Blade and Poetry

The situation couldn't have been worse.

Following the rules of the test, I didn't have a single extra piece of paper on me.

My first reaction was to run wildly in the direction corresponding to the pointer.Charon in his hand protected me from the oncoming first few stabs, but my back seemed to be hit by an electrified spell, and numbness and pain flooded into my bones immediately.I took advantage of the situation and rolled on the spot, but my mind became much clearer, and I realized that it is definitely not a long-term idea to rush forward.

"Is there really a so-called exit from this area?" I thought.

I definitely need a plan.For example, distribute my physical strength reasonably so that I will not fall down from exhaustion before I leave the crowd.But I was overwhelmed by the darkness, so I had to try my best to avoid getting hurt.

My blade collided with another blow, and I forced the long knife in the man's hand to fall backwards in the stalemate, but his body refused to retreat stubbornly, so I looked at the tip of his knife Staggered into his own throat.A large stream of bright red blood soon spewed out from the open wound.I got out of the way early, and the blood probably poured on the face of the attacker behind me.Taking advantage of this short interval, I used the tip of my right finger to pierce the skin of the arm holding the knife, and drew the "Rainbow Thorn" rune.

The dazzling light cone splits in all directions, and shoots towards the people around me.The neck of the man who was stabbed in the first place has drooped wrinkledly, and his dull round eyes are still fixed on me.A rainbow thorn pierced through his chest and abdomen, and it was fading from red to yellow, then green and purple.

I smelled the bloody smell that overshadowed the salty sea breeze, and I couldn't tell what it was like, so I grabbed the dead man's waist and swung it out.Several of the besiegers were knocked to the ground.They clutched their bloody places and howled in pain, for a moment they looked very human.

I knelt down on the ground, dipped the blood from my left arm, and drew a "black thorn array" under my feet.Taking the opportunity to breathe for a moment, he jumped up from the ground.

This is the first time I have really applied the formations I learned in fifth grade.It consumes a lot of mana to maintain it, but it has an advantage that most other formations can't match in this situation-it can move with the person who drew the formation.Every time I took a step, the black magic thorns grew wildly against my feet, blocking the sneak attack from behind me beyond the barrier of spikes.I finally didn't have to juggle all directions, so I concentrated on sorting out clues between the alternate use of spells and knives.

What will happen in the direction of "birth"?I don't believe it's a door that ultimately leads to the outside world.One or two days of testing time would not be spent fighting with this group of people - even the strongest swordsman could not last so long under such a dense siege.There should be some kind of turning point in that direction; it can allow people to escape from this unchanging flat land and dense crowds, and enter the next step.

I kicked the other person into the chest with my leg, and jumped up with the strength of the next step.At that moment, I was able to look over those black heads and get a glimpse of the true face of this place: this place is actually only as wide as one square, and all the heads are gathered on the half where I am, leaving the other half The bare land that no one cares about.Surrounded on three sides by the pale sea water, it beat against the shore again and again, showing an absurd treachery against the pinkish red bottom.The empty ground extends infinitely towards my direction, and a small column seems to stand on the horizon in the distance, with an unusual yellow light on the spire.

"By the way," a flash of inspiration flashed in my mind, "That's the direction the setting sun went before."

There is a lot of power rushing into my body.In order to speed up my pace, I fought even more desperately, and there were a few bloodstains on my arm.However, I don’t know if it’s my illusion, as the shape of the building began to take shape in front of my eyes, the movements of those people became more agile; as if they were aware of my intentions, they walked towards the small space where I was. The more and more intensive attacks came from here, and they were even more desperate to hinder my approach.

"This can't work," I chopped at a person's joints, my palms were covered with sweat.I seemed to be chopping too hard in my nervousness, and the knife sank deeply into the flesh and blood of that body, making my movements sluggish for a moment.In my hallucination, there was even the creaking sound of the blade being pulled from the bone. "There is at least a hundred steps away from that lighthouse-like place. Who knows how far they will be strengthened in the end?"

I brushed my hair back, but a strand of it quickly stuck to the corner of my eye, blurring my vision.

I thought bitterly: "It would be great if I could suddenly find a direct teleportation array."

This inadvertent thought stunned me.Thinking of the previous scene where the two sides of the land were clearly divided, a temporary plan came to my mind.

I took back the black thorn formation, and saved every drop of mana stingily, relying on the knife in my hand to parry the attacks of those desperadoes.I avoided all possible fatal injuries, and the rest did not hinder my actions.With the loss of blood, the magic power in my body gradually recovered to about one-third, so I found the right time to release another wave of rainbow thorns, and took the opportunity to draw a circular wall array on the ground-it is easy to build, but the disadvantage is the radius The bigger the wall, the more brittle it is.I watched as many people were forced against the transparent outer wall, their magnified faces pushed outward.I estimated my remaining magic power, stopped at the right time, and carefully drew a single teleportation array.

This formation requires extremely precise textures, and a single misalignment may cause terrible mistakes.I shifted my position during this short rest, and drew the last stroke of the teleportation array with steady hands, just at this moment the outer round wall also shattered.

