Wasteland Echoer

"What are they doing? Is it a ceremony?" Wright frowned and asked in confusion.

"Brother Wright." Feng did not answer directly, but stood behind Wright and asked close to his neck:

"Have you ever heard of the 'Vespers of R'lye'?"

"'Raleye's Evening Prayer'? What is that? Is it related to 'Raleye's Dream'?" Wright asked confused.

"It seems that you don't know anything about the things of the old gods? I don't blame you for this. After all, the education received by human soldiers has always belonged to the steam world, and the city of Socra is very resistant to magic. Brother, today I have I have told you too many stories about magic and history, 'Raleye's Evening Prayer', you need to experience and understand it yourself." Feng said, raising the corners of his mouth, revealing a strange smile.

"You...understand? How can it help me?" Wright blurted out.

"What you understand will eventually belong to you; what you are taught will eventually drift away with the clouds and smoke. Wise people will always try to dig out, and only stupid sad people will hope that the holy light will shine on the world." Feng recited in an affectionate tone. road.

"Is it a sentence in the Holy Word? Or is it the Secret Code?" Wright recalled the language with a similar structure he heard in the Migov Church and in the Donusk Area B camp, and asked with a tilted head. .

But the wind did not answer Wright. Instead, there was a clear and sharp whistle.

"Listen, brother Wright, the whistle is starting to sound, and the distant souls are about to return to the harbor. The ceremony has begun, and the banquet has also begun." Feng whispered.

Wright turned to look, and Feng's green eyes wrapped in white seemed to be expanding, trying to break through the shackles of the eye sockets, and followed the sound of the whistle into the distance.

"This... what on earth is..."

Before Wright could finish speaking, Feng stretched out his white palm and put it against Wright's mouth.

"The ritual is to summon the souls of the Lost who died in the war, and the banquet is prepared for you. Brother Wright, as a newly promoted Lost, is about to touch the stage 5: the existence of pain, you need to be nourished."

As the wind was talking, the melodious and loud whistle sounded again.

Wright looked carefully, and he did not see any products belonging to steam machinery in the huge palace hall, nor did he feel any unexpected fluctuations in magic power.

In other words, those whistles did not come from the items in the palace, nor were they the product of magic, but... but came from the open mouths of the thirteen nuns!

Seeing this, Wright was speechless for a moment. He couldn't describe his mood in words at this moment. He just felt that his body and spirit were unusually heavy, as if he was carrying a huge boulder that could never be transported to the top of the mountain, and he was in the middle of the mountain. In the red, hot lava.

As the sounds from the throats of the nuns turned into the calls of various birds and beasts, Wright felt as if his legs had been filled with lead water and entangled with iron vines, unable to move an inch.

Passively, Wright could only watch hard and attentively like the wind beside him who stared at the "consciousness" with wide eyes.

After what seemed like an extremely long period of time, the nuns' throats finally stopped emitting the unpleasant and strange chirping sounds, and were replaced by gentle singing sounds.

"Go home! Go home!" The nuns sang in unison, looking up at the top of the exceptionally bright hall:

"The flying soul, the body with nowhere to bury."

"Silent heart, mottled body."

"Your time is frozen in the magnificent city."

"Freezing on a dry sandbar."

"Freeze on the icy peaks."

"Fixed in the scorched earth."

"I pray that there will be no more wars in the world, and that the god of peace will come to the world."

"May the warm sun drive away the long night, and may the cold nightmare fade away."

"I am no longer confused, and you are no longer confused."

"We abandon the dark night and enter the embrace of the goddess of light."

"I am willing to spy on hypocrisy, and I am willing to listen to the truth."

"Under the shining of light, you and I will shine again!"

As the first verse was recited, the nuns dressed in pure white clothing, like flowers representing sacrifices, stopped kneeling, stood up, and raised their hands upwards, shaking violently uncontrollably. With.

Immediately afterwards, they began to pace around the square pool, and the positions of their hands began to emit wisps of blue silk thread-like magic power.

Two or three seconds later, they continued to sing the second verse, but Wright heard clearly that it was just a simple repetition of the first verse.

Feng, who had been observing the "summoning" ceremony attentively just now, let out a muttering of unknown meaning in his throat. Then, he turned his head and asked Wright abruptly in a hoarse voice:

"Brother, do you believe in the existence of souls?"

soul? Of course it’s something that doesn’t exist! As a materialistic young man who has received twenty years of education, of course I will not believe in these idealistic things! But this is a world in the wasteland. This world itself is mysterious enough. Magic, monsters, gods and extraordinary things are things that do not exist in the original world... In other words, souls... maybe they really exist?

