Twilight War

Chapter 21 The Prayer

Believe it because it is absurd.

01

Gray mist flowed in the entire forest, and the leaves swayed slowly in the dead breath.

The road is full of decayed bricks and stones, collapsed houses.

"Is there anyone alive here?" Zichen said tremblingly, as if he didn't dare to disturb the dead town.

"I don't know, but even if the living are here, I'm afraid they won't be able to live like a living person." Xiwen leaned his body and walked through the branches that seemed to be half-dead.

There had been a plague outbreak in this town a few months ago, and then there was a large-scale outbreak of slavery.

And Zichen, Xiwen, Delko and several other Templars came this time to investigate this incident.

The few of them have been walking through the town in this forest for a long time, but they have never met a single person.

It's like the whole town is dead.

"What's going on here?" Zichen couldn't help asking.

"It should be related to the Golden Dawn." Xiwen picked up a golden cross hexagram badge from the weeds in the forest, which is the symbol of the Golden Dawn.

"Golden Dawn?" Zichen frowned.

"The Golden Dawn Society is a mystical association that has existed in the Western Continent for centuries. They believe in the tree of life and study various alchemy and astrology. The recent large-scale outbreaks of slave abstinence are all related to the Golden Dawn It will be related." Xiwen said to Zichen while checking the surrounding situation.

"We suspect that the Ringwraiths have taken control of the Golden Dawn, and through the initiation ceremony of the Golden Dawn, more people have become ring slaves."

"Why did they join the Golden Dawn?" Zichen followed behind Xiwen.

"Didn't you hear that a plague broke out here a few months ago? It must have been promised something. Once people really face death, they don't care about anything." Delco was a little impatient with Zichen, and walked to Xi Wen "When will we get to the end, I feel like we've been spinning around in this forest."

"The fog is so heavy that I can't see the road clearly. But it's only evening now. If someone lives in this town, they should light up the lights, but I haven't seen any lights after walking for so long."

Mercury arc lamps and arc lamps are already used in Asgard today, but candles and oil lamps should still be used in this remote town.

But they didn't see any lights along the way.

It's like everything is asleep...

The white skirt brushed over the dry trees, and someone was humming a medieval song softly.

Hearing singing, they immediately drew their swords out of the scabbard.

But the girl who came out of the woods with a basket in her hand just tilted her head when she saw them, "Who are you?"

Seeing that it was just a girl, Xiwen put away his sword.

"We got lost here." Xi Wen said, "Are you from this town?"

The girl nodded, "Do you need me to take you out?"

"No, we're going to that town. Can you take us there?" Xiwen asked.

"What are you guys doing in the town?" the girl asked puzzled.

"It is said that a plague broke out in this town, and we are here to investigate this plague incident." Delco said.

"No need, a doctor is already here." The girl tilted her head and smiled.

"Doctor?" Zichen frowned and asked.

"Yes, those doctors said they were members of the church, and they treated the sick in front of that small church every evening. They were strange, wearing black robes, wearing silver beak masks, holding with a black stick." The girl said as she walked.

Xiwen and the others followed behind the girl.

"Can they cure the plague? There are many plagues that even Asgard's doctors can't do anything about." Siwen asked.

"Yes, they can really cure it, but I always feel that those who are cured are not the same as before. Those plague doctors said that this is the sequelae of the disease, but I always feel that they are really strange. "The girl walked in front, and the wind in the forest blew over the girl's calf.

"Strange, you mean the cured people or those plague doctors."

"It's all very strange." The girl replied.

"Why haven't I seen anyone lighting a lamp? Shouldn't this be the time for dinner?" Zichen ran to the girl and asked.

"Everyone hasn't gotten up yet," the girl said.

"Huh? Didn't wake up? Shouldn't this be the time to go to bed?" Zichen asked.

"Hey, you're the only person who wants to go to bed so early." Delco said after him.

"Since everyone recovered from their illness, they have hated the sun more and more. Many people sleep in their rooms during the day and come out at night," the girl said.

"Is that so?" Zichen said.

He suddenly felt that the whole forest was strangely scary, and the gray mist flowed among the branches, quietly as if in another world.

"Well, but I still like to wander in the forest at this time, so I came out alone." The girl said.

"By the way, were you singing just now?" Zichen asked the girl.

"Well, I was thinking about something while singing."

"whats the matter?"

"It's a very strange question. If I say it, you will laugh at me." The girl said shyly.

"Then tell me first, maybe I will know the answer." Zichen said.

"Then I can say it."

"kindness."

"You say tigers and leopards eat rabbits, is it the fault of tigers or leopards, or the fault of rabbits?" The girl tilted her head and said, her white skirt skimming the weeds in the forest.

Zichen was stunned.

"You also think this question is very strange."

Zichen shook his head, "No, I just remembered a rabbit I had raised before."

He remembered that he had raised a rabbit a long time ago, when he was in Weichen Temple, he still remembered that the rabbit had white fluff, and he held the rabbit in his arms and followed his senior brothers behind.

The sky was blue that day, with a thin layer of snow falling.

And the rabbit stayed in his arms, very obedient and warm.

"What happened next?" the girl asked.

"Later, the rabbit ran away." Zichen said with his head down.

