Indie Games 30330

The scorching sun was hanging high at this moment, and the scorching air made people's lungs feel like fire.In such an extremely dry climate, even sweat is a luxury.

In front of them was a straight avenue running from north to south, the center was paved with white and rose-colored marble slabs, and the stone bricks on both sides were as red as blood.At the end of this central avenue is the magnificent temple with seven-color glazed bricks they saw earlier.

This time Cheng Mo saw clearly that the top floor of the temple was a special temple.The monochrome glazed tiles on the other floors are different. The temple on this floor is extremely luxurious in color, and a pure gold statue shines brightly in the scorching sun at noon.

"God Marduk [note 1]..." Xu Qing opened his eyes wide, "Is this Babylon?"

Qin Chuhe nodded: "Historical records show that ancient Babylon was surrounded by numerous walls, and the Euphrates River runs through the city from north to south. The main road in the city is paved with white and rose-colored stone slabs. ], where the golden statue of the god Marduk is enshrined."

"Some scholars also believe that this temple is the incarnation of the Tower of Babel [Note 3]." Qin Chuhe added, "According to the description in "Tanakh Genesis" [Note 4], people in the world originally talked about the same language, they came to Shinar after the great flood, that is, the area of ​​Babylon, and wanted to build a tower 'that could reach the sky' here."

"They said, come on, let us build a city and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, in order to make our name known, lest we be scattered all over the world[Note 5]." Qin Chuhe said, "But the Lord disturbed them language, so that they can no longer understand each other's meaning, so that the construction of the city and the tower stopped. This is the origin of the legend that human beings have different languages."

"But won't there be 'fish' in our level?" Zou Qingqing asked blankly, "The climate here is so dry, even if there are fish in the river, as long as we stay on the bank and don't go into the water, we should be fine."

"It's not that simple." Liu Xiao said calmly, "Did you realize that this is an empty city?"

Cheng Mo looked around carefully—the city was empty, and the stone bricks of the city wall were carved with simple lines such as the sun, the moon, a lion with wings, and a snake with a dragon's head.In addition, the huge city seems to be dead. There is no one on the wide streets, only the rushing river flowing continuously.

"Historically, the city of Babylon was located in a traffic fortress, and it was the commercial center of the entire region. In theory, there should be a lot of people." Liu Xiao frowned, "Take a look around, I don't feel very good."

The group of people did not walk towards the center of the city along the central holy road, but first followed a circle of small roads outside the city and approached the residential areas on the outskirts of the city.These houses are far less luxurious than the houses in the central area. They are just built of some bricks, and a layer of adobe is poured on the outside.There are some half-human and half-animal images on these houses, which seem to be some narrative paintings.But the adobe on the outer wall of the house was severely peeled off, and these paintings were intermittent, making it impossible for Cheng Mo to recognize what kind of story was being told.

Xu Qing, who was walking in the front, suddenly stopped at the door of a house.

"I think, I know why there is no living thing in this city."

<<

Cheng Mo and his group walked to him one after another after hearing the words, and looked into the house Xu Qing pointed to.Zou Qingqing took a deep breath while suppressing, and Liu Xiao also looked very shocked.

"This is……"

This is an ordinary house, but looking at the simple and neat furnishings, there is nothing special about it, but Cheng Mo knows that Xu Qing is not referring to this.His gaze moved to the center of the room—

Beside the simple four-corner table, there were a few shriveled human-shaped things lying on their stomachs. Cheng Mo endured the urge to churn in his stomach and walked up to him, only to find that they were a family of five and a cat that were as dry as sticks—the muscles had lost moisture and were empty. Inside the eye sockets were two deep, large holes, and the hard, wrinkled skin clings to the bones, making them look like skeletons covered in skin.

What is amazing is that these corpses are not mummified corpses formed after natural death. Without exception, there is a strange palm-sized wound on the back of their necks, and the round outline is densely covered with small and sharp wounds Triangle, as if being sucked dry by something with sharp teeth.

"That bite mark...it looks a bit like a fish." Zou Qingqing gestured and shivered.

"How can there be such a big fish on land?" Liu Xiao was also a little surprised, "Is there any record of this kind of fish in Babylon in history?"

