Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 81 Seven Thousand Years Later
In this world, there are countless things that attract us, tempt us, make us obsessed, and pursue and explore them unremittingly. Among them, one of the most mysterious, tempting, and confusing things has a vague and mysterious name, it is called "the future."
For most of us, the "future" is something that can only be imagined but cannot be seen with our own eyes. When we actually see it, it has become the "present" or even the "past", and the newer, farther and more imaginative "future" is already standing in the distant and unattainable distance. No matter how much you look at and imagine it, you will not be able to see it carefully.
Regardless of whether they can or cannot, it seems that most people hope to be able to see the future. They may not necessarily want to master or gain something, but often they are just out of pure curiosity, wanting to know what kind of clues and stories are hidden in the distant timeline after the end of their lives. The innate curiosity and thirst for knowledge of intelligent life drives and tortures them, making them want to know but unable to obtain.
But I know there is still a small group of people who do not want to see the future. They are silent, vigilant, or even resistant and fearful of the future. They are afraid of those unknown things that will eventually happen. They believe that the colorful life lies in these complex unknowns. When the unknown becomes known, life loses the meaning of their existence, development, and reproduction.
What will our future be like? This is a question I often ask myself. I long for the answer, but sometimes I am afraid of the answer. Or to put it another way: I long for the answer to this question, but I am afraid that there will be no answer to this question - yes, no answer, no future, no hope. I am living in an era that is too vast and too cruel. It has almost squeezed out all the vitality of the world at once, as if it wants to fill the valley with all the blood and souls, leaving no chance for a civilized world.
Will the world be destroyed by war? This may be a question that many people in the midst of war will ask themselves at night. However, tragically, when the sun rises again and steel collides with steel, playing the melody of fighting, everyone's question becomes "Will I be destroyed by war?" So people have to pick up weapons again, bet their lives, and cast the dice of fate, deciding victory or defeat and life or death in a blink of an eye, but ignoring that they have become one of the reasons why the world is being destroyed.
This is a world full of guilt, and we are the creatures that we hate.
Will we still have a future?
Who can answer this question?
…
During this great change of the earth tearing apart, a special area was formed in the middle of the distant Broken Sea. It was called "Star Vortex". Although it was called "Vortex", in fact, its specific location was between an archipelago called "Reef Castle" . This was originally a level 30 dungeon area, which also disappeared in this world change. And in the original location of this dungeon, a new dungeon area appeared again.
Oh, what an incredible coincidence.
The Continental Alliance Navy Command detected abnormal magical fluctuations in this area. They were worried whether there was an unknown Doomsday Imperial Navy force hidden in this area, or whether the Imperial Army was conducting some evil and dangerous magic experiments here. However, due to the intense fighting on the front line, the Alliance Navy was unable to dispatch a fleet to investigate this area. Therefore, they recruited some civilian adventure groups like us, hoping that we could help them complete this glorious and arduous mission in this critical moment.
"The reward for the mission is not bad." This is how our president Fei Yin commented on the mission.
"Why not go if there is a dungeon?" said the violent dwarf priest Longbow Shooting Sun with red eyes.
"I heard this dungeon is quite fun." The dwarf bard Nocturne in B-flat minor was eager to try.
"Are they all... monsters of the opposite sex?" The elf trainer Yan Zhen hesitated for a moment, then agreed.
"If the Yanzhen goes, I will go too." The elf archer Xian Geya answered without thinking - that's why they say men in love are fools. He had no idea how long he would regret this hasty decision.
…
Well, forget about the "glorious and arduous mission". These guys are here to make money, kill people, have a vacation, and have a romantic relationship. But do you want these free-spirited guys to have some self-awareness to contribute to the cause of the liberation of the Falvi Continent? Forget it. There is no hope for that.
Unlike the dungeon zones we have encountered before, the number of adventurers that can enter the "Star Vortex" area is no longer limited to five people, but ten. This is why we have not organized the adventure mission of this dungeon until now - our dark elf assassin Red Wolf has just reached level 65, and he happens to be the tenth member of our guild to reach level 65.
