City of Burning Snow

Belinsky walked briskly along the white corridor leading to the meeting room, planning to have a showdown with Herzen, he quit, never cared about this matter again, as if he had never pleaded for the senior guide... …A black dog slowly paced out from the corner of the road. When he saw it, he stopped, and his heart felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. This was Turgenev’s spiritual body.

Belinsky spoke with difficulty. "...he's gone?"

The black dog opened his mouth. "Yes. I'm rushing to Versailles. I'm sitting in the conference room now. By the way, I didn't just leave. It seems that I have seen the beautiful scenery of Marseilles since this morning...I'm afraid Mr. Herzen didn't read the message last night. .”

The voice came to him from the spirit.The voice came from Turgenev, flat and devoid of emotion. "Are you coming over?" Turgenev asked him through his spiritual body.

Seeing his own shadow in the glass window beside him, that figure was just as useless as the position he was in, and the mist concealed his fists in the snow-like watermark traces.

Belinsky gritted his teeth.

"What else to do, don't go! It's best to let them all make their own decisions, and Ivan, don't worry about it."

"Okay," this incident obviously didn't bother the black dog's owner very much. "What about the dispatched soldiers?"

"I will automatically evacuate in half an hour. Wherever I want to go. In a place as big as Russia, I will still be afraid that the two traitors will have nowhere to hide?"

"Mr. Herzen's plan is to delay the attack." The black dog scratched the back of his neck calmly, "We trust Mr. Dostoevsky again, so we can't do this—"

"That's it. I quit. I don't trust people like them anymore."

Self-assertive to the point of intolerable.Belinsky shook his head.

"How far the information brought by Mr. Fukuzawa Yukichi will be far from the facts, none of us can figure out at the moment. The best thing that comrades can trust is...well, he went too far this time. Anyway. "

Frightened by the sentry's sudden reaction, the black dog whimpered halfway, and took several steps away to avoid being pierced by Belinsky's eyes.

"Now are you sure whether the two of them have combined or not?" the black dog asked.

Finding the question difficult to answer, Belinsky took a deep breath.

"...Dostoevsky is very cunning. He tried to deceive me deliberately with the combined experience. I pretended to be fooled and quickly confirmed that there was nothing between the two of them—he was lying It was pulled out, but that Nikolai Gogol jumped out by himself! Moreover, the tacit understanding is quite high."

Belinsky could not understand the sentry's disregard for the rules, as well as his too free-spirited demeanor.Why did Dostoyevsky choose such a sentinel by his side?If it's just to interrupt their research, just send people out of the city.It's hard to imagine that the embarrassing surprise and the temporary and perfect escape cooperation in those few seconds were made by two people who haven't seen each other for seven years...

The green eyes of the black dog emerged clearly. "You didn't judge."

"what?"

"We still don't know whether they are married or not, do we?"

Belinsky was silent.

As Turgenev said, Herzen asked them to test, but let them go, probably to intensify Dostoyevsky lurking inside the organization, and then see what the guide is. want to do something.But now falling into the rhythm of standing still and passively waiting for Dostoevsky's next move, Belinsky, who is used to taking the initiative, feels very unwilling.

"Mr. Turgenev. If the title of senior guide was not given to Dostoevsky, but to you, or any cadre who established the tower in the early days, you say..."

The young man behind the black dog smiled softly.

"It's only been a few years. When we voted to pass genetic engineering, we didn't focus on cultivating Mr. Dostoevsky for the purpose of setting up a newcomer—a young man who can better act as a 'brake'. Well, we can't just turn back here. Mr. Herzen has finished, so let's just wait and see for a while."

"I think we have always trusted comrades too much. Maybe he or I have misjudged."

Belinsky thought of something, he snorted and sighed. "Forget it. Before you continue to spread your idyllic ideals, let's see what troubles this man has caused recently... Anarchist! In order to trip us up, put Nico Rai Gogol's experimental site was given to a loyal tower sentinel. We let such a madman be the brakes of New Russia?"

