Wasteland Echoer

"Era 20: Human beings are driven by destiny, and humans can control destiny. Standing on the endless loess land, looking up at the vast river of stars. Even the Creator himself is the child chasing the stars." ——"Secret Book"

…

April 12, 527 in the New Lunar Calendar.

The areas controlled by the three major churches of the Zine Empire/Lost Ones, the old Uko Province/new settlement area, the Silent Highlands, and the areas controlled by the Church of Hope.

Ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta.

The sturdy brown-haired horses galloped on the concrete road covered with loess, cracks and scattered potholes. The sound of the horse's hooves trampling on the ground was like a tambourine beating in time with the music.

Dylan Dark, a rank sect member of the Church of the Lost, and a fifth-level [Deceiver] is riding on a horse, quickly crossing the sparsely populated dilapidated road under the scorching sun.

He was still wearing a standard suit, a long black hat, a red bow, and a pure black tie. The white shirt inside had become a little yellowed and stained by some sporadic stains after traveling for several days. There were traces of blood, and there were several small holes that were unsightly burned by unintentional "burning liquid".

He wears a steel "Hope and Peace" badge on his chest, with a diameter of about thumb length and a neat edge.

This is a badge designed solely by the Church of Hope, which represents the general teachings of the Church of Hope with a certain degree of human civilization.

Judging from the image, the medal has a steel color background, with a pair of hands engraved underneath, holding a branch with new buds. At the top is a well-proportioned pigeon, lowering its head slightly, looking down at everything below, but not trying to take away the branch that represents life and hope.

In addition, Dylan is also wearing a black cloak.

The pure black color concealed the bullet holes on the back of his suit that were made by bullets, and the skin underneath could be seen.

His feet were firmly planted in the stirrups, and he looked like he was wearing shiny leather shoes. But in fact, only he knew that the "leather shoes" were actually long leather boots. Covered by black trousers, he could barely maintain the glamorous image advocated by the Hope Church.

This is the east side of the Silent Highlands, not too far away from the uninhabited desert in the north and the edge of the Sleeping Mountains in the northeast.

Previously, he deliberately disguised himself as a military reporter from Chekavsk, and followed Wright and others on board the "Perpetual Motion" train passing through the "Zhixin-03" line.

On the one hand, he wanted to follow the imperial soldiers who were heading to the Donusk ruins camp in Chekavsk and various places, and take the opportunity to learn about some of the military operations called "The Coming of Silence" that the empire was conducting against the three major churches of the Lost in the Silent Highlands. Deployment and arrangement of operations.

On the one hand, he also wanted to know information about some of the lost people who were lurking in the human legion and were regarded as superpowers.

Holding the reins in hand, Dylan rode the horse through the deserted streets, looking at the huge castle of the Church of Hope not far away, and suddenly thought of a serious issue related to race and camp.

From a human perspective, the distinction between the Lost and the Superpowered is sometimes not so obvious. As long as they are loyal to the empire and do not face mental breakdown, most of the Lost can be counted as Superpowered.

People with superpowers who are enemies of the empire will be directly classified as the Lost, be rewarded, and be killed. Even their family members will be implicated and sent to imperial prisons.

But in fact, for the Church of the Lost, especially for the Church of Hope, the difference between the Lost and the supernatural is whether they need to eat "raw flesh and blood" regularly.

For humans, swallowing similar humans may lead to prion infection, which is something that cannot be tolerated by morality and law. The same is true for the lost. The lost must not devour unintentional people, and they can only devour the lost to a limited extent. similar.

Once the lost person violates the taboo, not only will he lose his magic power and divine blessing, but the burning liquid in his body will also be affected by the same energy to accelerate production, and he will degenerate into a careless existence.

But the Lost and humans can devour each other. For humans, just inject the No. 16 and No. 20 potions. For the Lost, it sometimes helps to form the magic power in their bodies.

After riding a horse for almost half an hour without any human presence, and even the lost children could only walk sporadically on the edge of the street, Dylan finally faced a dilapidated road instead of a majestic Castle entrance.

He jumped off the brown-haired horse and took out a pair of white gloves from his suit jacket pocket, which seemed to have not been used for a long time, and placed them on his hands covered with scars and calluses.

