Sword of Dawn

Page 378

Yuri couldn't help shaking his face when he heard Gawain's words, while Magnum next to him subconsciously looked around the vast and empty desert, frowning tightly: "This is really... Are you as good at scaring people as you are?"

"Just call me Gao Wen, it might help you relax," Gao Wen glanced at Magnum with a smile, and then walked towards the entrance of the city-state without waiting for the other party's answer, "Don't waste time, we only have" Ten days'."

Magnum and the others immediately followed, while Gawain quietly activated the settings deep in his consciousness as he walked, trying to communicate with the perception runes set beside him in the real world.

He vaguely felt those runes, and with the help of those runes, he sensed the existence of Amber and Tyr.

But the feeling was very, very weird, with a strange feeling of obscurity and sluggishness, as if observing an extremely slowed down world through a serious delay.

Is this the impact of "time iteration"...

Gao Wen was thoughtful.

Ten times the time iteration has already made me only vaguely perceive reality, and can hardly communicate with the real world. Then, under the previous thousand times or even higher magnification time iteration, the residents in the No. [-] sandbox obviously It is simply impossible to connect with the real world.

Even if there is occasional information interaction, they can only receive very weird, distorted and blurred reality information.

This sandbox is an isolated island...

With such emotion, Gao Wen stepped into the city-state surrounded by yellow sand with three temporary companions.

A series of khaki or off-white buildings stand on both sides of the street. Most of them have flat roofs and curved window frames. Colorful red or yellow curtains are hung between taller houses, spanning the Above the street, it was constantly dancing by the dry wind.

"This is a completely different style from the phantom town we saw before..." Magnum couldn't help but said.

Selina opened her mouth, and at the same time explained to Gawain: "The No. [-] sandbox is very large. In addition to the city-state of Nim Sandra located in the desert area, there is also the city of Glen Valley located in the forest area, and there is a city in the swamp. Fengxi City on the edge of the wetland has different city-states and kingdoms... This place has developed for thousands of years under the condition of accelerated time. Millions of virtual personalities thrive here, and the starting point of the civilization of the sandbox is set During the Iron Age, this was enough for the inhabitants to expand their 'world' to a great extent."

Gao Wen raised his eyebrows: "The starting point of civilization here is set in the Iron Age?"

"Yes," Selena nodded, "If it is set directly in the primitive era, it will take a long time for the sandbox to develop a real civilization, and there will be too much uncertainty in the middle, even if you use time iteration To speed up, the whole experiment process will be very long, so we set a set of basic data for each sandbox, which includes a complete history from the primitive age to the Iron Age, as well as archaeological discoveries that can be supported. This can allow virtual residents and physical residents in the sandbox to enter the stage of civilization deduction faster."

"...This is really a big project."

Selena seemed to hear some deep meaning from Gao Wen's tone, and couldn't help but feel curious: "Is there any problem?"

"No... I can't think of any problems for now," Gao Wen shook his head, "I just admire your patience and perseverance in compiling this set of things."

Selena wasn't sure whether it was a real compliment or a sarcasm, but just when she was about to say something again, a building appeared in her sight and interrupted her next words in advance.

A building that is obviously taller and more magnificent than the surrounding buildings, surrounded by dozens of pale gold sculptural columns and stone statues, appears at the end of the street covered in yellow sand.

"Is that a temple?" Gawain asked casually looking into the distance.

"It is consistent with the outline of the building reported by the exploration team," Yuri nodded. "It should be the city-state temple of Nim Sandro."

Gao Wen was thoughtful: "It has a completely different style from the church in the phantom town."

"But it is the same 'god' that is enshrined inside."

Selina said softly.

Believe in the same god...but due to differences in regional culture, temples with different styles have been built.

This once again made Gao Wen realize the power of the "simulation" of this No. [-] sandbox, and how the civilization in the sandbox develops step by step.

While thinking about it, they had already come to the vicinity of the temple.

At the entrance of the temple facing the street, Gawain saw the familiar relief carved on a huge stone, standing on the square in front of the temple:

A gigantic hand covering the symbolic earth—the hallmark of the Upper Storyteller.

Gawain glanced at the relief that symbolizes the upper narrator, and stepped over the boulder, preparing to enter the temple.

But at the gate of the temple, his footsteps stopped suddenly.

His eyes were fixed on a stone pillar at the entrance of the temple.

