Soul of Burning Steel

[My teacher, the venerable Baron Carliss, is a famous astronomer, astronomer and master of alchemy engineering. She is the champion of the 52nd "Mobile World Urban Design Competition" once in a hundred years, and this is the highest achievement in super architectural engineering in the entire "Three Realms and Nine Heavens" - for this reason, the Queen of Heavenly Sword in the shining area personally bestowed She has the title, and a brand new mobile world city is also named after her.

In addition, she is also an extremely legendary and famous "continent explorer" in the three worlds. On the vast and endless steel continent, she discovered eight "stable star realms" and determined the stars. The law of circulation—now, those eight stable star realms have become the new frontiers of the shining region of the Union of Nations, with hundreds of billions of new immigrants, driving a brand-new 'mobile world city', chasing the sun there of brilliance.

And all this is the teacher's credit. 】

[As a disciple of Teacher Karlis, I feel very honored and inferior, because even if I spend my whole life, there is no way to surpass the teacher even a little bit in any field.

But at this time, Mrs. Carliss' close friend and my immediate superior, Ms. Mycroft, the Royal Bachelor, will comfort me—'Among a group of people, there must always be someone as a foil, so why can't it be you? This is your mission. ’—To be honest, I don’t know exactly what Ms. Mycroft means, but her tone is very sincere, so I will take it as an encouragement from my boss. 】

[Mr. Carliss has many disciples, most of them are related to the "Mobile World Urban Design". After all, the more advanced the technology of moving the world city, the faster it will be able to go to the next stable star boundary in the shortest time after the stars in the area sink into the steel continent. Naturally, the more likely it will be hit. Repel the attacks of chaotic monsters wandering in the dark areas among the many star realms. It is one of the most important subjects in the entire shining region, and it means the future of civilization.

But I am not the teacher's student in this area. I am ashamed to say that I was just an assistant hired by her when she was exploring the Steel Continent. The teacher is willing to accept me as a student to teach knowledge about exploration. It's really lucky for three lives, and I have benefited a lot from it. Now I am a well-known bachelor of astral astronomy and exploration, and I have formed my own family in the shining area. 】

【—But recently, my teacher encountered a little trouble.

Her best friend, my superior, Ms. Mycroft Zeroya, a royal bachelor, mysteriously disappeared during an exploration of the 'twilight area'. But before she disappeared, Ms. Mycroft sent her explored maps and logs to my elegant, wise and virtuous teacher through private psionic communication. Since then, the teacher has always seemed worried, and even occasionally covered his head and muttered to himself in a low voice.

"Really? It's so... Time flies, it's been such a long time..."

Once, when I carefully served the teacher coffee with twice the sugar, I heard the teacher talking to himself. Was she talking about when she and Ms. Mycroft had known each other? It seems that Ms. Mycroft's disappearance is indeed a very big blow to her. 】

[But even so, I never imagined that the teacher who has already achieved great success would embark on an expedition again for this purpose—after she has completely disposed of her assets in the Alliance of Nations in the shining area, this famous academic The master bought an Ark-class continental exploration ship. She threw away the jewels on her head and chest, tied up her ponytail, took off her gorgeous and bulky dress, and put on smart shorts and trousers again. Soon, Hundreds of professional explorers have joined her team, ready to embark on another journey to the 'Twilight Zone' under the leadership of this legendary explorer! 】

A middle-aged man stretched out his hand, stroking the words on an old diary under the light.

I can hear the man sighing softly. He stared at the paragraphs of words above, and seemed to be lost in memory.

"Teacher..." he whispered to himself, and then showed a bitter smile.

[Three Realms and Nine Heavens]. This is the name of this world. As the name suggests, the so-called three realms are the [Continent of Steel·Central Realm] where all living beings live, [Sword Realm of Heaven] and [Ax Realm of Earth] intersecting with the Central Realm, and the Nine Heavens are nine pieces suspended in steel. On the Continent of Steel, there is a super floating continent that is huge enough to cover the sky——Unfortunately, because of the terrifying gravitational force of the Continent of Steel, no one has ever climbed above the Nine Heavens so far. Even gods can only Looking far away and sighing.

Countless suns, ups and downs on the infinitely wide continent, they penetrate through the nine layers of heaven and earth, the dazzling sunlight gives vitality to the billions of billions of ecological circles on this endless continent.

