Just as Vivian's voice trailed off, a chilly wind blew through the pine forest and caressed everyone's face.
In this slightly chilly wind, everyone could vaguely hear a wave of murderous cries, as well as a certain type of heavy, dark, almost nauseating pressure transmitted over together.
The few of them looked at each other before Hao Ren slapped the carriage. "Let's go check it out."
The magitek let out a soft hum as the modified engine smoothly increased its output, and the three of them sped through the wide forest path, and the chilly wind did not stop throughout the process, and the battle cries from the wind were getting more and more real.
This direction was exactly the same as Rheia's intuition, and Hao Ren trusted Rheia's intuition as a god, and he was now certain that he was nearing the "core" of the forest.
The vehicles passed through two forks and a dense pine forest before finally reaching the end of the path. The three vehicles charged out of the forest, and the scenery before them suddenly opened up.
The Black Pine Forest was actually hiding a vast, open land, and on this open land, an apocalyptic battle was taking place.
The dense forest came to an abrupt end, and the land before them was like a forest in China. There was a vast, flat land, and a chain of buildings. Hao Ren did not know how this place looked like when it was still intact, and all he could see now was the flames of war and corpses strewn across the land.
Huge pillars of smoke rose everywhere, and in the distance, towering buildings fell in the thick smoke and flames, and the silver-armored warriors fought bravely against the invaders. They wielded energy shields, photon blades, or ranged firearms and staffs against the enemy, and their enemies were the festered monsters they had seen in the forest before, and many other terrifying creatures.
The number of monsters was like a tidal wave, and their physical attributes were no weaker than the silver-armored warriors. Hao Ren saw the silver-armored warriors retreating under the attacks of the monsters, and they formed groups of dozens as they worked together to hold up a massive military shield, but even with the combined shield, they still could not hold up against the black tide of monsters, and the flashing shields were like fireflies drowned in mud as they died off one by one on the battlefield.
And in the center of the battlefield was an extraordinarily tall building complex. It seemed to be a city, and the place the warriors were defending with their lives.
A bright shield shone above the city, and there were countless glowing spires in the city. Some of the spires were maintaining the energy nodes of the city's shield, while others were pointing straight up into the sky. Dazzling beams of light constantly burst out from their tips, shooting into the vast sky.
That was the first scene everyone saw as they charged out of the forest.
"Be … Be on alert!" One of the guard captains finally came to his senses. He pulled out the sword at his waist and shouted in a high-pitched voice.
But Charlemagne was the first to stop the impulsive soldiers, "Calm down! These are all illusions! "
The prince was equally nervous, and there was even a little cold sweat on his forehead. But he was still able to perceive the true nature of the scene in front of him in time. There was a silver-white explosion about a dozen meters away from the convoy, but he did not feel the slightest impact or heat.
With Charlemagne's shout, the soldiers then realized that the horrifying battlefield before them was just a part of the Black Forest's' illusion ', and they finally calmed down, but everyone still held their swords in their hands, not daring to let down their guard.
After all, such a large scale illusion was right before their eyes, and even if it was all fake, many times the illusions contained endless danger.
"This' illusion 'is different from the ones we've seen before." Hao Ren was also shocked by the scene before him, but he was calmer than everyone else, and as he spoke, he tilted his head to look at Rheia, "The scale is huge, and it looks like it's been going on for quite some time, and it's still going on."
"No smell …" Rheia suddenly said something seemingly irrelevant. "Be it phantoms or phantoms, they all have no smell."
Hao Ren was stunned for a moment, and suddenly turned to Vivian, "Wait, Vivian, you said you smell blood?!"
"That's right, and I can even faintly feel it now." Vivian pointed at her nose, "My sense of smell is not as good as Doggie, but my sense of smell is not completely reliant on my nose, and I'm sure I'm not wrong."
"There are not only illusions here." Hao Ren instantly made his judgment, "Everyone be on your guard. Vivian, you lead the way."
Vivian nodded, and pointed towards the direction of the city, "The smell is coming from that cluster of buildings."
The group then stepped into the 'battlefield'.
Walking through such a realistic illusion was definitely an unprecedented experience for Charlemagne and the rest, as countless monsters and unfamiliar soldiers fought, bled, and died right before their eyes. The battle cries were deafening, and the smoke and explosions were all so real, and aside from the fact that they could not smell any smoke, it was hard to believe that it was an illusion, and yet, it was an illusion.
They walked through the horrifying battlefield as if there was no one there, and all the illusions, be it monsters or soldiers, passed through them.
Hao Ren asked the MDT to turn on the recording mode as he kept his eyes wide open, not letting go of any detail on the battlefield.
