Chapter 24 twenty two

Brown.Lamia found her four-hour commute turned into a ten-hour nightmare.The first was the detour to the dead city and the difficult decision to leave Cylenus behind.She didn't really want to leave the poet alone there; she didn't want to force him to keep going, and she didn't want to take the time to go back to the time tomb.As a result, the detour over the ridge took her an hour. Traversing the last few dunes and rocky badlands was exhausting and dull.When she reached the foot of the mountain, it was already after three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and Time Fort was already in the shadows.

Forty hours ago, it was easy to walk down the six hundred and sixty-one stone steps of Fort Time, but climbing up became a test, even for her muscles grown on Luthers.As she climbed, the air became cooler and the scenery more spectacular.When she reached a height of 400 meters from the foot of the mountain, she was no longer sweating, and Shizukagani was in sight again.But from this angle, only the top of the crystal monolith can be seen, where there is an irregular flash of light.She paused to make sure that it wasn't a flash of light, that the flash of light was just a coincidence, just a reflection of a piece of crystal hanging from a broken monolith.

Before climbing the last hundred stone steps, Lamia tried her communication recorder again. The communication channel was full of common noise and garbled codes. Presumably it was affected by the tide, which completely destroyed the recent electromagnetic wave communication. .Using laser comms might work. The Consul's antique comm recorder connection seemed to work, but they had no other laser comm equipment after Kassad's disappearance, except for that one machine.Lamia shrugged her shoulders and climbed up the last stone steps. Fort Time was built by King Billy's cyborg. It was never considered a castle. It was originally a place for leisure, an inn for travelers, and a summer paradise for artists.After the evacuation of the City of Poets, the place was vacant for more than a century, only visited by the most daring adventurers.

After the scariness of the Thorn Demon God gradually faded, tourists and pilgrims began to use this place, and finally the Church of the Thorn Demon God reopened it as a must-stop place for the annual Thorn Demon God pilgrimage. On the top of the most difficult tower to climb, it is rumored that it is the place for mysterious rituals and sacrifices to monsters that the Jing Demon Cult calls the incarnation of the gods. Due to the opening of the time tomb, the frenzy and irregularity of the time tide, and the evacuation of all parts of the north, the Fort of Time became silent again.This was the case when Lamia came back.

The desert and the dead city were still under the sun, but when Lamia arrived to rest on the bottom terrace, the Fort of Time was already shrouded in twilight.She found the flashlight from her backpack and entered the labyrinth. The corridors were very dark. When they stopped here two days ago, Kassad went to detect them and told them that all energy sources were cut off and could not be repaired. The solar collector was broken. , the fusion battery was smashed, even the spare battery was smashed, and it was thrown all over the basement.When Lamia climbed the six hundred and sixty-one stone steps, she thought about this matter no less than ten times, and looked at the elevator rusted to death in the shaft with hatred.

The hall, designed to be a dining-room and meeting-place, was full of the same hastily-aborted banquets and panic-stricken scenes as they had left, and there were no dead bodies, but there were brown marks on the stone walls and tapestries, which still One could tell there had been a feast of violence not a few weeks before. Lamia ignored the chaotic situation, ignored the big black birds with ugly human faces fluttering their wings from the central hall, and ignored her own fatigue as she climbed several floors higher. To the storage room where they had spent the night, the stairs became inexplicably narrow, the pale sunlight cast disgusting colors through the stained glass, and where the glass was broken or mutilated, gargoyles peeked inside, as if Freeze at the moment of entering.A gust of cold wind blew from the snow-covered Horse Bride Mountain Range, making Lamia's sunburned body shiver.

The small bags and extra gear were still where they had been left, in the small storage room high above the central hall, and Lamia checked to make sure that the boxes and boxes in the room were not broken. food, and then she went outside on the small balcony, which was Rainer.Hoyt looked like a place where the grand piano was played forever just a few hours ago. The shadows of the peaks traced for several kilometers on the sandy ground, almost reaching the dead city. Tokatsuka Valley and the wasteland beyond were still lying powerlessly in the twilight, with gravel and low rocks casting mixed shadows.Lamia couldn't see the time tombs clearly from here, though the monolith still glinted occasionally.She tried her comm recorder again, still getting only some static and background noise, cursed a few words, and went back to the room to pick up and pack supplies.

