Outside the cavern, the fire is still shining and the shipwrecks are as silent as the world.

For a while, the Horns who lived in the wrecked ship stopped talking about their friends who had gone to the puzzle, or searching for food or sharpening their tools. Tiredness struck the women and children, and one by one they fell asleep.

When they fell asleep, the horns on the top of the horned people's heads hooked together as they slept. The horn is not yet a specialization of the dermis, and now it is only close to some kind of protruding bone with an ordinary soft skin.

When they slept, their eyes seemed to be open, which annoyed the explorers, and they soon discovered that the horned people were sleeping with their eyes open.

Their worries are meaningless.

"There's been a little movement outside."

Gu Chuan borrowed the dragon's heart horn and said to Zaiyan.

Zai Yi also heard the sound from outside the wrecked ship, and he first used the flicker of his eyes to gesture to the group of sleeping horned people in front of him, and emphasized in his thoughts:

"They're all asleep."

"Yes, but the corner people involved in the puzzle could come back at any time, so we're going to have to hurry."

The two men looked at each other and smiled, and Zai Yan exposed his mechanical hand to the side of his protective suit, which seemed to have a sharp knife in his mechanical hand. And Gu Chuan was even simpler, he took out the dragon heart horn from his hidden pocket, and with a wave of his hand, he cut the rope.

The sound of a rope breaking woke up a young child with a horned man.

He rubbed his eyes and looked at the two men who stood up in confusion.

Gu Chuan was not nervous, but tentatively held the dragon heart horn and gently pressed it against his forehead. The child blinked, yawned, and went back to sleep as if nothing had happened.

Zaiyi couldn't comprehend what was happening in front of him, but he knew that he couldn't make a strange noise right now to avoid waking up the horned people.

They carefully avoided the sleeping hominids and quietly walked into the depths of the shipwreck corridor.

The corridor of the wrecked ship also had a sporadic sleeping horn man, about two or three, all of them old, so old that they would die almost at any moment.

When they saw two strange beings approaching, they didn't make any sound, but just stayed where they were, opening and closing their lips, and drooling a lot.

"These may be dementia or sick old people from the Horned people...... I can't move, I can't save it, but I still have breath, so I was abandoned here by the horned people waiting to die. ”

The young man was reluctant to see such a sad scene, and he quietly turned his eyes sideways, bypassing the dying.

He is familiar with the design of the Gear Man. Zai Yi and he walked aside, gently rubbing the wall of the corridor with their hands. In principle, the walls hide passages up and down the stairs, which may not be discovered by the horns. The walls that generally hide the passage have a slightly different touch.

But they forgot that in addition to the horned people, there were also strange insects they had domesticated.

The wrecked ship has long been no secret in the exploration of the strange insects. Zai Yan raised his hand and pierced a strange insect that was about to fly out. And the halfs of their bodies that were still struggling were connected into a small black hole. Next to the hole are fallen door panels, and there are collapsed stairs.

The dirty green blood of the strange insect was stained on the protective suit.

Explorers saw that the staircase had broken into sections, and that there were several bones left behind by some unknown animal or horned people.

As for the gear or hinge that the structure should have, none of them are missing, and they may have been taken away by the horns a long time ago.

The path was blocked by debris, but they quickly found another path that wasn't.

Gu Chuan pointed up and down, Zai Yi guessed whether he was asking to go up or down, and his finger bent down.

The two of them understood, jumped over the rocks one after another, and jumped into the bottom.

Similar to the arrangement of the Dead or Alive, the third level is the basic operating level of the entire ship.

"Let's get some light."

The young man said.

Zaiyan's eyes flashed, and two bright rays shot into the darkness ahead. They went deeper.

The lower level of the wrecked ship is exceptionally quiet and deep, and there are no horned people in it, and there are few strange insects raised by the horned people. But they can find the footsteps of the horned people. In addition, the young man could see the corpses of many dead waterwheels and sails.

"It's hard to tell how long your clan's last warship has been stranded here, and when it was discovered by the horns......

He said.

But this gentle lion-headed cogwheel man has not responded to him for a long time.

It's just that he looks ahead for a while, and looks around himself for a while, so the light in his eyes scatters, and he wanders back and forth in the darkness.

The young man stopped and asked him:

"Is there anything you'd like to ask?"

After a long while, he hesitated to speak:

"How did you get that horned kid to fall asleep before?"

