Atla uttered a series of low tones. Hitzfeld's scalp tingled when he heard this. "Snake?" Johnny's eyes widened. "What snake? What kind of snake?" "A pitch-black giant snake coiled in the gray fog..." The giant spider's voice was like a song and a tear: "It will be bigger and more terrible than any monster you have ever seen. It always clings to the biggest and most terrible tree, like its roots... absorbing those evils, those most filthy and most ethereal things..." "I see it waking up..." "Yes, it is about to wake up..." -------- Thanks to: Kerberos, Huahua is so cute, Caizhi puppet, He Maoli... the above readers' blades and rewards~ Thanks for your support~
Chapter 44: Ice Dust Disaster 7 Through Atla's description, Johnny seemed to see such a magnificent picture in front of his eyes - In the endless dark sky, a huge body, only part of its outline can be seen, is looming in the gray mist. Its body is both huge and sophisticated, like the roots of a giant tree entrenched there. But if you look closely, it is not the whole of the roots. It seems that some of the roots are really real... Then looking upwards along these roots, you can vaguely see a terrifying giant figure standing in the center. "Ah!" Johnny screamed, and fell out as if he was pushed. The oil lamp in his hand fell to the ground, and the whole corridor tunnel suddenly became much darker. "What's that noise?" The guard roared from the cave entrance more than ten meters away, "Who's there? Speak!" Johnny heard a sound of metal rubbing against each other. He resisted the urge to dizziness and crawled on the ground like a pangolin, barely dodging behind a fork in the road. "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Just as he hid inside, several deep pits appeared on the ice wall opposite him. He had to continue to stand up shakily and run for his life along the fork in the road. It could be a coincidence, or it could be luck. No one stopped him along the way. He successfully escaped to the outside of the mine, and used the sleds brought by Khadgar and Rude to escape down the mountain. Then, of course, he was wanted. The wanted poster described him as a "cultist", claiming that he had betrayed Sarah and the goddess of the mechanical yang and joined an evil sect that believed in spider monsters. People were asked not to believe anything that came out of "George Lister" and to report his whereabouts immediately if they saw him. This memory is pale and boring. Hitzfeld watched Johnny hide from place to place in the following years, repeatedly evading capture by the parish, and also noticed that Allwater's growth rate began to soar. Buildings made entirely of ice crystals appeared in the city, replacing those old and rigid stone fortresses. With this most rare and unique mineral, Orvot successfully signed agreements with several business alliances, exchanging additional mineral output for caravans to come to the North a certain number of times each year. Allwater's urban landscape was transformed and it quickly became prosperous. Not only that, the residents here have also become taller, healthier and more adapted to the northern climate over the years. These were all observed from Johnny's perspective, because no matter how much he hid, he always insisted on staying in the North and did not completely leave the Northern Diocese.
This is his home after all. It is where he was born and raised, and it is the place of memory that his existence as George Lister depends on. Hitzfeld is unable to comment on his mentality for the time being. If things continue to develop in this way, George Lister will either end his life in this tragic escape or be brought to justice by the increasingly powerful capture force. But something unexpected happened. It was a morning without any warning. The hero of the story led a skinny antler deer across 20 miles from the west of the Orwater Mountains, bypassing all eyes, just to take a look at his hometown. Of course, this might just be a side purpose. The more important reason is that he was being chased and had nowhere to go, so he took advantage of the "darkness under the lamp" mentality and returned to the base camp of the Northern Diocese... who knows, there might be a chance to escape. "Huh!" Johnny pulled the reins of the antler and tied the rope to a cedar trunk. He walked a few steps forward and stood on the edge of a steep cliff, looking down. What you see is a beautiful city rooted in the basin. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides and three rivers run through the city. The rulers did not waste this unique geographical advantage. Outside the only erected city wall is a vast icy lake, which can only be entered by crossing the lake via twelve stone bridges. What is most shocking is that not only the ordinary buildings in the city, but even the towering city walls are reflecting crystal light under the sunlight. "The North Star, the Ice Crystal Orvoth..." Murmuring the praises of it that had spread over the years, Johnny narrowed his eyes and stretched out a hand to grab it. How he wished he could return to his hometown in his dreams openly. But he knew that he would never have such an opportunity in his life. He definitely did not recognize the wanted order issued by Khadgar and others. Not only did he not recognize it, he also believed that Khadgar and Rude had betrayed the faith of mankind. "The rapid development of Orvot in recent years must be due to the fact that they stole a large amount of fruit from the Ice God Tree and exploited the entire spider monster group without restraint." He frowned slightly. According to Atla, this excessive...demand? is bound to bring about terrible disasters. But what kind of disaster was it? He doesn't understand. During the years of hiding, he had seen gray fog in his nightmares more than once, and saw a terrible giant snake in the gray fog. But what does all this have to do with the disaster at Allwater? Before Orvot signed agreements with many business alliances to open up trade channels, few merchants came here. Every local resident has the experience of going out hunting, and Johnny is no exception. So he was very familiar with the habits of those animals. In his opinion, snakes... no matter how big they were, they would hibernate when they arrived in the north. It is so cold here that during the Ice Moon the snow on the streets can be as deep as three meters. Could it be that the snake could break through the limitations of natural laws? Or…… It ate a lot of Ice God Fruit?