"Ah, that's it." The girl said apologetically.

"Why do you think such a strange question." Delco, who had been following behind them, said impatiently, "Of course it's the rabbit's fault that the tiger and leopard ate the rabbit."

"The strong become king and the weak eat. Isn't this the way it has always been in this world?" Delko broke off the branch in front of him and threw it on the ground before continuing to move forward.

"Wait! Why did you lead us out of the forest? We are going to the town." Xiwen said suddenly.

At the end of the fog-shrouded forest, dead rocks are piled up and overgrown with weeds.

They had walked out of the forest, and when they turned back the girl was just standing on the edge of the forest watching them.

"Get out of here." The girl said, "There is no one alive in this town anymore."

The girl's white skirt was blown away in the forest wind, like a white dandelion.

02

In the church in the center of the quiet town, the evening light shines through the broken skylight and falls on the dusty wooden floor.

The shattered statues of holy angels are piled up in the shrine of the church. The white statues are soft and clean, but broken.

The girl sat on the old bench, bowed her head and prayed quietly.

Long rose-colored hair hung down from the hood of the black cloak, and she lowered her eyes like a pious saint before a god.

And her hands were crossed on her chest, her left hand was white and soft, but her right hand was wearing a white glove.

"Does the queen of the underworld also pray to God?" A silver-haired man walked in through the half-open door of the church. He was wearing a white military uniform and looked at the praying girl.

"I just want to know how humans feel when they pray to God." Hull slowly opened those dark red eyes, which seemed to be full of pity.

"Feel it?" Vehipel asked.

"No, I still don't understand why human beings would want to pray to God." The girl said, "Don't you think it's ridiculous? Sit here and pray to a statue, and God will hear your wish, and then You wish. No one knows how long to pray, and no one knows when God will hear."

"Do you think it's ridiculous?"

"Yeah, of course it's absurd. Humans themselves create a god in their eyes, and then kneel in front of this god, begging this god to give them a gift. Don't humans themselves think it's ridiculous?"

Hull looked at the broken statue of the holy angel in the shrine, his rosy eyelashes trembling.

"Because of the absurdity, I believe it." Vehipel also looked at the fragments of the holy angel in the shrine. "After all, there are more people in this world who just want to live in ignorance than to get to the bottom of it."

The man's blue eyes are like the sky of Asgard, indifferent and cold.

"I can't figure out why, so I don't need to ask, just believe it." Wihipel said: "Don't think about anything, just kneel down and pray to this broken statue. I don't know how to pray How many times will it be useful, I don’t know when God will hear it, maybe next time I will be heard by God.”

"Is that why you prayed over and over again with such a mood?" Hull asked.

"Would a seriously ill person prefer to believe a doctor telling him that he has no cure and can only wait to die, or would he rather believe a pastor telling him that all he needs to do is pray and God will hear."

"So, is the god just selling hope?" Hull smiled, the girl's smile was slightly mocking but not annoying.

"Hope is inherently expensive," says Wischpelt. "It's good for a drowning man to hold on to a straw."

"But in the end he'll sink in the lake with the straw."

"But at least he grasped at straws, at least it's better than nothing."

"So it seems that we have a lot more conscience than God." Hull said: "When we came here, everyone thought they were going to die, and we told them that as long as they are willing to become slaves, they will can survive."

The twilight light moved slowly in the church, and someone outside the church was humming softly, the night was coming, and the town began to wake up.

"Compared to empty and endless prayers, isn't this kind of transaction with a clear price more conscientious? What you pay and what you get, everything is clearly written." The girl with long rose-colored hair slowly looked at Vehipel , that delicate face was illuminated by the moonlight, and half of the face gradually turned into a white skeleton.

When she turned her head back to hide in the darkness, she became a beautiful girl again.

"God gave them a straw, but we rescued them ashore." The girl looked down at the long table. The gray dust on the long table stained her cuffs, but she didn't seem to care.

She doesn't hate dust.

"But what you promised them was life, but what they really got was a life like a walking corpse." Wihipel looked at Hull in the half-light, "You deceived them."

"Isn't God also deceiving the world? We are already much better than God, just like all businessmen are black-hearted, and you can only choose one who is not so black-hearted." The girl said: "God and we are both Merchant, but what they sell is different."

"But they will no longer be able to enjoy human life, and they will become monsters who are neither human nor ghost." Wischpel said.

"So what? Everything is a living corpse." The girl stroked the dust on the table with her clean fingers, "I just let them live in a different way."

"It's better to die than such a life." Vehipel looked at the girl who was drawing pictures on the dust.

"Really? Isn't it good to live like this? But I didn't think there was anything good about their original way of life. You see, they tried their best but they still lived in such pain. They obviously worked hard, but it was still something Can't do it either."

"Besides, human beings don't actually hate death that much." The girl tilted her head, the slight moonlight shone on her right face, and a little white skeleton slowly emerged, "When I first came here, I saw a little boy , I said to him, the world will perish in half a month.”

"He lowered his head and thought about it, and then he said to me: Really? That's great." Hull tilted his head and thought about the boy again: "Look, they don't really hate death. If I told the boy I lied, and he probably would have been disappointed."

The girl continued: "Human beings are like this. While fearing death, they yearn for death at the same time."