One hundred and forty. Shuttle in the bustling city, busy from early morning to midnight
"What?"
Irene tilted her head. She didn't hear clearly what Lu Li was saying.
"It was done by the 'person' we have been looking for." Catalina answered for him.
"Has Anna been here..." Erin stared at the dead body on the high platform.
There were chaotic footsteps behind him, and Finn directed his men to carry the brazier to the corner of the ruins and light it.
The light flowing between Lu Li's fingers was fading, and the lit brazier replaced the light to illuminate the ruins.
There are still severely oxidized and faded pictorial runes on the flat rock walls and high platform steps. They should record patterns and words, but everything was probably destroyed by the shelter dug here a few years ago.
If the entrance to the shelter had not been sealed, perhaps the graffiti would have been even more incomplete.
The residents of the shelter were relieved by the warm fire basin and looked at Finn. Finn asked Irene, while Lu Li looked at Ophelia: "Is there a problem here?"
"It's very clean...except...the stone statues." Ophelia turned to the stone statues at the four corners of the tower-shaped platform. "The stone statues...contain...aura."
"Before you touch anything here, I suggest you deal with the stone statue first." Erin reminded from the side.
"How to do it?" Catalina asked Xiang Lu Li.
"Gouge the face off."
Lu Li lowered his arms. The light emitted by the fragments of the ancient statue was no longer much stronger than the torch, and he walked towards the stone statue with the afterglow.
This is an act performed by exorcists in the past, gouging out the face to make the stone statue lose its power.
"Leave it to me."
Catalina stopped Lu Li, twisting her hands to grasp the homologous dagger. She pulled out her own dagger with her right hand and leaned against the stone statue with both daggers in hand.
The information doesn't say what to use to dig out the face, so you won't go wrong if you use them together.
"Ophelia, please protect her."
Ophelia's blackened head shook, emitting heat waves.
Catalina, who came to the stone statue, raised her head, raised both daggers and pressed them against the statue's face at the same time, without stopping, and without hesitation, she stroked hard——
There was a friction sound, and an ordinary dagger left a white mark on the face of the stone statue, but another dagger with the same origin pierced the stone statue. It even penetrated the stone statue completely due to excessive force, like cutting through a solidified grease block, leaving only the handle.
outside.
Putting away the ordinary dagger, Catalina held the dagger in both hands and dug into the stone statue's face.
Bang--
The gouged face slipped away as Catalina retreated, making a crashing sound that made people suddenly think, "This is a rock."
Catalina stared closely at the cavity inside the stone statue that was exposed due to excessive force.
Nothing happened, not even the sanity counter went off.
"The breath... disappeared." Ophelia said.
"You dig out the faces of the remaining stone statues." Eileen told the residents of the shelter.
Then when Lu Li finishes exploring the ruins, this place will become part of the shelter.
"Wait a minute." Catalina stopped them and signaled to Lu Li: "Go and try."
Lu Li, who realized Catalina's intention in doing this, nodded, took the dagger and walked to the other corner of the tall platform.
The blade that pierced the stone statue's face was like a table knife cutting into butter, more fragile than flesh and blood. When the dagger cut irregular circles in the stone statue, gouging out the face, humanity poured into the body.
There are also death retrospectives.
…
The sea breeze blows through the miraculous trapezoidal city.
Many humanoid beings with slender limbs and tall bodies wearing armor patrolled the surroundings.
The stone statue was actually a "person".
The corrosion called time has made the rocks no longer clear, rough, blurred, and weathered. The stone statues they saw looked like melted standing lions. Lu Li stood next to a green-brown, viscous magma pool without high temperature, surrounded by dozens of branches.
blocks the same magma pool.
He watched a naked humanoid being walk to the lava pool. They told incomprehensible prophecies, showing religious fanaticism and warrior-like determination, even if they stepped into the lava pool and were submerged above their heads.
Over time, the magma pool will solidify, and then the rocks surrounding the victims will be taken out and carved into stone statues to guard them.
Lu Li looked away and looked into the distance of the trapezoidal city.
The outline of reality can be vaguely seen on the coastline, but it seems to be just an illusion.
The trapezoidal city's architecture allowed Lu Li to see the shadow of the underground giant's empty city between the fire and water. He also thought of the similarities between the ruins there and here.
This was thousands of years ago.
They are the "previous generation", before humans thought they had the life of the world.
And now, in the void on the horizon, a dark circle of light silently hangs black threads.
"tidal……"
Lu Li whispered something and disappeared beside the magma pool. In other words, he did not exist here at all.
Bang--
With his face smashed, Lu Li gathered his consciousness and lowered his arms.
"How is it?" Katerina asked from behind.
"Got it." Lu Li replied.
"A lot?"
Lu Li looked around at the remaining two stone statues: "Not too few."
Nearly a hundred ghosts or monsters with the same power can barely create a sense of humanity, but it is difficult to find such weak monsters in this era.
Lu Li looked at Eileen and asked, "Do you want to leave one?"
"Why do you ask?"
Erin is trying to understand their previous conversation.
"This is the relic of the previous generation. The stone statues are the self-sealed people of the previous generation. Maybe they can still communicate with each other."
"Previous generations..." Eileen murmured in a low voice.
As a refuge where all human knowledge is stored, the existence of previous generations is certainly known.
Because the Demon Slayer Association also knew about the previous generation, they formulated the fire plan.
Even... maybe the Tinder Project was once one of the efforts made by the "previous generation".
"As long as you don't stay in the shelter."
Irene's implication was casually dealt with by Lu Li.
Lu Li asked the merchant and received the answer that he could put away the stone statues, so he did not deal with the remaining two stone statues and asked the merchant to put them away.
After a final inspection of the severely corroded incomplete murals and dried and weathered corpses, everyone exited the ruins without finding any clues.
The cleaned ruins will have their traces erased and become part of the shelter.
Next, they have to leave the shelter and wait for nightfall and the stone statue to wake up. But before that, they have to go to the Quiet Whispering Forest to find the "Businessman's Corpse".
As for the conflict between the supporters and the opposition, it was also resolved by the appearance of Lu Li.
The support faction insists on going to the surface to obtain seeds, while the opposition refuses to leave the shelter. In the past few years, the two factions have been fighting fiercely. Although the scale on the support side is getting lower and lower as time goes by, at least it will continue to give Eileen a headache.
Two years.
Now, you can get seeds from the shelter without leaving it—and regain contact with the outside world.
All credit goes to the merchant and Lu Li.
A businessman's mouth is as strict as a dead man's.
Therefore, when leaving the shelter, the eyes looking at Lu Li and others were no longer so hostile, but also mixed with a lot of gratitude and yearning.
Lu Li gave them the illusion that "the outside world might not be so bad."
After passing through the old shelter and continuing upward, Irene drove away the other managers. Only she and Irene followed Lu Li through the passage leading to the ground that was being filled with stones carried by residents.