She selected four packages of basic rations packed in fluid foam and plastic fibers.In Time Fort, there are water-connected snow-melt trenches, an indestructible technology. She filled up all the water bottles she brought, and then found more bottles.Water was what they needed most, and she cursed Cylenos for not coming with her, the old man could bring at least six or seven bottles of water. She was about to leave when she heard voices.Something was in the central hall, between her and the stairs.Ramia picked up her last ration pack, drew her father's automatic pistol from its belt, and walked slowly down the stairs.

The hall was empty, and those human-faced birds did not come back.The heavy tapestry was blown by the wind, flying like tattered flags above the food and utensils that had been thrown to the ground.On the far wall opposite, a huge chrome and steel statue of the face of the Thorn Demon God swirled in the wind. Lamia slowly moved across the space, turning her body every few seconds so that her back wasn't facing a dark corner for too long, when a sudden scream stopped her. It was not a human sound, but a supersonic howl, which made Lamia grit her teeth and grip the pistol tightly with her white fingers. Suddenly, the sound stopped abruptly, like a laser light in a stereo. Suddenly interrupted.

Lamia saw where the voice was coming from.A little beyond the big banquet table, behind the standing portrait, under the six huge stained-glass windows, dimly colored by the fading sun, was a small door.Echoes came from there, as if escaping from a deep dungeon or cellar. Brown.Lamia is intrigued. She's been in conflict all her life investigating anomalies, which is why she's chosen the outdated but sometimes entertaining profession of private eye.More than once her curiosity got her into embarrassment or trouble, or both.But there were also times when her curiosity gave her access to knowledge that few others could.