On the surface of the stone pillar, there is a line of text engraved impressively. The lines of the text are deep, but the handwriting is messy and distorted. The depth of each line of strokes is dark red as if soaked in blood. Infinite despair and madness, it has only one sentence——

God is dead.

Chapter 0808 The God Is Dead

God is dead.

Gao Wen stared at the words engraved on the stone for a long time, and he seemed calm because he didn't know how to react for a moment. Behind him, Yuri and the other three also approached, and those distorted dark red marks reflected caught everyone's eyes.

"...All the ancestors of my family..." Magnum's eyes widened, "What does this mean?"

Gao Wen finally recovered from the shock at the beginning. Although he was stunned for a moment when he saw such a profane sentence at the temple gate, he still kept in mind that in the No. [-] sandbox, nothing should be trusted or made lightly. For the rules of any conclusion, the first thing to do at this time is to ask Selina for more information: "Didn't the last group of explorers see this sentence in this city?"

"No, I'm sure," Selena said immediately, "Although the last batch of exploration teams hadn't had time to explore the interior of the buildings in the city, they had already searched the entrance of this temple. If they really saw It is impossible not to report this sentence.”

"The gods are dead..." Yuri muttered to himself, "This sandbox world was empty when we explored last time. Who left this sentence?"

"Think of Phantom Town," Magnum muttered, "empty of people . . . maybe we just can't see them."

"We should search this temple, what do you think?" Selina said, turning her gaze to Gao Wen—even though she and the other two archbishops are "professionals" in the No. [-] sandbox, their specific actions are different. They must listen to Gao Wen's opinion. After all, what they have to face may be a god. In this regard, the "outsider wanderer" is the real expert.

Gawain knew what the Eternal Sleepers thought of him. In fact, he didn't think he was a professional against gods—this field was too high-end after all, and he really couldn't think of any kind of person who could give guidance on killing gods. , but after all, he has been in contact with many gods and secrets, and has also participated in the siege and cooking operations against the God of Nature (folk high imitation version). At least in terms of self-confidence, he is much stronger than ordinary people.

Of course, if you add the theoretical knowledge gained from communicating with Veronica and Kamel on weekdays, plus the experience you have accumulated after studying ancient classics and the collections of the Holy Light Sect, he is also really good at the field of theology and anti-god. Call it an expert.

"Search the temple," he said with a nod, "Religious places are the 'channels' through which gods influence the world, and they can often in turn reveal the nature and state of the corresponding gods.

"But remember to be vigilant, and speak out immediately after seeing an abnormal scene or hearing a suspicious voice. Here, don't trust your own mind too much."

The three archbishops nodded, and then walked together with Gao Wen towards the interior of the temple building with a strong desert style.

I don't know how long the temple has been abandoned, and the inside looks old and full of traces of time.

After a short corridor is the hall used for religious activities. The lights originally used to illuminate the hall have long been extinguished. The huge columns and the curtains hanging from the sky interweave layers of shadows in the hall. The sunlight from the narrow high windows shines into the room, and cuts bright "roads" between the shadows. It is the afternoon of the sandbox world, and the sunlight from the slant is not very strong, and it is more vivid. The whole interior space adds a mysterious and ancient charm.

Gao Wen casually turned his head and took a look. Through the narrow high window, he saw the sun in the sky. It was also a huge sun, with wood grain-like patterns faintly appearing on the brilliant corona, which was similar to the "sun" in the real world. It's normal.

Living on satellites orbiting gas giant planets, the Eternal Sleepers can't imagine what the suns of other planets look like. In this sandbox, they also set up a sun that is no different from the real world.

"This place has been abandoned for at least a few decades... maybe a century, but not longer," Yuri bent down beside a collapsed stone platform, rubbing his fingers against a severely weathered piece of stone that fell from the stone platform. Cloth, "otherwise these things would not have survived."

"But the words at the door seem to have been engraved not long ago." Magnum muttered, frowning.

Gao Wen watched Yuri's movements, and asked casually, "Will the things in the sandbox world be weathered and decayed like the real world?"

"Yes," Yuri stood up, "and the weathered form and speed are similar to the real world. We directly refer to the reality of these detailed parameters. After all, it is almost impossible for mortals to rewrite a complete set of details. work."

"Alas," Gao Wen couldn't help but shook his head and sighed helplessly, "the real world can give birth to gods, so how could such a world that is highly similar to the real world not have similar religious phenomena?"

