the innocent sounds of two children playing and playing, as well as the trivial sounds of clearing dishes and chopsticks. The light shone on his face, and the figure of Fen who lowered his head and smoked a cigarette. Geer's face was a little less warm and a little more desolate.
After a long time, Lu Mingfei looked up at Fingel's back and asked, "How could it be like this?"
He asked the question anyway, not caring about the unknown risk of revealing that he was not the original Lu Mingfei in this almost real dream. Because he was too confused and frightened, such a desperate world suddenly unfolded in front of him. Although he had not yet smelled or seen the real bloodshed, he could still understand it from Fingel's words. In the words, I feel the bone-gnawing despair.
It turns out that the desert he arrived in is one of the few paradises in the world? Only the blazing battlefield of this hell on earth can escape the horror of the suffocating people outside like the violent storm. How ironic, and how...desperate.
——
How could it become like this?
Yes, how could it become like this?
Lu Mingfei didn't understand. He thought the end of the world was really far away from him. In the reality outside the dream, after riding the judgment train back to the academy, Principal Angers invited him to the office for afternoon tea. The wise old man told him many things about the future, Maya Doomsday prophecy, the end of the solar era, the meaning of earth, fire and feng shui.
To be honest, it sounded a little unclear to him, but the reading comprehension level cultivated in nine years of compulsory education can still accurately grasp the core of the old man's long words - the war has been lit, and disaster is coming.
But he really has no sense of crisis. Whether it is the resurrection and fall of the King of Bronze and Fire, or the secret spying of the King of Earth and Mountain, he has an inexplicable sense of insensitivity towards this kind of crisis that others regard as the end of the world... That is I have never seen a truly desperate person behave with ease.
But now someone put despair in his mouth, forcing him to bite into it until the taste of blood filled his mouth, which also aroused the stagnant fear in his heart.
He does not accept this reality, nor does he recognize that this reality will come true.
He was afraid that such absurdity would become a reality. He could not imagine that the world, which was turbulent but still had the appearance of peace, would be completely torn away. This kind of doomsday should only exist in stories about old people threatening children. They must never be allowed to become reality, not even a little bit. Can't.
So Lu Ming insisted on getting to the bottom of it. He wanted to know why and what the cause was.
Fingel turned to look at Lu Mingfei on the chair and was silent for a long time, "Who knows?"
Lu Mingfei was stunned.
Fingel sat on the guardrail and turned his head to look at the dark shadows of tumbleweeds passing by in the dark desert, "Those unknown thirty minutes in the Red Well incident? The Dragon Roar conspiracy in the Beijing subway? Or maybe that A completely ruined hearing?"
"Wait, hearing?" Lu Mingfei suddenly raised his head and stared at Fingel.
"Yeah, that hearing." Fingel sighed, "Don't tell me you forgot about it.
That happened. "
Lu Mingfei's expression was a little strange, "I have indeed forgotten a lot of things. Can you tell me about it?"
Fingel looked at Lu Mingfei without saying a word until Lu Mingfei felt uncomfortable, and then he slowly said, "That was a long time ago... I always feel that during that hearing, he After we had a complete falling out with the secret party, things have been going to a bad place. From then on, we passively exploited one trap after another. The enemy in the dark was always one step or even two or three steps ahead of us, just like we took the initiative to cut out There was a wound, and there was nothing we could do about it as it turned into pus and worsened."
Lu Mingfei's pupils gradually shrank, and a strange feeling suddenly emerged in his heart. This dream seemed to involve something that was difficult for him to understand.
"That hearing was the secret party's biggest bad move. At that time, no one could have imagined that he would choose to give up and defect so simply." Fingel said lightly, "I always thought that hearing was very important. The problem is that the entire hearing is not just a manifestation of the failure of the secret party to play power. By changing the effect and the cause, some things that were originally obscure will become very clear. At least as far as I think, as early as that hearing, the "Emperor" His hand has already been placed on the Secret Party's chess-playing hand, forcing us to force him away..."
