It would be great if this scene was also an illusion.
Oliver finally looked away, unable to bear to look at the scene on the left side of the corridor. The scene behind the cage became more and more terrifying - what floated in that space was not blood or pain, but coldness and numbness. Those precise metal instruments and magic circles are not specially designed for malice, and every detail is full of calmness and order, and everything is in order.
There was no roar of pain, no look of resistance, only the small whine from the subconscious of the living creature. "Common sense" in this castle seems to have been redefined. It seems to be a matter of course for human beings to be treated in this way, without any mental struggle.
This should be intentional. Whatever the intentions of these people, they did succeed in destroying most of his positive emotions. Oliver began to stare at the ground, and the dark and smooth stone ground was clearly illuminated by the pale light.
He counted the gaps in the stone bricks, and moved his legs in the most labor-saving way, trying to accumulate the remaining physical strength and mind.
This road full of torture is extraordinarily long. He may have walked for a hundred years, and only the incomplete guide in front of him stopped. Oliver, who was counting the bricks, almost hit the man's back.
The mutilated humanoid turned around, and the arm, which was not much thicker than withered bone, swayed, and from the loose clothes, he took out a metal plaque - a shiny metal ring hanging from the end of the plaque, the size of half a palm. Except that the thin chain between the ring and the brand is longer, it is no different from the one worn by the crowd in the cage just now.
The man threw the metal plate at Oliver at will, and the ring at the end of the plate moved like a living thing, and got into Oliver's collar through the gap in the armor. Immediately there was the excruciating pain of the flesh piercing through the collarbone, along with the feel of warm blood flowing through the skin—which should have encircled his collarbone as well as those in the cage had experienced.
The metal plaque on the other end of the chain was still dangling in front of his armor, and there was a fine sound of metal colliding with metal.
"Take a good look at the sign." The guiding thing squeezed a broken voice from its throat, "It doesn't matter if you don't know how to read."
Then the stone wall slid away.
Oliver was pushed in before he could see what was on the other side of the wall. He staggered two steps under his feet, but in the end he didn't have the strength to keep his balance, and fell firmly to the ground, almost knocking off the skeleton helmet.
Then he heard breathing.
Despite his exhaustion, his long combat training left him with enough insight. Judging from the distance of the sound, this should be a fairly large room, accommodating at least fifty people. Their gazes came out of the dark corners, and Oliver could feel those cold gazes wandering over him. He did not choose to stand up immediately, but clenched the hilt of the sword with his right hand, and his muscles were tensed to death.
However, apart from the aggravated breathing, no other sounds were added to this space. No one came near him, and they continued to watch patiently, like insects hiding in dark crevices.
Oliver finally stood up slowly, grasping the waving sign tightly. With the weak light in the room, he could see the scene in most of the room.
Like a tomb—that was his first thought.
As narrow as the shelves used to store dead bones, people lie in the middle of the wooden shelves as cramped as coffins. The shelf has four or five layers, and the lower layer is much more empty than the upper one. Oliver raised his head slightly - there were also quite a few people sitting against the wall, motionless, he almost regarded them as stone sculptures.
There are men, women and children in the "stone carvings", but at first glance it is still dominated by men in their prime. Except for less than ten people wearing the standard thin white robes, the rest of them were dressed in different styles, and the cold light of the weapons leaked a little from the darkness from time to time - it seemed that they were the same as him, and they were not asked to change into other clothes, nor did they anything is taken away.
They were staring at him together, their eyeballs slowly turning like they were carved out of dull stone, and they were not alive at all. Oliver swore he smelled the festering stench of wounds, and the strangely sweet smell of pus.
Oliver took a careful breath. He walked as quietly as possible, found a relatively empty corner, and tucked his back into it - the most important thing is to recover his strength, and the rest will be planned later.
The drum-like heartbeat gradually stabilized, and now he could hear the sour sucking sound of the living collar around his neck. Oliver tried to use the energy he saved to cast a condensing spell, but the soft blue light didn't mean to light up halfway, and the surging pain didn't let him go because of the weak spell fluctuations.
But this time Oliver completely suppressed the pain without making any sound.
His throat was cracking with thirst, and his brain was screaming with thirst. The dry air in the room aggravated his pain, and after the fierce battle, his mind was confused and slowed by the lack of moisture. How long has it been since he drank water? One day, two days
The restlessness of his physical instinct caused him to sink uncontrollably.
That does not work. Oliver licked the corner of his bitten mouth. In this terrible unknown environment, negative emotions are like a dangerous swamp. Once you step in, there will be no ending other than sinking. He had to pull himself together, not out of some idealistic optimism—he had to do that, it was his only option.
Even if all common sense is broken here, at least he still has an emotion that is beyond the influence of this ghost place. Oliver switched the sword to his left hand and removed the armor from his left forearm with his right hand.
The trade mark that Nemo branded him had long since expired, and it was almost disappearing at this moment, leaving only a very pale white mark on his skin.
The edge of the black armor left a lot of small gaps due to the battle. Oliver carefully pulled off a thin piece of metal and cut his own skin along the white traces. He stroked by the not-so-bright light, his movements were serious and careful, until the strange mark reappeared in the blood.
