Walking in this completely strange world, full of weirdness and absurdity, Felix felt a very concrete reality.

On this street formed out of thin air on the wide deck, Felix could see many details that could only be found in a real town, he could see the gaps between the smooth stone bricks, he could see the dust on the railroad tracks in the middle of the street, and even the tire prints in the middle of the road.

As for the slogans, decorations and posters on the houses and shops on both sides of the street, Felix is even more staggering.

Although there are no pedestrians other than him on this street, the details of a city street are fully presented here.

The moment he saw the contents of those promotional posters, Felix was a little dazed.

The art style of these posters is quite unique, the characters that exist in the posters are always portrayed in a very simple way, but they seem to be very tense, and what surprises him even more is that the protagonists of these posters seem to be the images of the low-level people in the northern region.

"Farmer, hunter...... Well, this one is a fisherman? ”

Felix stopped in front of a wide poster, and for a split second, he found all the people he could think of, from miners to mages, and everyone was smiling warmly, which made him feel a little unreal.

He was tempted to see what the slogans were about, but strangely, when he looked at the words, the words that should have been easily legible became hazy, making it impossible for Felix to read their meanings clearly.

In desperation, he could only continue to move forward.

Felix stopped at the end of the street, his breath became a little rapid, and his mood became agitated, for he saw that right in front of him a familiar fellow was sitting squarely behind a small round table.

That's Hug Ernst.

He looked dusty, his long trench coat looked a little shabby, and there were some shadows like silk threads floating around his body, but there was a smile on his face, and there was a lot of trust and happiness that could only be revealed when he saw acquaintances and comrades.

Surprise, confusion, and joy mingled in Felix's brain, and he hurriedly stepped forward, reached out and pulled away the chair across from Schug, then slowed down and sat down cautiously.

Fortunately, the chairs and tables seem to be "real", they are not ethereal illusions.

Before Felix could speak, he heard the familiar voice.

"Don't be nervous, don't be nervous...... Well, it is indeed me. ”

Xiuge looked at Felix's emaciated face, his brows furrowed rapidly, and he asked seriously, "Felix, what's the matter with you...... So much older? How long has it been since I left Vann? ”

Hearing this, Felix's face finally smiled, he shook his head, and then put the cane that he had brought here on the table: "Not too long has passed, the war is still going on, and we are still struggling to advance the front...... It was the one who made me like this. ”

Felix then summed up what had happened to Overwatch and himself in very simple language.

After listening to Felix's explanation, Xiuge breathed a heavy sigh of relief, but his mood did not become more relaxed.

Not much time has passed, and that's a good thing.

Mayer and other core members of the Dawn Society are still stable, which is also a good thing.

However, what happened to Felix made Xiuge a little sad - his comrade-in-arms was just an ordinary person, and even though Felix may have a will far beyond ordinary people, the lack of magic in his body obviously could not support the terrible consumption caused by this cane.

The flow of magic is destined to lead to the decay of life force, which is a cold law that has no reason to speak of, and it is also the most basic principle that supports the operation of Van Grace's magic power.

And this means that as long as Felix continues to carry and use this cane, then the burden on his body will not be reduced in any way, and it will even continue to accumulate.

"Actually, it's good, now I feel like I've become yours...... Well, elders? ”

Felix grinned, "Oh, then I should be able to call you by your full name, right?" ”

"If you're happy......"

Seeing the other party's appearance, Xiuge had no choice but to smile wryly and wave his hand.

Felix relaxed, he leaned back in his chair, glanced around, and said, "Okay, now it's time for me to ask you questions...... What the hell is going on? Where did you go? Where is this? ”

The questions Felix wanted to ask had already been rehearsed in his head, so he immediately began to answer them.

"Let's start with the last question."

Shuge tapped his fingers on the table in front of him, and then pointed to the metal cane in front of Felix: "This cane, I got it from the Black Sun Society when I first 'attended' their meeting, and the members of the Black Sun Society forged it from some sacrificial utensils left over from the Lost Era, so it has a fairly broad and extremely exaggerated magical carrying capacity. ”

"I was the first user of it, so my will used to flow in it, and now you are its bearer, and your mind has become intimately connected to it...... Therefore, this cane becomes a channel of communication for us. ”

"As for ...... here"

Shuge raised his hand and pointed to the houses on both sides of the street, and said, "You may think of this place as a fantasy, or a dream. I've been here many times in the past in my experience with the Lost Magic, but I don't know much about it, except that it always seems to make a series of changes based on what is happening or something is about to happen. ”

Hug said it a little bit, but Felix quickly understood the meaning, he couldn't help but pinch his beard with his fingers, and then looked around with wide eyes: "You mean, all this I see here, I mean these towns and streets are actually some kind of ...... Prophecy? ”

Hearing Felix's words, Shuge neither affirmed nor refuted, he looked at the other party seriously, and then asked, "Felix, do you believe in the so-called prophecy or omen?" ”

"To be honest, I don't believe it."

