The gloomy forest was shrouded in a tranquil yet eerie atmosphere, and no matter where they looked, all they could see were layers upon layers of black pines and overgrown shrubs, and through the narrow gaps between the canopies, they could see that the sky was sliced up by the weird branches, and the bright sky was somehow tainted with a layer of strange purple, and under the canopies, a layer of fog that seemed to never dissipate was gathering from all directions.
The caravan was traveling on a path in the forest, and the path that seemed to be symbiotic with the Black Pine Forest was rather wide, and it was paved with ancient and broken stone slabs, and on both sides, there were neatly arranged lamp posts that looked like petrified wood. The path meandered through the forest, and ahead of it was endless fog, and behind it ….. was also endless fog.
It was hard to tell the direction in the Black Pine Forest, and that was nothing out of the ordinary. Any experienced traveler would know that as long as they followed the fixed path, and strictly followed the signs at the fork in the road, then they would eventually get out of this weird forest, but now, that rule seemed to have failed.
There were no forks in the road, no signage, only an endless path beneath their feet. It twisted and turned in the thick fog, as if it wanted to drag the team into an endless abyss. The forest itself was terrifyingly quiet at the moment.
"Something's not right …" Charlemagne said solemnly, "After entering the Black Pine Forest from the previous door, we will reach the first fork in the road, and there will be two paths to the north and west … But we are obviously not on either of those paths."
Hao Ren frowned, and knocked on the MDT on his shoulder, "Did we pass the fork before?"
The MDT's answer was simple, "No."
Vivian looked at Awenna, "How many times have you been to the Black Pine Forest?"
Awenna seemed a little uneasy as she shook her head, "We've only been here once before, and that was when we were very young, visiting Greenway with the ambassadors, and then we had a little tour around the edge of the Black Pine Forest ….."
Hao Ren smacked his lips and said, "Tsk, so you guys don't have any experience in this area. I can't believe you guys still dared to choose this path."
"Even the people of the empire rarely have the experience of traversing the Black Forest, not to mention the people of Izzo on the other side of the planet." Awenna said a little stubbornly, "But we know a lot about the Black Forest, that was all personally measured and tested by our country's adventurers, and before we left, we had already memorized this knowledge like the back of our hand ….."
"Alright, naive little princess. Let me tell you something. Never overestimate your ability to adapt to the unknown." Vivian looked at Awenna quietly. "Your knowledge is useless now."
Awenna wrinkled her nose but did not refute. Instead, she asked, "Should we stop the caravan now?"
"Don't stop yet, these caravans have enough energy to run for the next thousand years, and we still have the shield." Hao Ren waved his hand, "MDT, record the environmental parameters, we'll go deeper, maybe we'll find something."
This was undoubtedly a risky decision, and Charlemagne and Awenna were not happy about it, but Hao Ren had experienced many more bizarre and dangerous things (like snatching a bone from a century-old demon dog and swearing at God) so he was not nervous at all, and since Awenna was the owner of the caravan, the prince and princess could only agree to this decision.
"This fog is very strange …" As the caravan continued on their journey, Awenna looked at the thick fog around them and said, "There are records of fog in the Black Forest before, but never on such a scale and for such a long time. This fog is giving me a very bad feeling … as if something is staring at me from within the fog."
"Is this the reason why the imperial soldiers did not catch up?" Charlemagne was already holding his sword in his hand as he was on full alert. While the caravan had a powerful shield system, the sword in his hand gave him a better sense of security than the transparent shield. "If that's the case … then things are not looking good …"
"Don't be so nervous, calm down. It's not your style to panic over such a small matter." Hao Ren waved his hand and looked at the MDT, "What did you find?"
The MDT's surface was flashing, which was a sign that the sensor was working. "There's no problem with the environmental parameters. There's no sign of spatial folding or disorder. It's strange … My radar can't find anything unusual, but we're going around in the fog …"
Hao Ren frowned and thought for a moment, "Locate Nolan and test the relative position change with her."
"… Can't locate her. I can confirm Nolan's signal, but I can't determine the relative position change."
"That's interesting." Hao Ren looked at Lily. "Does your nose work in this situation?"
