Prologue

The soldiers who were on the night vigil were in the outposts on the city walls, chatting quietly and drinking wine, and occasionally glancing at the darkness as far as the horizon. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

They were stationed at the north gate of Chanda City, that is, in the direction of the You River. Half a kilometer to the north there was a military port where Chanda's fleet was stationed.

The sky is clean tonight, the brilliant starry sky is like a wide curtain, and the curved crescent moon is like a thin blade.

From time to time, shooting stars streak across the sky, leaving a dazzling scar in the boundless dark night.

In the endless darkness, only the torches at the head of the city and the lights of the lord's palace shone on the eyes of the soldiers, and beyond that, there was darkness, darkness that swarmed from all directions.

They are like demons escaping from hell, frantically eating away at the light, and no one notices that the light of the torches is getting darker and darker, and the darkness around them is getting thicker and thicker.

It's too quiet, it's too quiet. It was too quiet tonight.

For several kilometers, except for the soldiers who were talking, only the crackling sound of the burning bonfire.

Finding that something was wrong, the captain of the garrison decided to go out and have a look, according to his previous experience on duty. At night, you should be able to hear a slight murmur and the sound of the water running in the river.

If it's windy weather, you can even hear the sound of chains and flags from the port.

But today there is nothing, too quiet, too quiet.

He grabbed half of the Nord honey that was left, put on his iron helmet, and walked out of the outpost on the city wall.

He finally decided to go out and have a look, just in case something unexpected happened.

After all, it has been too chaotic recently, starting with Virgia and Nord, nearly 30,000 displaced people have entered Chanda, and more outlaws have set up dens around the city.

I heard that a large number of pirates from the north had landed and plundered the coastal villages, and their number was more than ten times higher than in previous years.

The men slashed villagers with axes and set fire to houses with torches. Everywhere I went, it was a mess.

It's all bad, it's been almost a decade since it's been a mess.

It is said that the Kujit people in the east were also in the civil war, and many people were displaced, and today he also sees a Kujit who wandered to Zenda.

His relatives were all massacred by his former compatriot, Black Flag Kujit. The madmen burned all the crops and sprinkled salt in the fields, and they demolished the houses, mills, and irrigation machines in a vain attempt to return the Kugit to primitive nomadic times.

There was only one man in the whole city who laughed, and his name was Ramon, the richest slave trader in all of Calradia. Because of the war, he was able to buy slaves at a very low price. Then it was sold to the relatively peaceful Rhodok or Swadia and made several times the profit. I heard that this guy has bought a new salt mine and is preparing to dig it.

After taking a sip of wine, the captain of the garrison became a little more emboldened. He raised the torch in his hand a little higher and walked farther to the wall, where darkness swarmed in on all sides, enveloping him like a veil. The chatter of the soldiers in the distance faded into silence, and he walked alone in the boundless darkness. It was as if it had been packed into a pitch-black box, and there was no sound in all directions, and it was impossible to touch the border even if you reached out and touched it.

Strange, it shouldn't be like this. I can't hear the sound of chatting after just walking out of this point, what the hell is going on tonight? There was no sound in all directions, only the captain's own pounding heartbeat, he could feel the rapid rush of adrenaline hormones, and an inexplicable thirst was tormenting his throat.

It's weird, it's weird. The torch in the captain's hand began to tremble slightly, and the alcohol could no longer support him. This Wikibian man, who was only thirty, felt that it was time to return to the outpost, and hurried to finish his midnight shift and go home to see his wife and children.

But at this moment, a soft noise sounded in front of him. The sound was made when the wooden boxes collided, and he had heard it on the docks before, and it was a light sound that the workers would have when they were carrying fragile items, and it was not loud. But in the extremely quiet environment here, it is no less than a thunderbolt, hitting the tense nerves of the Wikibians fiercely.

Under the dual effects of fear and alcohol, the captain of the garrison threw down the bottle, and the crystal liquid and glass were scattered. The shiny scimitar whizzed out of its sheath, and he roared into the hollow darkness ahead.

"Who!"