"The leader of that investigation team, Andrew Gattuso, I always remember this name. It was this person who took the lead in stimulating his emotions during the hearing, so that he chose to end the hearing midway. Simply leave the secret party’s mess behind and let the situation worsen..."
"Andre Gattuso. Are you sure that's the name?" Lu Mingfei suddenly stood up and said.
"What's wrong?" Fingel looked at Lu Mingfei and met his eyes.
Lu Mingfei turned his eyes away and did not look at him, but there was a huge wave in his heart because he heard Chu Zihang and Lin Nian mentioned this name... This was the projection of reality onto the dream, and he subconsciously All the information he knew was pieced together into a ridiculous script, or was this dream itself a...prediction of the future?
Lu Mingfei heard something in the darkness that seemed to be opened. The indescribable sound was so deep that he fainted from the depths of his thoughts. He turned his head and looked into the darkness. Fingel also subconsciously looked at where he was looking, but... All I saw was the black desert.
"In short, now that you know all this, what do you think?" Fingel turned back and looked at Lu Mingfei's profile.
"What do I think?" Lu Mingfei didn't understand what he meant.
He is not the original owner of this dream or this world line at all. Of course, he doesn't know how the original owner would view this nightmare. If he were to think about it now, the only thing he wanted to do was to wake up quickly and go to that damn hearing to see if he could prevent something bad from happening.
No matter what this dream meant, or whether it symbolized more, he felt a sense of urgency. He was willing to trust his intuition, take precautions before they happen, and pull the track of reality back to the truth. In a world of such disasters, there would always be no Incorrect.
"Vate Alheim has been destroyed, and nuclear bomb warehouses around the world have probably begun to be dismantled. The dragon stalkers have begun to liquidate the reclusive hybrids around the world, killing the resisters and raising surrendered slaves." Fen Geer said softly, "This desert is safe for the time being, because no one would have thought that there could be a fireworks house in the depths of such a desperate situation, but I think it will be a matter of time before someone comes here..."
He paid attention to Lu Mingfei's reaction and found that he was not angry because of it, so he continued, "The conservatives have failed and the radicals have been destroyed, but this does not mean that everything is over. We still have hope... Just like As Caesar said in that speech, we have always been looking for light in the darkness, either we trek until the sun rises, or we sleep in the long night."
Dawn...I can't see where the dawn is? Is there really hope for this world? "Lu Mingfei truthfully stated his feelings at the moment.
"Of course there is hope..." Fingel suddenly lowered his voice, "Do you still remember what I said before, when Walter Alheim was destroyed, the head of the Uesugi family faced him, and Chu, who was violently bloody four times, Zihang tried his best to leave scratches on the bone cage of his heart, and the trial expanded.
The killing will in that scratch successfully seriously injured him under the constraints of the World Tree Matrix! After that, the Holy Infant detonated by Professor Manstein directly gave him a frontal impact... According to reliable sources, someone On the ruins of the North Pole, I saw the escorting Next Generation Guards carrying away a charred body..."
"Lin Nian is dead?" Lu Mingfei asked.
Fingel was stunned. He looked at Lu Mingfei and couldn't believe that he actually called that guy by this name. But after seeing Lu Mingfei's clear and confused (or stupid?) eyes, he couldn't believe it. Still whispering, "No, there is a high probability that there is not. His life form is no different from that of a pure-blood dragon. Even if the body dies for a time, the spirit will cocoon and enter the stage of rebirth..., the emperor will not allow the throne to be empty." Because of his existence, his rebirth will not be as long as ordinary dragons, but will be shortened to a certain period...about a year?"
Lu Mingfei suddenly remembered that Fingel had traveled a long distance for nearly half a year to find this place, and all of this happened half a year ago.
Fingel said, "Chu Zihang has always been willing to believe that he has not really left us, so he wants to bring him... the person we once knew, back to us. He believes... Lin Nian, yes, he believes In fact, Lin Nian has never been lost. It was only because of certain restrictions that he completely betrayed the human camp. According to the reincarnation model of the dragon clan, at the moment when the spirit enters the cocooning stage, the dragon's thinking is the purest. It’s also the easiest to shape…!”
