Volume 1 The Land of the Dead Chapter 4 Variations
"Don't let me find you!"
Although Roger thought so viciously in his heart, this did not change the reality of Roger's current embarrassed escape, the gradually crumbling mine behind him and the shouts in front of him made Roger upset, and the vision of the forward was even worse, everything here seemed to be shrouded in a hazy fog.
As Roger progressed as he progressed, the indistinct tunnels gradually took on the scene of mined mines, broken ore and decaying digging tools, all covered with a layer of dust due to years of abandonment.
Probably because there is only one mine road, almost every few minutes, the road ahead will divide into many chaotic forks leading to different mines, every time Roger pauses slightly, Jerry's shout will sound at the right time at a certain fork in the road, several times, Roger has begun to deeply doubt the authenticity of Jerry's shout in front of him, but for some reason this idea was quickly abandoned by Roger.
"This mine road is really long" Roger leaned over a crack in the ground, estimated a little in his heart, and said in his stomach: "Now I am afraid that I have been running for more than an hour, and the depth is probably more than fifty kilometers, how deep did those undead dig back then? If the so-called underworld is a planet of the same size as the earth, this place is almost close to the asthenosphere" After traveling so quickly, Roger's body that has been neglecting exercise recently has begun to be unbearable.
Realizing this, Roger tried his best to adjust his breathing, but the muscles of his whole body were still burning pain, and the heavy wheezing brought the pain of burning every breath, and the decline in physical strength exceeded Roger's expectations.
Roger's slow-moving pace narrowly avoided a splash of rock, which almost grazed Roger's ear, and then Roger suddenly realized that before he knew it, when he thought that the mine would always collapse at a slower speed than him, the speed of the collapse had caught up with his speed! Roger fell into a torrent of dense rubble and collapsed ground!
"Damn!"
Roger stumbled under his feet, forcibly pulled back the body that was about to fall, and the earthwork above his head fell like an endless end, endlessly, "First gave me the illusion of always being one step behind me to let me relax my vigilance, and then let me fall into the collapse when I was not physically strong, very good, ruthless enough." ”
There was no point in saying this now, and the exhausted Roger seemed to have forgotten Jerry's cry, the purpose of his coming to the mine, his eyes blank, and he was like a marionette to dodge and move forward.
Strangely, when Roger stopped thinking about Jerry's condition at all, the shouts that had been vague in front of him gradually distorted and turned into an elongated and terrible tone, and then came to an abrupt end, just as the people behind the scenes were disgusted with such a bad joke. What's even more bizarre is that even without Jerry's shouts, Roger still spends his way through the collapsed mine, and the intricate forks in the road are completely unable to stop him.
"Smack"
The torch in his hand was thrown to the ground by Roger, the light blue fire burned quietly against the ground against his cognition, and he didn't know how such a simple torch could burn for so long, but there was no need for the light of the fire here, the road ahead had been rendered red, and the air was filled with a strong smell of sulfur.
"It's spectacular. ”
Roger, who had already lost his mind, licked his dry lips and calmly looked at the hot magma in the cavity in front of him, which was turbulent and stirring the stone wall, and the two collided with the extremely hot waves, which were a sea of magma gathered by molten rocks. At this time, there is no way out of the collapse of the rear mine road, and there is no way out blocked by the moat in front.
"Whew.... Whew...."
Bean-sized beads of sweat dripped down Roger's cheeks, the unbearable burning became the last straw that overwhelmed him, the suppressed weakness and exhaustion surged like a tide, Roger fell limp, knelt on one knee, clutched his chest with a painful expression, the hot air had burned his airways, and every heavy breath became an unbearable burden for him.
"There's one last point. Roger coughed up a few bright red clots of blood and muttered.
There was a cracking sound, accompanied by a loud 'click' sound, Roger wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, raised his head with difficulty, and the huge rock above his head fell with a bang, smashing into Roger, who was no longer able to move, which was a real catastrophe.