Felix said, his gaze resting on a poster on the left side of the street, which depicted miners wearing special heavy clothing and mining operations, who seemed to be very powerful.

But if what is unfolding here is really a harbinger of the future...... I'm a little more receptive to it, because they look really, really, tempting. ”

Shuge nodded slightly, he was silent for two seconds, and then said: "It seems to me that everything that appears here is indeed full of hope and enthusiasm, but I prefer to believe that the so-called omen shown here is only a reasonable inference based on the reality and laws of development of Van En, and it may only be one of the possibilities. ”

"I see what you mean."

Felix reluctantly reluctantly took his gaze back, and he smiled, "I'm glad you haven't changed much...... Xiuge, I don't even dare to imagine what kind of impact it will have if you join the Black Sun Society with your ability. ”

Shugg shrugged, and then he continued, "And then there's your other question - where am I at the moment?" ”

Felix concentrated, and he had a hunch that he might hear some extremely astonishing answer from Schuge.

He got his wish.

"I'm in the abyss, or rather, inside the black sun."

“……”

Felix's eyes widened, but he didn't interrupt Shug's narration, but raised his palm with difficulty to signal him to continue.

So he recounted the events of that night in detail.

From Shug's mouth, Felix finally understood what the so-called miracle was, and finally knew what kind of terrible force it was to tear the wide square of the Overwatch into such a shape.

"So you're really in the home of those monsters right now? Are you still ...... Can you come back? ”

"I don't know, maybe there's a chance."

Xiuge smiled: "You see, my current conversation with you is actually an attempt, but there is still a considerable gap between realizing the spiritual link and the actual return, and that can be very risky, I have to take it step by step." ”

Felix nodded, "I understand." ”

"Okay, now that we've pretty much sorted things out, I'm going to talk about some more important things, about what happens next to Vann and what I'm going to do here."

Xiuge retracted his tone, and he looked at Felix with great seriousness: "The current situation of the Dawn Society is not optimistic, is it?" ”

"Yes, I suspect that there are some serious problems within us, and it is related to internal security and stability."

"A traitor?"

"It's just a suspicion, but there are too many doubts and a wide range of implications, and I can't find a suitable solution in a short period of time."

Felix truthfully stated the current predicament of the Dawn Society, and then he asked, "Do you remember the Valery mage who helped us in Salem before?" ”

After seeing Shug nodding, Felix sighed: "Now, he is missing, this matter was told to me by Valery's mother herself, his family we have taken back and also examined, there is no problem." ”

Felix then recounted what he had learned about Valery's anomalous situation.

As someone who was extremely familiar with the Black Sun Society and its ancient creations, Shug almost immediately smelled the familiar scent from Valery's aberrant actions, and he judged in a deep voice: "When he appeared in front of his family, he must have remained awake and was not manipulated by the Black Sun Society, but he obviously knew that he was being targeted...... Something is chasing him, and I think it's probably not a specific member of the Black Sun Society, but something they summoned. ”

"Like the beasts that attacked everywhere before?"

"Well, hounds to be exact, but I guess these things should be relatively less threatening...... Valery was indeed exposed, but the Black Sun Association obviously wanted to keep it alive, and they should have also discovered the problem of their own infiltration, so they hoped to open a gap in the individual cases and counter us. ”

Xiuge thought quickly, and at this moment, a ripple came from the depths of his spiritual world.

Theseus's voice rang in Hug's ears.

"I agree with your guess that, in this case, the trouble they are facing is likely to come from a kind of abyssal 'residue' that their opponents have summoned through rituals."

With Theseus's description, a clear picture crosses the spiritual ocean of Hug and is fully presented before his eyes, and in the gloomy corridor full of anomalous structures, Hug sees a multitude of rickety human shadows appearing and disappearing little by little, often dormant as court attendants and hounds walk, and after they leave, these shadows come alive at a slow pace.

They seem to be mimicking the waiters who have just passed by, but the results of the imitation are always failures.

"What is this?"

"There is no exact name, but generally speaking, it can be understood as the waste and residue produced by the Abyss Court when training the attendants, they are like leftovers left over from the construction of the house, which are piled up there at random, and sometimes they are used as a response to the performers of those ceremonies."

Theseus explained softly, "I guess these are the things that hunted down the hapless mage and tried to infiltrate your organization...... They don't have the power of a real waiter, and they can't hunt as quickly as the hounds, but they can follow and imitate their targets for a long time, which is the only way and way for them to realize their own value. ”

"You mean, the Black Sun Society summoned such a group of 'residues' and tried to use them to imitate and infiltrate the members of the Dawn Society?"

"It's very possible."

Theseus smiled: "Although it will be difficult to command these 'residues', you also know that within the Black Sun Society, there are indeed many 'elite spellcasters' of Fan'en, and there are even so-called deep-sea mages, these guys are probably good at arranging this kind of thing." ”

(End of chapter)