The light under my feet brightened for a moment, then dimmed after a while.

"Until the second corresponding formation appears, a single teleportation formation is useless." A book I read once said so.

"Greetings to you." I wiped the blade on my pants, and slashed at the enemy who was counterattacking in front of me.

I put all my energy into my own defense process.Instead of rushing upwards, I walked sideways instead, so I didn't seem to irritate those people any further.I followed my memory of that glimpse, stumbling along the horizon.Until I make sure, I've moved to the other side of the land, with the relentless assailants.

I stopped—my feet almost yearned to grow on the ground—and squandered my accumulated magic power, doing the same tricks: rainbow thorns, round wall circles, teleportation circles.

I clearly remember that the next rule in that book is: "After the formation corresponding to the second pattern appears, the single teleportation formation will be transformed into a one-time one-way transmission formation."

I stood in the center of the teleportation array and chanted a spell.

I felt my body being torn apart by a magical force, as if being dragged far away by the wind in just a second.I opened my eyes, the surroundings were empty, and I had already returned to the other end of the land, the place where I first landed on the teleportation array.There is even half a piece of dried blood handprints on it - lightly and carefully printed outside the pattern, recording the story that happened half an hour ago.

The pursuers in the distance seemed to have a commotion, and then ran towards me in a rather resentful manner.

I held the handle of the knife tightly, couldn't help laughing, and rushed towards the lighthouse-like column with all my strength.

Those people were left far behind by me.The lighthouse continued to expand in my field of vision, but perhaps too much—I gradually realized that the land was roughly trapezoidal, and that the width of the building on the side facing me completely filled the entire short length of the trapezoid. side, making it impossible for people to go around on both sides.The yellow light on its spire is not a light, but a thin and large circle standing upright. It is unclear whether it is falling on the top of the building or hanging in the air, like a yellow paper sun.But what is most important to me right now is the construction itself - the building is like a tall solid column hewn out of stone, without any visible doors or windows.

I caressed the smooth gray wall of the tower with my hands, searched every part of the wall with my eyes, and finally admitted my discovery just now:

There was no way I could walk in, the road was dead.

It's not that I didn't try to go around the White Sea.I first tore off a piece of the tattered sleeve and threw it into the sea; when it was still floating on the water, it turned into ashes with a whimper.

I paced back and forth, looking for another opportunity.The ground beneath the building appears to have some unusual traces of magic.I tried to inject a drop of magic power into it, and then some magic lines interspersed with letters lit up, but the shape was not complete.I speculate that this should be a magic circle at the bottom of the tower, which has not been fully activated, and only the tip of the iceberg can be exposed.

Judging from the number of lit letters, this is obviously a large formation that is more complex and brilliant than the "name collection formation method".

It occurred to me that the letters hadn't been stuck in them for no purpose; every combination of three to seven letters happened to form a meaningful word.

"You...will...go...to..."

I tried to spell them out, and I couldn't help frowning when my eyes stopped at the dim other half of the magic circle.

If the magic circle is already half activated, what is the real activation condition?

New footsteps sounded densely behind me.I took a deep breath and turned around, not surprisingly, I saw pairs of eyes without pupils.They went from twenty steps away to within fifteen steps.In fact, I've thought about it for a long time, I may always encounter this moment, so I'm not unprepared.I put away the knife, pressed my right hand to the ground, and began to chant long spells.

The spell floated in the rolling waves, and it sounded like some kind of peaceful music.

I remembered that summer three years ago, I was standing in the hallway of the academy building, burning someone's sleeve with a rudimentary version of this spell, and then Karajan walked over and happened to see it.Of course, at that time, my nose was full of that kind of faint smoke—it complemented the afternoon in the college, and I never imagined that one day I would spontaneously crash into such a miserable situation.

There was a red line stretching straight from the land under my hand towards them, and when it was about to hit the crowd, it split sideways into two branches; Blast on.A few steps away from me instantly turned into a sea of ​​flames.

The heat was so hot that I couldn't keep my eyes open.I listened to the miserable howls not far away, and after confirming that no one escaped from the fire control spell for the time being, I turned my head slightly in the direction of the tower.

I suddenly felt that something was different, and I blinked hard in the bright firelight.This time it's not my illusion - the other half of the magic circle under the tower is already brightly lit, and the remaining letters and patterns spread from the incomplete part all the way, wrapping the entire bottom of the tower.

——The key to activate the magic circle turned out to be the number of deaths on this land; it was like some kind of sacrifice.

There was a loud bang, and the whole land was shaking and shaking at this moment, and a lot of dust rushed to my face unexpectedly at that moment.When I opened my eyes again, the towering tower in front of me had collapsed into a heap of rubble absurdly, and the paper sun was also broken into several pieces, distributed on the huge remnant made of gray stone.

I looked up at the pile of wreckage, climbed up the sharp corner of the stone, and sat at the top to rest for a while.The remaining power of the magic circle seems to be still there, and its bright color is fading, just like the sea of ​​flames in the distance that is gradually extinguished as the sea water emerges.

I stared at the remaining letters in the formation, and moved my lips to read silently.

"Where the sun sets you are going" - it said.