At this moment, the time seems to be infinitely extended, Roger subconsciously wants to try to use the concept of 'initial' to return to the well, but the exhausted energy is no longer enough to support the initiation of the concept, at this time Roger seems to have really fallen into a dead place, and death is about to come unstoppable.
The roar of the falling boulder was in his ears, and Roger's face was hideous, and he finally opened his eyes violently after several struggles!
It was clear that he had been witnessing the fall of the boulder with both eyes, but at this time Roger could clearly feel that his eyes had been closed, the heaviness of his eyelids, with a muffled snort, Roger's closed right pupil suddenly opened, and there were fluttering black symbols in his eyes, and the thin symbols were connected end to end into perfect black pupils. In Roger's eyes, the left and right eyes constructed a completely different perspective, in the left eye, he had been crushed into a piece of flesh by the boulder, and the miserable sound of broken bones rang in his ears, but in his right eye was his pale hand holding a burning torch in the shadows.
The two perspectives were staggered, and then the perspective of his left eye shattered like a mirror, and Roger, who had been standing stiffly at the entrance of the mine for an unknown time, collapsed to the ground with his right eye covered.
Behind him, there was Roger's strange and familiar underground scene, the cage that should have been buried in the collapsed gravel hung quietly in the air, the open space was piled up with rotten wood and alloy, and the mine tunnel in front of Roger was clearly completely blocked by the collapsed brackets and rubble, without a single gap.
Like a person drowning ashore, Roger lay on the ground without a figure, gasping for breath, putting down the hand covering his right eye, and red blood flowed from the corner of Roger's eye.
"If it weren't for this 'eye' left when my life was reset last time, I would have really been planted here this time", Roger breathed a sigh of relief, looking at his blood-stained pale palm through the glimmer of light shining from the mine, "It seems like a dream is not a dream, it is also a fantasy and a reality, I am afraid that I was hit when I went down the mine, this is neither a simple dream, nor a pure hallucination." But just as a person in his sleep doesn't know when he falls asleep, Roger has no way of knowing when he's stepping into a fantasy.
There are too many illogical aspects of the whole process of exploring the underground, but it is difficult for Roger, who is trapped in a fantasy, to perceive these obvious and almost absurd details, and now it seems that everything is too coincidental: as soon as he thinks that there is a danger of collapse of the mine support, the whole mine collapses in chains, and when he thinks that Jerry may encounter an accident, Jerry's cry of pain comes as promised, and when he thinks that the mine tunnel is deep into the mantle, the scene changes to a river of magma underground, and the whole world is like a dream, changing with the development of Roger's thoughts.
Roger's opportunity to see through the illusion was when he used the concept for the first time to return to Inoue, although Roger still released the concept of 'initial', but lost the feeling of using the concept, even though the illusion well simulated Roger's sensory experience, but the illusion still showed its weakness when dealing with the concept of this almost world-origin power, which should have been a feeling that Roger could not describe, like an extrasensory experience outside the five senses, and the illusion can bring Roger only a sense of emptiness.
Realizing that something is wrong, Roger suspects that he has fallen into the magic effect of the illusion system, which is one of the most obscure branches in the magic field, and the mages who are proficient in this way can construct strange or brilliant illusions, which affect people's brains and deceive people's feelings, but the illusion in front of him is far more weird than the magic of the illusion system, Roger's tricks to explore the illusion have no effect, and the illusion is so solid that it is difficult to deny its existence, such an idea will only make people fall deeper and deeper in the illusion.
Fortunately, Roger is not helpless, initially giving him the power to actively travel back in time and space, and the corresponding price is that Roger will involuntarily reset and reincarnate every time after a period of time, and all the power accumulated during this period will be cleared. But in particular, when Roger dies unexpectedly, the 'initial' will be activated uncontrollably, and he will still be reincarnated, but the power accumulated during this time will not disappear, but will be transformed into a reborn creation with special abilities, and his right eye is the reset creation left by the last life reset, Roger really wasted a lot of effort in order to find it, and it can even be said that his fall into this necromantic underworld is not unrelated to this 'eye'.