The Continent of Steel is vast and boundless. So far, no explorer has ever explored it to its end, whether it was the "Age of the Gods" 100,000 years ago or the "Age of Chaos" 50,000 years ago. And its central area is an extremely vast bright 'ring belt' surrounded by a huge star group - and this is also the so-called 'flashing area'.

The shining area is the center of the civilizations of all nations and races. In this continent, there is no need to worry about the stars hitting the steel continent. After the stars are broken and dissipated, the world will fall into a dark and bright ring. All civilizations can alternately destroy and rebirth in the stars, and the cycle of falling and rising In the middle, the eternal light bathes, and there is no need to worry about being attacked by those chaotic monsters who live in darkness.

And the 'twilight area' refers to the scattered stars outside the 'shining area', but there is no guarantee that every place has a shining area all the time. There, the few stars will also fall to the ground due to the huge gravitational force of the Steel Continent and disintegrate into gas. However, even if the Steel Continent will automatically recondense the gas and create stars, it will be at least a few hundred or so. A thousand years later, unlike the shining area, there are no other dozens or hundreds of stars in the twilight area that can continue to illuminate that area after a star falls to the ground.

Therefore, the colonies built by the nations in this place, the incomparably huge "mobile world cities", must bring tens of billions of people, speeding across the continent, they escape the destruction brought about by the falling stars one after another, Eternity chases one sinking star after another, just to bathe in their light.

It is precisely because of this that all the beings living on the Steel Continent call themselves "Light Chasers", no matter how weird their shapes are.

Although all preparations have been made, due to various circumstances, there are often "mobile world cities" that do not have time to go to other solar regions before the energy reserves are exhausted, causing everyone in the entire world city to die from the cold, and also Or be engulfed by the chaos in the darkness - after all, a 'stable stellar boundary' with a stable stellar cycle system is very rare and precious, each of which means a living environment similar to a shining area, which can be supplied Hundreds of billions of people live in more than a dozen mobile world cities.

Therefore, the twilight area is very dangerous. When exploring, explorers often find city ruins that were destroyed tens of thousands of years ago, and the chaotic monsters living outside the twilight area, [No Light Zone], Occasionally, it would also lurk into the twilight area, and when the sun fell and the light dissipated, it would attack those mobile cities that wanted to transfer.

Legend has it that 100,000 years ago, the gods of the age of the gods could create stars in the twilight area, and use them as the center to build a huge floating city group, and even a huge energy array covering the entire star—they created Create a stable and glorious location and create a brilliant civilization. But 50,000 years ago, all the gods lost their divine power inexplicably, and countless floating cities fell. Even the energy cage that was enough to imprison the stars was unable to resist the too large gravitational force because of the loss of divine power. It collapsed with the falling of the stars. Solution, perish in the land of steel.

This is a dark age that lasted for nearly 20,000 years—the extinction of countless lives, the destruction of countless civilizations, and the dissipation of the infinite light, making the endless, living outside the 'twilight area', the 'infinite world' without the slightest brilliance of stars. The chaotic monsters in the light zone swarmed out. The greatest natural enemies of civilization and life devoured everything at that time, and the beings who lost the protection of the gods were powerless to resist this sudden destruction. They retreated from the twilight zone and retreated back to the shining zone. Until now, in some remote corners of the twilight zone, they can still see the horrific remains of that war. In the ruins, the stern wind is still howling.

However, at this desperate moment, endless light descended from [Sword World of Heaven] and [Ax World of Earth].

It was a holy sword, a divine axe, and thousands of 'weapons' with different shapes. They fell from the two unknown worlds that intersected the Continent of Steel from ancient times, beheading the endless chaos, and the light chasers who were powerless to fight against the chaos at that time picked up the world that came from the end of the world. The "God's Weapon" - the heroic sacrifice of countless heroes, ended the "Chaos Age" and drove all the Chaos monsters back to the dark zone again.

They believe that these "divine weapons" are the corpses of the gods who have passed away long ago, and the existence of the "Sacred Sword of Opening Heaven" and the "Axe of Demon Slaying" that can barely control the existence is the supreme leader of the Alliance of Nations in the shining area today. Those, 'Queen of Heavenly Sword' and 'Maharaja of Slaying Demons'. Until now, no matter who they are, even the sons of criminals or exiled people, as long as they can master a divine weapon, their sins will be automatically erased, and they will directly become nobles of the Alliance of Nations, shouldering the responsibility of guarding the frontier.

