Deep Sea Embers

Nina and Maurice were walking on the forest path. The skylight filtered through the lush tree canopy and cast dappled beams of light in the forest. A thin layer of fog appeared in the forest at some point, and the sunlight was dispersed in the fog. It looks increasingly dreamy and hazy.

The elf girl who calls herself "Shireen" walks not far ahead, stopping and looking back from time to time. She always looks patient.

"There's fog in the forest," Nina looked up at the shadowy trees in the distance and whispered in her heart, "This is the first time I've seen fog here... Uncle Duncan, how are you doing there?"

She slowed down her pace, with a serious expression on her face that was listening attentively. Morris, who was walking next to her, also slowed down, also listening carefully to the voice coming from deep in her mind.

After a moment, the old scholar's voice sounded through the spiritual connection: "You mean... the construction records of the Lost Home? The information from the Pland Shipyard back then?"

Then the old gentleman listened carefully for a while, nodded with a serious expression, and responded from the bottom of his heart: "I understand...this part of the information must still be there, but it is definitely not available by normal means. I will discuss it with Fanna later. Let’s see if we can find old friends in the city-state or the church.”

The voice from the back of my mind gradually faded away.

Nina blinked and looked at the teacher walking beside her curiously: "Why did Uncle Duncan suddenly want to find the construction records of the Lost Home?"

"I don't know, maybe the captain discovered something deep in the 'Dream Lost Home'," Morris said casually, "but since he didn't tell us the specific situation, we'd better not take the initiative to ask."

Obviously, after joining the Lost Home for such a long time, the old man has become very proficient in mastering the safety rules around the captain.

Then he paused, frowned slightly, and looked at the white mist that was lingering in the dense forest and seemed to be getting thicker as time went by.

"The fog is getting thicker..." he said with a somewhat serious expression, "I don't know much about 'forest', but I always feel that something is not right about this fog."

Nina thought for a while and was eager to give it a try: "Use sunlight to disperse it?"

Morris subconsciously glanced at "Shireen" walking in front, and quickly waved his hand to stop the girl's enthusiasm: "Don't be rash, your sunshine seems to be a strong stimulus to this dream."

"oh……"

And during their delay, Shirin, who was walking in front, stopped.

It was as if she could accurately sense the distance between herself and Morris and Nina at all times. Whenever the distance widened to a certain extent, she would stop immediately, and sometimes she would curiously ask and urge - just Like now.

"What happened?" The elf girl looked at the two people who were mumbling behind them in confusion. "There is not much time to waste - we have to return to the Wall of Silence before encountering erosion."

"It's very foggy around here," Nina immediately took two steps to follow Shirin and took this opportunity to ask directly, "Does it often get foggy like this here?"

"Fog?" Shirin was startled for a moment, then raised her head and glanced around, then she seemed to have just come to her senses, with a look of surprise on her face, and smiled at Nina, "We are very close to our destination... We are almost inside the Wall of Silence."

"You mean, these fogs are caused by the 'Wall of Silence'?" Morris's voice immediately came from the side, "Or, these 'fogs' are part of the Wall of Silence?"

"It's so spectacular, isn't it?" Shirin did not answer the scholar's question directly, but looked around the dense forest that was gradually being swallowed up by the mist with a strange kind of excitement and joy, as if she was the first one. A person who once saw the Wall of Silence said, "Here, you can't even see it in its entirety - but Silantis can see that from a very high place, from the sky, the branches of Silantis can overlook it. Road wall...

"It closed in front of her eyes, isolating the entire country from the erosion of the outside world... We haven't arrived yet, there is still a little distance, deep in the mist, there is a barrier made of light, which is the body of the Silent Wall, but that has already It's very close, almost in the blink of an eye..."

Shireen said happily. This "mental entity" that seemed extremely calm and even a little dull all the way seemed to have acquired extremely agile human qualities in just a few seconds. She turned around and walked quickly towards the concentration center. Walking along the path deep in the fog, I waved to Nina and Morris——

"Hurry up, follow me, we're going back to a safe place!"

This was the first time Nina saw the other party acting like this. She was stunned for a moment before reacting. However, she saw that Shireen's figure had almost disappeared into the depths of the flowing thick fog. She and Morris quickly chased after her. , but for some reason, she had a vague feeling...

Can't catch up.

Although before this, Shireen would always wait for herself and the teacher who were lagging behind, and although the "Shireen" encountered by Shirley and Miss Lucretia had the same "behavior pattern", this time, But Nina felt that the other party would never stop and wait for her - Shirin's steps were so unhesitating that she almost rushed towards the shadowy trees in the fog, like a long-lost wanderer returning home, a drop of water returning. the ocean.