Of course, Roger has no regrets about this, the only advantage of living long enough is that he will experience everything, and this small setback can't hit Roger at all, as for Roger's decadence, there are naturally other reasons.
The book goes back to the present.
As reconstituted creatures that condensed Roger's rebirth and accumulated power, they all have some ability to distort reality, and the 'eyes' have the ability to see through the void.
Roger wanted to use his right eye to observe the unreasonable part of the hallucination, so as to crack the hallucination, at this time Roger felt that he had actually been closing his eyes, and in the second half of the whole illusion, Roger had been trying to open his eyes, and finally saw through the illusion at the last moment.
"Hiss" Roger gasped and ran in the illusion for nearly a night, reflecting that Roger's real body was also exhausted, not to mention that the air around him was filled with an uncomfortable aura, and after falling from the illusion, he felt the unbearable necromantic energy lingering under the real mine, which was different from the necromantic aura in other parts of the underworld, the necromantic energy here fluctuated wildly, condensed like substance.
"Get out of here quickly", Roger stood up with difficulty, he was only out of the influence of the illusion, and did not crack the illusion, and now he has a little mental blur, and he has no strength to break away from the illusion again, not to mention, the person behind the scenes who arranged such a realistic illusion did not appear.
Roger closed his aching right eye, and the blood that had previously flowed from the corner of his eye left a dry scab on his face, and it was predictable that Roger would be a one-eyed dragon for a while.
Blindfolded in his right eye, which he couldn't see for the time being, Roger carefully moved in the direction of the cage, he also needed to watch out for the people behind the scenes who might be hiding in the shadows, although no one attacked while he was in a fantasy, but Roger still didn't dare to let his guard down.
Walking through the quiet underground clearing, Roger looked at Jerry, the little skeleton holding the railing of the cage, who was hanging firmly on the fence and trembling, as if he was afraid that he would suddenly fall, Roger could probably guess what kind of illusion Jerry had fallen into.
"It looks fine, it's good that the soul fire is not extinguished", Roger didn't pull Jerry off the railing, but simply checked its state, if Jerry suddenly left the fence, reflected in the illusion Roger believes that there will be no good results, now Jerry just looks like the soul fire is a little dim, and when the cage rises and gets out of the range of the illusion, it should be no problem.
Roger shook the noose of the suspension cage fiercely, colliding with a dull voice, "It's really embarrassing, the dumb man didn't find it, and he almost put himself in." Just now Roger found out, even under the real mine, there is no dumb figure, he is afraid that he has been lucky after falling into the illusion for a night, and it is more likely that the mute has been swallowed by the indescribable existence behind the scenes, Roger can't help but be glad that he can get out of the illusion at the last moment.
"Who's there!" "Who's there!" While Roger was waiting for Jack to lift the cage, the mine that had been blocked by boulders suddenly sounded footsteps from far and near, and the sound of 'da da da' buckled on Roger's heartstrings, and Roger quickly condensed a fireball technique in his hand, staring nervously at the blurred figure in the mine tunnel gradually became clear.
It looked like a figure, Roger squinted the only remaining left eye, and as the figure approached, the original necromantic energy receded like Moses parting the Red Sea, and through the red glow of the fireball, Roger could see the face of the person who came.
"Dumb!?" Roger chuckled in his heart, staring at the young man who was still a little strange in front of him, all the clues were instantly connected, without much words, he took a step back, and the fireball technique that had been condensed for a long time in his hand suddenly smashed towards the 'dumb'.
The whistling fireball illuminated the pale face of the 'dumb man', and in the light of the fire, a clean smile hung on his face, and the 'dumb' opened his mouth, and a soft word sounded with a shocking soul-shaking fluctuation.
"Hello, Roger. ”
And so, everything fell silent.