Wright was thinking this way, unconsciously holding his chin with his right hand and responded:

"I'm not sure...or rather, I don't want to believe it exists."

"Has any of your close friends died?" Feng asked directly.

"Good friends? Of course." Wright showed a bitter smile, recalling the encounter with Moros at Outpost A of Silent Highlands.

He is really a mysterious man. It seems that the relationship between him and Brett becomes more and more unusual as it develops. His ancestors are from the old Crusted Empire, he is also a battlefield inspector, and a member of various strange organizations. Although he has always been a non-staff member, As for the staff, they have almost become regular employees in the end.

He also seems to have control over some dark magic power, and seems to have an extremely deep understanding of professions, sequential monsters, and sequential gods.

But he still chose to die with the "Hope Sandworm" for the sake of me, Brett, and Miyu, using the "Dark Word Cave", the ultimate product of "Dark Words".

As he thought about it in his mind and listened to the poem that seemed to penetrate his soul, Wright suddenly felt his nose become sore, and tears began to flow down his cheeks uncontrollably.

"Are you crying?" Feng asked. This sentence did not contain any expression and seemed very calm.

"Of course." Wright did not deny it, but stretched out his hand to wipe away his tears, "I thought of Moros. In order to protect me... we chose death."

"Well, it's indeed worth being sad and crying." Feng said with a slightly trembling voice:

"Ever since I regained my memory in the 'front camp', I have been in sadness and pain all the time. I don't remember how many desperate times I spent, nor how many of my compatriots died in front of me. But. Even so, I still firmly believe..."

"Which point?" Wright asked.

"There is no soul, there is no soul."

The first half of Feng's words sounded very high-pitched, but the repeated second half seemed particularly lonely.

After a brief moment of thought, Wright thought of a classic quote about simple materialism he had learned in the previous world, and blurted out:

"If the form exists, the spirit will exist; if the form disappears, the spirit will disappear."

"Is it the language of the Fire Empire?" Feng turned around and asked in confusion.

After being stunned for a moment, Wright realized that what he had just said was "Chinese". It seemed that in this world, the structure and pronunciation of "Chinese" had many similarities with the Fire Empire to the east.

After coming to his senses, Wright explained again in Zine Empire language:

"If the body exists, then the spirit and consciousness can exist; if the body dies, the spirit and consciousness will disappear."

"Actually, I don't believe in the existence of souls, nor do I believe in the existence of past and afterlife. Death is death, simple death. Dead humans will not be resurrected. They have disappeared from this world forever. However, except for heroes, they are worthy Being remembered can be regarded as 'rebirth' or 'eternal life' in another sense."

"It seems we have the same idea, brother." Feng nodded and said:

"Only by living in the present and looking to the future can we find hope and find the possibility of breaking through difficulties. Listen, the poem has been sung to the last few lines. I have heard this poem, it is "Gulji"'s " "Return". His Majesty the Pope told me yesterday that as soon as you wake up, prepare the ceremony and your banquet immediately."

"We can't wait any longer. The war situation is so urgent that we must enter the realm of gods. And your power, especially the red magic source power, is still not mature enough, so now, your power needs to be supplemented and catalyzed. "

Wright originally wanted to ask the wind about the specific meaning of "supplement" and "catalyze", but as the poem was completely recited, he heard the harsh whistle again.

Looking up, the thirteen nuns were standing upright around the pool, their eyes wide open, and bright red liquid flowing from the corners of their mouths.

At the same time, their hands were twisted outward in extremely complex postures, while their bodies were thrust forward forcefully.

If you look closely, it looks like someone is tying them up from behind, causing their bodies to be pushed downwards, and finally turned outwards in an extremely unnatural state.

While he was wondering, Wright saw blue threads spurting out uncontrollably from the nuns' eyes, mouths and hands. They quickly gathered in the air of the hall, forming a magic circle with a very strange and complex pattern!

At the center of the pattern is a machine with a complex shape. Its periphery is wrapped with a circle of wheat ears, and wrapped around the wheat ears is a circle of edelweiss patterns.

Looking to the outside, the pattern of the magic circle was cut into eighteen parts of equal size. Two of them, which Wright could decipher, were "human" and "dragon". The remaining parts were unfamiliar to Wright and seemed to be... Elves, and giants?

But just as he was wondering, the magic circle suddenly collapsed inward and condensed into a hexagonal gem emitting bright blue light.

After the surrounding blue energy circled the gem several times, it fired a straight white laser towards Wright's chest!

Before he had time to feel the positive or negative effects of the energy, Wright heard a subtle friction sound of metal objects. Looking around, six of the thirteen nuns pulled out pitch-black daggers simultaneously.

A second later, they were actually holding daggers, flying into the air, and attacking in the direction where Wright was standing!