"On the way here, I have been contacting Chu Zihang and the others through the last satellite launched by Watt Alheim. They locked in a particularly low-key team of Dragon Warrior Stalkers half a month ago. They discovered that this The team probably started from the north and headed southeast, and the route is very consistent with the calculated 'return road."
"It was only half a month ago that they finally determined that this team contained a bronze coffin tied with a dragon rope... So we have reason to believe that this team is the one that attacked Wat Alheim after The remaining dragons were destroyed by the explosion of the 'Holy Infant', and that coffin is the incubation vessel that hides the 'Cocoon'.
"If we can grab that coffin..." Fingel took a deep breath and looked at Lu Mingfei.
After a long silence, Fingel stretched out his hand to Lu Mingfei, "Junior brother...can I still call you this? You have changed a lot over the years. At that time, in the team that set off from Watt Alheim to the Tower of Babel, there were Only you succeeded in meeting the throne. None of us know what happened to you, but since that expedition almost ended in a disastrous failure, you chose to quit in frustration."
"The vice-principal used the technology of the big library to revive Zero from the frozen state. You chose to disappear from our sight with Zero one day. I am not angry about this, I am even a little relieved...but Now we need you to come back and help us, because this may be the real last hope." Fingel stretched out his hand to Lu Mingfei and stared into his eyes, "We have waited for the dawn that Caesar said , but lack the power to seize the dawn. You are the strongest among us, and you are also the final weapon to complete the twelve sets of gospels by virtue of your blood. We need you to blow the final trumpet to this world."
"I..." Lu Mingfei looked at the hand and the fire in the eyes of this man who was supposed to be useless but was burning.
This era has really changed a lot of things. It can turn him, a loser who followed the version, into the ultimate weapon in others' mouths, and it can also turn his former friends into murderers who destroy mankind. Even the ten thousand-year-old useless dog who couldn't beat a good fart with three sticks in the past can one day speak lines like a hero.
He moved his hands, subconsciously wanting to respond to that awareness.
But at this moment, the wind chime rang, and the door of the wooden house in front of Lu Mingfei was gently pushed open. The warm yellow light inside the door cast a long shadow.
Zero stood by the door, holding hands with the two children, looking at them quietly, without speaking, but his eyes seemed to say everything.
Fingel did not look back. He stared at Lu Mingfei. The fire in his eyes made Lu Mingfei think of the man named Hilbert Jean Angers. Who would have thought that one day the useless dog who had been repeating the grade for ten thousand years would also There are times when coal mines are set on fire.
Or maybe everyone in this era has been ignited early, and the flames of disaster have turned the world into coal, either burning in the flames or extinguished into cold cinders.
Disaster oppresses everyone in this world, forcing them to wake up in the darkness and protect the light in their hearts.
"It's always hard to choose in situations like this, isn't it?" someone said behind him.
Lu Mingfei suddenly raised his head when he heard the voice and then turned around. Sure enough, he saw a boy in a suit sitting on a chair by the window. Those two clear golden eyes looked at the dark desert in a quiet and intriguing way.
Lu Mingze.
"you..."
Lu Mingfei turned his head hastily and found that Fingel, Ling and even the two cute children on the porch had disappeared, leaving only the yellow light inside the door shining on the floor and steps, making it look so desolate.
Choices that might have affected the direction of the entire world were dramatically suspended.
Lu Mingfei breathed a sigh of relief inexplicably, as if a mountain that was about to topple had regained its balance.
He didn't dare to choose, because it was not his choice, but the choice of Lu Mingfei in this world. He had no right to choose his own future for that Lu Mingfei, nor did he have the right to choose the future for this world.
"...Why did you come here!" Until the end, Lu Mingfei was forced to ask like a resentful woman.
"Who told you to crawl into such a weird place? It took me all the effort to find you...and do you know that you will be late for the hearing?" Lu Mingze sighed and said.
