Agatha retracted her hand instantly and looked at her fingertips in surprise.
However, the nearest accompanying nun had already seen this strange scene. The nun suddenly opened her eyes in surprise: "Gatekeeper, your hand just now..."
Agatha frowned and didn't know what was going on for a while. But at this moment, a guard soldier next to her came forward, carefully raised her combat cane, and knocked on the side that looked like
A solid stone wall that is no different from its surroundings.
The cane hit the stone wall, making a crisp sound, but nothing happened on the wall.
The guard turned his head, nodded slightly to Agatha, then mustered up the courage to step forward and directly touch the stone wall with his palm.
Nothing happens, the walls remain walls.
"This is just a wall," the guardian frowned, "but just now..."
Agatha didn't say anything, she just stepped forward silently and probed the wall with her fingers again.
The next second, she watched helplessly as her fingers sank into it again!
There was no resistance at all, and she even felt that she had just touched a curtain made of phantoms.
"It seems that only you can pass through it," the accompanying priest looked at this scene in amazement, turned his head in disbelief and said, "But... why is this? Why is there such a wall deep in the Boiling Gold Mine?
No one has ever reported it before..."
Listening to the priest's exclamation, Agatha said nothing, but still stared at her fingers that penetrated the stone wall - at an angle that only she noticed, she finally saw the connection between her fingertips and the stone wall.
Small changes in stone wall contact.
Her fingers and the stone wall seemed to melt at the same time at that position. Although they only melted a little, they blended together like heated butter. The color and texture... looked like black mud.
In this way, she "passed" that seemingly solid stone wall.
After an unknown amount of time, she finally broke the silence softly: "I don't know why this happened, but obviously... only I can do the next thing."
"Gatekeeper?" The accompanying pastor was startled and quickly reacted, "You want to go in alone!? Wait, this is too unsafe. There is something wrong with this wall. If you enter rashly now, it is very likely..."
"Our city-state is being swallowed by thick fog, and the twisted existence in the fog has no mercy - the power behind it will not wait for us to investigate the truth before taking action," Agatha just shook her head slowly,
His voice was as calm and steady as ever, "The team led by Archon Winston finally arrived here, but there is no body here. Now it seems that these guards who died in the battle were more likely to hold on to the end in order to delay in the mine tunnel.
...If my guess is correct, they are trying to buy the Archon time to pass through this wall."
The priest didn't know how to respond for a moment. After a few seconds of silence, he just instinctively spoke: "But it is still too dangerous for you to be alone. This matter should at least be reported to the cathedral..."
"No time, really no time," Agatha turned around and shook her head slowly but firmly. As she spoke, she once again felt the coldness that surrounded her whole body and penetrated her bones.
She could almost clearly feel that her blood was gradually stopping flowing, and the materials that made up this body were losing activity little by little. Although this discomfort only lasted for a short time, it still made her tone more determined.
, "I must understand the secrets in this mine. This may be the only thing I can do in the last little time left..."
She stopped suddenly, forcibly suppressed her thoughts, words and deeds, tried her best to calm her expression again, and looked at the subordinates in front of her seriously.
"I will pass through this wall. You should know the power of the gatekeeper - don't worry about me, you have what you should do. After I pass, you immediately return to the previous traffic intersection, and then the first
The second team continued to go to the excavation area according to the original plan to investigate the true status of the Boiling Gold Mine. The third team and the fourth team returned to the surface and reported what happened here to the cathedral, and then..."
She paused for a few seconds, as if
Buddha's thinking was suddenly interrupted, and then he waved his hand: "That's it, the rest will follow Bishop Ivan's orders."
The guards, priests, and nuns couldn't help but look at each other. It was the first time they saw the gatekeeper behave like this, and they were inevitably a little panicked. However, under Agatha's particularly serious gaze, after years of training, they almost developed an instinctive professionalism.
Next, obeying orders became their subconscious reaction.