Then Oliver pressed his chapped lips to the wound and sucked the fresh blood. The thick smell of blood made him sick for a while, and Oliver knew that it had no practical effect, but the blood flowing down his throat had a somewhat soothing effect. He finally regained his concentration and began to think again.
The metal pieces were sharp, and they didn't leave too bad wounds under his control. The blood soon stopped gushing out, leaving only a slightly swollen mark.
After doing all this, Oliver closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and then used his blood-stained fingers to pinch the slightly wobbly metal plate.
On the front of the sign is a series of numbers written in Common Language, exactly 300,000. I don't know if it was the dim light that gave him the illusion, the strokes seemed to be shaking slightly. When looking at the long string of numbers, his fingertips touched something uneven behind the metal plate.
Oliver frowned and turned the sign over. There are a few short sentences cast on the back of the sign. Their meanings transcended the words themselves, straight into his mind—
Win the specified battle and take 100 points of value from the enemy.
Killing someone gets one hundred points of value, plus the full value of the deceased.
Those who live to lose their full value will be transferred to the experimental area for processing, please also pay attention.
Oliver was silent for a long time. After half a minute, he released the metal plate, leaving only a few bloody fingerprints on it. He brought his lips closer to the mark again, only this time it wasn't for blood—
He kissed it.
Immediately, he raised his head and faced the projected gazes again.
"I'll get out alive, Nemo," he announced to himself. "... get out of here alive in a way that won't let you down."
On the other side, in the darkness of Kenyatta.
Nemo stood on top of his target building, then slid back to the ground along the darkest corner, moving as lightly as breathing in deep sleep. He wanted to break the fragile door directly, but the movement of his right hand stagnated for a moment in the darkness, and finally turned into a polite knock.
The man who came to open the door was not very tall, in his 40s or 50s, as thin as a malnourished vulture. There were obvious bags under his eyes, and his eyes were slightly rolled up, revealing part of the whites of his eyes, staring at Nemo unceremoniously.
In order to avoid looking too unnatural, Nemo now dissipated the dark shadow covering his face, revealing only his fair-skinned chin, but that was enough to show his age.
"Is something wrong, boy?" the man who opened the door asked impatiently.
"Are you a demon believer of the Church of the Abyss?" Nemo asked as politely as possible, distorting his voice slightly with magic. He has never liked the way of questioning with direct conclusions. This kind of questioning is a bit tough, but it is difficult for him to control the words that he blurted out. "… gentlemen?"
The man's pupils shrank, and he started very fast. Before the end of Nemo's voice disappeared, his gestures had already been compared—
However nothing happened.
The large demon in the room did not obey. It got into the bottom of the table at the speed of its life, and began to shiver very regularly, and the table shook with it, and clacked against the floor.
"Looks like you are." Nemo looked apologetically away from the table and began to speak uncontrollably faster. "I just wanted to ask a few questions and leave."
"I have nothing to say to people like you." The man knew that the situation was not good, he bared his charred teeth and spat thick phlegm on the floor at Nemo's feet. "Which pseudo-god spokesman's dog are you?"
"I really just want to ask a few questions." Nemo stretched out a hand, and the unique brilliance of abyss magic illuminated the whole room. It was already dark, and the air in the vicinity was quiet and peaceful, but he became more and more restless for unknown reasons. "In a more polite way—"
The demon believer glanced at his familiar, who was shaking more and more, in horror, his eyes swept over the non-aggressive magic circles, and finally stopped on the small half of Nemo's face. He tried to find relatively obvious traces of alienation, but he failed miserably—and then he realized a possibility.
"They... they dispatched demon warlocks, or...?" The demon believer's tone softened instantly, "Which bishop are you under..."
Too much to say. Nemo was silent, not intending to make up any more. Although he knew that if he wanted to, he could take all the information he wanted from this person in half a second - but no matter which method he used, the other person's brain would turn into a bloody mess afterward.
He didn't want to do that.
"Don't worry about that, I'm in a hurry. Who called the deadwood jellyfish in Roadmark Town?" Nemo clenched the staff wrapped in black mist in his hand, and his voice was a little dry. "Tell me all you know."
"Okay… okay, dear sir."
Things were clearly going well, Nemo thought. He just needs to go to the vicinity of Road Sign Town to find enough evidence to confirm the safety of the town by the way. Then he can tear open the space, throw the prisoner directly at the door of the isolated island court, and take Oliver away dignifiedly.
But he just couldn't feel at ease, and he couldn't even breathe a sigh of relief. In theory, everything is still under control, but there is still a cold thorn in his heart.
Nemo adjusted his breathing for a while, then raised his head again, his eyes fixed on the other's mouth.
Faster, faster. His intuition screamed—
He had to get Oliver back as soon as possible.
And in the next second, the blazing white light mercilessly split the quiet night sky. Nemo turned sharply, looking in the direction of the white light—a Radian spell, no doubt.
But the breath wasn't anyone he knew.
,Wonderful!
(m.. = )