Lily bared her fangs at him, but she still sniffed the air and said, "I can only confirm that we are not going in circles. We are indeed walking along a one-way road all the way into the depths of the forest. Hey, Battie, isn't your sonar very good? It can even penetrate the fog. Why don't you give it a try? "
"Shut up, I'm trying." Vivian rolled her eyes at Lily and then frowned slightly. "Strange … I can only detect the situation within a few hundred meters around us. Any further and it's just chaos, as if there's nothing there."
Hao Ren's heart skipped a beat when he heard Vivian's mumbling.
He then focused his attention on a certain direction in the forest. After eliminating all irrelevant interference, he carefully looked for the "true face" of the world.
As he focused, the trees and path in the distance started to blur.
"So … we have fallen into a trap." He retracted his gaze and turned around to pat the dazed Rheia on the shoulder. "Rheia, wake up, wake up. Focus here. I need your help."
"Huh?" Rheia looked at him in confusion. "What help?"
"Look around."
"Oh." Rheia answered in a muddled manner, before shifting part of her attention from her main body to the projection.
She had only focused less than 10% of her attention on the projection, and whether it was her thinking speed, observation, or even her own existence, she was about the same as Hao Ren and the rest. But as she shifted part of her divine sense, she suddenly frowned and let out a soft "eh?"
And as she questioned, the Black Pine Forest changed.
The thick fog around them quickly thinned as if it had been washed by water, turning into a thin layer of fog that was difficult to affect vision. The layers of trees also seemed to be much more solid than before, and the chaotic shadows that interfered with vision disappeared. Although the sunlight that shone through the canopy was still weak, it had recovered some warmth, and the road in front of the caravan finally became clear.
A breeze blew through the forest, and the sounds of various animals rang in his ears. It was then that Hao Ren realized how quiet the forest had been. He had only felt something amiss a minute ago!
"What happened just now?" Charlemagne and Awenna were dumbfounded the whole time. They had somehow gotten "lost" and somehow found their way back on track, and they only felt that the autistic Rheia was getting more and more amazing …
"Between reality and falsehood." Rheia's mind was a lot clearer now that she had diverted more of her attention, and she spoke more actively. "I don't know what happened, but we were walking in the gap between the real world and the false world, and we were drifting towards the false world. Luckily we noticed it early, or else …"
Even with Charlemagne's mental fortitude, he was sweating profusely. While he did not know what the false world was, he knew how dangerous it was. "If we had noticed it a little later … what would have happened?"
Rheia thought for a bit. "Then I would have to 'eh' a few times before we could come out. That's stupid."
Charlemagne and Awenna were speechless.
Hao Ren really wanted to remind Rheia to be more careful with her words. If she did that, Charlemagne and his sister might misunderstand the difficulty of the journey. What if they died in the extreme survival challenge thinking that the world was in EASY mode?
At that moment, Lily asked curiously, "Say, what is a 'false world'? Is it different from an illusion? "
"It's not the same." Rheia shook her head. "An illusion is just an illusion, a man-made or natural illusion. It's basically like watching a movie, and the false world is something else entirely. There is not only one possibility in the world's operation, and sometimes it will face different outcomes. But there is only one truth, or rather, there is only one truth to the observer, so those unrealized possibilities become 'hypotheses', and that is the false world. Under normal circumstances, the false world overlaps the real world. It's temporary, fragile, and undetectable, and it's always in a state of dissipation and regeneration. But I don't know what's going on here … the false world has been strengthened to an unimaginable degree, and it can even appear in parallel with the real world, dragging things in the real world into that unrealized history … This is a strange place. "
Hao Ren nodded as he listened. He knew that there was a similar concept in the Grand Unification Theory, but Rheia's explanation was obviously easier for the average person to understand, so he did not interrupt. He was just curious: why would there be such an anomaly in the Black Forest?
But regardless, the real road had reappeared, and in theory, they only needed to follow the road to reach the place with the sign. So after calming down the uneasy guards on the other two carriages, Hao Ren ordered the team to move forward.
But at that moment, a soldier in charge of observing the situation suddenly pointed at the end of the road and warned, "Attention! There's an unknown team up ahead! "
In front of the stone path, a group of soldiers of unknown origin appeared out of thin air in the mist.
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