In the darkness, something moved slowly. Sweat was oozing from the palms of the garrison captain, and his torches were rolling on the ground, dimming little by little, extinguished. The darkness around him seemed to come to life, writhing little by little, closing in on him. At some point, the stars in the sky had dimmed, the crooked crescent moon was obscured by dark clouds, and the dark sky hung above him, like an overwhelming net.

He cocked his scimitar, mustered the last of his courage, and took a small step forward with a shudder. A black outline gradually appeared in the field of vision, and then suddenly zoomed in. Almost subconsciously, the captain of the garrison raised his saber, an action that did not hesitate at all, like a human subconsciously withdrawing his hand after touching the flames.

The black shadow shattered suddenly, with a smell of death, like a dead leaf covered with autumn frost being crushed. The captain of the garrison roared and swung his sword, and the second shadow almost slammed into the blade, shattering into splinters. But the Vecchian did not stop, he could feel the darkness and despair surrounding him, he could no longer hear the sounds around him, and the light of the torches no longer warmed his vision!

He roared, as if he realized that the trapped beast was roaring unwillingly. The third shadow slammed straight in, stabbing in hand, but the Wikiman's saber pierced through its body first, and then the blade slanted down, nearly slicing it open! Bright red blood filled the Wikiman's eyes, and an inexplicable rage ran through his mind, like a mad beast pounding into a cage.

He let out a strange scream, and the fourth shadow leaped swiftly, the serpentine sword stabbing out in an eerie arc. But a nameless force turned around with the captain of the garrison, and he swung his saber at a speed that rivaled that of the most elite warriors. But at this time, the captain of the garrison did not realize that he was wrong in the slightest, and his mind only had fear, collapse, and madness.

The fourth shadow suddenly cracked, and with it shattered the boundless darkness, as if a huge curtain had been lifted, and a blinding light shot into the eyes of the captain of the garrison. He screamed and backed away, only to crash into a rough wooden pillar.

Wait, columns?

The captain of the garrison was stunned for a full five seconds, and then looked back blankly. In the dim light, he saw the ajar gate of the outpost, and... corpses strewn there. The soldiers at the outpost had been reduced to corpses, their chainmail had failed to protect them, and all the wounds were on the neck or face. Many people die dazed or stunned, apparently unable to imagine what happened.

Isn't this the place where he is on duty? How can there be an enemy in one dead place! The captain of the garrison subconsciously grabbed the horn on his waist, but his hand stopped halfway through.

In his hand, he was carrying the saber that was covered in blood and slightly curled. Warm blood dripped down the blade and onto the ground, and the crisp sound was bitter and piercing in the ears of the garrison captain.

He killed everyone with his own hands. Everything he had just seen was nothing but an illusion.

A sudden wave of extreme weakness crept up the captain's back, and he threw down his knife to cover his face, his mind blank. Suddenly he didn't think of anything, and cold despair surrounded him, like a horde of undead ghosts surrounding the deceased at the bedside.

At this moment, a cold metal hand slowly stretched out from the back of his neck, and the triangular fingertips pierced his skin slightly, and blood dripped down the iron hand. The iron hand was apparently some kind of alchemical metal gauntlet, with shallow patterns carved on it, and a faint blue light could be seen under the gaps in the gauntlet.

"It's useless, this is the lowest level of illusion. It was a cold, emotionless mechanical voice that was not pleasant to hear. But the Wikibian was no longer capable of thinking about this, and his pupils slowly contracted, then dilate.

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Someone in the darkness picked up the torch that had fallen to the ground, and a faint light illuminated his figure. It was a thin man, wrapped in a linen robe, his face hidden in the darkness, except for a golden eye. He was the only one standing near the outpost now, and the rest of the guards were lying in pools of blood, and no one understood what was going on.

The man raised the torch and chanted the incantation softly, and suddenly the brilliant light of the fire illuminated a radius of more than ten meters around him. It was dozens of wooden chests, and I don't know when they had been placed on the city walls. And below him, at the gates of the city, more chests were piled up.

"Extremely stupid, let's not talk about such a weak will. The man sighed softly, "I didn't even guard against using spells to move things, it's unreasonable, it's unreasonable." ”

"Do you know what this is?" he said to himself, slowly walking over to the box, smashing open the planks on it, and a large number of fist-sized silver cubes rolled down.