"That's what you were thinking." Gu Chuan said calmly, "This effect comes from some of my assumptions about the function of the Dragon Heart Horn. ”

When Zai Yan heard the function of the dragon's heart horn, several guesses were born in his heart.

Gu Chuan continued to walk forward:

"It's like your normal usage is to discover that the dragon's heart horn has the ability to think and communicate. However, communication itself is a message to each other, right? ”

He opened the dried corpse of the waterwheel and found a door that was still intact. The door was rusty and immovable, and he held back his strength to collide with it, but did not open it.

He scratched the glass dome in annoyance, and said:

"So suppose I'm not instilling words...... Is it some kind of purely thought-like, neurological signal? ”

The cogwheel man's expression is a mystery, they may not have an expression, but only deliberately make a certain appearance, so the observation of the cogwheel man is always like a layer of fog that is not visible.

Standing behind him, he had already made sure that his conjecture was not false:

"Signal, do you mean you're giving some kind of signal to put him to sleep?"

"What you said shouldn't be bad?" The young man also had difficulty explaining what had happened in the short touch with his knowledge, so he leaned against the door and rested for a while, explaining, "When you hear praise, you will be pleased." When you hear a scolding, you feel sad. Creatures like us who are made of meat will salivate when they see or smell delicious food. However, if you come into contact with foul-smelling excrement, you may have nausea and vomiting, which is a signal. I read about the child's previous slumber and their dreams, and I told the child some of their nerve signals as if they were talking. Sure enough, he really fell asleep......"

Hearing this, Zai Yan fell silent again.

His silence made Gu Chuan feel uneasy. He felt that the lion-headed gear man in front of him was already a good friend of his.

"Do you think that's bad?"

He asked.

The Gear Man just said:

"There's nothing bad about it, it's just that I remember a gossip that once circulated in the world of psychopaths."

Zai Yan moved forward, and Gu Chuan got out of the way.

His manipulator sank into the lock of the metal door, and the slender needle was used as his finger to fumble through the structure of the broken gear. He continued:

"They say that when the previous generation dismantled itself, it often did not dismantle it, so there will always be some ...... It could be knowledge, it could be ...... Personality is inherited from the next generation of gear people. ”

The sound of picking locks creaked deep underground. Everything does not emit, only smells quiet. The history of the past is entangled with the history of the present, first confused, then confused.

Gu Chuan said:

"The Dragon's Heart Horn is a dangerous curiosity."

"Yes...... It involves the issue of consciousness. Jae-chan continued, "A difficult puzzle to solve. ”

Gu Chuan understood that Zaiyan's worries were similar to human fears of nuclear bombs. At that time, his naughty fellow made a dangerous joke:

"Maybe the reason why you are willing to come out with us is because your consciousness has been changed by me!"

Who knew that Zai Yan was stunned, he didn't say much, only muttered:

"Even so......"

The door opened.

There is nothing behind the door, nothing but a mess.

- It doesn't seem to be bad.

The Cogwheel Man whispered, his voice so low that it was barely audible. The young man saw the lion's head touching the metal and skin, and smiled, as if he had been surprised by the joke.

The young man followed the lion and entered the door, only to see a foreign object inserted into the broken floor that did not belong to the Cogled Man's ship, and the earth sank and was filled with debris of indescribable material.

This is no longer the inside of a wrecked ship, but the earth beneath the wreck.

By design, there should be a black box here.

The young man said solemnly:

"Does that mean that the ship's bottom shell is mostly broken?"

"I'm the same as you think...... The bottom of the eggshell of this past ship was broken, and the sediment that had been under it had not entered the place. ”

It's just the sediment of the fire, and the composition of the composition is not the same as the great wilderness or the riverside that they are familiar with.

They left the room and walked deeper into the darkness.

Most of the rooms have been destroyed, sinking into an inorganic and waterless earth.

And the world above was not at peace, and gradually more voices sounded, and the rumbling and trembling of matter caused the gravel on the ground to fly into the air and fall. They guessed that there were a lot of aliens running around the land, and the earth trembled slightly.

The more he walked, the more Gu Chuan could see his disappointment without leaving a trace.

He had hoped to find some of the black boxes left behind by the Cogears, but they were all destroyed or missing.

"Missing, probably once flown back."

He said.

Ziyuan said that some of the special items kept by World Problems flew back to Answer City directly with something.

"Can the damaged be restored?"