"The history of ancient Babylon has been dated, and the information that can be found now is very limited." Qin Chuhe shook his head, stared at the mottled murals on the wall for a while, and his expression gradually became a little dignified.

"What's the matter?" Cheng Mo asked, and followed Qin Chuhe's gaze to look at the mural on the wall.

Although the murals of this family are seriously peeled off, but fortunately, the lines are still intact, and it seems to be a few narrative paintings.The first depicts a large fish crawling out from the bottom of the sea; the second shows the fish growing legs and a human head; the third shows the fish entering a bustling city; the fourth In the picture, the fish attacked humans, and the huge fish mouth firmly bit the back of the prey's neck; in the last picture, the majestic and magnificent city is still there, but all the people, animals and all living things on it have been erased Now, the whole city looks like a neat and beautiful but lifeless model.The murals come to an abrupt end here.

Cheng Mo looked around clockwise, and slowly pieced together the stories of these paintings——

Together, these paintings tell the story of a monster that climbed up from the bottom of the sea and turned into half-man, half-fish. After entering the city of Babylon, it slaughtered and finally slaughtered the city.

"E'anne[Note 6]." Qin Chuhe said with a serious expression, "In Babylonian mythology, the half-man, half-fish god has two heads. The human-shaped head grows under the fish's head, and there are a pair of human feet under the fish's tail. Make it able to walk on land."

"According to the description of this mural, didn't this god crawl from the ocean to the land? Where is the sea here?" Liu Xiao asked.

"Ianne comes from the Persian Gulf, and the Persian Gulf is the final confluence of the Euphrates River, which is the river that traverses this city. In other words, the Persian Gulf is connected to the river at our gate. " Xu Qing's complexion was also not very good, "It is said that Er Anne went ashore during the day and climbed back into the water at night, and it is daytime now, is it still in this city?"

As if echoing his words, there were suddenly patter, patter footsteps outside the originally silent room.

The footsteps were very slow and heavy. At first glance, it sounded like the sticky sound of bare feet soaked in water walking on the ground.

pat.pat.

Xu Qing's face turned pale immediately, and he cursed silently, as if complaining about his bad luck.

The footsteps were getting closer, and a strong and disgusting smell wafted in from outside the door. At the same time, a long black shadow appeared at the door of the hut they were in under the slanted sunlight.

This black shadow has a strange shape, and it is not as obvious as the general silhouette.The upper part of its limbs looks very bloated, and if you look carefully, you can find that it seems to be in the shape of a fish head.

The black shadow paused a moment before reaching the door, and the head of the fish in the shadow moved, as if smelling something.

Its breathing suddenly became heavy, as if a long-hungry hunter was panting excitedly when he smelled the prey, and the sound of pattering footsteps stopped at their door.

A huge black shadow blocked the door of the house they were in, and Cheng Mo finally saw the full picture of the legendary half-man, half-fish Er'an Nei Shen.

It is like a big upright fish, as if it has just climbed out of the water, its whole body is wet, and its blue and white scales glow chillingly in the sun.On the huge fish head, the mucus mouth is opening and closing excitedly and hastily.

Strangely, there is a second humanoid head growing under the fish head, at the position of the gills.Different from the excited fish head, this head was expressionless, with white eyes staring at them, and its face was as pale as a wall. At first glance, it looked like a gray plaster face embedded in the fish head.

The lower part of Eranne has a fluttering fish tail, and under the fish tail is an extremely slender ankle. Compared with the huge sole connected to the ankle, this ankle seems to be broken at any time. At first glance, it looks like a pair of huge inappropriate flippers on the thin and dry branches.

If I insist on summarizing it, Eranne cannot make people feel the fragile beauty of the mermaid, but instead makes people feel like a gray and white corpse is forcibly poked into the body of a fish that does not match the size, which is extremely disharmonious of weirdness.

Eranne's two heads stared at them for a while with their fishy yellow eyes and gray eyes without pupils, and then slowly walked towards the crowd.

A fishy smell that made people unable to open their eyes rushed over.It was an indescribable strong smell, as if hundreds of highly fermented corpses dug out of shark stomachs suddenly appeared in front of Cheng Mo.Almost instantly, physiological tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision.

