North American Gunslinger Detective

Chapter 790 Return
The Dark Tower world is called the Central World. It is a magical and declining world with many ruins. Judging from the ruins, there must have been a highly civilized world here before. It’s just that no one knows how much time has passed. The original civilization has left nothing but some ruins.

The current Central World is a fantasy world similar to the Middle Ages. Some people have figured out how to use the ancient equipment in the ruins, but more people are just ordinary people who mainly rely on agriculture and animal husbandry to survive.

For Roland, after determining his location, he began to look for a portal he had used before. He and Jack used that portal when they returned to New York from the Dark Tower world, but he seldom came here after that. Now that he wanted to connect with Jimmy's portal, he must choose a hidden and safe portal. In his impression, that portal happened to be of this type, right inside a ruin, and there was a village outside, so it was convenient for supplies.

However, the area of ​​the Dark Tower world was not small. Even if he knew the approximate location, it would take several months to get there from here. There was no other way. This world was completely different from Earth. Even the means of transportation were very primitive, walking or riding horses. There were no motor vehicles or airplanes. In addition, the desolate world and the small number of settlements meant that he could not travel quickly in many cases.

In fact, there is another very important reason. Because the world is in decline, various monsters in the darkness outside the world will come to the Dark Tower world from time to time. As the last gunslinger, Roland has the responsibility to solve these problems and protect this world, which will inevitably slow down his action speed.

Since the death of the Man in Black, Walter Padrick, there is no one left who intends to destroy the Dark Tower and plunge the world into a state of monster infestation.

Walter, the most powerful wizard at the time, was the one who caused the collective death of the gunslinger group. Only Roland survived because he had absorbed a Merlin rainbow, which made the black man Walter's magic ineffective on Roland himself, and Roland has been pursuing Walter ever since.

Jack appeared in the Dark Tower world later. After he met Roland, he stayed in this world for a while and learned information about Roland's mortal enemy Walter.

Walter once used a child with the ability of the Shining to activate the ancient weapons and bombard the Dark Tower. When the Dark Tower was attacked, earthquakes or other disasters occurred in many worlds. Although Walter was killed by Roland in the end, those attacks did cause considerable damage. Many weak areas appeared in the Dark Tower world, and monsters and demons were able to enter this world. His actions undoubtedly accelerated the decline of this world.

As the center of the world, the Dark Tower's existence represents the stability of multiple worlds, and one of the gunslinger's responsibilities is to protect the Dark Tower.

A few months later, Roland finally found his goal, but when he arrived at the ruins, he found that it was completely deserted.

The village that used to be below the ruins has now been completely abandoned. The place that was once bustling with people is now overgrown with weeds and the houses are dilapidated. Many houses have been burned down. This is because the distances between the houses here are relatively large, otherwise they would have been burned down one by one.

Many decomposed and dried skeletons can be seen on the ground and in the houses. Judging from the number, almost all the people in the village should have died. No one has collected the bodies since then. It can be seen that there has been no sign of human life here for many years.

Roland had a grim expression on his face. It was here that he and Jack received an interpretation from a psychic and understood Walter's location. It was also the people here who turned on the generator to charge the portal so that he and Jack could return to New York.

It was just that at that time, because Walter's men attacked the village, they just killed those people and left immediately without waiting for them to recover. Now, it is obvious that this place was attacked after Roland and his men left, and according to the character of the man in black, Walter, he must have killed everyone here.

Roland continued walking towards the ruins and soon came to the portal they had used. The display on the controller did not light up, and the generator outside was not working, so there was no energy.

Roland looked around and confirmed that there were no corpses or skeletons near the portal. It seemed that they had closed the portal when Walter came and were all concentrated in the village to clean up the mess. This also happened to allow this portal to escape the fate of being destroyed by Walter. His luck was pretty good.

After leaving the ruins, he looked at the village below and could not help but stand there in a daze. After all, he and Jack were able to return to New York thanks to their help in activating the portal, and they were massacred by Walter largely because of Roland and his men. Now it was somewhat inhumane to leave the corpses of these people exposed on the ground and in the house.

However, there were quite a lot of dead people here, and Roland had no way to bury them. It was definitely unrealistic for him to dig so many graves by himself, so he could only choose cremation.

After returning to the ruins, he packed up a temporary place to live and put his luggage in place. During this time, Roland checked the generator. He was not very familiar with these mechanical items, but he had spent more than ten years on Earth in the past few years and had some understanding of them. After all, he needed to do a lot of things by himself, so even if he didn't understand, he still roughly understood how to start the generator.

It had been too long, so Roland opened the fuel tank and looked around. He found some spare fuel and felt relieved. It would be troublesome if he couldn't start the charging. However, it was not the time to try to start the generator yet. He had to deal with the corpses scattered around the village first.

Roland gathered up a large pile of firewood, dug out some oil from the house, lit a torch and threw it over. Soon a big fire started and soon a thick smoke rose. Roland stepped back a little and just looked at the burning fire in front of him, reminiscing about their first encounter.

The fire continued to burn until night. Roland would occasionally throw in some wood removed from the dilapidated house to ensure that it was completely burned. He did not return to the ruins to rest until the flames had died out and only some red-hot debris remained.

"Roland...my child..."

Roland was sleeping when he was suddenly awakened by a vague low shout. He pulled out a revolver with his right hand and quickly sat up. He looked around while panting, then stood up and walked towards the direction where the sound came from.