At the same time, he took off the brown mask to protect himself from wind and sand, folded it twice and put it in his pants pocket.

After doing all this, he touched the pistol at his waist, breathed a sigh of relief, and walked towards the huge iron gate with his horse.

The Church of Hope's castle called "Silent Stars" is located in the southeast corner of Silent Highlands, an area that is higher than the central area and the outer area.

There are two advantages to choosing to build the castle here. First, it can overlook the entire Silent Highlands. With a telescope, even the movements of some imperial troops can be perfectly captured.

Second, there is a small river flowing here. It is a seasonal river without a specific name. It has sufficient water source almost every year from April to September.

It generally originates from the foot of the Sleeping Mountains, passes through the outer reaches of the Sleeping Highlands, and then flows into the central area, encircling a large circle.

However, this kind of surrounding does not form a closed loop. It will always dry up and disappear in some dry areas full of yellow sand. However, according to some surveys, the river has not completely dried up. It may have become an underground river and merged into the center. Not in the very huge "Lake of Silence".

After walking a few steps, Dylan finally stood near an iron gate four to five meters high and ten meters wide.

He looked up at the iron gate, his excitement palpable.

Since January this year, he has been traveling to various cities and towns in the empire to perform tasks. This is the first time this year that he has returned to the castle, which is near the headquarters of the Church of Hope.

He reached out and touched the patterns of "Flowers of the Other Side" and "Moon and Stars" carved on the iron gate railings, feeling a little sad in his nose.

After two or three sad seconds, he finally pressed a red button in the center of the iron door.

A few seconds later, two lost boys, fifteen or sixteen years old, quickly walked out of the small bungalow near the iron gate and came to Dylan.

"Who are you? Friend or enemy?" One of the teenagers raised an old-style rifle, pointed it at Dylan's heart, and asked cautiously.

"I am the middle-level gatekeeper, Dylan Dark. What? Has the gatekeeper changed now? I remember when I came in and out of here when it was snowing last year, I was still a bearded male believer. I have a good relationship with him. , he opened the door for me every time he made fun of me, but he never pointed a gun at me." Dylan said in a weird tone.

Although he still had a professional fake smile on his face, in his heart he felt contempt for the lost boy in front of him, even a little disgusted.

"Since you are a middle-grade Simon, please ask Mr. Dylan to answer the code word. Just match the previous sentence. Please don't make it difficult for us." The young man responded.

Dylan looked up at the armed boy in front of him.

In his impression, the Church of the Lost, at least the lower-level members of the Church of Hope, must at least wear the traditional costumes of Crusted or the Zine Empire, or even worse, they must be like the old costumes from the end of the Human Era to the beginning of the Steam Era. Generally not with any steam age or cyberpunk style.

But the two lost youths in front of them were not only wearing the old-fashioned "Dark Night S-01" armor of the Zine Empire that could be seen at a glance, but the clothes inside looked very much like the standard clothing of workers at the Sugla Machinery Factory.

Moreover, one is holding an old "Federal A-01" rifle, a rifle that can only be loaded with ammunition and fired one round at a time, and the other is holding a slightly newer "Federal B-04 (modified)", which can shoot three times after loading ammunition. , but it is a semi-sniper rifle that is usually used for long-distance sniping but does not have a scope.

In short, Dylan could tell at a glance that the equipment of the lost boy wearing a simple helmet, a dirty face, and a sallow face was picked up from some imperial soldiers who came to fight from remote and backward areas.

This forced him to make a preliminary inner assessment of the intensity of the current battle.

After holding his chin slightly and thinking for a while, he still chose to answer with the code word he used many times last year:

"The winter of the mechanical world is the eternal future, and the new era will die in the night and ice."

Hearing Dylan reciting the standard code words in the Zine Empire language, the two teenagers first had a hint of suspicion in their eyes. Then, the boy who had picked up the rifle put it down, with the muzzle facing the ground, and met the other boy. After looking at each other and nodding, they quickly ran to the side and pulled down a switch on the edge of the iron gate.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

The huge iron gate folded to both sides, and two seconds later, an area of ​​about three to four meters wide was left for Dylan, which could accommodate him and the horse behind him to pass through.