"Sentry stationed in the tower?" The black dog was stunned for a moment, "Isn't the one who dropped the bag a death row prisoner?"

"That's the record I asked them to change. Fortunately, I came back early, otherwise if this kind of thing gets out—"

In the conference hall, Turgenev fell silent.

He held his forehead in grief: "What's the sentinel's name?"

Belinsky didn't understand why the other party was suddenly serious.

"...Ivan Goncharov. He's out of custody now, why?"

"How can you help him change this record! The more widely the existing facts are spread, the less likely the illusion created by the guide will be discovered by others. Isn't this the most basic challenge to common sense?"

Belinsky's head exploded with a "buzz".He was too eager to stop Dostoyevsky before he could get away, and he missed the point.He was not familiar with the sentinel. He was a tall Simbirsk man with long hair.He had just seen him when he came back to Moscow... something was wrong with him.He left the black dog, rushed underground immediately, and came to the cell where the tower guards were being held. He stood there for a long time facing the bright white and steamy room, and punched the wall with his fist.

"Fyodor Dostoevsky..."

The strange prisoner was awakened by the shock of the punch.With a look of just waking up, he yelled: "Yes! I am wronged..." Seeing that the transparent door was not opened by the dejected cadres outside, the prisoner lay back again.

Scratching his bucket waist with his eyes closed, Alexander Pushkin muttered.

"...Don't interrogate, anyway, I can recruit anything."

"Shall we get out of here later?"

Nikolai Gogol asked him with great interest.

Dostoevsky was squatting side by side, watching the sentry with sideways eyes. His abnormal cheerfulness and confidence made Dostoevsky even more worried about how long this unusual balance could last.

Gogol is like a child who has just returned from the playground, eagerly looking forward to more interesting things to happen.He was a little tired. After all, the breakout just now was a bit hasty. He hadn't fought formally for a long time, and his body was a little behind.But his instinct as a sentinel was being infected by the breath of battle, and he felt the unity of body and mind like never before, so free.

Thinking about complicated and meticulous conjectures, Dostoevsky's face showed no emotion.

"Let's wait for a signal. If the plan does not go wrong, my people will tell the soldiers to leave in advance, so as to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Nikolai, how do you feel now. Can you continue to persevere?"

The Sentinel seemed amused by the thoughtfulness in the words.He leaned into the guide's ear and whispered, as if sharing a secret that had been hidden for a long time, "I don't have to insist anymore! Because your spiritual body—"

Dostoevsky was concentrating on listening, when he felt the sentry's breath in his ears, he subconsciously hid.Gogol stopped.He felt the guide's body begin to heat up again—seeing Dostoyevsky lower his head and cover his mouth, trying not to let the sound of coughing reach the soldiers' five senses.

"Punishment said... what's wrong with you?" Gogol looked at him uneasily.

The senior guide's breathing became rapid.

"It's okay. He and, you, what did you say..."

The thought disturbances created for the soldiers began to weaken, and he clung to the uniform on his chest, but the air became so thin that his lungs couldn't take in enough oxygen for a while.

Dostoevsky was wary of every move of the sentry from the corner of his eye. He hadn't expected this kind of problem. He had discovered this when he had just picked up Nikolai Gogol's escape from prison—they The physique is too consistent.

But at the time, he didn't see it as a problem to watch out for.

different now...

The latter didn't know about it, and Gogol was a little at a loss.

"No, no, it shouldn't be, Fedya! I made a bet with the fine, and he said... He said that I would not have any influence on you—"

He wanted to continue to hide it, because he had just tasted a little bit of sweetness——

The sweetness of being an ordinary sentinel.

three hours ago.

On the first floor of the abandoned dam on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, Punishment appeared in front of the out-of-control sentry in the form of a phantom.Before his feet touched the ground, his body was twisted into pieces by the terrifying squeeze in the air.

Like a layer of smoke from burning white sage, the spiritual body drifted to the side in the direction of the wind.He settled in a corner that would not be affected for the time being, and completely re-formed into a human form.He bent down and squatted down, looking up at the crouching monster in the room, surrounded by countless eyes and a shapeless head.