Gu Chuan asked.

Zai Shan rummaged through the metal walls of several broken black boxes and shook his head at the ruins:

"That's impossible."

They soon came to the middle of the wrecked ship, where the collapse had left the material piled up into a horizontal wall that could not be easily overcome.

They thought they would have to go back, but as they were groping, they saw that there was an abnormal filling on the collapsed wall.

Gu Chuan pulled out a few pieces of cloth and a few floating stones from a corner, and a much deeper hole that could accommodate people was exposed.

They looked at each other and chose to climb in one after the other.

It was narrow at first, but it quickly became clear.

The sharpened sand and gravel, with rock and soil, glass slag and other things that I couldn't understand, made Gu Chuan's feet hurt. But because of this, he pays more attention to his feet.

The feet of the explorers are filled with all sorts of unnatural, man-made and polished objects. Some look like statues, others look like some kind of parts.

Some may be left over from a bygone ship, while others look like hand-polished by the toeless people who would have come here and been here.

Everything is a mystery in time, and the flames burning below have left the truth with eternal destruction.

"This is the passage used by the horn people before. They just went through this passage, so they went straight to the outside without opening the door! ”

Zai Yan was extremely sure of this, and he had seen several exits outward. The dim red light reflected a well-like hole, and strange balustrades and walls, testifying that this was once not a deserted land, but that there were buildings, ships, and so many things, until it ran aground, was destroyed, and disappeared.

They didn't go straight out, but took a long detour, wandering underground for a long time, seeing more and more strange parts and components.

Some of them look like gears, they look like balls, some look like wheels, and some of them are wires rooted in the ground, and they look a little like long grass.

Occasionally, the earth trembles, and the sand and gravel that were originally on the ground are raised. The direction in which the sand and gravel rolls points them to the deeper part of gravity.

They stood on the edge of another piece of fire.

This firelight is not a void light that penetrates through the air, but a reddish "rock" illuminated by the gaze of Zaiyan.

"Maybe it's a little bit closer to the fire down there. We shouldn't have gone any deeper......" said Zaiyan, "it's dangerous." ”

Zai Yan was not afraid of danger, but he did not want this fragile person made of meat to be in danger.

The temperature of the crust of this empty island is indeed rising.

The young man's forehead was already oozing a fine layer of sweat.

"Go back, shall we?"

"Wait a minute."

But as if he had seen something, the young man walked forward calmly. He had not taken a few steps, and then he did not move forward, but carefully stretched out his hand.

The glass eyes of the sprayers shone brightly, illuminating the direction of his fingers.

And he saw what the young man had gone to fetch—

It was a brownish-yellow, translucent piece of amber.

There is a solidified insect inside, and the shadow of the insect is reflected on the surface, and there are lines on the surface due to the flow of resin, which are boundless and dreamy in the light.

"There's an unknown bug hidden in there."

Zai Yan said.

"Yes, apparently, but not unknown."

The young man said.

The so-called amber is usually a fossil of resin, and if it is lucky and lucky, and by chance, then when it drips, it will roll up the small insects that were still alive, seal them in it, and travel underground for thousands of years before becoming fossils. This is what the earth calls amber.

According to the knowledge of the earth, young people should not know the worms in amber.

No one will know what the ecology was like tens of millions of years ago -

But today's young people are fascinated.

He knew the worms inside.

"I remember this thing, it's ...... Glowworm ......"

Once, when he and Hatsuyun were trekking in the dungeon, he had seen worms growing on the glowing filaments that hung down the rocks.

And in this amber, there are still one or two slender filaments.

It's just that the fluorescent substance has long been wiped out by history, and the fluorescent filament no longer glows, and as for this ancient glowworm, it has naturally become the memory of a fossil in the corner of eternal geology.

It's easy to come, but it's hard to go.

Zai Yan didn't know what the man who made the meat was thinking, but he only saw that his gaze was very far away. He looked at the ruins, the weathered rocks, and then at the amber in his hand.

Under the gaze of the glowing worm amber, the brightness of the glass flowed, and when the fire of the outside world came at dusk, it gave birth to many graceful changes, and the enjoyment was endless.

He solemnly put it away,

Then, the two of them picked an upward hole and prepared to leave.

But the movement above grew louder and louder, and under the dim red sky, the flickering figures bewildered them.

Soon, they came to a place very close to the exit.