Leaving the ruins and looking forward, under the dim moonlight, a man in the village stood with his back to Roland. When Roland approached, the man turned around and looked at Roland. A black man with white hair faced Roland and stretched out his right hand, "Roland, my child, come with me."

"Bang bang..."

Roland fired all six bullets at the black man, who immediately turned into smoke and disappeared. A dark red barrier appeared in front of Roland, and there were many black shadows moving behind the dark red barrier.

Roland took this opportunity to reload his revolver and pointed it at the barrier again, waiting for the other party to come out.

Roland had encountered this kind of scene many times. The phantom demons from outside the world would transform into the person everyone wanted to see the most, and use desire to guide the person they targeted to be killed by them while they were unconscious.

Roland knew very well that the father in front of him was just an illusion created by the other party, so he paused for a moment and immediately killed the other party's illusion. When the other party came out of the barrier, he continued to shoot and repel them.

The phantom demons did not just appear once, they also used Roland's own spirit to construct Roland's former friends. However, these illusions were not enough to make Roland fall into his own illusions and lose the ability to fight back. After repelling them several times in a row, he finally succeeded in killing the phantom demon. The dark red barrier collapsed and soon disappeared into the night sky.

Roland looked around again to make sure there were no other abnormalities, then turned back to the ruins to rest. However, he couldn't fall asleep for the time being.

The timing of the phantom demons' appearance was too coincidental. There had been no human habitation here for many years, and they couldn't have followed Roland here, otherwise Roland wouldn't have felt nothing at all. It was very likely that he had burned the corpses to attract them, but the reason was unclear.

The killing power of phantom demons is actually not great, but they are still very dangerous to people with serious mental flaws. If ordinary people cannot resist the influence of illusions, they can easily be ambushed and killed by them without any preparation. For someone as experienced as Roland, it is not a problem at all. It's just that every time Roland encounters them, it always reminds him of the past and makes him feel depressed.

During the day, Roland cleaned the generator. There was not much fuel left. It looked like the generator would shut down completely after he used it a few times. No one would stop the generator after he got there. He could only wait until the fuel ran out. From this point of view, the fuel here might not even be enough for a few uses. So he would need to prepare some things to bring back when he returned to Earth.

Roland was neither a mechanic nor an expert in archaeology. To him, the operating mechanisms of these ancient relics and equipment were completely black boxes. Even after living on Earth for a long time, he still had not learned much knowledge about mechanics, and daily use was not a big problem for him.

However, he forgot one thing when he came back this time, which was to bring a video camera or a video camera to record the event and study it after returning to Earth. The main reason was that he had no idea in this regard at all. He thought there were people in this village, so he could use the people here to help open the portal like before. It was very convenient and he didn't have to do it himself.

After starting the generator, he came into the ruins. The previously connected lines here were still functional even after such a long time, and the display screen on the controller soon lit up.

After the device started up, a voice came, "Hello, traveler, please enter the destination coordinates."

Roland glanced at the number marked on the portal. This number was the target of his return. Previously in Jimmy's basement, he also wrote down the coordinate number of the device, but he did not tell Jimmy. If his test was unsuccessful, then there would be no point in writing down the coordinate number. If it was successful, then he would still have time to tell Jimmy about the situation.

After entering the coordinate number of the basement portal, the device prompt sounded again, "Keystone earth!"

Several indicator lights lit up on the wall in front of me, and the portal in the middle of the frame was activated directly. A flashing portal slowly changed from a wormhole-like form to a translucent light curtain. Opposite was a dark basement, and only the light of the portal illuminated the front part. "Earth, the portal is open!"

Roland pulled his clothes and bag, walked towards the portal, and passed through the light curtain to the other side.

A huge amount of energy will be generated when the portal is generated. The sundries and frames that Jimmy had placed in front of the portal wall were pushed aside by the impact of the portal. Some things were even torn and destroyed. It seems that the things covering the area near the portal must be carefully considered. If you just put something there, it will not be able to resist and will still be exposed.

Roland came to the wall where the controller was and took a look. The display was still on, which meant that the energy here had not been cut off. It seemed that everything was going well.

The monitor showed that the portal was open. Apparently, the portals on both sides were connected, forming a two-way transmission channel. After Roland clicked the close button, the portal energy was cut off and the wall returned to its previous state.

After the portal closed, the previously illuminated part fell into darkness again. He recalled the structure of the basement, slowly groped his way to find the stairs, and turned on the lights in the basement. Sure enough, the corner of the basement in front of him was a mess. Only the part in front of the portal was very clean. A small area was cleared away by the shock wave of the portal.

Arriving at the stairs, Roland pushed the secret door above, but it didn't budge. He put his ear to it and listened, but didn't hear any sound. It seemed that Jimmy and Nia were not at home. He could only sit on the stairs and wait for them to come back.

After all, this is Jimmy's new home. Roland can certainly destroy the secret door and go directly into the room, but doing so is a bit too disrespectful to Jimmy and the others. Anyway, he has nothing to do, so it doesn't matter if he waits in the basement for a while. When they dealt with the basement before, they deliberately prepared ventilation and dehumidification equipment for the basement, so there is no need to worry about suffocation due to lack of air.

It was a good opportunity to take a break. In the Dark Tower world, even sleeping was not a safe thing, but in this basement, at least he could be sure it was safe. Roland sat on the stairs, leaning against the wall, and soon fell asleep.

(End of this chapter)