【Queen Tianjian, personally bid farewell to the teacher. Her Majesty the Queen blessed the teacher's car "Reignition", and wished her a smooth return from exploration. At that time, because of the birth of my eldest daughter, I was unable to follow the teacher to the Twilight Zone. This has to be said to be a huge regret. The magnanimous teacher Carliss did not blame my assistant and student for his dereliction of duty. On the contrary, he congratulated my daughter on the birth and was willing to name her—this is the honor of my wife and me, and the blessing of my daughter. 】

【"Let's call it 'Xiberya'. I remember, she should be called by this name. I have to say, this is really nostalgic. You guys are really destined."】

[Although the teacher's words are a bit strange, the sincere tone and the extremely sincere blessings are not fake. And my eldest daughter, Siberia Falster, got her own name because of this. Her smile biting her finger is the greatest happiness in my life. 】

[More than ten years have passed, and Mr. Carliss’s exploration has yielded a lot. Among the ups and downs of the stars, she found several ancient floating urban relics in the chaotic era, and discovered a brand new stable star realm——Teacher She is gifted in this area, and she has a unique sense of smell for finding places suitable for life. To be honest, I am not very respectful. I have always thought that this has nothing to do with the teacher's level of knowledge. This is a kind of god-given talent!

During this time, my second child was about to be born, a boy, but just as I was thinking about what to name him, the sad news came. 】

[It was a gloomy afternoon, the man-made sky dome of the capital of learning was slowly closing, and began to absorb the sun's brilliance with full power, and many bachelors living in it also finished their work and returned home to rest. At that time, I was looking up the papers of several graduate students, but I accidentally received a communication from a senior brother——until then, I was shocked to know that my teacher, who was full of exploring spirit, returned to the light in the depths of the distant twilight area In the embrace of the world—a star suddenly fell to the earth of steel, and the blazing torrent engulfed everything within three light months, while my teacher, hundreds of professional explorers, and 2,500 crew members, Just like that, it melted into the too bright light. 】

[The teacher died in a glorious exploration, this is the sad news of all nations and races in the entire shining area. The Heavenly Sword Queen and Demon Slayer jointly expressed that the passing of Baron Carliss is the loss of all light chasers, and all the colonists living in the stable star realm discovered by the teacher mourned her death for three minutes . As a bachelor, this is already the highest honor, but I still can't believe that the elegant and wise scholar, the most famous astral astronomer, would die in such a simple astronomical phenomenon, but the facts are the facts, It is true that the teacher could not come back. I was so sad and mad at that time that I even regretted that I did not die with the teacher in that great exploration.

But soon, more shocking news appeared. Just half a year after the teacher left, after all the turmoil was over, I suddenly received an extremely secret psychic communication, and what followed was the teacher's secret will!

It was an advanced small exploration ship, a lot of wealth, several information crystals stuffed to the brim, and most importantly, the star maps of all the areas that the teacher has explored over the years! And on this star map, there are several specially marked mark points - and it just so happens that the place where the teacher 'died' is located in the area marked by one of the mark points! There are even several marker points and path maps, located in the depths of the no-light zone outside the twilight zone today!

Mr. Carliss gave me all these properties free of charge, and also left a meaningful "prophecy". 】

['The day when the salary is exhausted and the fire is exhausted, when the flames are rekindled. ’]

——My student, Alpha Falster, the son of the silver goblin, is not an ordinary person, you still don't know the meaning of your existence, but I do.

Go, go to the end of the steel continent, the border of the world. You have to open that door, then go to the center of the continent, the core of the Three Realms, and extinguish the existing flames—that is something only you can do.