"Yes, I received the order," the priest leading the team nodded solemnly, and drew the triangular emblem representing Bartok on his chest, but then he couldn't help but ask, "When do you need us to come?
Accept you?"
"...You don't have to respond - but don't worry, I will come back. No matter what happens, 'I will definitely come back.'"
The pastor withdrew, and no one heard the subtle change in her tone when she said the word "I".
Agatha breathed out softly and took steps towards the dark wall.
Before she was about to come into contact with it, she spoke softly for the last time, as if she was whispering to someone, and as if she was saying to herself, "Actually... I really like this world..."
She took a step without hesitation, and her body sank into the "stone wall" without any hindrance, just like one phantom blending into another phantom.
Faint ripples appeared on the surface of the stone wall for an instant, but before others could see clearly, the ripples completely disappeared.
Dark, cold, and helpless, it is difficult to distinguish up and down, and left and right. Immediately afterwards, all perceptions seem to disappear in an instant, and then return to themselves in an extremely slow and weird way - this is
All Agatha's feelings after crossing that wall.
After an unknown amount of time, she opened her "eyes" in the darkness, only to find that she couldn't see anything around her.
Wherever you look, there is only endless chaos, and vague dark masses are slowly crawling in the darker background, like some kind of sticky and disgusting fluid, or like a slowly crawling, indescribable...
Behemoth.
Why is it so dark? Didn’t I bring a lantern when I came here?
Agatha couldn't help but have such a question in her mind, and almost as she was thinking about it, a light really appeared in front of her eyes.
The dim light illuminated the surroundings, and she saw that she was floating in an endless black mist, with countless shadowy things squirming and flowing around her, but they did not make any sound.
Agatha watched this scene quietly, then lowered her head.
The body appeared in the field of vision, first the torso, then the hands and feet, and the fighting cane that had been with him for many years.
"Ah...you are here too..."
Agatha whispered to herself, slowly lifting the cane in her hand, looking at the familiar patterns on it, and the words she carefully carved on it when she first received the cane as a guardian.
own name.
"Are you a shadow like me?" she asked softly to the stick.
Of course the cane didn't respond to her voice, but something else suddenly made a noise in the darkness.
"boom!"
It was a gunshot.
Agatha frowned for a moment, but before she looked in the direction of the sound, a nervous-sounding voice reached her ears first: "Who's there?!"
In the darkness, Agatha turned her head, and almost at the same time, she saw a sudden glimmer of light in the direction from which the sound came.
A small piece of solid ground appeared there, illuminated by a simple brass lantern. What looked like a tree stump could also be seen in the open space. A middle-aged man wearing a dark blue coat was sitting on the tree stump.
Next to it, it looks like a motionless statue.
When Agatha cast her gaze, the "statue" suddenly moved. He suddenly raised his head and looked in Agatha's direction nervously in surprise: "Who's there?!"
Agatha subconsciously felt a hint of inconsistency, but she quickly put it behind her mind. She walked toward the open space illuminated by a lantern and saw the middle-aged man's face clearly.
Allow.
There was no surprise at all, it was the governor of the Frost City State, Mr. Winston.
"It seems that you have been here for a long time, Mr. Consul," Agatha said calmly, "now there are only two of us left here."
"Gatekeeper...Ms. Agatha?" Winston raised his head sluggishly. His movements and speech were slow like a severely worn clockwork doll, but as time went by, his speech and demeanor slowed down.
Becoming more agile and smooth, "You're here too...wait, why are you here?"
"I passed through a wall, a wall deep in the boiling gold mine," Agatha said calmly. She knew that there was no longer any need to hide and take detours. "The guards you brought are already in the mine.
The whole army was wiped out, Mr. Consul - do you remember them?"
"The Guards... Oh, the Guards I brought," Winston frowned, as if he had just remembered it, and then there was a hint of sadness in his tone, "They are all great people.
, they tried their best to allow me to activate the key left by the Queen, but I..."
Agatha's expression changed slightly in an instant: "The key left by the queen?"