Shadow of the Beautiful World

Strange felt that he had made a wrong solution.

He really shouldn't have walked into this garbage dump.

It wasn't that the weird, rotten smell of the place offended him, it was the guys who gathered here.

No matter from appearance or demeanor, they are very, very abnormal.

The old man who welcomed him into this tavern at the beginning has been eroded by the weird power that permeates the whole world. He is no different from a monster, but this is almost the guy who is most like a normal person among them.

Beside Strange, who was fidgeting a little, sat a guy who was drinking heavily.

The way it drinks is peculiar.

Instead of mouthing, the wine is poured directly onto the warty head like water, and the disgusting, honeycomb holes in the head absorb the liquid.

It still barely maintains its human form, but its facial features are missing, like a severely burned monster.

It also does not have hands and feet in the traditional sense. Instead, it has degenerated limbs and tentacles that have not yet turned into flesh and blood, but it can be seen from the eel-like suckers on its skin.

Maybe soon, this guy will lose the last bit of sanity and completely transform into something like a monster wandering in the city.

And in the whole tavern, there are guys like this everywhere.

The wild mage had read cases similar to these guys in the collection of books in the mysterious house.

From the old man wiping his wine glass with difficulty, it can be seen that these drinking monsters should have been humans living in this world, or humanoid life forms.

As for those dissimilated organs, they are the dissimilation of life formed after being highly infected by chaotic forces.

All the monsters wandering in the city outside should have been real intelligent life.

This made Strange feel a little cold inside.

He had only read such stories in the magic books that recorded the stories of the myriad worlds. When the dimensional barriers of a world collapsed, it was invaded by alien creatures and changed by abnormal energy erosion.

Those stories seemed horrific, but Strange had always felt that those things were far enough away from him.

And now, he saw it with his own eyes.

boom

A glass of cloudy liquid with strange fluff was placed on the black wooden table in front of Strange's eyes.

This interrupted Strange's thinking.

Come on, stranger, have a drink.

The only old man in the tavern who still maintained his human form looked at the wild mage with a smile.

Although he could feel a little kindness, the face covered with black horns and the eyeballs protruding from the shoulders made the old man's smile look even more terrifying.

Strange moved his body a little uneasy, of course he would not drink the glass of wine blindly.

He held the wine glass in his fingers, looked at the old man in front of him, and said:

How long have you been like this?

Um?

This question made the old man blink his eyes in surprise.

There was a strange gleam in his cloudy eyes, and he put down the rag in his hand, stared at Strange for a few seconds, and said:

You're not from this world. Take off your hood and let me see your face.

Why?

The wild mage asked.

The old man let out a weird laugh, like a night owl, he said:

Look at our world. After the barriers were broken more than ten years ago, we have seen a lot of people from 'outside'. You are not the first, but maybe the last. You have also seen that this world is about to It's over.

The noise is getting more intense every night, it is rolling in the already riddled nightmare, it doesn't want to wait anymore, it will soon swallow the last residue of this world

The old man said in a hoarse voice:

Do you understand? We are the last residue, its last meal.

After the last meal, there will be no more light in this world. Outlander, I don't know what purpose you have jumped into this hell, and I don't care.

But if you want to know more from me, let me see your face.

Facing this weird request, Strange hesitated for a moment, then pulled up his hood to reveal his face.

At this moment, the old man standing in front of him widened his eyes.

He looked at Strange's face with standard facial features, hair, and normal contours, as if he saw the most beautiful and precious treasure.

He opened his mouth slightly, and his body trembled slightly.

He raised his hand, trembling in the movement of his fingers covered with fine scales, as if he wanted to touch Strange's cheek.

But before touching the wild mage's skin, he withdrew his hand abruptly, as if scalded by a flame.

He breathed heavily, trying to stay calm.

But the other monsters also noticed this scene, and they were not as restrained as the old man.

They roared, like a riot in a tavern, they rushed from all over, making all kinds of roars, it seemed that they wanted to hug Strange, but more like they wanted to tear Strange apart !

Jealousy, anger.

Uncontrollable emotions hit their minds, setting off endless malice.

Strange held the crystal wand in one hand and the icy Proxima Trident in the other. Billy, who was hiding outside the door, also saw this scene, and he also clenched the wand in his hand, ready to support at any time.

boom

A loud bang sounded in the tavern.

The old man slammed his fist on the black wooden bar, and he yelled at the out-of-control monsters:

Go back! You idiot, those things don't belong to us anymore, even tearing him apart won't change the reality

Go and drink your swill!

This skinny old man seems to be very majestic in this tavern. Under his scolding, the monsters who have lost their shape are like a herd of beasts ordered by the beast king, with strong unwilling and vicious gazes, just like that. Little by little he retreated.

Strange really had a murderous intention in his heart at that moment just now.

These monsters look terrifying, but they are actually not powerful. They are similar to those alienated ghouls wandering in the city.