[One month later, I set sail. I bid farewell to my wife and children, and after leaving them a large fortune, I decided to follow the star map left by my teacher to explore everything unknown. Although I don't understand what the teacher is talking about at all, I know that this is indeed something that only I can do - I want to be the greatest explorer in the entire Steel Continent, this is my dream , was only sealed because of love and responsibility, and now, because of the teacher's will, because of the reawakened curiosity, selfish me, decided to set sail again, and once again set foot on the journey that belongs only to me. 】

[No one else, just myself, and the twenty-five artificial omnic crew. I could vaguely feel the turbulent undercurrent lurking behind the teacher, and I didn’t even dare to tell other close friends the news—declaring to the outside world that I just suddenly went crazy and wanted to go out alone, which is nothing strange Well, explorers are basically such people, they will stride out on a whim, and then not return for more than ten years. 】

[The exploration ship my teacher left me is really advanced, absorbing the light of the sun, I quickly left the shining area and came to the twilight area. The decades-long exploration made me a little rusty at first, and I even misidentified the direction, and took tens of thousands of light-years of detours, but soon, I picked up my professional knowledge again, and returned to the great The right-hand man next to the explorer—but this time, I am the captain.

However, what is strange is that the number of colonies in the twilight area has not increased but decreased after decades have passed. I wandered 700,000 light years in the familiar area and passed hundreds of colonies, but found The number of stars is about a third less than before. This is very abnormal. A few decades is very short for the thousands of years of life of stars on the Continent of Steel. Even if their final fate is to fall to the earth, it cannot One-third of the time dies.

As I wandered on, more and more discoveries confirmed my suspicions—the number of stars was rapidly decreasing, both life-bearing and non-life-bearing. Originally, the endless stars floating on the Continent of Steel can be used by us as the source of life, only about one in a hundred billion, especially in the twilight area, even within hundreds of thousands of light-years, there are only a few. Hundreds of stars of just the right size for our use. In the age of the gods, the gods can move the floating continents, freely control the distance, and then use the many suns as much as possible, but for the light chasers who are bound by gravity on the surface of the earth, we can only pray.

Perhaps it was because I lived in a shining region with endless stars before, so I was not sensitive to the number of stars, but now, in the twilight region where every star is precious, I can see clearly. But even if it is so worth hundreds of stars, it has been reduced by one-third, and many mobile world cities that I am familiar with are now gone, and the people in them have disappeared without a sound. re-exist. I believe that this is not a coincidence. Leaving this colonial area and going to another colonial area millions of light years away must be the same. 】

[The disappearance of many stars, and the death of the teacher—no, the disappearance, there must be something hidden behind it! In order to find out the truth, I began to go deep into the twilight area to find possible clues—all the traces around the colony have been wiped away, and the trajectory of the stars’ changes no longer exists, but I believe that no matter who , It is also impossible to erase all the traces of these billions of stars. In the depths of the twilight area, there must be clues that they are unable to erase.

Soon, following the star map left by the teacher, I followed a safe route deep into the depths of the twilight area. There are almost no colonies of all nations here, and even if there are, they are just scattered frontier isolated cities-and here, I did find a clue! I saw that there were tens of thousands of stars moving under the sky, and the long space-time dents left by their movements were so obvious that I could see the direction of their return in an instant.

And the direction of their return is my hometown - the belt of the shining area. 】

[I have to say, I'm starting to get confused—why? The stars in the shining area are endless, and there is no lack of light shining. In the past few decades, I have never felt any signs of dimming... Even, recently, many scholars have proposed that the stars of the shining world Move into the twilight area and open up more colonies, otherwise, even the habitable area in the shining area will be filled by the life that has been multiplying for tens of thousands of years.

Could it be that they intend to gather the stars in the twilight area and expand the boundary of the shining area? But this is too laborious and thankless - pulling the stars is not an easy task, except for the Heavenly Sword Empress and Demon Slayer Monarch, there are no more than 20 people in the entire shining area who can do this, even if they join forces , it is also impossible to migrate billions of stars in a few decades! Behind this, there must be a bigger mystery! 】

[With this kind of doubt, I ended this exploration and returned home exhausted - but what greeted me was not the smiling face of my wife and daughter, or the disgust that blamed me for not returning for a long time... I would rather be disgust , because what I saw was an empty home and a letter left by the Cult of Ashes.

The Cult of Ashes is a mysterious sect that appeared after the fall of the gods. They control a large number of divine weapons, and claim that they are the remaining ashes after the fall of the gods. In fact, the leader of the church is controlled by the elders of the church, which is responsible for managing the granting and recycling of all divine weapons.