In fact, it is not easy to reach the sea area where the "Star Vortex" is located. The Alliance Navy's warships have too deep a draft and it is difficult to enter this dangerous sea area with complex terrain and changeable climate. For this reason, they specially hired a pirate ship called the "Golden Rose". This is a ship that is said to have been specially modified and can adapt to various extremely harsh marine climates - well, this is what the naval liaison officer told us.
But when I actually saw the ship with my own eyes, its dilapidated appearance almost made me faint. I can use a very appropriate comparison to describe this ship, that is, it is difficult for me to tell you which one is more dilapidated, it or the shabby little building that was the headquarters of the guild before we renovated it. I think it is more appropriate to say that it has experienced all kinds of extremely bad sea climates and has not sunk, rather than "being able to adapt to all kinds of extremely bad sea climates." Frankly speaking, I have no doubt that it can carry us across the ocean: it definitely can't. I even suspect that it will sink as soon as it leaves the harbor. If I have to get on that ship, I would rather be closer to the tall main mast in the middle of the ship - I believe that when the ship sinks, the lookout position on the main mast must be very popular.
I'm probably not the only one who has the same worry. At least I saw Xian Ge Yayi climb onto the boat riding on his swimming turtle.
The only difference between this broken sailboat and a ghost ship is that, thank God, it has some living crew members. These brave men who make a living in the wind and waves seem to have an incurable optimism. They live on these broken wooden boards that may fall apart at any time and are about to head to an unprecedented dangerous sea. However, these guys can still sing to their heart's content. They sing the song "The girl in the bakery is white and fat, with her round buttocks shaking back and forth" with hoarse and almost collapsed voices, which always makes my heart feel gentle and warm.
Surprisingly, the captain of this pirate ship was not a burly and strong man, but a young and beautiful woman. Her name was "Captain Kelsey Rag", wearing a neat sailor suit, with a thin rapier hanging from her waist, and her golden hair wrapped in a red headscarf, like a cloud of morning glow bursting out from the sea level. When we saw her, she was standing on the front deck, scolding the busy crew. What was a little confusing was that even though she was scolding loudly with the most rude emphasis, I still felt kind and gentle, just like a sister next door gently scolding those clumsy children.
"So, you are the fools sent to die by those guys in the navy?" The handsome captain, holding a straw stick in his mouth, glanced at us with his sidelong eyes and a disdainful smile on his face.
President Feiyin nodded angrily, then gnashed her teeth and said to us, "I hate the guy who wrote the lines. This question is obviously only half right. We are sent by the navy, but we are not fools who want to die. But I can only choose between the two answers of 'yes' and 'no'. It's too disadvantageous!"
The captain didn't care about our disgust with her question. She turned her head, motioned for us to get on board, and then said to us: "To be honest, we don't have a good impression of those idiots in the navy. Don't think that they can do whatever they want on my ship just because they spend money..." To be honest, I didn't even dare to touch the railing of this broken ship, let alone "do whatever they want".
"...The reason why we accepted this mission is, on the one hand, because we thought it was quite amusing for pirates to accept the navy's request, and on the other hand, because the damn whirlpool was right on the Reef Fort, which was supposed to be a free port for us pirates..."
"…It suddenly appeared during this great change, right in the center of the Reef Castle. Many of my friends were sucked into this vortex, and no one ever saw them come out. That damn vortex was like the entrance to hell, red and swallowing up all life that came close. Sometimes, some strange rays would shoot out from it, blowing everything they touched to pieces…"
"...I know the Navy wants you to investigate whether there are any scums from the Doomsday Empire there. I can tell you clearly, there are none! I can smell the smell of those idiot scum even if I am standing on the upper hand. The problem there is that vortex. I don't care what kind of reward the Navy will give you, but if you can successfully close this vortex, I can give you the corresponding reward personally, and I promise that you will get generosity from me that you cannot get from the Navy..."
I really wanted to get more information about the vortex from Captain Kelsey, but our president accepted the task without even waiting for her to finish. In fact, if you observe carefully, you will find that most of these spacemen are uneducated and impatient. I rarely see them listen to others finish speaking before accepting a task.
