Eve leaned against the car window, looking at the gloomy leaden clouds in the distance, feeling the coolness of late autumn.
She sighed at the flight of time, but unfortunately no matter how much she sighed, she could not change it, so she turned her attention back to the newspaper and read it carefully.
About three months ago, the fleet of Gaul Naluo attacked Lingbing Bay. Although Gaul Naluo denied the ownership of these ships, judging from the wreckage of the hull, it was indeed from Gaul Naluo.
vessel.
The battle situation that night was extremely complicated. The fleet of Gaulnarro not only exchanged fire with Lingbing Bay, but also seemed to be fighting another enemy, but the newspaper did not specify who the other enemy was.
Because of these unknown reasons, everything has different possibilities.
The world situation became intensified. Whether it was the Viking countries or the Rhine League, calls for war broke out. In the following time, many conflicts broke out in the White Tide Strait. Ships on both sides were sunk, but what started the full-scale war was
The flames of war have not yet been ignited.
Inerweg needs time, and the Rhine League also needs time. According to the fishermen, the White Tide Strait has been completely blocked and is filled with huge ironclad ships, almost filling the strait.
Then, just when the two sides could no longer restrain themselves and a full-scale war was about to break out, everything came to a stalemate again, making the angry people have to stop and think.
only because……
Eve thought and looked at the front page of the newspaper. There were only a few paragraphs of text on the entire page and a blurry black and white photo.
Printed on the newspaper was a ferocious and strange humanoid machine. It was covered in steam and held a giant barrel in its hand. This was a weapon that required a carriage to drag, but it was held so easily in the hand. The most important thing was
What's surprising is that there are more similar weapons on the weapons rack behind it, and this weird machine is walking on the streets of old Dunling.
Eve knew exactly what this was, a war machine from the Perpetual Pump, the third generation Original Sin Armor.
It reduces the proportion of demon flesh and blood to a minimum, greatly reducing the overall strength and mobility. However, it is also the only armor currently available that can be mass-produced without causing serious erosion to the driver and those around him.
Also because of the sudden appearance of the third-generation armor, the upcoming war was stalled for a while. The fleets of the Rhine Alliance were ready to go, but they fell silent again because of this machine whose strength was not yet known.
Everyone needs to rethink whether they want to continue fighting in the face of Inverg like this.
Ying Erweg's military also held a military parade during this period, in which the third-generation armor was the protagonist. These new war machines can carry many heavy weapons and have a certain degree of mobility. No one can
Know how brutally they will kill on the battlefield.
The third-generation armors not only frightened the enemies, but also frightened many of their own people. It was the first time for most of the nobles to know that such a thing existed in Yin Erweg. Because of these factors, the Platinum Palace was much more lively than before.
Of course, Eve knew very well that the third-generation armor was more than just a reason to delay the war. It was indeed strange and powerful, but there would always be young deer who were not afraid of the tigers.
What really delayed the war temporarily were the nation-builders scattered among the countries. After Lorenzo returned from the Silent Sea, an encrypted telegram was sent to them. After a short agreement, this time the "restart"
"Will be delayed, but they don't have much time left for Lorenzo.
"Actually, the situation is worse than this. According to Lorenzo, all mankind may be finished this time."
Arthur rubbed his eyes. After just a few months, he looked much older than before.
"I thought... I shouldn't know this information."
Eve's mood was as heavy as his, and at the same time she was also confused.
"Actually, you should know. I have always wanted to protect you in an exquisite birdcage, but it has become more and more outrageous... Why not let you go free? Since I can't teach you to dance, I might as well teach you to hold a gun.
." Arthur said.
Eve put down the newspaper, "Do you want to regard me as your successor?"
"This is not possible," Arthur shook his head. "Although you are my daughter, you still need to be promoted normally if you want to sit in my position. I have already decided who will succeed me."
Arthur said as he looked to the other side of the carriage. They were not the only passengers on this train.
The carriage shook slightly, and the armed train drove straight forward on the desolate land.
This is an uninhabited land. Looking around, it is difficult to detect any trace of human activity. The armed train moves forward alone.
But it was not lonely in the carriage. Opposite Eve sat Arthur. The old guy had heavy eyes and picked up the cup from time to time and took a sip of coffee. On the other side of the aisle sat Merlin and Abigail.
An important scientific researcher was also on the train.
According to the regulations of the purge agency, in order to avoid being beheaded, they should not appear together at the same time, let alone on the same vehicle, but today is an important day, and they have to go together.
The other seats on the train were also filled with security soldiers, but they were different from ordinary purge agency soldiers. Each of them wore a heavy coat with a bulletproof steel plate underneath, and held a weapon in their hands.