They and I are basically people from two worlds, one is a violent political group with real power, and the other is a bachelor in the capital of learning, but today, I am threatened mercilessly by them——In that letter, in an indifferent tone Tell me that my wife and daughter are now being held in a secret place. They warned me not to try to find out the changes in the stars in the twilight area, and to leave the shining area, otherwise their lives will be lost, and I will die. 】

[At the same time, in order to prove their determination, they also sent a small hand bone - that is my son's hand bone. Presumably, if I don't listen to them, the next time I send it, I'm afraid it will be his head.

Apart from anger, my heart is also full of fear——I wake up from the too vast fantasy, and find that I am just an ordinary person, without the aura of Mr. Kallis, I am just a rather insignificant explorer, It's just an ordinary bachelor of astronomy, let alone contending with the Cult of Ashes, as long as the other party hints at the leader of the City of Knowledge, I will lose all glory and become an inconspicuous dust on the side of the road. 】

[Thinking about it, the disappearance of Mr. Carliss is also related to them, right? If it is said that the existence of the ability to pull stars has nothing to do with that accidental star fall, I absolutely do not believe it.

But if you don't believe it, if you are unwilling, so what? I am a lost dog, I can only escape in despair, I am sitting on the exploration ship given by the teacher, walking aimlessly through the twilight area... But can I really let go of the truth? Whether it's the disappearance of the teacher, the shifting of the stars, or where my missing wife and daughter are... They threaten me with their lives, but they don't give any information that they are still alive. How can I trust them? Will they let them go and just be imprisoned? 】

[But I can only go far away, go far away, no longer pay attention to the changes of the stars, I can only go far away, to the border of the world, the deepest part of the dusk. 】

[With hatred, pain, self-blame, helplessness, and the deepest 'doubt', I came to the land of no light. I came to a spot of light marked on the teacher's star map. 】

A middle-aged man's hand stroked the words on the diary. In the last paragraph, the traces of ink were very clear, as if it had just been written not long ago. Then, these hands closed the log and put it into the backpack on one side.

"Teacher, I have followed your guidance and come here."

On a seemingly 'short' hill, next to a smooth and solid shell that looked very advanced, a middle-aged man was looking up at the place where the distant light was.

Standing on the Continent of Steel, a mere 17.29 million meters of 'hill', standing on the top of the undulating land that is the size of two 'Mobile World Cities', with silver hair and red eyes, is called The man who is the 'son of the silver goblin' looked at the bright distance with tired and deeply sad eyes.

He can see billions and billions of suns floating on the vast steel continent, bringing bright light to everything that is dark—but at the same time, there are dark chaotic clusters moving with them, hiding in all The dark place without the sun, lurking, waiting, waiting for the day when the sun falls and all the cities chasing the sun lose their shelter.

Similarly, he can see that in the center of all this, in the nine layers of heaven and earth, the three worlds—in the very center of the three realms and nine heavens, there is a giant star in the shining area, in the twilight area, which can never be seen!

It was an extremely huge, extremely heavy, mere existence, like a giant star that devoured all sense of existence in this world, dark and obliterated all light!

The entire Continent of Steel is nothing but an accretion disk surrounding this black giant star, and the infinite stars are nothing but bits of light and mist surrounding this black giant star—and the shining area on which all civilizations and all living beings depend for their survival. , is exactly a thin layer, surrounding its irregular narrow ring-shaped area.

—Is it really a star? But how can the stars be so huge! The black giant star attracts everything and rotates everything. It rotates, as if it is the axis of the three realms and nine heavens, the infinite world!

The middle-aged man can see that at its edge, the boundary between the steel continent and its contact is emitting an extremely strong light, and the countless stars in the shining zone are sinking and floating in this light, releasing endless vitality... But, whether it is Any intelligent life, no matter who it is, can instinctively know for no reason, that the giant star that illuminates the 'shining area', the 'brilliance' that bred countless sentient beings, has actually died long ago.

It's long gone out.

Everything today, the seemingly magnificent billions of stars and endless brilliance, are just a little bit of embers remaining from the most glorious moment in this world.

"The day when the salary is exhausted, the time when the flames are rekindled."

A student of Karliss, a subordinate of Mycroft, and Siberia's father, this ordinary man named Alpha Falster was whispering in confusion.

"Could it be that this black star..."

"That's it, do you want to rekindle it?"

Although I didn't say it clearly, I think it should be obvious where this place is...

Ask for a monthly ticket!