Mermaid Reef

The rain stopped.

The smoke rising from the embers of the ruins reflects the twilight of the morning sun.

The mist in the morning is like a ghost, wandering around.

Everything in the field of vision seemed to have turned gray, a bleak off-white.

Hans felt all the bones in his body clamoring for pain. He lowered his head in a daze, and found that he was dragging a broadsword in his hand, like his own weapon.

Why do you say like?

Because the sword was beyond recognition, the tip of the sword was broken, and both sides of the sword were covered with large and small gaps.

There is also a black-green suspicious slime on the crack, making a slight sizzling sound, and all the runes have been corroded.

This broadsword was Hans' adult gift. The gray cloaks of the order all had a similar weapon. Although Hans wanted the equipment of the order knights more, this weapon was forged by Uncle Andre himself. Hans cherished it very much.

How did it become like this?

Hans felt a sharp pain in his head.

Flames, screams, darkness, monsters...

A series of weird and changing scenes flashed through his mind. Hans dropped the broadsword and knelt on the ruins holding his head in pain.

The sweat and blood on his forehead mixed together and dripped slowly on the back of his hand.

Hans's wheezing of pain gradually lowered, and he regained consciousness.

Close contact with those pollution mutants still brought him a certain amount of mental damage, and he lost consciousness after hitting him, and finally——

Hans raised his head suddenly, his eyes fell on a raised shadow not far away.

That amputated limb was like the front paw of a wild wolf.

Hans felt that there was something wrong where he was stepping, and he pulled a few sickle-like corners from the garbage.

Gleaming scales in the morning mist, broken fangs, twisted limbs soaked in the green pool of water slowly corroding...

Hans: "..."

It turned out that he was surrounded by monster corpses!

wrong?When did he become so powerful?Can kill so many monsters?

Hans stood there blankly for a few minutes, when suddenly he heard a familiar voice calling his name.

—It was Andre's voice.

Hans hurriedly crawled out of the ruins with his hands and feet.

He didn't know, his action was like stretching out a hand from the "fortress crypt" built by the corpses of terrifying monsters, and then got out with difficulty. With the mud and blood all over his face, he looked like a new variants.

Andre's gray pupils shrank, and his face was distorted in pain. He was covered in injuries and bleeding profusely, and now he was dizzy and unable to stand upright.

Hans looked up and was almost frightened stupid, because the "pollution" in Andre's body also began to become unstable, and the color changed, as if trying to break through the shackles of the body.

"No, Uncle Andrey!"

Hans rushed to Andre in a few steps, but he didn't dare to touch it casually. He retracted his hands comically, then stretched them out again, turning around in a hurry.

Andre coughed up several mouthfuls of blood. He stared at Hans intently, and the breath on his body gradually calmed down, no longer chaotic and disorderly.

"I am fine."

"..."

"I forgot, you have eyes that can see the truth."

Andre sighed, he stroked his dirty and clumped hair, and said in a cold tone, "You have read the books of the religious order, you should know that all 'pollution' is irreversible, I haven't Good life."

Hans clenched his fists and said tremblingly, "If it wasn't for the bishop—"

"No! This is my fault!" Andre said blankly that he had trained an elder to lure the Kraken.

Hans was dumbfounded.

Andre looked at his badly injured arm, barely pulled off a cloth band, skillfully bandaged it with one hand, and then hung his arm around his neck. He looked at the ruins and said in a low mood: "I didn't expect it to become like this, The destruction of the cult is my responsibility..."

"wrong!"

Hans reacted fiercely, and he immediately said the information he heard in the dream.

Because he was facing Andre, he didn't mean to hide it at all. He said it angrily when he heard the high-level members of the religious order denounce each other.

Some of the top leaders of the religious order are greedy for money, some are greedy for power, they secretly approach the big figures of various forces, and even want to intervene in wars in certain areas (to find suitable sacrifices).