The elf finally disappeared into the boundless fog and never looked back.

Nina and Maurice were left looking at each other in the misty forest.

After a while, Morris looked thoughtfully towards the direction where Shireen last disappeared: "Her mental reaction was that she disappeared directly at the end of the road - a few seconds after her figure disappeared from our sight. Inside the clock.”

Nina thought for a while and said uneasily: "Then are we already lost... There are fog and trees everywhere here, and they look the same everywhere."

"We don't know the road from the beginning," Morris said, quite optimistically. "You don't have to worry about getting lost in the dream - because theoretically, you will always get lost when moving in the dream."

Nina listened to the teacher's teachings for a while, and felt that it made sense: "That's true."

Then she asked again: "Then what to do next? Do you need me to 'fly' up to see the situation? I can be more restrained."

"Unless absolutely necessary, try to avoid stimulating this dream." Morris waved his hand, and then roughly confirmed the direction in the thick fog when Shireen's mental reaction disappeared, and raised his hand to point to the end of the path in the distance, "We Just go in this direction, along the path Shireen pointed out to us at the end.”

"good!"

In this way, two people, an old man and a young man, began to trek through this seemingly endless fog and dense forest.

They only have a general direction.

But Nina still remembers that Shireen said before leaving that this place is only one step away from the Wall of Silence - in some distant past, the shelter built by Silendis for the elves was located on this thick wall. The end of the fog.

Arrive in the blink of an eye.

The skylight shining through the gaps in the tree crowns has gradually dimmed at some point, and the mottled light beams have turned into vague and suspicious shadows in the thick fog. The forest is rugged, and the paths tread by wild animals when drinking water cannot be called "roads" at all, but Even such "trails" are not always available - in more places, the ground covered with dead branches and leaves is softer and harder to walk than the rugged trails.

And I don’t know if it’s an illusion, but Nina always feels that the ground here is getting harder and harder to walk on, and the plants are becoming dense and chaotic. The vines and bushes are intertwined as if they are consciously blocking them, and there is a kind of coldness in the fog. The atmosphere is as if...the front is not the "final refuge" at all, but the biggest shadow in this vast dream.

She stopped suddenly.

In the thick fog, she seemed to see something flash by.

Nina almost slapped her with a temperature of 6000℃.

But she restrained her urge to be too sunny in time.

"It seemed like something ran through the fog just now," Nina said to Morris a little nervously, "I was shocked!"

Morris glanced at Nina and saw two clusters of golden flames dancing deep in the girl's eyes, while the air around her was gradually calming down from its distortion.

The old man suddenly looked a little nervous - he wasn't afraid that something dangerous might appear in the fog, he was afraid that Nina would destroy the forest with a slap.

After all, this kid was a bit shocked.

"Did you see what it was?"

"No," Nina shook her head, "I just felt like it was a very tall 'person' who ran over in the blink of an eye, but maybe it wasn't a person? It felt like the outline was weird... as if it had been deformed."

"...I can't tell what it is at the moment," Morris said with a frown, "But I didn't feel any mental activity just now, so it's most likely just a phantom created in the fog... We don't know yet about this so-called 'wall of silence' 'What is the principle, so anything you see in it is possible."

After saying this, he paused and couldn't help but add: "The key is that you have to be calm...and control your impulse to do anything."

Nina nodded nervously and took a few steps forward while continuing to pay attention to the movements in the mist around her.

At this moment, a chaotic wind seemed to suddenly blow through the dense forest.

She felt that the fog in front of her suddenly dissipated a lot, and then, a vague, distorted mirror-like "light curtain" appeared at the end of the gradually dissipating fog.

The shimmering light was shaking in the fog, and the surface reflected the distorted light in the forest. There seemed to be something behind the light curtain, but it was hazy and unclear.

Nina was stunned for a moment, and then she realized - they had arrived.

That's the "barrier made of light" at the end of the Wall of Silence that Shireen mentioned!

The next second, Nina and Morris quickly arrived in front of the light curtain.

A barrier made of light stands majestic and majestic at the edge of the fog, like the end of the entire forest world, extending upward to the endless sky, extending to both sides to the endless distance, and there is flowing brilliance on the barrier. The surface moves slowly, as if isolating the world on both sides of the shimmer, quietly guarding the infinite secrets on the other side.

"So... beautiful." Nina raised her head blankly and admired subconsciously.

Morris stepped forward. He asked Nina to step back slightly, then cautiously stretched out his hand and touched the layer of light that seemed to have no thickness.

And so, the wall of silence collapsed silently.

This wall of light seemed to connect heaven and earth, seemed to be endlessly broad, extremely majestic and majestic, and shattered silently like a soap bubble.