"Hey... how did 'Sin' choose such a hellhound for himself, it's a pity that he still dreams that he has the life of the Messiah."

He tried to make out of it the image of youth his master had shared with him, and gave up after a while.

"I really haven't seen a sentinel who is less like a sentinel than you. This is why they human beings defined you as an 'inferior person' from the beginning: unattributable and unexplainable, so they all piled up in the trash."

While speaking, the figure of the spirit body was twisted and torn apart again.He stood up again next to his own fragments, with his hands behind his back, pacing calmly.

"It's really sad. You are a poor man too. Gogol/Yanovsky, you are as noble and pitiful as I am... We are so pitiful in this existence-oh, but you must hear me out .”

He has the same spiritual body as the senior guide, but also has a slightly different, more extroverted and extreme smile.When he speaks, the voice he uses is also Dostoevsky's.

"Really, this is the 'fear' that humans create for themselves. From this point of view, it is a pity that your creativity is useless on the battlefield. You can create a lot of artworks on the battlefield. There are so many materials, why? No one thought of that."

While he was laughing and watching the disaster in the room, the source of the disaster, a giant group of dark monsters with eight wings and countless wolf eyes, was letting out a painful roar.

It's not a living thing, it's just the psychic nightmare of a Sentinel named Nikolai Gogol.

"How to wake up Sleeping Beauty? Speaking of which, a sentry with mental attack power like you is still a sentry after all."

The monster's cry was like a landslide. It had no skin protection, shivered, and swelled. The dark shape continued to tear as it swelled, and the cracks turned into more eyes.This tearing cry didn't shake the walls of the house at all.Fyodor Dostoyevsky's mental body "punished" to pace, while taking this opportunity to enjoy his rare free time, while also thinking about how to break through the encirclement.

"You are nothing short of a Frankenstein, Mr. Nikolai Gogol. Not only are you a monster yourself, but you have managed to completely blind the 'sin' guy - I used to think only I could do that to this point."

Monsters do not pose a threat to real objects, but they have powerful attack power against him who is also a spiritual body.He didn't want to be torn into a mess all the time.The spiritual body observed it, and saw the weakest structural logic from the belly of the large monster.

He let out a breath, and the curtain of his hair was slightly blown by the breeze that didn't exist in reality.

"Now," he murmured, "the hard work must be done before it can be fully enjoyed. Lord of hosts, I come to reclaim one of your creations. And you put away—"

He bent down and rushed forward like an arrow from the string.

The monster heard the noise, and countless eyes stared at his movements.

The air squeezed his body and began to deform again.

A sharp dagger conjured up from his left hand, piercing the monster's dark belly before its body was completely torn to pieces.The darkness entangled him, and he followed this attraction to successfully penetrate into the core of the monster.Emerging from the shapeless old body again, he stood in front of Gogol in a complete human image.

He touched the sleeper's tall nose with the toe of his boot.

"Wake up from your sleeping nightmare. He didn't even know that your physique is so strange, and he asked me to take you back. It's crazy, do you think I'm going to tell him about it?"

"Don't... tell anyone..."

The Sentinel grumbled, curling his shoulders from a mass of soft cushions.

The monster exploded completely from the inside out, shattering like a giant black balloon.Seeing that human beings could not wake up on their own, but instead slept peacefully because of the end of the nightmare, Dostoevsky's mental body raised his foot again and kicked Gogol's head with the toe of his shoe without respect.This time it was more forceful, and part of the toes of the mental body directly melted into the opponent's mind, stirring up the thoughts floating in the chaos.

The sentinel frowned and slowly opened his eyes. "Feyya." He stared at the other party in bewilderment, and the light fell on his eyelids again.

"It's me, it's not me. Whatever you think, I'm here to pick you up."

The spirit raised his face, and leisurely moved to the armchair beside him and sat down.Crossing his legs together, 'punishing' as if sitting in his own living room, relaxed and smiled gently at the sentinel.

"Dear Mr. Monster - have you been off your meds recently?"

tbc.