"Of course you don't know. The man bent down, picked up a cube, looked at it in front of his eyes, and crushed it with his hand. His hands were covered with Mori Leng's ornate metal gauntlets, the fingertips of which were designed as triangular armor-piercing cones.

"Magnesium, right. Shouldn't I be glad it wasn't a high-explosive bomb?" A middle-aged man's voice suddenly sounded behind him, a man wrapped in a linen robe turned his head, and a man in a priest's robe, with a silver cross around his neck, and a Bible in his hand, appeared in view.

"Uffre?!" the man seemed surprised, his body trembling slightly. The action brought up his linen robe, revealing the intricately patterned metal armor beneath the robe, as well as the swords and bayonets that hung from the weapon belt.

"What's wrong? surprised?" said Father Ufur smiled and closed the book in his hand. Staring into the man's golden eyes.

"What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" he asked, smiling, "My dear Majesty the Emperor, Yuri Scarlett. He bowed slightly and bowed to the man. But Yuri Scarlett did not answer, he just stood quietly, like a sculpture cast of iron.

"I really can't imagine that the people who were killed by the hands of the Holy King Leon will have a day of rebirth. Uffre straightened up and looked into Yuri's bright eyes. He was not afraid of the golden eyes of the Emperor of Machines!

"You don't understand us, we don't have the boundaries between life and death. Yuri shook his head slightly, his golden eyes shining in the bright firelight. "The ancestors created us for a wish. We are not God's creatures, and their glory does not shine on our kingdom. ”

"Besides, you shouldn't be here. He added casually, but there was murderous intent in his voice.

"I don't understand what you're talking about, you're always so hard to understand. Uffre shrugged, not paying attention. "All I know is that you have been fighting for thousands of years until the bones fill the sea. God, I remember the day your fleet opened fire along the You River, do you know how many people died that day? There were corpses all over the river, and tens of thousands of people died along the banks! Just for that damn war!"

"You can't understand it... You're just a tombstone, a tombstone. We're the kids, the last kids. The Machine Emperor sighed leisurely and did not answer the other party's question. The joints of the machinery are driven, the flaming torches are slowly lowered, and the magnesium element is restless in the night, gathering strength and ready to explode.

"Stop!" Ulfur suddenly realized something, and he lunged forward, the dark golden circle flashing at his fingertips. But the torch had already touched the wooden box, and the heat was transferred rapidly, and tons of magnesium began to burn, and the blinding light seemed to be the rising sun.

The blue light flickered, and only a linen robe remained in Uffre's hand. The next moment the flames of the heat swept over him, the linen robe turned into ashes, and the priest was almost knocked down by the heat.

At that moment, the man, who had served in the church for more than ten years, suddenly remembered that magnesium could emit explosive heat when burned, and the silver fire was enough to instantly burn the red steel. He stood there alone, silver flames burning to the corners of the priest's robes, but he was powerless to move forward, all the flames turning in front of Uffre.

At the same time, the northern part of Chanda City. The harbor where the warships were moored suddenly rose up with a crimson pillar of light, followed by a violent fire. It was as if a heavy cannon with a diameter of a kilometer was fired into the air, and the earth trembled violently, and the glass on the houses shattered and fell in pieces, like a sudden rainstorm. The people in the room screamed, they still didn't understand what was happening.

Uvre watched in silence in the flames, as the wrecked battleship was lifted into the sky, the dockyard was razed to the ground, and the waters of the Yuhe River boiled and turned into white steam and went to the sky. Huge sums of steam and smoke spread out beneath the sky, as if the dragon had risen above the horizon at the end of the day, spreading its obscuring wings.

It wasn't the power of a black powder explosion at all, it was like a fleet firing along the riverbank!

It's like that, when the man stormed the Emperor's palace many years ago, the whole battlefield was filled with gunsmoke and fire, like Dante's purgatory. The bones of the war dead that day were spread all the way to the front of the palace, and their blood flowed down the walls of the fortress, staining half of the sea red.

He sighed softly and chanted an ancient incantation. The next moment, the priest's figure disappeared into the silver flames.

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