Wendell is a Lightseeker—and possibly the last. As a person looking for the afterglow in the Nine Kingdoms, his age has far exceeded the requirements, his body is too old, and his spirit is already weak. Every part of his body is constantly reminding him that he is completely unsuitable to participate in the competition. In this expedition, if you insist on going your own way, you can only usher in the end of dying far away.
However, he resolutely left the warm and comfortable Twilight Capital and embarked on this journey of no return.
And it is the second departure.
Wendell once challenged a light-seeking journey. At that time, there were twenty-eight companions with him-half of them died of a fatal disease eroded by magic energy due to carelessness shortly after passing the first rainbow bridge. , and the rest died one after another in the deadly poisonous mist of Niflheim. The entire army was almost wiped out in the middle of the light-seeking trip. In the end, Wendell and the only remaining teammate dragged their bodies and barely fled back to the Twilight Capital, and the only teammate returned to the Twilight City. On the third day at home, he died tragically amidst nightmares and throbbing pain.
But the ancestors took pity on him, and Wendell survived, and has been living in good health to this day.
Ever since the world collapsed, the light disappeared, and the world was shrouded in scorching darkness, hundreds of light seekers have embarked on a journey in the long night. The aftermath was bleak, but no one ever brought back real good news. Most of the light seekers, like Wendell's friends, have turned into rotten corpses in the twisted wasteland, and it is difficult to preserve the whole body, while a very small number of light seekers are lucky ones like Wendell. Before being completely swallowed by the darkness, he fled back to the shelter in embarrassment, and for the rest of his short life, he tremblingly told others about the deadly shadow in the darkness and the painful magic radiation. No one would laugh at those light-seekers who were frightened and fled back, because it takes a lot of courage to just step out of the Twilight City, and those who can experience an adventure in the long night and come back alive, their survival That in itself is already a commendable feat.
Of all these Lightseekers, Wendell was the only one who returned from the night alive, only to embark on the journey again.
Some people say that he is a lunatic, and some people praise his courage, and think that his almost irrational challenging spirit is enough to be compared with those Enherias in ancient times, but Wendell dismisses all these evaluations. He set foot on There is only one reason for the journey, and that is to fulfill a promise I made with my wife when I was young: to find that remaining glimmer of light in the long night.
So when he realized that he had only one chance to challenge for the rest of his life, and there would never be a new team of light seekers in the Twilight City, he took the initiative to sign up for the last expedition team. Looking in the eyes of the madman, he set off with the blessed talisman.
This final team set out from the Twilight City with just twelve members—the smallest Lightseeker expedition ever. Following the route left by their predecessors, they walked through the wreckage of the Nine Kingdoms, and tried their best to search for life and signs that the long night was about to recede.
However, no matter where they go, all they can find is the rotten and twisted earth and the air full of magic energy. The remnant branches of Uggudra Hill are interspersed and grown among these terrible world wreckages, but there is no elf spring from it anymore. Flowing down from these branches. As stated in the doomsday book: the branches of the world tree are sick and dying, the nine kingdoms have collapsed, the entire universe has long been extinguished, and the lingering human beings cannot reverse their fate.
Teammates fell one by one. The strongest Bonem was radiated to death because he accidentally dropped the amulet. The brave Andrew fell into the depths of the cracks in the earth. Helena also died. She disappeared into the gate while crossing the bridge, but never reappeared from the other side of the gate: the space storm swallowed her. In the end, only Wendell and Thanarosa were left in the team, but Thanarosa did not survive today.
"Maybe I can't make it through." Wendell curled up in his small camp, his old body wrapped in leather, he felt his heart was being scorched by flames, but his skin felt a biting cold, This is a sign of magic energy invading the nervous system. He felt a little ironic: the person who took the last step in the team turned out to be himself, and those who were younger, more flexible, and stronger than him all died before him.
Perhaps it was the experience and adaptability to magic energy brought by participating in a light-seeking trip that allowed him to live a few more days, but that's it.
