In 784 AC, there was a small city called Danchester, which was later confirmed to be the original sin of the King of Crime and Punishment, and it spread exponentially, destroying the entire city in a very short period of time, and the once bustling streets were suddenly turned into dead fields, leaving only delirious and aggressive infected people roaming the streets.

After the war, in order to contain a large number of aggressive infected people, the Empire built the Danchester Lunatic Asylum, the largest mental illness shelter in the Empire, on Thorn Bluff, two kilometers north of the old town of Danchester.

Over the next few years, most of the infected passed away due to various complications that failed to respond to treatment, and it is generally believed that the last infected person died on May 1, AC789, but this is only a symptom.

Few people know that under the foundation of the madhouse, the thorn cliff hundreds of meters high has actually been hollowed out, and there is actually a hole in the steep mountain, which is the real essence of the madhouse.

This hidden building in the mountain is shaped like a beehive, wide at the top and thin at the bottom, a total of six floors, through a stairwell that is more than 20 meters long, with a diameter of only two meters, it is connected to the madhouse at the top of the thorn cliff, a large number of explosive runes are arranged in the well, once detonated, the space below can be sealed, and a large number of safety gates are also set up in the beehive below, once these gates weighing thousands of pounds fall, the entire beehive can be separated into an independent airtight unit, and then the poisonous gas will be poured through the vent, so that the people inside are completely incapacitated。

The reason why such strict precautions are needed is because it is not the mentally ill people in the insane asylum upstairs who are locked up here, but the survivors of original sin, and the plague that destroyed Danchester actually has survivors, and this matter has not been made public because those survivors have undergone some small changes after surviving the disease, and they have some of the abilities of the Lord of Crime and Punishment, although it may be only a small ability, but it is enough to shock anyone who knows how to do it.

The king is a miracle in magic, there is an iron law of conservation in magic, magic does not occur in a vacuum, if you want to release a magic that requires one unit of mana, you need to put in at least one unit of mana, only more, not less.

The existence of this iron law denies the existence of any eternals, i.e., that no magic can exist forever without external supplementation, and that no person or creature can use magic infinitely without supplementation.

However, the king is a special case, the king is a living perpetual motion machine, they can use one unit of magic power to achieve the effect of two units, and the rules of nature applicable to ordinary people are as fragile as a blank sheet of paper in front of them.

There are only nine kings recorded in history, they appeared almost at the same time, and then disappeared inexplicably, no one knows why, when the saint disappeared because of the explosion of the Tower of Babel in 325 AC, the king disappeared from people's sight for a time, and even most people have regarded them as legends, until the reappearance of the King of Crime and Punishment in 784 AC, this almost divine power was once again displayed in front of the world.

There is no one who is not obsessed with this power, imagine that if you can master this power, then the dragon and the kraken will no longer be a threat to the empire, and the tragedy of the Meat Grinder in the valley will never be repeated, those who survived the original sin have given the military this hope, a large number of them were ordinary people who did not know magic before, but when they recovered from a serious illness, they all had the ability to use magic from nothingness, even including the Snow people who were recognized as having nothing to do with magic, although the power was very different from the real king, but their existence was like this world threw a key to the possibility of existenceHowever, the Danchester Asylum has spent more than two decades of research, but progress is still slow.

Brown is a Snow man in the prime of life, and because of the lure of a good reward, he signed a non-disclosure agreement to become a guard of the underground hive, and for safety reasons, most of the underground hive is set up as a forbidden realm, in such an environment, a strong Snow guard is more useful than a high-level spellcaster.

Brown's guard range is the second layer of the hive, in the past twenty years, researchers have divided them into levels according to the strength of the ability obtained from the original sin after the recovery of the infected, a total of five levels, the higher the level, the stronger and more dangerous the ability, the deeper the number of layers of imprisonment, it is said that the sixth layer of the hive holds the only sixth level of patients, but Brown is not very clear, like most Snow people, he is not a person who likes to gossip, and, with his authority, he can go down to the third layer at most.

Brown's usual job is to sit in the guardroom on the second floor and monitor the patients on the second floor through the monitoring crystal to avoid any accidents to them, and escort the corresponding patients to the laboratory when the researchers need to conduct some research.

Today, Brown was sitting in the guardroom as usual to monitor the patients in the ward through the crystal, and the colleague sitting next to him said to him, "Brown, you go and check, the picture in room 203 is dark." ”

"Oh. Brown got up and took out the toolbox from the closet behind him, they were all trained in maintenance since they were hired, because of the existence of the Silent Realm, the surveillance equipment that relied on magic was fragile, and there were frequent problems that required some simple adjustments.

As usual, Brown picked up the toolbox and went to Ward 203, the patient in Ward 203 was named Sniff, a Morrow man, the second level, among the patients on the second level, he was a little crazy, he was writing and drawing on paper with a pen all day, but he was not aggressive, I heard from his colleagues that he was a professor at the University of Vulcan, and he was doing geological surveys in Danchester when the disaster happened.