While thinking, Johnny suddenly felt the ground shaking. At first he didn't take it seriously. The mountains in Orwater were too big and too deep, so avalanches were common. He was at the southernmost end of the mountains, and there wasn't much snow on the road, so he wasn't worried about being affected. But as the shaking became more and more severe, he even witnessed with his own eyes a long and narrow crack appearing on the other side of the farthest mountain range...his face changed instantly. “What…what on earth is this…?” Click... Without giving him a chance to react, the crack expanded rapidly, circling the entire mountain from its starting point, looking like a pitch-black demonic snake. Then there were more violent tremors. All the mountains on the cracks collapsed towards the basin. Rumble… The fall of the mountain caused an earthquake, and the broken rocks released a large amount of dust. The snow flowed down the collapsed slope, and the white mist merged into the thick smoke. The whole process lasted only a few dozen seconds. The power of heaven and earth. Natural disaster. Just like that, it completely devoured the North Star and the Ice Crystal City. Chapter 45 The Second Tree "Just like that, Orvot, the North Star, the City of Miracles, the hometown that gave birth to me and nurtured me, completely disappeared from my life and from the cognition of others." In the dim tavern, only the old man's cracked lips were moving. "The dust obscured the sky, obscured everything. Even if someone could survive in such an environment, they would not live long. Rebuilding the city is meaningless. It is completely dead." No one speaks. Young men, mean women, burly men, and even the bartender stared at him. They dared not breathe, as if they were afraid of disturbing the chanting poem of destruction. Each of them imagined in their minds what a disaster that could destroy a city in an instant would look like. But no matter how wonderful a story is, it has an ending, just as life will smooth out a person's edges and make them no longer believe in the truth of the story. "Dang dang dang dang!" A series of metallic clanging sounds suddenly rang out, and the three people sitting in front of the table woke up instantly. They found that the bartender was knocking hard on the teacup with an iron spoon. "Stinky old man...I usually let you rest here out of pity for you, and sometimes I even give you a sip of wine to drink, so stop talking nonsense here!" The bartender looked angry and panicked. Of course, if the other person's words were spread out, especially if everyone knew that he had taken this person in, not to mention his job, his life might be in danger. The Northern Diocese intends to abandon its faith in the Goddess of the Sun and instead worship the new god behind the tree... Damn it, if this were true, how many people would be involved? Even those high and mighty people whom he dared not even look at or pronounce their names would be in trouble, let alone such a small bar? An ordinary bartender?
Seeing this, the burly man stood up, took out a dark gold bill and put it on the bar. "Just pretend you didn't hear or see what he just said, or what happened next." He stared at the bartender's face. "This will be good for you, too. Don't you think?" "Of course." The bartender glanced at the entrance to the corridor, confirming that no one was eavesdropping or peeping in the long space from the door to the corridor. He put down his finger on the banknote, slid it under the bar and grabbed it. "I will." The man nodded and sat back down. He first looked at the old man and then at the mean woman, and finally shook his head and sighed. He seemed dissatisfied with the results of the investigation. Hitzfeld observed his changes in expression along the way. Why? Aren’t they trying to find out the truth about the destruction of Orwater and then use it to shake the reputation of the Mechanical Sun Cult among the people? Just then, old Johnny also stood up. "Don't think too much, Johnny." The man also stood up. "I didn't give him money for that reason... Don't worry, we're not here to silence him." "So what do you want to do?" Old Johnny narrowed his eyes slightly and looked back and forth at the faces of the three people. "I can't protect my family, lover and friends, so I have lived a very miserable life. I have foreseen the scene of you struggling to find this place in my dreams more than once. To be honest, I am not surprised. Instead, this is a relief for me..." "We came to you simply because we don't want a piece of dusty history to be buried in vain." said the mean woman. She exhaled a puff of smoke and grinned slightly. "If you really had no hope for anything, we wouldn't have met you here. You know very well what this meeting is about, Mr. Lister, because you are still unwilling to give up." "Do you think I want revenge?" The old man sneered. "It's not something so superficial." The woman shook her head. "It's 'alert'." The old man was stunned. "Isn't it?" the woman continued, "You have used your life, and countless residents of the city of Orvot have paid the price with their lives to prove it. If there is no record left, if there are other people who encounter similar situations, how can they avoid disaster?" "This……" The old man frowned, and there was a faint flicker of fire in his eyes. "Who are you?" "Well... I can introduce it to you." The young man finally found an opportunity to speak. He straightened up and coughed very seriously, making sure to draw everyone's attention to his face. "I wonder if you've ever heard of... the Holy Fruit Society?" Ripples spread. All fragments of memory turned into fragments. Hitzfeld woke up again, and the scene before him had returned to the bookshelf corridor.
The first thing she did was to look at the original location where the fruit "Memoirs of Allwater: 1957" was stored. It was empty and no new fruits appeared. Squinting her eyes, she reached out to lift her skirt and took out a pocket watch from the inner pocket of a cloth strip tied to her left thigh. The pocket watch was connected to a thin chain, and the other end of the chain was hung on the lining of her skirt. He performed the movements very skillfully, without even looking down. She wanted to use the watch to confirm how much time it took her to "digest" the fruit.