Selena, who was walking beside her, shook her head: "Before this, who knew that gods were 'born' instead of 'I AM'?"

The three archbishops were speechless and could only continue to check the clues in the temple in silence.

Magnum walked to the front of the hall, where there is a special circular high window, the light from the high window shines on the platform like a pulpit, and the slight dust particles are flying in the light, being visited here The uninvited guests disturbed the original trajectory.

Yuri came to Magnum and asked casually, "Are you sure you have removed the psychic storm from your subconscious?"

"Damn it, how many times do you have to confirm—of course I removed it!" Magnum stared, "Have I accidentally injured you many times with Psychic Storm? Why are you holding grudges so much?"

"...I even developed an exclusive resistance to Psychic Storm, what do you think?"

"...I—definitely—removed! Absolutely, removed!" Magnum reiterated every single word, while still looking at the pulpit-like platform, suddenly, he glanced at the His eyes froze and fell on a corner of the ground, "...there are also here."

Yuri looked along the line of sight of the other party, only to see a line of crude inscriptions deeply imprinted on the stone slab, which was exactly the same as the temple entrance——

God is dead.

The two archbishops were silent for a moment before Magnum suddenly said, "Yuri, to be honest, do you believe what it says?"

"There is only one 'god' in the sandbox. If this sentence is true and the god is really dead, then we can go back and celebrate," Yuri said with a wry smile. The polluted and out-of-control sandbox has no sign of recovery, and seeing this god is dead at this time and place, I can only feel doubly weird and terrifying."

Magnum nodded in agreement: "Yes, no matter who left these terrible words here, his mind doesn't look normal..."

On the other side, Gao Wen and Selena were checking several rooms connected to the hall.

In a showroom located behind the side of the pulpit, which seemed to be specially used to store important items, they saw many things offered by believers, which were placed in square holes on the wall and kept in safekeeping.

Selina frowned slightly, looking at the exquisite gold and silver vessels, jewelry and jewelry: "The upper-level narrator is devoutly believed by the local people... These offerings are probably only a small part."

"It's a pity that these mundane things should have no meaning to a god." Gao Wen said casually, and then his eyes were attracted by a gorgeous and exquisite one-handed sword that was placed alone—the one-handed sword had no It is placed in the wall hole like an ordinary offering, but placed on a platform at the end of the room, surrounded by sigils for protection, and there seem to be words on the platform, which is very different.

Before Gao Wen came to the platform, he saw a line of text on it:

Balmora, most holy and great king, to my lord, the summer day of the year of the chamomile.

"It seems that a king dedicated it to the upper-level narrator..." Gawain looked at the line of text and said casually.

"King Balmora..." Selena also saw that line of text, and there was a hint of thought in her expression, "I seem to have some impressions."

"Oh?" Gawain raised his eyebrows. Originally he thought it was an insignificant name, but he felt something strange from Selina's expression, "What did this King Balmora do?"

"According to the data output by the log system, it is a virtual personality automatically generated by the sandbox," Selina said while thinking, "It was born as a slave of the city-state of Nim Sandro at the beginning, and then according to the system settings , gained freedom by fighting slaves, became one of the guards of the city-state, and was gradually promoted to the captain of the guard..."

"A guard who was born as a slave?" Gawain couldn't help being surprised, "Then how did he become a king?"

"Let me think about it...according to the time in the sandbox, it should be about 200 years before the loss of control. The city-state of Nim Sandro was covered by insects, the water source was polluted, the food harvest was exhausted, and locusts and black beetles ate most of the food. The aristocrats of the city-state fled to save food, and the king took his cronies and treasures to seek refuge in a nearby country. In the critical situation, the surviving people in the city-state decided to elect a new king—they could find a way to fight against the pests, Whoever finds a source of food and a new source of water is the new king.

"As you can imagine, this 'sandbox resident' named Balmora did these things - he found out the source of the pest outbreak, led the people in the city-state to find a new water source, and led the soldiers Catching up with some of the fugitive nobles, and taking back some of the food they took away... are all remarkable feats, even beyond our preset 'script', there has never been a 'virtual resident' who can do these things to promote history Big things like progression, things like that tend to be done with external input scripts...so I was impressed by that."

"Then what happened to this great king?" Gawain couldn't help asking curiously.