With a sharp knife, his face was hidden under a thick gas mask.
Along with breathing, the heavy sound of the filter sounded in the car.
Not only that, deeper breathing sounded outside the car window, and a heavy cloud of water vapor surged past, leaving fine water droplets on the glass, but they were quickly dragged away by the strong wind.
The original sin armors remained in standby mode, half-kneeling quietly in the carriage in front. They carried various weapons, like a silent army.
Eve could feel this clearly, and felt a little overwhelmed. She couldn't help but scan the car, watching the scavengers from the corner of her eye.
It was not that she had never seen these guys before, but recalling it carefully, this seemed to be the first time Eve had seen these scavengers so close and in the daytime.
They hardly spoke, communicated solely by gestures, and never took off their masks. It seemed that all scavengers looked like this, maintaining absolute secrecy and sealing off all information related to themselves.
Then his eyes fell further back, where there were some more special passengers.
Arthur looked at these special passengers and continued.
"No one is immortal, there will always be a need for a successor."
Out of the corner of his eyes, he glanced at the seat in the last row of the carriage. Arthur seemed to see someone and smiled helplessly, "Of course, there may be exceptions. I think a bad guy like him can live at least a few hundred years."
.”
Eve also tried to look at the guy sitting at the back, but he was in the blind spot of Eve's perspective. From her position, she could only vaguely see the sword bags and firearms leaning on the side.
This guy was fully armed, as if he was going to participate in a decisive battle that was about to break out. He didn't know when all this would start, so he could only keep himself armed at all times.
It is said that he became like this after returning from the Sea of Silence. He would either sit motionless in his office, or walk into the night with all his weapons.
The snoring gradually started, and Eve looked away, followed Arthur's line of sight, and found the person he was referring to.
"Are you saying that she is his successor?"
"In Oscar's words, it's like this," Arthur glanced helplessly at the guy sleeping soundly against the car window, "He said that he devoted his energy to writing all his life, and ended up needing help from gangsters.
He published books, and when he woke up from the world in the story, he found that he had aged like this."
"I have no relatives, no heirs, and not even many friends."
Arthur sighed, as if he could see through the sadness under his smiling face.
"He is a bad writer and an incompetent builder. All he can do for the rest of his life is to pass on the mission instead of cutting it off in his own hands. If he cannot do this, his life has simply failed.
downright."
Under Arthur's gaze, Oscar leaned against the car window and snored. He didn't know whether to admire his mentality or whether he was really such a big-hearted person. Under this situation of doubled pressure, he actually fell asleep.
He was still sleeping soundly. There was another familiar person sitting next to Oscar.
Seleu leaned against Oscar and looked down at the book in his hand.
Unlike Eve, who is curious and hyperactive, Seliu behaves very quietly, as if everything around her cannot affect her.
Eve withdrew her gaze and couldn't help but say.
"Rather than a successor, I think he is looking for a nursing home for himself. The Stuart family has enough financial resources to allow Oscar to die in peace."
"Not only that, the Stuart family will also help Oscar promote his work. Maybe after a while, the streets of Old Dunling will be covered with posters of his new work." Arthur said.
When he said this, he looked a little disappointed, and then became serious.
"...Only if we can snatch the future from the hands of death."
"So don't you care too much about rules and so on?"
Eve said thoughtfully.
The carriage was full of familiar people. They held different positions and represented different forces. They were summoned together on this day and boarded the train leaving Old Dunling.
Eve only felt that heavy rain clouds were approaching, and her breathing became a little uncomfortable. She tried to remember, but was horrified to realize that she had no previous memories.
She couldn't recall the memory before the ride.
Eve's eyes looked straight at Arthur, and then slowly moved to the others. She began to notice something strange here.
These people would almost never appear together at the same time, but now they were on the same train. Not to mention that Eve still couldn't remember the previous memories. She had no idea how she got on the train.
"Don't get excited, you were not attacked by a demon."
Arthur noticed the change in Eve's demeanor, and it seemed that this change was also what he expected.
"I thought you wouldn't notice this until you got out of the car."
"what happened?"
"A meeting, involving many people," Arthur smiled and gently touched Eve's forehead, "Don't worry, you will get used to the scavengers' methods in the future, but they usually only do it in emergencies.
Do this."
Listening to Arthur's incomprehensible words, Eve looked at the silent soldiers aside and understood the whole story.
"Antimemetics..."
Eve whispered, they were gathered by the scavengers, so what kind of meeting required them to do this.
Suddenly the train stopped and it reached its destination. The doors opened and cold wind blew in.
Everyone remained silent and did not communicate with each other. They stood up one after another and left the carriage. When Eve walked out, several buildings had sprung up in the desolation, and further away on the sea, there were docked buildings.
