Soul of Burning Steel

"According to the current means, it is absolutely impossible for Chaos to be used by humans."

Boom, boom, boom, boom—the sound of the earth's crust being torn apart by brute force resounded in the almost liquid air, and within a few minutes, it spread across most of the world.

This is a completely dark world.

There are no stars, no sun, and the frozen surface is harder than diamonds at the absolute low temperature of 100 degrees below zero. The violent cold wind formed by the broken continents stirs waves in the atmosphere that is about to condense into blocks.

On the glacier, Priest endured extreme fear and trembling, and stood on the only piece of intact ground. Soldiers who have reached the golden level can already survive in this extreme cold, and can also survive in absolute darkness. Middle sight—so he stared, stared at the glacier in front of him.

Covering the entire world, the vast glacier stretching across hundreds of thousands of miles has now been shattered by someone's brute force. Priest watched the glacier and the earth's crust being torn apart by a huge steel figure, forming an incomparably wide and deep valley. The end of this deep valley cannot be seen, nor how deep it is. Its edge disappears beyond the horizon, as if tearing the entire world apart.

Perhaps, the world has really been torn apart.

"Priest, don't take chances, you have to seriously remember every word I say."

A loud, deep, god-like voice came, and Priest quickly lowered his head to show that he was listening. At the same time, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the earth's crust, which was stronger than steel, was like paper in front of the giant god. Pieces were generally torn into rock shells one by one, and then crumbled into countless dense dust, blending into that majestic and huge body.

"According to all the methods and technologies we currently have, it is absolutely impossible for us to use Chaos."

The giant god is eating—he is devouring the world, smashing rock formations that are as huge as mountains, and merging them into himself. Huge rock crust.

Priest felt the unparalleled gravitational disturbance, his throat squirmed, and he swallowed, because he saw that the giant rock shell, which surpassed the highest mountain in the world of Mycroft, instantly turned into a cloud of silver smoke , and then disappeared into the deep and dark mouth of the giant god.

Soon, the rift turned into a deep valley, and the deep valley turned into an abyss. The vast land enough to accommodate tens of millions of people was swallowed up by the giant god one by one like a cake. During this process, his calm voice echoed in the atmosphere. reverberates.

"I only say this to you, Priest, you are different from others, you are different from my other students, so I must remind you to be vigilant about everything related to Chaos."

"What...is it different from it, teacher?"

Even though he felt uncontrollable trembling all over his body due to fear and shock, Priest was still able to calm down—he took a deep breath, and pressed the air below minus 100 degrees into his lung cavity. The extreme cold made this person The young warrior calmed down and asked aloud, "Why are you telling me this?"

Always keep calm and take courage. This is the advantage of Priest, and the reason why he can become a student of the giant god.

"Because of choice. Priest, you are different from your brothers and sisters. Because they chose to stay in the world of Mycroft, they will stay inside the empire and become strong men stationed on the side to maintain order and peace." .”

The giant god didn't stop eating. He came to this extremely cold and frozen planet just to 'eat' most of the rock crust on the surface, and took out the metal core of this planet, as a pastry to supplement the nutrients in the world in his body. He said calmly, "But you are different."

"You chose to be an adventurer who explored far, chose this path, so you are more likely than them to encounter the chaos hidden in the multiverse, and more likely to reach the other side of the world."

Also more likely to keep up with me.

Priest saw that in the dark world, an extremely turbulent storm suddenly broke out, as if some huge existence was rapidly stirring up the atmosphere. With force from his legs, he crushed the ice layer and firmly crushed himself like a wedge. fixed in place.

And the next moment, Priest saw that the giant turned around and looked down at him.

What kind of eyes are those?

Priest is indescribable, indescribable, those eyes are like two tiny suns, emitting infinite light and heat... But the brilliance of the sun is distorted by the invisible gravitational force, shaping it into a hazy mass The stream of fiery light gently flows along the corners of the giant god's eyes, forming regular and mysterious lines on his cheeks.

"Don't use Chaos, don't get close to Chaos, don't try to control it, and don't try to convert it. If you can't destroy it, then seal it as soon as possible, or leave. This is the relationship between Chaos and us, mutual mortal enemies. "

Looking at the giant god, Priest was speechless for a long time, as if he was immersed in the shock of the other party's infinite power, but when the giant god turned his head and was about to end the reminder to his students and continue his lunch, Priest He spoke like a ghost.