Brown confirmed that Snaef was sleeping in bed from the monitoring window of the hospital room and opened the door with a key, the monitoring crystal was located on the ceiling of the hospital room, with Brown's height of more than two meters, he only needed to find a small table in the hospital room to get it, he climbed up and removed the monitoring crystal, the obsidian protective layer used to resist the silent effect was artificially opened, and the magic core placed behind the crystal for energy was missing.

Brown lowered his head, looked at Sneve lying on the bed, and said helplessly, "Snef, you know the rules, give me the magic core." ”

It's not the first time Sneve has done this kind of thing, probably because of his former engineer nature, when others are not looking, he will always dismantle something, most of the time he will put things back, but some things are not.

Snake sat up from the bed and stared at Brown with his remaining right eye, and during a somewhat retaliatory experiment, Sneve was removed by the second supervisor for dismantling the director's favorite model of the ship and severing the keel.

Brown didn't really like it here, many of the experiments on patients were cruel, but like most Snow people, he was a little brain-dead, and he could only sympathize with them from the bottom of his heart due to the employment contract he had signed.

Sniff, who had been in the hospital room for a long time, was thin even among the Morrows, and stood up just a little above Brown's knees, so Brown had to crouch down to talk to him.

"Brown, have you ever wondered what the meaning of life is?" said Sniff staring at Brown with his own one-eyed expression.

Brown forced out a smile, "Sniff, I don't have to tell the director about this, give me the mana core." ”

"Oh, don't do that, Brown. "Sitting in front of the crystal day after day, monitoring the patient, carrying a toolbox to repair the crystal, even with the simple circuit in your head, you should feel lost." ”

Brown scratched his head in annoyance, and Sneve began to talk like crazy again, "Hey, Sniff, if I can't fix the crystal again, the director will send someone else, you know?"

"Physical pain is temporary, but mental pain is eternal. "Brown, don't let your mortal body limit your mind to what the essence of life is?"

"I'm just an ordinary security guard, and like you said, I'm a Snowman with a bad brain, this kind of problem doesn't suit me?" Brown's patience had almost worn out, and he was still patiently communicating with Sneve until now.

However, Sneef didn't mean to stop there, he walked around Brown, "Brown, let's play a game." "I improved the smoothbore gun used in the army, shortened the barrel, reduced the weight, and replaced the chamber with a runner, although the range is smaller, but it is more convenient to carry." Sneve took the small tin box and smiled nervously, "And this is your magic core." Sneve pulled out a bullet-shaped object, and the shadow of the mana core was faintly visible from the lines on it.

Sneve picked one of the grains and stuffed it into the wheel, closed it, and then aimed it at the wall and pulled the trigger.

Touch!

Startled by a loud bang, Brown looked in the direction of Sniff's gun, where a large hole had been left in the wall.

"Mana cores made of emerald stone can store a lot of mana, but there is a disadvantage, that is, it will become very unstable when it comes into silver, and you can launch them with silver as a firing pin, you see the power is not bad, but the accuracy is poor. Sneef laughed and suddenly put another bullet into the wheel, and spun the wheel so violently that Brown couldn't stop it.

"Now, let's play a game and see who will die from this bullet. Sneve stared at Brown, a sinister smile on his face.

"Hey!" Brown just opened his mouth when he saw Sneve stuff the barrel into his mouth, and then pulled the trigger five times in a row, and the crisp impact sound sounded one by one, but his head didn't blow up, he took the barrel out of his mouth with a wicked smile and aimed it at Brown's head, "Brown, it looks like you're not having a good time today, I hope you have a chance to win me next time." ”

Brown clearly saw what had happened to that wall, he didn't think his head would be harder than that, facing the muzzle of the black hole, he felt death so close for the first time, he closed his eyes nervously.

Bite!

A crisp voice sounded, Brown opened his eyes, and found that he was not dead, he looked at Sneve a little blankly, he had already inserted that gun into his belt, he looked at Brown, "Excuse me, Brown, I played a little trick, there was no bullet in the wheel, now tell me, what did you just think?"

Brown looked in horror at the gun Sneef pinned to his waist, his clothes soaked with sweat sticking to his back, "You madman!" he cursed indignantly.

Sneve smiled, "Of course I'm crazy, have you forgotten, I'm a patient in an insane asylum, so what about you, Brown, what are you who stay here knowing this asylum is not normal?"

He smiled and walked towards the door of the ward, and Brown was stunned for a moment to chase after him, but before his hand touched Snef's collar, Sneve turned his head and opened his blind left eye, and in the black hole socket, a black gas condensed into an eye staring at him.

A heavy coercion was suddenly exerted on Brown's body, and the breath of death filled Brown's mind more intensely than before, and he suddenly collapsed on the ground.

Sneef turned to Brown and bowed to him, "Goodbye, then, Mr. Brown, that lady is calling me, and I have a lot of questions for the world." With that, he left the room, leaving Brown, who was already frightened, in place.

The hallway suddenly became noisy, Brown heard several loud noises, and then everything fell silent again.