The captain's words aroused my interest. If what she said was right, the dungeon we were about to explore might be completely different from all the dungeon areas we had experienced before. You know, all the dungeon entrances we had seen before were covered by a thin layer of magic vortex. Although it looked magical and mysterious, that layer of magic vortex was always thin and transparent, and had never been mixed with other colors; moreover, those magic vortices were stable and calm when you had never touched them, and it was impossible for them to emit any "strange light" or cause any violent explosions. As she said, the "Star Vortex" on the Reef Castle would be a more dangerous dungeon area than before, and everything that happened there might be different from our previous adventures.
During the trip, I tried to talk to our captain, hoping to get more detailed information from her. Unfortunately, after we accepted her mission, she seemed to have little interest in talking about the whirlpool. She either yelled, "Damn hook, if you doze off on the lookout again, I'll tie you up and throw you into the sea to feed the sharks," or yelled at the crew, "You should wash my overtime clean," or threatened us, "Don't get too close to the railing, I can't guarantee that every one of them is solid."
In fact, I doubt whether these shabby wooden railings that creaked in the waves were "not even solid" at all...
About five minutes later, we sailed into a dangerous sea. The sky was covered with dark clouds, and rain poured down from the sky like a bucket. Lightning thicker than a bowl kept flashing in the sky, illuminating this dark world with dazzling light. Ahead, a large ring of islands gradually appeared, standing silently and grimly in the sea. The further our ship went, the more intense the lightning and rainstorms became, as if something dangerous was attracting them.
Soon, we saw the destination of this trip. In that circle of islands, the largest island in the middle has revealed its true appearance. In the center of the island, we saw a huge disc-shaped red vortex that was constantly rotating. I believe that it was the entrance to the "Star Vortex" dungeon. I have never seen such a huge dungeon entrance. Generally speaking, they are often only about the same size as the castle gate or the entrance of a cave, but this huge and bloody red turbine in front of us is almost as big as a small mountain. Behind it, we can't see the dungeon area that we usually see at the dungeon entrance, such as a castle or a temple - it appeared there out of thin air, and on both sides of it are just ordinary island scenery, nothing else.
Just as Captain Kelsey said, sometimes, some strange beams of light would shoot out from the vortex. They seemed to contain some kind of immeasurable magic power, and every time they touched the rocks, they would make a loud noise and cause a violent explosion. I had never seen such a beam of light before. It was not like the natural scattering of spells released by ordinary magicians, but it was condensed and did not disperse, like a straight stick, sometimes green, sometimes red.
Captain Kelsey skillfully docked the boat at the harbor and then brought us to the huge red whirlpool.
"Here we are, my respected guests..." She pointed to the entrance of the whirlpool and said to us, "I'm sorry that I can't continue to accompany you, but I will wait here for three days. After three days, even if you successfully escape from this whirlpool, I'm afraid you can only swim back. Don't worry about us. Although this thing often emits some dangerous rays, there is no other danger as long as you don't get close to it."
As soon as I took my first step into the vortex, I realized that this was completely different from the dungeon areas we had encountered before. In the past, when we entered the dungeon, we could not feel the transparent magic vortex at all. For people who entered the dungeon, it was as if it did not exist, and they could just step in.
However, this copy was not like that: when I stepped into the vortex, I suddenly felt that my whole body was stretched out and kept spinning along the extension of the vortex. I was not the only one who encountered this situation, but all of us. During the spinning process, this vortex , which was originally just a plane , turned into a huge channel, and we were spinning and moving forward in this channel at a high speed. Soon, the surroundings were no longer a dazzling red, but a dazzling light of seven colors. When this ball of light suddenly burst out, I felt a pain in my eyes and quickly closed them.
When I opened my eyes, the scene around me had completely changed.
We were in an unimaginably huge ruin. This might have been a city, but it was different from any city we had ever seen. On our left, a tall building was broken in half and abandoned. Even if it was broken into two pieces, it was still the tallest I had ever seen. The part that still stood there was at least thirty stories high, and the other half of the ruined building lying at its feet was at least that high. What surprised me was that as an alchemist who had seen many materials, I couldn't tell what material this tall building was made of. Its surface was smooth, bright, and solid. It was quite similar to the glass I used to grind glasses for Xiange Yayi, but it was larger, thicker, and more shiny, and it was a dark brown color close to black. Believe me, if this thing was "glass", then the two lenses I ground by hand were just rough gravel.