"Even... Teacher, you have such strength, can't you?"

A long silence appeared in the frozen world.

Although there was an insignificant laugh at the end, with a little admiration.

"Even with my emphasis, you still have hope, and I like that about you... as for me."

Giant God whispered intriguingly: "At least I can say that I am still working hard now, not giving up."

...

Priest woke up suddenly from his dream.

"Damn... did you have a nightmare..."

He moaned in a low voice, then turned over from the original vine hammock and stood up—his head hurts, and it is difficult to think smoothly. Priest murmured: "No, it's not a nightmare...it's the teacher's teaching."

But he couldn't remember the specific teachings.

"Forget it, it's just a dream."

After a while, Priest, who had sorted out his thoughts, raised his head and looked at the caster of the night watch across the bonfire. The two sides nodded in tacit understanding without saying anything superfluous.

This is the third day that the elite exploration team has come to the unknown world, and it is also the second day that the elite exploration team has temporarily reconciled with the group of elves who call themselves the "Looker Tribe".

The mountains and hills in the eastern mountains are undulating, and among the endless forests of fallen leaves and dead branches, there are a large number of underground caves. Except for a few high-level ones, most of the elves live in the caves closest to the Mother Tree of Life. And Priest and others are now living in a cave that has been cleaned and ventilated.

"I don't know when the group of elves will finish their discussions and decide whether to cooperate with us."

On the other side of the bonfire, the mage on duty in the early morning and night shift closed the magic book in his hand. He sighed and said helplessly, "These long-lived species are indeed close relatives of tortoises. They are dull and slow-paced."

"They will say yes."

Regarding this, Priest shook his head and said softly: "If they hesitated from the beginning, why did they put us five gold ranks next to their own tribe? , and they will inevitably suffer losses that they cannot bear-the birth of elves is very difficult."

"Right."

The mage didn't refute, nor did he seriously agree. He just agreed casually, and then turned his head to look at the faint sunlight that appeared at the entrance of the cave—dawn had come outside the cave, and this was the first time they came to this different world. three days.

At the same time, Priest sighed, recalling the scene in the middle of the night two days ago.

In the dense forest, nearly a thousand extremely elite elf hunters and sharpshooters surrounded the five members of the elite team. Under such a battle, even a group of gold-level monsters would have to be on the spot, but Priest and the others They are five gold-level human professionals who have mastered various combat skills and magic. Even if they have not fully mastered their own power of glory, these elves are not able to win without injury.

Just as the crowd was confronting nearly a thousand elf hunters, the leader of the group, an elf druid wearing a crown of antlers, appeared in the center of the crowd, and his appearance broke the wordless silence between the two sides.

"You...are humans?"

He asked in surprise: "It's not a Chaos monster?"

With such an opening remark as the beginning of the exchange, the follow-up conversation will naturally not start directly after a disagreement.

After a period of tedious and repeated questioning and being questioned, the two sides that were at war with each other barely ended their confrontation, and both of them had a general understanding of the situation of both sides.

For Priest and his party, they knew that the elves in front of them came from an elf tribe called the 'Lookers'. This is an elf tribe, including the leader, whose age is not more than three hundred years old. , an unusually young elf tribe, they live around a huge tree of life, they use the caves made by the roots of the giant tree as their houses, and they usually make a living by picking fruits, hunting wild animals, and going out to sea to fish.

Generally speaking, it is a very primitive but very united elf tribe.

And the reason why they ambushed Priest and the others at the beginning was because they regarded the team members wearing the magic armor as alien monsters lurking around their territory.

Just like the eight-legged fungus family did not see that Priest and his party were wearing armor, rather than a layer of exoskeleton until the end. They have never seen armor, or even seen so many metal creations. The elves naturally couldn't understand what the 'full-coverage closed-type magic armor' was. In addition, Priest and his party did not hesitate to destroy trees in order to clear the way in the forest, which made the elves believe that , This is a group of terrifying alien monsters.

The differences between civilizations, races, and technologies are simply too great for such near-impossible misunderstandings to arise.