Pastor Conor can use "health and longevity" as a bait to make old Brandon throw money desperately to support the expedition team. Wouldn't the senior leaders of the church not know this method?Not only do they know how, but they are also more stingy than Priest Conor. They are only willing to give a little bit of benefits. It looks like the effect of an ancient secret recipe, and it will never involve the real world and evil gods.

This is both unobtrusive and safe.

But the desire is always endless, maybe the bishops and elders will be smart enough to grasp the speed inside, but it's hard to talk about guys like knight commanders.

While evaluating his colleagues indifferently in his heart, Andre stared at Hans and said, "If it's making money, I'm doing it too."

"That's different!" Hans retorted immediately.

He also "saw" Andre's disgraceful things, that is, smuggling and smuggling. With so many mouths to eat, it is impossible not to touch anything in your hands.

"You are for everyone in the sect, and they all find it troublesome, cumbersome and tiring..."

Hans suddenly paused in the middle of speaking, and he saw Andre's sharper gaze.

Hans realized something was wrong, he was being tricked.

——Andre was not sure whether Hans said the secrets of the sect were true or not. After all, he had never heard of many things, so Andre used himself as an example to easily deceive Hans to refute for him.

"Where did you know these things? In just a few days, you suddenly knew the secrets of the top leaders of the church?" Andre felt that Hans had changed his mind.

A low-level religious group who prays to God every day suddenly grasps the secrets that the religious group cannot reveal, and has insight into the reality of the world. Could it be that the pair of rose pupils are so powerful that they can see through people's hearts?

Andre's question made Hans break out in a cold sweat. He was desperately trying to think of an excuse when a voice suddenly sounded in his ear.

"Da da."

The footsteps made Hans' heart skip a beat.

He saw at the end of the misty ruins, Jason's shadow staying in an alley.

The narrow and dark alley was like a huge mouth opened by a monster, or like a spider's web, waiting for its prey.

Hans gritted his teeth secretly, he managed to maintain his composure, and raised his head to ask Andre: "Did you see anyone else on the road? My mother..."

"They are doing well."

On the way here, Andre found people unconscious on the river boat. He even counted them and checked them one by one. There were not many of them.

Hans breathed a sigh of relief. He said he was going to find a doctor to treat Andre's injury, so he walked towards that alley.

"stop!"

"What else is there, Uncle Andre..."

"Are you going to meet those two evil gods?"

"what?"

Hans turned his head in horror, pulling the wound on his shoulder with too much force, causing him to break out in a cold sweat.

The street was far away, covered by collapsed houses and fog. Hans looked at Andre's hand in surprise, thinking that Andre had used a rose pupil lens, because Hans left the wooden box behind his mother. around.

But Andrey's hand was empty.

He was like his nickname, Gray Owl, who could detect any abnormalities. Hans felt an invisible pressure when he looked at these eyes.

"me……"

Andre looked at Hans who was covered in cold sweat and couldn't speak a complete sentence, and withdrew his aura of interrogating the prisoner, and said in a deep voice: "After I woke up last night, I saw the fire and the monster, and it was still in the direction of the pier ..."

That kind of fear made Andre's whole body icy cold. He dragged his scarred body to this place in spite of everything, and then he saw an incredible scene.

"You're attacking the mutants."

With a broadsword in his hand and a door panel as a shield in the other, he rushed towards the monster.

Andre almost mutated on the spot—other than mutation, he really couldn't think of a way to save Hans from several monsters.

As a result, the more Andre looked, the more something was wrong. Hans could hit the monster's weak point every time he attacked, and it could be said that it was thanks to the "eyes", but none of the monster's fatal attacks could hit Hans, even the poisonous saliva. Not a single drop got on Hans, is this a joke?

Andre thumped his forehead twice, and then looked at the scene of Hans' red eyes, losing his mind and slashing wildly.

It was a tough cut, but really only the monster was hurting.