At this moment, there was a loud bang, and the half-man, half-fish Eranne staggered and fell to the ground.

"Get out first!" Qin Chuhe yelled loudly, and threw away the chair in his hand, which he used to knock down E'anne just now, "It's easy to run outside! Hold on for a while, the sun is about to set!"

He pulled Cheng Mo and ran out the door.Cheng Mo was dragged by him and ran away, only heard a few messy footsteps behind him in a hurry, knowing that other people followed, he relaxed his heart a little.

According to the previous situation, E'anne's pace should not be too fast, but Qin Chuhe showed no sign of slowing down, and pulled Cheng Mo towards the opposite direction of the river.

With Qin Chuhe pulling in front, Cheng Mo glanced back quickly, Xu Qing followed closely behind with Guoguo in his arms, and Zou Qingqing was at the end of the line, with a look of despair and panic on his face——Eannei was looking It was following her at a speed that was impossible for its size, and would have been within an elbow of catching her—if it had arms.

The high temperature did not drop at all as the sun gradually set, and the setting sun was like blood at this moment.It was as if a piece of red glass was covered in front of Cheng Mo's eyes, and the distorted scenery gradually made him out of breath in such highly saturated tones.

Qin Chuhe, who was running in front of him, did not have a chaotic breathing rhythm at all. Sensing that Cheng Mo's movements were slowing down, Qin Chuhe slowed down and encouraged him softly: "Persevere, we will be far away from the river if we go a little further, and Eannei needs to calculate The time for the return journey is to return to the Euphrates before sunset. So after the intersection ahead, even if the sun has not completely set below the horizon, he will not chase again. Hold on."

His throat was so dry that it smoked, and Cheng Mo gradually became in a trance while running.The footsteps were gradually lost, the whistling wind in my ears disappeared, and only the shadow of the one running ahead holding his hand firmly remained in front of my eyes.

He looked at the slender but powerful figure in a daze, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in his heart.It seems that at a certain point in the past, someone also dragged him to run like this.

Before he had time to go back in his thoughts, a familiar scream pierced the blood-red sky.

Russian Anne!It finally caught Zou Qingqing.

The woman's beautiful face was full of fear, and her soft and slender body was firmly pressed to the ground by Er'anne. Only her raised head showed her unwillingness and resentment.

E'anne's blue and white fish head was bent down, and its mouth opened and closed, slowly sticking to the back of Zou Qingqing's neck.

Zou Qingqing didn't move as if she had been injected with styling fluid.

A few seconds later, a suppressed scream suddenly came out of her throat, and her whole body suddenly dried up rapidly, as if someone inserted a powerful suction pump in the back of her head, sucking all her life and vitality dry.

In the blink of an eye, only a withered and blackened body was left in front of Cheng Mo's eyes.The eye sockets of the mummy were dry, and the mouth seemed to be silently expressing the resentment and grievance in his heart.

Roanne, flapping his fins joyfully, walked away.When it was full, its whole body turned from blue and white to blood red, as if Zou Qingqing's blood had seeped through the fish scales.

The setting sun is like blood.At this moment, the setting sun is like blood.

The author has something to say: [Note 1] Marduk.The patron saint of ancient Babylon, symbolized by snake dragons and shovels.

【Note 2】Esagila.The temple of Marduk, located in the center of Babylon, also housed the shrines of Ea (god of water) and Nabu (god of wisdom).

【Note 3】Also known as "Babel Tower".In the Bible, the word "Babel" comes from the Hebrew word balal, which means "confusion".

【Note 4】Also known as "Hebrew Bible" or "Old Testament", the first usage on Wikipedia is taken here.

【Note 5】From "Bible Genesis".

【Note 6】Oannes, the half-man, half-fish god in Babylonian mythology.The descriptions of this god are not the same. Here is the explanation in the more authoritative "Encyclopedia Britannica" (Encyclopedia Britannica).

[Note] The origin of the chapter title "The Market of Eden": Babylon is located in the Mesopotamia Plain, and "Mesopotamia" is called "Eden" in the Bible.

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Quiet Mimi came to an update in a busy day, this chapter made me a little scared 233333