This was not the only building that reached the sky that we saw. In fact, within our sight, almost every building in the city was not shorter than it. On both sides of the road that was so wide that it seemed to be a waste, some strange metal machines were parked there, some were burning, and some had been burned to a charred color. There was generally a space in the middle of them, with a few chairs inside, which seemed to be for people to sit on. Some of them had round wheels underneath, and some looked more like some kind of jet device.
They may be some kind of magical vehicles, but unfortunately, the horses that pulled them are now all missing.
As I stood there in a daze, there was a loud bang in front of me, and clouds of black clouds from the explosion rose in the distance, which was terrifying. We were about to move forward when suddenly there was a roar on the road ahead, and then I saw a monster covered in iron armor roaring towards us. I didn't see its head, and it didn't seem to have any limbs. It just emitted six blue flames from the bottom, supporting it and floating in the air. A long and thick round tube extended from its top. Although I didn't know which organ it belonged to, I instinctively felt that it was always emitting an extremely dangerous aura.
Just as I was about to rush forward to stop it, the monster stopped. The flames below it stopped spraying, and its entire body dropped to the ground.
Then, two things like ears opened up on its left and right sides - but they were much larger than the ears we usually see.
Maybe it doesn't mean any harm - I thought.
Just as I was thinking about it, two figures suddenly walked out of the two open "ears" - then I realized that this guy was not a living giant, but a vehicle driven by special magic. Aren't those two huge "ears" very similar to the doors of a stagecoach?
So I decided to call this thing a "car"!
The two guys who got off the car looked very strange. They were wrapped in a special metal armor with red and blue spots flashing on it. Their heads were covered with a very transparent helmet, which didn't look very strong - but that wasn't necessarily the case.
They were tall and strong, and looked like two warriors, but the things in their hands did not look like weapons. They were two things with brackets and handles, and two cylindrical tubes, one thick and one thin, were installed in the front. In a way, these things looked a bit similar to the powerful fire guns of the wild geese formation, but they were much smaller and more delicate, and did not look like a murder weapon at all, but more like a strange shaman totem pole.
"Are you the ones who just crossed the time-space rift?" One of them raised the device in his hand and pointed the hole at us, asking loudly. He didn't look friendly at all. I thought so because he pointed the stick in his hand at us with a sense of vigilance and precaution, and because of his race - there was no doubt that this guy with a bright red head and two short spiral horns on his head was a pure-blooded demon.
The reason why I didn't rush forward to kill him immediately was because of the guy next to him: he had fair skin, tall stature, and two pointed ears on both sides of his head - there was no doubt that he was an elf.
Well, I feel a little confused: an elf and a demon, two armed warriors, can actually sit in the same car peacefully - this doesn't seem to be the world I am familiar with.
The elf was obviously more friendly to me. He reached out his hand and pressed down the weapon of the demon soldier, and said, "Don't be too nervous, my friends... well, or should I say... my ancestors? I think you probably need to re-understand the place you are in - oh, in fact you don't need to dwell on 'where' this is, but should re-think 'when' this is. You are now in a time about seven thousand years after your era, and behind you is a space-time rift caused by an accident during this war. We have read about your experience in history books, so we believe that you are a vital part of this war. The command sent us to detect the movement of this space-time rift day and night so that we can find you at the first time. Please don't care too much about my comrade's attitude. He is not unfriendly, but he just doesn't know how to express his friendliness. If you don't mind, I am honored to invite you to get in the car, and I will take you to our command center. I believe the historian who is waiting there can receive you better."
As he said that, he got back on the armored vehicle. The armored vehicle floated in the air, turned around on the spot, and pointed its rear end towards us. While I was still thinking about how we could remove the thick steel armor and squeeze into the vehicle, a door suddenly opened at the rear end of the vehicle, and a metal gangway popped out from the vehicle, allowing us to walk steadily into the very spacious compartment.
The change was so huge and so sudden that I was at a loss. I looked at my friends around me, and they all looked excited and eager to get on the bus.
"So..." Feiyin said something puzzling as she walked and looked at the surrounding scenery:
"…It seems we have traveled through time…"