Selena seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying softly: "...deleted."

"deleted?"

"The script deviated too much. The sandbox believed that the system was at risk of imbalance, so it automatically corrected it. Balmora died suddenly in his prime, but he was actually deleted—of course, he was left in the history of No. [-] sandbox. I have gained my own reputation, at least this part of my reputation has not been reset."

Gawain didn't speak for a while, but just quietly looked at the sword placed on the platform, as if he was looking at a virtual personality born in a dream world and created by the system, watching him change from slave to soldier, from A soldier becomes a general, a general becomes a king, becomes a hero, and finally... is deleted.

Suddenly, he had a strange feeling about those sentient beings sinking and falling in the sandbox world.

His attention quickly returned to the temple belonging to the "Upper Narrator".

"Then, according to the clues here, the king of Balmora dedicated his sword to the gods," he said to Selina beside him, "that is to say, in the era when Balmora was active, the upper narrator The faith has already been born, and has even become the core belief of this Nim Sandro city-state."

Selena obviously thought of the same thing, her expression was thoughtful: "It seems... so."

"The sandbox system hadn't gone out of control at the time - you outside monitors knew nothing about the emergence and existence of this temple."

"Indeed."

Gao Wen raised his eyelids: "Why do you think this is?"

Selena thought about it, and said slowly: "Either... the upper-level narrator distorted time and history after the sandbox lost control, weaving a world process that did not exist in the sandbox world, or, the sandbox system lost control It happened earlier than we thought, and even the surveillance system has been deceiving us."

Gawain fell silent.

Either way, it's not good news.

If it is the first possibility, it means that the upper-level narrator has more serious erosion and control over the sandbox system than expected. He even has the ability to manipulate time and history in the sandbox world, which is beyond the simple spiritual pollution;

If it is the second possibility, it means that his pollution leaked earlier than everyone expected, which means that he has most likely left undetected hidden dangers in the real world that may erupt at any time...

In all fairness, Gao Wen would rather encounter the first situation.

Chapter 0809

The first day in the sandbox world was hurriedly spent exploring temples and cities.

The huge simulated sun in the sky was gradually approaching the horizon, and the brilliant rays of light cast the silhouette of the desert city-state Nim Sandro on the ground. Gawain came to a high platform near the temple, overlooking the deserted city condescendingly. , The long-abandoned city seems to be lost in thought.

The sound of footsteps came from behind, Gao Wen turned his head and saw Selena had come to his side.

"Tonight we will rest in an empty house near the temple," Selina said, "Do you think it's okay?"

"There's nothing wrong with it," Gao Wen said casually, "You guys understand the environment here, and you can arrange it yourself."

Selena opened her mouth, seemingly hesitant, and said after a few seconds: "Have you thought about how to deal with the upper-level narrator? For example...how to lure him out."

This is not only her question, but also something Yuri and Magnum want to ask but are afraid to ask.

So far, the upper-level narrator is still an invisible and intangible thing in their eyes. He exists, and his power and influence can be seen everywhere in the No. [-] sandbox. However, he has no entity exposed to everyone. Celine Na couldn't think of how to fight against such an enemy, and the wanderer from outside the territory...

She, Yuri, and Magnum observed the whole day, and did not see any active measures taken by the extraterrestrial rogues to search for or fight against the upper-level narrators. Just like them, Gawain was doing some investigations and collections throughout the day. Intelligence work, which made them a little suspicious——

Can these things they are doing really be used against that invisible "god"?

In the light of the sun that was gradually sinking, Gawain glanced at Selena and smiled: "I know what you are worried about.

“Frankly, having a faceless god hiding in such a vast sandbox world is a tricky situation for me, with no way to start, no way to start.

"So I'm waiting, waiting for the 'Upper Narrator' to show up."

"Wait for him to take the initiative to show up?" Selina opened her eyes slightly, "Do you think the upper-level narrator will take the initiative?"

"Yes, this is the opportunity he has been waiting for for a long time," Gawain said quite firmly, "We are the last springboard for him to get out of trouble, and our exploration of sandbox No. [-] is also the best opportunity he can seize. Considering this, the intrusion of us "uninvited guests" must have attracted His attention. According to what happened to the last batch of exploration teams, that god does not welcome outsiders very much, and He will at least make some kind of response—as long as it does If there is a response, we will have the opportunity to grasp the real power and find out its clues."