"...Then I found someone on that roof." Andre pointed with a blank expression.

Hans raised his head subconsciously and found that it was facing the ruins. It was an excellent place to watch the battle from the perspective of height and distance.

A strange sense of powerlessness welled up.

Hans looked at Andre, and the latter seemed to have a similar expression. Obviously, he had never thought that the evil god would be so boring in his life, sitting on the roof and watching humans fight against mutants.

"How do you know their... identities..." Hans asked weakly.

Andre was silent for a minute, then said slowly: "Haven't you ever thought that you can't beat so many mutants at all? You always have only one opponent in front of you, at most two, and the extra mutants want to attack you Impossible, they were pressed to the ground by an invisible force."

Hans: "..."

"When you cut down a mutant, you will make up for it." Andre's eyes were strange.

Hans felt that he wanted to dig a hole to hide in now, or the monster corpse pit just now was fine.

Andre said in a deep voice: "You don't know the horror of mutants at all, no, you have never seen real mutants at all, you have only seen ordinary people who accidentally touched pollution, and the monsters they turned into Like mud, it has no fighting power and no reason, so it is easy to deal with, but the real mutant has part of the power of the evil god, because..."

"Because you stole the power of the evil god."

The sudden sound made Andre and Hans startled at the same time, they turned around quickly, one touched the weapon and the other clenched their fists.

Gemil stroked the silver mask on his face and looked at the two humans whose movements suddenly stopped.

Gemil was a little dissatisfied, Jason was waiting there, and Hans had dragged on for so long.

"You should remember your promise."

"I'll do it." Hans straightened his back.

For the sake of those who are still alive in the cult, he can only obey the mercy of the evil god.

Andre stopped in front of Hans, and he asked in a low voice: "I don't know what you two want? The order is gone..."

"No, the pupil of the rose still exists, and this sect will recover soon, as long as the human technology of making glass is still there."

Gemil's words made Andre's pupils shrink. He wanted to urge Hans to escape, but he felt his whole body stiffen, as if he had been petrified.

"Remember our entrustment, don't default on the evil god's debt." Gemil's words had another meaning, he looked at Andre and said, "All the things that are 'borrowed' need to be repaid twice."

——If the evil god whose power was stolen wakes up, the evil god will definitely come to the door.

It's like Jason looking for Reverend Conor.

"Andre won't live long. On that day, you may need to kill him yourself to prevent his mutation." Gemil disappeared after finishing speaking.

Hans grabbed Andre's arm in horror, and Andre looked at him calmly and said: "All the people in the order who have accepted the 'pollution' are like this, even if nothing happens, at the end of life At that moment, they will all mutate into monsters, so for Venice, for this world...you need to kill me with your own hands, and then completely destroy the body. This is also the duty of the former bishop, to let the souls of knights who "sacrificed themselves to protect the order" rest in peace. "

"I……"

"Leave Venice and take our people with you... I have known for a long time that you cannot become a high-level leader of the religious order, and I have not trained you to develop in that direction. Your heart is too soft, let you kill an innocent person and be polluted Ordinary people, you will definitely not be able to do it. If you see the source of misfortune, you will even have mercy on the evil gods..."

Hans said with a pale face: "Uncle Andre, I will work hard to restore the order and get rid of these shortcomings."

"No, those are not shortcomings, you don't need to change." Andre lowered his eyes, pointed at the monster's corpse not far away and said, "Are you willing to become like that?"

"In order to protect the order, I am willing to gain strength and endure pain." Hans said without hesitation.

"But others can't." Andre said mercilessly, "The church will be reborn from the ashes and ruins, and in a few decades, you and I will all die, and the church will once again become what it is today. It’s something that no one’s will can reverse.”

Hans: "..."

"Leave when everything is over. I will become a bishop, and then I will train someone who can kill me, and that person is not you." Andre pushed Hans' shoulder and motioned him to move forward.

Go on another path in life.