But this time it was different. Lamia had come here for much-needed food and water.No one else would come here. Even if she made a detour to the dead city Yizhao, the other three old men couldn't possibly catch up with her and get here. Anything else or anyone has nothing to do with her. (Could it be Kassad?) She thought about it, then dismissed the idea.That voice did not come from the mouth of a domineering colonel. Brown.Lamia backed away from that door, gun still in hand, found the stairs, and descended carefully, carrying seventy kilos of food and a dozen water bottles through each room as quietly as possible, at the last A piece of faded glass on the bottom floor saw a glimpse of my own figure. The short and sturdy body stood firmly, raised the gun and looked around. A lot of things were carried on the back or hung under the wide straps. Bottles and cans collide together. Ramia didn't find it funny at all.When she walked out of the balcony on the bottom floor, she couldn't help but sigh in relief.It's cool outside and she's going down the long staircase again, she doesn't need a flashlight yet The dusk sky is suddenly covered with low clouds, spilling pink and amber light onto the world and illuminating Fort Time and the foothills below. She walked down the steep stone steps step by step, and before she reached halfway, the muscles in her strong and powerful legs were already aching. She didn't put the gun back in, but held it in her hand, in case anything came down from above or appeared in a crevice in the rock face.When she reached the bottom, she backed away from the steps and looked up at the half-kilometer-high towers and balconies above. A stone fell towards her.She found that it was not just stones, the monster-like Cheng Liu had been knocked down from where they had been squatting, and rolled down with the boulders, and those ghostly faces were illuminated by the evening skylight.Lamia ran, backpack and water bottle swinging, and finding she had no time to get a safe distance before those things fell, she threw herself between two huge boulders that were leaning against each other. What she was carrying prevented her from fully hiding under the gravel; she struggled to loosen a few straps, noticing the unbelievable noise of the rocks falling behind her and bouncing on top of her head, Lamia Pulling and pulling, with such force that the straps and plastic fibers snapped, she ducked under the boulder and pulled in her backpack and water bottle, determined not to have to go back to Chrono. Rocks as big as her head or hands rained down around her.The head of a stone monster Cheng Liu bounced in front of him, smashing a small piece of gravel less than three meters away.For a moment, the air was filled with falling rocks, and some huge rocks smashed against the gravel above her head.Then the burst of falling rocks passed, leaving only some small stones rolling down sporadically. Lamia leaned over and pulled her backpack back into safety when a rock the size of her comlogger bounced off the rocks outside and flew almost horizontally into her hiding place. So, bounced twice in the little hole she was in, and hit her temple. Lamia woke up with a groan like an old man.Her head hurt and it was dark outside.The flash of distant battle flames filtered in through the gap above and illuminated the inside.She reached for her temples and found clots of blood on her cheeks and neck. She barely crawled out of the hole, stepped on the newly fallen rocks outside and struggled, then sat down for a while, lowering her head to suppress a burst of nausea. Several of her backpacks were intact and only one water bottle was broken.She found her pistol, which had just fallen in a place where there was no gravel. The big rock she was standing on now was full of scars and marks from the previous burst of falling rocks. Ramia checked her comm.It had been less than an hour, and nothing had fallen from the sky to take her away or slit her throat as she lay there unconscious.She took one last look at the fort and balcony, now too far away for her to see.She pulled everything out and quickened her pace to walk down the dangerous gravel road. When she turned to the dead city, Martin.Cylenus is not on the edge of the city.In fact she hadn't expected him to be there, although she hoped he'd just gotten impatient and walked up the few miles up the valley. The temptation to unload the backpack and rest those dozen bottles of water on top is strong.Resisting the temptation, Lamia walked through the streets of the dead city, gun in hand.The flames of the explosion were enough to light her way. Her cry was echoed, but the poet did not answer, but hundreds of birds that Lamia did not recognize flew up and spread their white wings in the night.She walked through the lower level of the old palace of the king of mourning, shouted at the top of the stairs, and even fired a shot, but there was no sign of Selenus at all, and she walked through the courtyard under the high wall covered with vines, calling his name , looking for traces of where he had been.Once, she saw a fountain, which reminded her of the story the poet told about the night Billy the Sad King was taken away by the Thorn God and disappeared, but there were many fountains there, and she couldn't be sure it was the one he was talking about. Lamia walked through the great dining room under the curved ceiling, but the room was dark and full of shadows.There was a sound, and she turned around, gun ready, but it was just a leaf or an old piece of paper blown across the brick floor. She left the city with a sigh, walking with ease even though she was tired from sleepless days.There was still no response from the communication recorder. Although she could feel the deja vu brought by Shi Chao, she was not surprised or surprised.The night wind wiped away the footprints that Martin might have left on his return to the valley. The time mound lights up again, and Lamia notices it before reaching the entrance of the valley.It wasn't very bright light, nothing compared to the random flashes of light in the sky, but every time tomb on the ground seemed to glow palely, as if releasing the accumulated energy of the long day. Lamia stood at the mouth of the valley and yelled to let Thor and the others know that she was back.On the last 100 meters, she will not refuse others to help with things.Lamia's back was scuffed, and her shirt was soaked in blood from braces that got caught in her flesh. Her cries went unanswered. Exhausted as she slowly climbed the steps in front of the Sphinx, she put her things on the wide stone porch and groped for her flashlight. It was dark in the mound.In the room where they slept, dressing gowns and backpacks were strewn about.Lamia yelled, waited until the echo died down, and then shone the flashlight around the room.Everything remains the same. (No, wait a minute, something is different.) She closed her eyes and thought about the room in the morning. The Moebius cube is gone.Hite.Mastine stayed on the sailboat, the strange box locked with energy was not in the original corner, Lamia shrugged her shoulders and walked out. Jing Demon God is waiting.Just stand outside the door.Much taller than she'd imagined, towering above her. Lamia walked out the door, backing away, resisting the urge to scream.The raised pistol looked small and useless in her hand.The flashlight dropped on the rock was ignored. The monster tilted its head to look at her, with red flashes behind its compound eyes.The body and blades reflected the light from above. You son of a bitch!said Lamia, her voice peaceful, where are they?What did you do to Saul and the kid?Where are the others? The monster tilted its head to the other side, and Lamia couldn't tell any expression on that face.Its body language feels nothing but threatening.The steel fingers opened with a sound, like a few retractable knives. Lamia fired four shots in the face, and after the heavy 16cm bullet hit firmly, it disappeared into the night with a sharp sound. I didn't come here to die, you fucking metal freak.After taking aim, a dozen more shots were fired, each one a direct hit, Lamia said. Sparks splash.Jing Demon God straightened his head abruptly, as if he was listening to a distant voice. It's gone. Lamia panted, squatted down, and turned back suddenly, but there was nothing.The bottom of the valley was lit up in the starlight, and the battle in the sky died down, and the shadows were dark, but they were far away, and even the wind had died down. Brown.Lamia staggered to her pile of backpacks and sat on the largest one, trying to get her heart back to normal.She thought it was funny that she wasn't scared just now and wasn't really scared but couldn't deny the adrenal glands in her body. Still holding the gun in her hand, with six or seven rounds left in the magazine and still going strong, she grabbed a water bottle and took a swig. Jing Demon God appeared beside her, suddenly and silently. Lamia dropped the water bottle and turned to one side, trying to turn the muzzle of the gun around. It was almost as if she was moving in slow motion.The Thorn Demon God stretched out his right hand, his fingertips as long as sewing needles gleamed in the light, one of the tips slid behind her ear, found her skull, and stabbed in smoothly, except for a kind of cold Apart from the puncture sensation, there is no pain.