As they marched through this dense forest, the tall Valkyries walked at the forefront, their agility avoiding all branches and shrubs that blocked their path.

Todd followed behind them, looking at the landscape in front of them, and magically appeared a path to the depths of the Sacred Forest.

Brunhilde turned her head, her silver hair dancing gently along her movements, "Leader of Twilight, I still don't understand, as a heretic, why do you, as a heretic, insist on entering the ruins of the gods?"

Todd nodded to the Valkyrie and said half-truthfully, "Half curiosity, half longing." By the way, your lingua franca is really good. ”

"I learned almost all the languages on the mainland. ”

Todd was stunned for a moment, and then said curtly: "You really love learning." ”

"No, it's not what you think. I just have a lot of time, too much you can imagine. Brünnhilde looked the speaker in the eye, turned away, and said no more.

Todd stepped on the soft and muddy ground under his feet, slowed his pace, and whispered to Huggins, "Did you bring anything with you?"

The latter shook the iron cage in his hand and gave Todd a reassuring look.

The group walked along this hidden and long path towards the depths of the dense forest for twenty minutes, and gradually heard the sound of gurgling water and the laughter of children.

As the Valkyrie walked out of the forest, Todd's eyes suddenly opened up, and a wide clearing appeared among the trees and boulders, and a spring that constantly spewed out clear water turned the center of the clearing into a small pond.

Four or five girls of various ages, laughing and playing by the pond, ran to Brünnhilde and grabbed her by the hem of her shirt when they saw Brünnhilde appear, and cried out for them to join in their game. The Valkyries took out the puppet toys from their bags and handed them to the girls, looking at the surprised looks on the children's faces, they showed a rare smile.

"Except for the relics guarded, these children are the only ones for us. ”

Todd couldn't help but look at her twice when he heard Brünnhilde's words. The silver-haired woman was tall and tall, and from her young and beautiful face, she was no more than twenty years old, but she always spoke and acted with the illusion of being through vicissitudes.

Todd shook his head vigorously, pushing the strange thought out of his mind, and asked the Valkyrie, "I've heard that there are often people on the North Island who suffer from miracles and come here to seek healing......"

Brünnhilde glanced at him, touched the puppet in his hand, lifted his chin, and pointed to the pond in the middle of the clearing: "I know what you want to ask, do you see that spring? It is the 'Healing Spring' in the 'Sacred Forest', those people drank the spring water, and they changed from aliens to ordinary people. ”

Todd turned his head and led Huggins to the pond in the middle of the clearing.

The pond is not large, the area does not exceed forty square meters. The water is clear with a hint of green, and visibility is excellent. It is shallower at the edges and deeper towards the middle. In the center, the living eye of the spring water keeps popping up, and it is pitch black and you can't see any color, like a bottomless hole, which makes people daunting.

Todd winked at Huggins and whispered, "Go ahead with the plan, remember to take some samples." Also, be careful not to touch the water. ”

Huggins pulled out the tightly wrapped iron cage from behind his back and opened the curtain, revealing a dormouse infected with "frozen" bacteria. The kettle was carefully filled with spring water, and a little more was poured out and fed to it. After a few dozen seconds, the cold air on the subject's body slowly disappeared, and he completely turned into an ordinary dormouse.

Brunhilde touched the top of the girls' heads, motioned for them to play, looked at the two standing by the pond, and said in a loud voice, "Chief, Twilight, don't you want to see the ruins of the gods?"

Todd stared blankly at the caged dormouse for a long time before he reacted: "Okay...... Okay, I'll do it. ”

Following in the footsteps of the Valkyries, Todd and Huggins make their way through the clearing, turning the stone pile around the corner, into a town with a medieval vibe. In the humble blacksmith shop, sweating blacksmiths are repairing weapons, in the square farmland, several tall women are planting summer wheat, and on the flat ground in front of the house, old women with turbans and a group of chirping girls are drying mushrooms and dried fruits.