"I'm sorry, Lord Simen. The war is too fierce now, so the Pope directly ordered us to carefully check everyone who comes here. After sensing the demonic power that suppresses our strength, we must also Talk to you about the code words." The lost boy who had just pointed the gun at Dylan trotted towards Dylan, lowered his head, and apologized to him with a half-bow.

"It's okay, it's okay." Dylan said in a low and soft voice, reaching out to stroke the lost boy's silver hair.

Then, he looked around at the familiar space near the door, frowned, and asked doubtfully:

"Where's the bearded male believer? That's that Abermann, a man who has been here for more than 20 years."

"He is the uncle who has the power of plant magic and can turn part of his body into trees to attack, right?" the silver-haired young man asked for confirmation.

"Yes, that's him. Has the church's middle-level finally raised his level? I remember that he came to me with gin in December last year, saying that he could sense the golden light belonging to the 'Hope' sequence core in his dreams. I remember that he prepared several bottles of magic potions for promotion during that time. Could it be that he has been promoted to a middle-level monk and is no longer here?" Dylan tried his best to analyze the positive side.

"No." The expression of the silver-haired lost man suddenly became solemn. He was silent. After a few seconds, he slowly sighed and explained:

"The empire's troops began to gather almost two days ago, and the target is the stronghold established by our three major churches. Because of the proliferation of unintentional people before, and because we often led unintentional people to attack imperial cities, the empire has been unable to form a joint force to attack us.

However, the empire has recently achieved decisive victories in major battlefields. Except for a series of battles near Route 65 where we sacrificed Lord Yato to barely win, the imperial army has achieved an absolute strategic advantage. So..." The silver-haired lost boy paused for a few seconds, pursed his dry lips, and continued:

"Three or four days ago, the imperial soldiers gathered on the north and south sides of the highland and quickly expanded the garrison area based on the original military camp. Cardinal Yongchao ordered Uncle Abermann to go to the southern area to explore the camp."

"I heard something..." Dylan nodded and said:

"The Chekavusk Army and the Zhinetsk Army led by the Imperial Crown Prince Ivant focus on being stationed in the south. Now there are some problems with the 'Zhixin-03' railway line, so the transportation of troops in the north is not smooth. The southern highway and the railway line are still intact, so he and the purple-robed cardinal who is about to betray us... Sir Aaron, now plans to command the southern army to attack north, while the northern army is in a defensive posture."

After all, they are all members of the Hope Church. As long as they can feel the magic source power and the breath of the sequence core, they are all members of the Lost. Dylan has no "villain" plot to guard against his own people, and he doesn't mind giving Silver-haired Lost a try. The young man told some information about the war situation.

"Yes, I heard that the 'sinful man' Ifant deployed three steam-style camps in the south. Maybe the empire quietly moved some of its underground factories here last year.

Uncle Abermann told us that he sneaked into the vicinity of the camp to check, and that two of them were converted from the Silent Highlands outposts 'Z' and 'X' established by the Empire.

There are human superpowers with powerful upper-level magic power, so our church’s upper-level people have not thought about attacking them actively. In fact, he saw something interesting when he went to explore near the imperial camp two months ago. "The silver-haired lost boy said with a little confidence and his head raised slightly.

"I want to hear something interesting." Dylan said with interest.

“The Crown Prince moved his headquarters to a human ruins, the ancient ‘Silence City’, the ruins of an ancient city that was half submerged by wind and sand in the middle of the Steam Age.

He also dug many secret passages there and deployed some large-scale defense machinery, as well as many airplanes and airships. He himself was conducting the command in a yellow sand-style space similar to an underground villa.

However, just a month ago, Uncle Abermann wanted to sneak into the ruins of the ancient city and conduct a general investigation of the empire's deployment there, but we did not expect that he would..." The voice of the silver-haired lost boy suddenly became choked, and his eyes were filled with sobs. Suddenly filled with crystal tears.

"What's wrong with him? Tell me!" Dylan grabbed the shoulder of the silver-haired lost boy and urged him in a stern tone.

We have entered the high-energy chapters of Volume One.