Another burst of cold spread, and Wendell subconsciously wrapped the leather around his body. He looked at his threaded cane and the compass hanging on the cane. The pointer on the compass was spinning crazily, and the threaded cane was full of cracks. He knew he was lost, and he had lost his way not long after burying Tanarossa, which made him somewhat regretful: if it hadn't been for this last obstacle, perhaps he still had hope of reaching Asgard, although he was quite sure that even if he reached Asgard will also die of radiation sickness in a short time, but at least he can see the legendary country with his own eyes to confirm the facts that have supported him all the way here:
Did Asgard survive.
Wendell took out the blackened parchment from his arms with difficulty, and there was only a sentence scrawled on the parchment:
"... Asgard... has light."
This piece of paper was found by his team when they passed through Walter Alheim, and it was held tightly to the chest by a mummy wearing the equipment of the Lightseeker. Tanarosa believed that the Lightseeker was the Members of an expedition team that was wiped out: the group of light seekers who set off a hundred years ago are considered to be the elite divisions most likely to successfully search all kingdoms in history, and the Twilight City has almost given up all last hopes It happened to them, but none of this team survived in the end, which indirectly led to the end of the special group of "Light Seekers".
According to the contents of the note, Tanarossa speculated that the light seekers who disappeared a hundred years ago successfully arrived at Asgard, the last wreck of the Nine Kingdoms, and found evidence of surviving life there. The team did not survive to bring the good news back to the Twilight Zone.
It was the content of this note that made Wendell persist until this moment. He no longer expects to return to the Twilight Capital, he only hopes to at least see Asgard, even if he crawls over it—Okay But I regret this life.
However, it seems that regret is about to become regret after all.
Another phantom cold came from all directions, and Wendell felt that his sanity was gradually sinking into the bottomless abyss. He tried to wrap the leather around his body tightly again, but this time he couldn't even control the movements of his fingers. As his eyelids gradually became heavy, he felt as if he had returned to the Twilight City, back to the narrow city covered by a light yellow film, filled with the smell of motor oil, and full of steam and smoke. His little workshop appeared before him again, and his dear Sasha came to life, standing at the door of the workshop, wearing an old apron, looking sadly.
He struggled to stretch out his hand, but felt that his field of vision gradually narrowed and darkened, and in the end, everything was far away.
However, at the last second before he completely sank into darkness, a gleam of light appeared in the distance.
A detection probe found the lost man, and Hao Ren and his party finally arrived at the lost man before it was too late.
They found this unremarkable small camp in the wilderness hundreds of kilometers away from the Rainbow Bridge. In the small camp there was only a rickety and weak old man wrapped in worn leather. The old man was suffering from a high fever at that time, his skin had an abnormal bluish-white luster, and his breathing seemed to disappear at any time. The old mage Anthony immediately judged that this was a serious symptom of mana erosion.
"He is dying," Anthony said while setting up a barrier around the camp to isolate the magic energy, "but he is not completely dead yet. Give me a little time, and I can pull him back from the death line."
When the barrier to isolate the magic energy was established, the weak and comatose old man's condition immediately stabilized. Although it was far from getting better, at least it was temporarily out of the threat of death. While the old mage was busy arranging various purification circles, Vivienne stepped forward to check the old man's condition, and she was surprised to find that it was a human being.
Although there are some differences from humans on Earth today—this may be a mutation caused by living in a mutated environment for a long time—this old man is indeed a human.
"How did he survive in this environment until now?" Vivienne felt incredible.
Galazore searched around the old man, and found something emitting magical fluctuations: "Probably the effect of this amulet, I just sensed that this thing formed a barrier, continuously filtering the magic energy and poisonous gas in the air , but its usefulness seems to be coming to an end, and the filter is very poor."
Hao Ren took the amulet and said casually, "It seems that this is the 'Light Seeker'."
At this moment, under Anthony's full treatment, the dying old man finally recovered gradually and slowly opened his eyes. (to be continued~^~)