The army outside the city was on the verge of collapse, and the silver-armored soldiers were being slaughtered almost one-sidedly. The mutant monsters tore through the soldiers' defense line and flesh, smashing and burning everything in their path, but the soldiers' will to fight was incredibly strong. Even when they were being slaughtered, they did not show any signs of retreating.
They were defending the city to the death, truly defending it to the death. It was as if the entire world would perish if the city fell.
Aside from the almost annihilated army outside the city, the only combat force left was the defensive battery on the outer wall of the magnificent city.
Hao Ren saw that the city had a circle of shiny alloy walls, and on the top and outer walls of the walls were countless cannons with long rails. Dazzling electric currents jumped between the rails, accompanied by a continuous roar. Bullets and plasma balls accelerated to dozens of times the speed of sound hit the monsters outside the city in waves, but such fierce firepower could only slightly slow down the monsters.
A sharp whistling sound that almost tore the eardrums cut through the air. The sound came from high up in the sky. Hao Ren looked up and saw a dark, spindle-shaped mass falling from the sky, and in the direction where it came from, there seemed to be countless huge shadows hidden in the turbid sky.
The city's anti-air firepower kept raking the sky. They may have blocked the attacks from the sky for a long time, but now, the anti-air firepower was finally running out.
The spindle-shaped black mass slammed into the city's shield and immediately exploded into a large mass of mud-like matter. The mud flowed down the city's shield, and the place where it came into contact with the shield burst into dazzling electric light.
The shrill air defense sirens echoed throughout the city.
Hao Ren lightly knocked on the MDT's shell and said, "Analyze."
"Suspected orbital bombardment. Judging from the attacker's silhouette and the intensity of the impact, the probability of it coming from near-earth orbit is very high."
"Why doesn't the defenders have any air power?"
"I'm afraid they've been wiped out. With their level of technology, it's impossible that they don't have an air force, and the only possibility is that they've all been wiped out."
"Technological level?"
"At least planetary level. Considering that their shield technology is very advanced, the rating can be moderately raised."
Hao Ren nodded slightly and did not ask any more questions. Instead, he looked at Rheia who was looking around with her eyes wide open. "The L 'Haronne you saw nine thousand years ago probably did not have this level of technology."
"Of course not. And I've never seen this war before. The L 'Haronne I saw was closed and peaceful, and while there would occasionally be a lunatic who tried to destroy the world, they usually could not even destroy a village before they were squashed by the brave warriors who came out of the village. A war of this scale has never happened before. "
"What you saw was only a hundred years ago, and this war clearly happened before that." Hao Ren looked at Rheia. "And it's not just a little bit further, it probably crossed an era of civilization … There were attackers from the universe, and there were adept space warfare weapons. This is not something a sealed planet sealed in the Sea of Chaos in the Umbral Realm, and we don't even know what's beyond the atmosphere can have."
The convoy arrived before the silver-white walls of the city.
There were no entrances or exits on the walls, and it was like a smooth curved mirror blocking everyone's view. Considering the battle outside, even if the city had gates, those gates would probably be sealed by now.
The battlefield was filled with phantoms of the past, and the walls were no exception. The seemingly seamless walls could not stop outsiders, but before the convoy entered the city, Rheia called out to Hao Ren.
"These are not all phantoms. There are real bodies here, and if you're not careful, you'll crash into them."
As she said that, the little goddess looked at the walls before her and sighed softly. "Let the past be the past."
A large part of the wall disappeared with the goddess's sigh.
Hao Ren saw a collapsed and charred wall, and the huge metal and polymer debris could still be seen as part of the wall, but now they were all on the ground and buried in the mud.
There were vines growing along the debris, and it seemed to have been there for many years, or even eras.
Hao Ren turned back to look at the battlefield, and the soldiers had all been wiped out, and the monsters were swarming towards the wall. Clearly, the soldiers who charged out were just sending themselves to their deaths, and the people who organized this defense did not think of defending anything, nor did they think of preserving their soldiers, and the army that was wiped out outside the city was just to buy time.
And now, the battlefield was slowly being devoured by the Black Forest, and within the Black Forest, there were no traces of the battlefield.
Perhaps the entire Black Forest was built on top of a pile of debris, Hao Ren could not help but think so.
And yet the city before him had some crumbling walls, and just like the 'forest paths' outside, they had left physical traces in this world where the real and the fake intertwined.
"Which part of this is real, and which part is fake?" Lily finally could not help but ask, "In the Black Forest … is there really any 'real'?"
Rheia answered plainly, "Between the real and the fake."
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