The soldier in the uniform of the imperial army was given a blanket and a cup of warm honey water. He held the cup, and with a trembling voice, he told the story of what he and the survivors had been through.
"The atmosphere in the city has been strange since a long time ago. There are more things to see in the army than the civilians. The Knights of the Ebon Blade gathered and took over half of the command. They also gave a lot of strange orders, such as moving the Foundation Stones outside the city and burying them …"
"After that, they banned all communications, saying that it was due to the special control during the war. Then the barracks started to be quarantined, and we were divided into brigades. They sent the brigades out one by one, saying that they were on a mission, but no one saw any of the brigades leave the barracks, and those who were 'sent out' seemed to have disappeared into thin air.
"Then, the teams that were 'sent out' came back. I saw them from afar, and I felt that they had turned into something else from the inside … I'm not talking about their appearance. Their appearance was still the same as before, but their eyes were very strange, and their bodies exuded a strange aura.
"The disappearances in the city started to increase, and everyone started to have nightmares. The nightmares were real, and we saw monsters with countless eyes and limbs in our dreams. Sometimes, when we woke up, we could even see those eyes on the walls. Some of the soldiers started to feel afraid, and thought that they were cursed, so they went to find their commanding officer, and the commanding officer brought the soldiers to the mages to 'remove the curse'. The next day, they were brought back, and they looked normal, and when they slept, there were no signs of them having nightmares. But I was even more afraid, because I felt that they were no longer sleeping … They were just lying there, all night, pretending to be sleeping.
"I know a man called Warter, he's from the same town as me. He used to be a restless sleeper, but after he was taken away and brought back, he would lie straight on the bed every night, not turning over, and not snoring …
"There was one time when I woke up, and I saw Warter lying straight on the bed. I went over to take a look, and found his eyes open! He stared at me, and kept staring. He did not speak, but I knew very well that his voice was in my head! "
The surviving soldier started to tremble. His words were jumbled and complicated, and Constance had no choice but to cast a calming spell on him. "Calm down, calm down. Those monsters are dead. Get to the point, what happened next?"
"I was scared, I was scared … The day after that, a Knight of the Ebon Blade came to me and said that there was a special mission for me. They said that a cursed plague had broken out in one of the streets, and they wanted a group of soldiers, including me, to help 'deal with' the infected. When I got there, I realized that something was wrong. There were no signs of the plague. They were just blocking the entire street and letting the Ebon Blade Knights in to kill …
`I looked for an opportunity to escape--and it was not difficult, I could hardly believe it at the time. They didn't care that I ran out, and it was obvious that they had found me. At that time, I looked back and saw that they were all standing in the same place, looking at the place where I was hiding. None of them had any expression on their faces, just like puppets … Later, when I ran into the city, I found out why it was like this.
"When we were quarantined, there were not many normal people left in the city. They started by secretly infecting and expanding, and when they had almost replaced half of the population, they openly captured people on the streets, and by the day I escaped, almost everyone in the city had become 'them'! It was the same no matter where I ran, and I could not escape their eyes. Their eyes were all connected!
"But I still found some survivors, the ones who were with me. Your Highness, you can't imagine how surprised and happy I was. They were originally hiding in a run-down factory, and there were many of them in the beginning. But as time went on, people started to hear noises in their sleep, and those who were not strong enough would immediately get up and walk into the darkness outside the factory. But those who walked out never came back, and the remaining people had to tie themselves to pillars before they dared to sleep. But even so, the number of people dwindled, and some of them disappeared like they were swallowed by nightmares. When I found them, there were only a few of them left.
"Not long after that, the Knights of the Ebon Blade began to lead the soldiers in a final 'clean-up' of the city. At that time, more than 90% of the people in the city had become 'them', and the remaining normal people could not hide. The soldiers brandished their swords and openly dragged out the normal people who had not been converted for various reasons from their hiding places and killed them on the street, while the others watched from the side with hungry expressions on their faces …
"Because I was once a soldier, I noticed this ahead of time, and brought everyone out of the factory to escape. I thought of a way to avoid the eyes and ears of the soldiers, and along the way, I lost a few more people … But in the end, we still found this church, and there was a huge cellar under the church, and the entrance to the cellar could be sealed, so we hid in there, until today."