For spellcasters, their most powerful weapon may be the spiritual pollution brought about by that terrifying appearance.

Chaos energy changed them, but didn't make them stronger.

What happened to them?

Strange asked.

They're envious of you, stranger, and envy is a terrible sin that prompts others to do terrible things.

The old man with his head down picked up the rag again and began to wipe the dirty wine glasses. He said in a low, slightly distraught tone:

It's not just them, I'm also jealous of your appearance, ah, handsome, energetic young man, I was just like you before I became this ghost.

He gave a strange laugh and said:

As handsome as you, as attractive as you, but look, look what the hell I've become.

I advise you to leave quickly, outsider, you may have strange powers, but believe me, this world is not tolerant enough for you.

The old man raised his finger and pointed at his face with his black, slender, uneven nails. He showed a terrifying smile to Strange, and said:

Those things that changed us are also changing you silently, changing from the inside out. By the time you react, it will be too late!

This sentence, which seemed to be a warning, made Strange startled.

To make matters worse, I don't know if it was a psychological illusion. After the old man finished speaking, Strange suddenly felt his skin itchy.

It was as if the energy all over this world was changing him silently just like changing this world.

No wonder the mentor didn't set a time limit for the scramble

Strange scratched his swollen arm, looked at the scraped skin on his fingers, and muttered:

There is no need to specify a time at all, as long as you stay here long enough, you will be automatically out.

He took a deep breath, raised his head, no longer concealed anything, and asked directly:

So, old man, what happened in this world ten years ago?

Don't you have eyes yourself?

The old man was impatient with the question. He snorted and said to Strange:

Cursed flesh and blood polluted this world, and they fell from the sky like meteorites, bringing disaster to this world.

At the beginning, our civilization wanted to study their power that never sleeps and never dies, but their derivation speed is much faster than we thought.

On the seventh day after the day of the curse, the first suffering city was engulfed by activated flesh and blood overnight, and the entire city and its 400,000 people evaporated overnight.

The old man chuckled and said:

We also went to see that at the dawn of that day, there was only a flesh and blood monster full of fangs and barbs left in the original city.

It devours life and hope, breathing more despair into the air of the world.

15 days after the disaster day, the most prosperous country in the world perished; 3 months later, the Eastern Continent fell, and we tried our best to transfer everyone to the Western Continent, which is the land under your feet. We abandoned Our hometown.

We lost everything, but it was not willing to let us go. Year after year, it started to take over the world, the oceans were polluted, and countless lives were either extinct or became part of it.

We originally wanted to fight back, with fire, with metal, with all kinds of things we could find, we were going to burn the creep, we were going to burn the flesh, we were doing everything we could to try to stop it.

Pointing to the fallen creatures in the tavern, he said:

This is the end of our counterattack. There are only these last few cities left in this world. Tens of thousands of people are still alive, but they are only alive. If you think that they can be called 'alive' if.

'Who is that?

Strange was playing with his wine glass, and he asked:

You keep saying 'it', the flesh and blood stained with the power of chaos? Is it conscious?

If there is no consciousness, how can it devour the world?

The old man said dispiritedly:

The flesh and blood exposed to the ground looks evil, but that's just the tool it uses to engulf the world. What's really evil is its own will. If you want to see it, go to sleep.

Just sleep anywhere and you'll see it.

But I advise you not to do this. The alienation of the body is just an appearance. Once the will is destroyed, there is no way to save it. Once it sees you, then you are finished.

Strange got another key piece of information.

In this world infested by chaos, there is absolutely no way to sleep!

It seems that the face of the evil spirit that swallows the world can be foreseen in sleep, and that action will undoubtedly destroy the spirit.

But he was a little disappointed.

Because he couldn't find the information he wanted to find, the civilization of this world seemed to be finished. From the old man's words, he could guess that this world was different from the real world.

It has no superheroes to appear in times of crisis, and its technology is not advanced enough to resist the cursed flesh and blood from outside.

The worst thing is that this world does not have a supreme mage who can maintain the balance of dimensions to resist disaster for these innocent people.

This world is not as lucky as Earth.

From the old man's desperate words, he could sense that people in this world had given up hope of saving themselves and could only silently wait for the end to come.

And that time is not too far away.

So, for Strange, it seems that there is no other way to go except to join the battle with other people.

You said that you were trying to fight against those cursed flesh and blood for a while.

Strange suddenly remembered a detail, he looked at the old man in front of him, and said:

Have you never won once? If according to what you said before, the spread of those cursed flesh and blood is so fast, you can't last more than ten years. There is something hidden in it, right?

Well

This question from the wild mage made the old man hesitate.

Under Strange's gaze, he finally spoke:

If you want to win, yes, there was one time

Strange's eyes widened instantly, and Billy Batson, who was hiding outside the door and eavesdropping, also pricked up his ears.

Both guys felt that key information about this battlefield world was about to be revealed.