The villagers looked at the two men who had not set foot in this place for a long time, and whispered about it.

Todd roughly counted, there were hundreds of people in this Valkyrie village, but all of them were women.

Just as he was about to ask, a cry of grief caught the team's attention.

Brünnhilde looked in the direction from which the voice had come, his brow furrowed, and his feet changed direction.

Seeing this, Todd hurriedly followed.

A woman of about 30 years old, holding a baby girl about one year old, pressed her face against the child's bloodless face, knelt at the door of the grass hut, and wept loudly.

Brünnhilde walked up to the woman and got down on one knee to examine the baby girl in her arms. After a while, the Valkyrie hung her head sadly and gently hugged the weeping woman.

Leaving the comfort to the other Valkyries, Brünnhilde took one last look at the lifeless baby and forced himself to continue with his grief.

Todd looked at the other party's expression and hesitated for a long time before he spoke: "That baby ......"

Brunhilde did not stop, and there was no wave in his tone: "As servants of the gods, we follow tradition and remain virgins. This means that it is impossible for us to have children, and the only thing we can enjoy as a mother is to wait for the outside world to give us the baby girl and adopt it in order of age. However, everyone here wants a child, but there are very few babies sent every year, so every Valkyrie treats the child as a treasure when it is her turn......"

With that, the Valkyrie walked to the end of the village, came to a smooth stone wall, and pressed her hands against a heavy boulder, and with a loud roar and the sound of the ground grinding, the boulder weighing a thousand pounds was moved aside, revealing a black hole in the stone wall.

Patting the dust on his palms, Brunhilde ignored the men's surprised expressions and walked into the cave first.

The Valkyrie took a torch from the wall at the entrance of the cave, lit it with a flint, and walked deeper into the cave and said, "But, for some reason, not many of the children in the village survived. Many of them were like the baby, with a high fever that did not go away for days, red spots on their bodies, and finally collapsed and died......"

Something flashed through Todd's mind when he heard this, but when he tried to think about it, he was drawn to something else.

Murals, all the rock walls on both sides of the cave are frescoes.

Mighty gods and monsters of all shapes and forms are written in Palearctic at the bottom of each mural: Odin, Thor, Freyr, Heimdallr, Muspel, Hrimthurs, Loki, Fenrisulfr, and many more.

Todd watched as the mural slowly progressed, and finally saw a painting at the end of the cave called "Ragnarok". Asgard fell in flames and seas, stars fell from the sky, and time was gone. The charred ground shook and sank into the rough seabed, and all that could be seen was the monstrous waves, leaving only a dead silence and eternal darkness in the universe.

The painting is almost identical to the description of Norse mythology in previous lives. But there is one place that makes Todd a little concerned, right above the sky, there is a strange symbol, which consists of two parts, the upper and the lower. The upper half is an upward arrow, and the lower half is an inverted isosceles triangle.

Brunhilde walked to the wall at the end, put his hands on the wall, and pushed forward with all his might. The wall in front of them was sunk inward, and a path for only one person appeared in front of the group.

Todd and Huggins looked at each other, and finally decided to follow the Valkyrie to see what was going on.

Emerging from the gap, Todd looked at the scenery in front of him and opened his mouth wide in surprise.

The world behind the mountain wall turned out to be a huge karst cave.

Looking into the distance, the depth of the cave can not be seen at a glance, the wide place is like a square, the narrow place is like a promenade, the high place is 30 meters high, the whole karst cave twists and turns on the plane, it can be divided into three layers longitudinally, and an underground river can be seen faintly flowing through the bottom layer. At the very top of the cave is a naturally formed sinkhole, and strong light is cast from above, bringing a glimmer of light to this mysterious space underground.

Brunhilde turned around, looked at Todd and said, "Leader of Twilight, welcome to the ruins of the gods. I've heard you're an alchemist, and there's something I want you to see. ”