The survivor's rambling narration finally ended, and Constance sighed softly. "Such a plan and logic … So those half-converted monsters are scarier than fully converted ones. What's scary is their intelligence."
With the survivor's ability to narrate and his current state of mind, it was difficult for him to describe the horrifying events of the past, and he did not have any elaborate metaphors or metaphors to make himself more convincing, but just from what he said, anyone could imagine how horrifying it was. The entire city was slowly 'mutated', and the eerie atmosphere was getting more and more obvious by the day. Everyone was slowly turning into a monster, and the power that caused all of this was so strong that it was impossible to fight back.
And there was nowhere to run, as the monsters had sealed off all routes out of the city from the start.
This was only the first month of the Turn of the Eras War, and according to the original timeline, the nightmare of this world was just a prelude.
"Looks like you don't know what blocked the corruption, and allowed you to survive in the cellar." Rheia looked into the soldier's eyes, and she could determine the truth of every word he said, as well as the clues behind it, but from the soldier's thoughts, she could not find any reason to explain why these people survived. They did not have a strong will to resist the corruption of the Mad Lord, and in fact, after so many days of torture, these people's minds were already at their weakest. Not to mention the power of the Mad Lord, even a single nightmare spawn was enough to corrupt their minds. "Then the reason should be the cellar itself."
"That's all we can find in the cellar," Graeme led a few northern soldiers to pile up some junk, "If there's nothing here, then maybe there's something like a barrier in the cellar's structure …"
The soldiers of the Northern Territory took out everything that seemed to have special powers from the cellar — even those that did not seem to have any special powers were taken out. Broken pots, moldy swords, old statues, ritual items, and all sorts of junk were scattered all over the ground.
But fortunately, there were not many of them, and it seemed like the church was not that rich in the first place.
Constance and Rheia walked up to inspect the items, and they immediately turned their eyes away from the religious items. The former was obviously not interested in the so-called gods, while the latter analyzed from a more professional point of view that the so-called God of Day and God of Night were not of the same kind …
Rheia's eyes were suddenly attracted by a shiny object among the junk.
Constance's gaze was also attracted by the object, and she used her longsword to pick it up as she frowned slightly, "What is this …"
Before she could get a clear look, Rheia suddenly exclaimed softly, "Eh?!"
The object that Constance had picked up on the tip of her sword was a very small silver-white armband. The armband's design was very elegant, and the widened edges made it look like an armguard. On it were carved complicated runes and animal and plant images, but the size was obviously not suitable for an adult, and looked more like an accessory for a child.
Hearing Rheia's voice, Constance could not help but look at the mysterious and incredible "little girl" beside her, and for some reason, her mind connected the little girl with the armband.
The size … seems to fit?
"This …" Constance looked at Rheia uncertainly, "It can't be yours, right?"
Rheia was about to shake her head in denial, but then she seemed to have thought of something, and without confirming or denying, she said, "It just looks a little familiar to me. A church in a place like this … would there be something of mine in it? "
"I just think the size is pretty close," Constance picked up the armband and measured it on her arm. Of course, she would not be able to put it on with her armor, but even without armor, the armband did not fit her. "It's obviously for a child …"
Rheia was speechless.
"Let me see," After holding back the veins on her forehead, Rheia's tone was stiff as she reached her hand out to Constance.
"Here, take it."
Constance passed the armband over, and the moment Rheia's fingers touched the armband, a loud explosion rang out in the sky.
Both of them looked up at the same time in shock.
It was as if a giant rift had opened up in the sky, and the dark red, twisted rift was very similar to Gorgon's Abyss, and in the rift, there were countless floating wreckage and flashes of fire. Bolts of lightning-like light crisscrossed the shadows, and explosions rang out continuously from the depths of the sea of clouds.
And a faintly discernible, white river-like glowing belt cut across the chaotic world behind the rift.
Rheia's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately moved her hand away from the armband.
The vision in the sky disappeared.
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