Both of them are very thoughtful, and naturally they don't want to have more contact with people of different races. But fate never favors people who just want to avoid trouble.

They saw a team of stumbling figures from outside the bright hole.

The light shone on their backs, so that there was darkness in front of them, and their bodies were like turbulent silhouettes in the twilight.

Gu Chuan had already made up his mind to go back. As a result, I glanced at it inadvertently, but saw a familiar face.

"Anafinta ......"

He called out the name of the toeless girl in amazement.

Then the toedless maiden looked up in the same amazement, and cried out in horror when she saw the people in the depths of the cave, and the faces of the people who had a little hair, but were not thick:

"Death, death...... Messenger of Death! Not yet...... Now that I am at a critical juncture, I cannot return to the underworld. ”

"Why, what did you do? I saw strife and chaos on the ground, and I saw you covered in bruises. ”

Anafinta was in a state of utter embarrassment.

Her body was covered in blood, some of the wounds had stopped due to her amazing physical fitness, but some of the wounds were not there and were still bleeding outward.

The toeless man Gu Chuan didn't know supported her.

The blood flowed to the ground, pooling into small streams among the rugged rocks, and seeping into the depths of the gravel.

There was a roar outside. Gu Chuan read it with the horn of the dragon's heart, it was the voice that told them to hide first.

Anafinta smiled miserably.

She stood in front of the messenger of death, thinking that she was once again confronted with some kind of eternal underworld consideration in the hallucination, and that the Grim Reaper had fulfilled her promise to take back her life for too long in the sun.

She clenched the stone axe in her hand.

Only then did Gu Chuan see that these toeless people were holding weapons in their hands.

Anafinta silently explained:

"Our puzzle has failed, so in principle, according to the teachings of our ancestors, we need to re-follow the barren or even more barren path according to the distribution......"

This explanation was also what she had said to her people not long ago.

That's a matter of course.

The meshing of three flattened pieces of metal alone will not be able to defeat the wisdom of those who have enjoyed abundant resources and have developed jigsaw puzzles for generations.

Anafinta undoubtedly suffered a crushing defeat.

The gap is too big.

She couldn't even restore the Rubik's cube-like three-dimensional to a part.

She is silent, Gulsu is silent, her people are silent.

They knew that they were going back to the sad path, barren, dead, ruined, and nothing. And if they want to complete the next jigsaw puzzle, they need to feed some intelligent children who learn puzzles and construction in the most barren soil, out of nothing.

She thought for a long time with her primitive and backward mind, and also thought of her own intention to go to the puzzle by adhering to the ancient teachings of the tribe before, and the puzzle advocated going to the puzzle.

Now it's all a shattered dream.

She raised her eyes again, and looked around again at the endless variety of people who said they had been a family long ago.

Some are strong, some are mighty, and they are thin.

People didn't say a word, just silently retreated. Anafonta knew that more of her people were waiting on the ground for news of them. When she arrived at the entrance of the cave, she saw the eternal fire illuminating the deep darkness of the netherworld, and on the tombstones of endless history, the time and myths belonging to the future were recorded.

But she no longer had the excitement and joy of seeing the light for the first time.

Faced with her suffering, she suddenly remembered what a messenger of death had said to her a long, long time ago, or not so long ago, during that fantastic exploration of the world of death:

"Do you quarrel among yourself, but never quarrel with other tribes?"

These words made her shudder, as if there was a vibration of blood and iron, which, together with the earth, sent chills through her long-standing instincts.

She heard Gulsu defend her as best she could:

"We've worked hard, let's go home...... Will we go the same route, there is no way to solve the puzzle...... We have no other way. ”

Her people looked at each other, and she didn't know if it was a disappointment in a man who had returned to the dead as if he could bring some kind of miracle, or if it was some kind of deeper despair.

She just stopped Gu Lisu's words and said to herself:

"No, not yet, we're not there yet."

She saw a look of longing rising again in the eyes of her kindred.

She said calmly, unhurriedly, calmly.

We have another way.

This path has always existed, existed for a long time, but we have forgotten it, forgotten it for a long time......

"What is it?"

Gulsu asked her puzzled.

She smiled, bent down, and searched the ground to find the stone axe that Batu had dropped. Then she stood in the moonless world, and in the last darkness, above the trembling earth, and grasped the thing in her hand, and said:

The way to go is、Take up arms。

Now, it's time to prepare, or get started.