A huge ship with a red flag flying.
Eve has never seen such a giant ship or such a flag.
Just as he was stunned, a burst of words with a strange accent rang out.
"Oh, you are finally here. I thought I would have to wait for a while."
Eve looked in the direction of the sound and saw an old stranger, with more strangers following behind him.
They wore clothes that were as red as the flag, and were inlaid with shiny fish scale armor. This was armor that Eve had never seen before, if it could be considered armor.
The old man still had a simple long sword hanging on his waist and an exquisite firearm on his back. The equipment of other foreigners was similar to his, but the decorations were different.
Eve's sluggishness became more serious. Whether it was the armor design or the weapons, they were all something she had never seen before, and they were rarely mentioned even in books. When she saw the old man's black pupils, she seemed to remember
What, the memory buried in dust showed a glimmer of light.
"Nine...Nine Xia people?"
"That's right, that's right."
The old man was very easy-going and responded with a smile, but his Western language had a somewhat amusing accent.
"Then let's start the meeting. According to the information given by Mr. Holmes, we don't have much time left." The old man's smile faded and became as hard as iron. "What do you have here?"
Any ideas?”
"Yes, Mr. Holmes and I have worked out a plan together. This may be able to kill Roger Cruz and Edron Levien and destroy these two unstable factors in one fell swoop." Merlin walked out of the carriage.
, said directly.
"What kind of plan?"
"We have to start with the nature of our enemy, which is why the scavengers and Jiu Xia are involved." Oscar spoke, with the indifferent Seliu standing beside him.
There are many people involved in this plan, not only the various departments of the purification agency, but also Ying Erwei Ge and Jiu Xia.
Most of the people in the carriage got off and crowded into a pile on the platform, forming a group with the Jiuxia people temporarily stationed here.
"They are all sublimated. They can travel [gap] at will and read everyone's memory. Coupled with their own powerful power, they are simply mortals walking in the world."
Oscar continued.
"If that's the right metaphor... they're like a group of readers."
"reader?"
When the old man heard what Oscar said, he was very interested.
"That's right, don't you think? We are all characters in the story, and what we are doing is the advancement of the plot. We need to make the plot point reach 'we kill them', but unfortunately,
Our enemy is the 'reader', which means that they can read the story, see what we do in the book, accurately read our mental activities, and know everything we want to do.
So no matter what plans we have, it is meaningless in front of the power of the reader. He can listen to any of us's conversations, our mental activities, and even replace us, check our past, and drive our bodies to perform
future."
The old man fell silent. He rarely heard such interesting metaphors, and because of this novel angle, he once again felt the terror of the enemy.
"So what do we do?"
"Become someone outside the story."
A hoarse voice sounded, like a hangover drunkard, with heavy steps, and the last passenger staggered off the train.
"It's very simple. If you jump out of this story and don't exist in this story, then readers will not be able to read this story and have no way of knowing our intentions."
His eyes were red, and it looked like he hadn't slept much for several days in order to come up with this plan.
"outsider."
"An 'outsider' who is neither known by the enemy nor us only appears at the most critical moment and changes the direction of the entire operation."
He raised his hand as he spoke, as if pinching a tiny speck of dust.
"As long as you change a little bit, make changes in key parts, an ordinary plan will turn into a hunting operation."
"So is this why we must forget this meeting? Even we ourselves should not remember who the 'outsiders' are." asked the old man.
"That's right, there is an assassin who is hidden beyond the story and beyond everyone's knowledge."
The old man looked at the scavengers behind the man, and then squinted at the soldiers behind him. The technology of the Jiuxia people was completely different from that of Yin Erweg. Compared with these industries, they were better at deceitful antimemes.
, and this is also the reason why they are here at this moment.
"No one can remember what they have forgotten... This plan is very risky. Once outsiders have problems, we will head towards the end, and there is no possibility of recovery."
It is precisely because of his understanding of antimemes that the old man understands the dangers involved. If the plan is not corrected by outsiders, it is doomed to fail.
"I believe in outsiders."
The man looked at the old man with a firm expression, his gray-blue eyes empty.
After a moment of stalemate, the old man laughed.
"To be able to return from the Silent Sea and obtain such important information to fill in the history of mankind... This is simply a great achievement, but it is a pity that it cannot be written into a book."
The old man didn't think for too long, stretched out his hand and shook it with the man.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes."
"Me too, General Zuo Zhen."
Lorenzo stared at the stranger with black eyes, raised his head, and scanned more strangers with black eyes, and finally stopped at the red flag.
"We should forget each other soon." Lorenzo said with some regret.
"It doesn't matter," Zuo Zhen said, "We will meet for the first time in a few days."