On the contrary, the elves also know that the five members of the exploration team are the victims who entered this forest by accident, and the changes in the mountains have nothing to do with them—at least after everyone swore, the elves said that Undeniable, it seems that I don't know whether I believe this nonsense or it doesn't matter.

"The holy mountain for offering sacrifices was originally made of silver and iron. The teachings left by the ancestors did say so. But time passed, the silver and iron rusted, and the wind and sand blew it, buried it, and finally turned it into a solid rock."

These were the original words that Priest and the others heard. That's what the antler elf said to them. It seemed that he was not at all surprised by the restart of the Nexus of Time and Space.

To be honest, this made the elite team, who were facing the enemy, very puzzled—they also understood that the mountain range where they were just now, that is, the location of the Acrafa hub, was the group in front of them. The mountain of sacrifices in the elves' mouth, but now that the mountain of sacrifices collapsed, they were not surprised at all, not even surprised or panicked at all.

Did they regard that mountain as a holy mountain? !

What is even more surprising is the contradiction in the level of civilization of this group of elves.

According to Priest's speculation, the elves in this strange world should be like them, more than 1,300 years ago, during the final battle of the Era of Glory, accidentally drifted here due to a time-space transmission error. In other words, They should be the descendants of the elven colonists—but if they were really elven colonists, they would never be able to become what they are now, the original appearance of living in the crypt!

Elves are long-lived species. The life span of a generation may be longer than that of most human kingdoms. Their knowledge inheritance is far more stable than that of short-lived humans. How could it be possible for a group of elves to become what they are today in just 1,300 years? The appearance of primitive people?

Priest even saw that the elves here are still using bone arrowheads. They even lost their iron technology!

But for this strange contradiction, these elves answered part of the doubts for everyone.

"Are you curious about the scar on my hand?"

The deer-crowned elf, the leader, stretched out his arm when the exchange was over and the two sides were not confronting each other for the time being. He had noticed that Priest and others often looked directly at the scar on his right hand, so he was open-minded. He said with a smile: "This is a foreign disease - those dead gods in the sky often drop some flesh and blood, corroding the beasts or elves in the forest, as long as they are scratched by flesh or infected monsters, basically no one can escape... ...I'm still considered light, and it will probably take decades before it kills me."

"It's useless to cut it off. This thing will be transferred to other parts of the body. Countless ancestors have proved this with their lives."

The deer crown elf called the nine giant beasts in the sky "dead gods". When he said this, he was very open-minded, as if he didn't care about his own lifespan at all. Are you about to break the record for the longest-lived leader?" "No."

Based on this information, the exploration team can barely understand why these elves lost their inheritance so quickly, so that they degenerated to such a primitive level-if it is said that most of the first generation of elf colonists died under the erosion of chaos, And the remaining elves often die due to the erosion of chaos, so even the immortal species cannot maintain the survival of civilization.

It is also for this reason that these elves, after noticing the elite squad that descended from the sky, will identify them as infected alien monsters, and the black magic armor does not look like decent equipment. , On the contrary, it has a gloomy and depressing temperament.

As for why elves can recognize humans, the reason is also very simple, because according to them, there were humans living around the mountains of this world hundreds of years ago, but they are completely invisible in the recent period, and they should be gradually extinct .

"To be honest, the situation here is more weird than we thought."

Priest temporarily stopped recalling, he shook his head, he didn't know whether he was talking to the mage on the other side of the campfire, or he was talking to himself: "The recorded history of the Starfall Era is 839 years in total. For a long time, about 80 to 130 years, the period of primitive chaos against the Black Forest beast tide after the shelter was opened, and the lost 300 years before the shelter was opened-this adds up to a total of 1,200 Many years, even if other possible spare time is counted, it will be thirteen hundred years at most."

"Even if these elves are short-lived due to the 'foreigner disease', which is a mild infection of chaos, they still have a lifespan of about two hundred years. For them, thirteen hundred years is a matter of six or seven generations. , it is absolutely impossible to forget so thoroughly!"

And following Priest's voice, the others woke up one by one, but the mage who had been staring at the cave entrance, not knowing what to think, lowered his voice and whispered to himself: "Maybe, it's more than 1,300 years?" ?”

"What's the meaning?"

Priest, however, keenly heard the mage's murmur, and he asked puzzledly, "Could it be that you mean that these elves lived in this world before the final battle?"