Spider thread

By the time Clow Reed's pair of glasses returned to their undamaged appearance, it had been several weeks since they were taken back to their residence from the optical shop two streets away.Glasses and magazines arrive at the common home of Crow, Light and Kerubellos almost at the same time.

After dinner, Clow flipped through the newly arrived magazine, which published the works of the author with the pseudonym "Till". Yue and Kerubellos still played chess to pass the time.Kuro suddenly closed the publication with both hands, Yue and Kerubellos were startled by the sound and trembled. "It's already this time," said Clow, taking a slow sip of his tea.

"What time?" Cruberos asked.

"It's probably coming soon, that gathering," Kuro put the magazine in his hand aside, "the gathering where magicians from all over the world gather and communicate with each other. I went there once with my friends before, but I haven't been there again, although it's just It's only one class." Clow smiled, "I didn't expect to receive an invitation letter, I thought I would have been ignored a long time ago."

"Invitation letter?" Kerubellos asked, pushing his queen forward.

Clow pointed to the gilded letter on the table that seemed to have just appeared suddenly, "Those people like this set very much." He opened the letter, "Do you want to go?"

At this time three days later, Clow, Yue and Kerubellos had arrived at a train station outside London. They didn't bring a lot of luggage, and they were standing on the platform almost empty-handed, waiting for the train.At this time, when evening and night alternated, Artemis gradually kissed the earth, and the distant sky gradually dimmed, only the horizon was still stained with the afterglow of the setting sun.

"Is it possible to get there by just taking the train?" Ruberos asked.He looked around. There was a desolate scene around this platform, and there were numerous weeds growing on the platform. All the facilities were very dilapidated. The train timetable pasted on the wall had become blurred, and the ink had melted away. Come, maybe it has been washed by too much rain.

"This is a very special train, a train carrying the undead." Clow said, "Ordinary human beings who have not died of life will not notice it, even this platform."

"What about you?" Yue asked, "It stands to reason that you are also a member of the human race. Then you should not have noticed this platform, let alone brought us here."

"Don't worry," Ruberos said without waiting for Kuro to answer, "Kuro is a magician, of course he can discover places that ordinary humans can't."

Moon nodded in understanding.Crow turned his head and looked at the lamp hanging from the top of the platform.Those old-looking lights slowly lit up, and Kuro realized that there were actually a lot of undead in the platform. They all appeared in the form of translucent human beings, staying everywhere on the platform, making the interior of the station It doesn't look crowded.Someone patted Kuro on the shoulder, and his lips moved and changed his mouth shape. Kuro guessed that they had lost the ability to speak and communicate.He nodded.

About 10 minutes later, the train pulled into the station.Crow stayed at the back of the line with Yue and Kerubellos, the last "people" to enter the train.The bustling group of "people" dispersed, and Kuro said to Yue and Kerubellos, "Put your wings away, you won't need them for now", and found a seat to sit down.Yue followed and sat next to him, while Kerberos lay at their feet.

"This journey will probably last several days, if quickly," said Clow.

"That one, undead, what did you say to you?" Ruberos asked, it seemed difficult for him to say the word "undead", perhaps because of the unreasonable fear of things he had never seen before.Disgust perhaps?Craw thought.

"I don't know, he just lip-synced to me, it could be anything," Crow said.However, no, that's not the case.The undead—Kuro judged that it was a man—was indeed just lip-synching to Kuluo, but the words he said were passed directly into Kuluo's mind, "The fact that you can find this place means that you are not alive. You are a human thing, but you still have a substance." It was a somewhat hoarse trembling voice that uttered these words, which probably belonged to the soul of an old man, "Good luck to you." He probably was a fortune teller before his death , just out of instinct to see the future for others, to eliminate disasters and solve difficulties.

Kuro put the hair on his forehead, which was too long and couldn't be tied into the headband, behind his ears, and didn't think about it anymore.Next to him, Kerubellos and Yue chatted nonchalantly. "I said, why are there so many undead? This is not normal." This is what Kerberos said in a low voice. "Because of war, people will always die." This is what Yue said, watching the undead up and down in front of the train door.Then there was silence, until Kerberos spoke again: "What do you think we will do after we arrive at that rally?" Great connection." Yue pondered for a while, and then said, "Maybe it doesn't have much connection with Crow." There was another silence, another silence...

By the time Kuro, Moon, and Kerubellos left the train and set foot on the land again, it was already several weeks later. What they saw was a high mountain covered with coniferous forest, and the top of the mountain could vaguely see the forest. Snow and ice on the top of the mountain.

"It's pretty much the same here," Crow said, turning to Moon and Kerubellos. "We need to get to the top of that mountain," he said with a smile.

It is not very difficult for Kuro and his party to go from a place close to the foot of the mountain to a place that can almost be regarded as the top of the mountain—if they fly directly up. "It's Kuro." When they officially arrived, an old man in black and purple robes who was in charge of counting the number of people in front of the door said these words without raising his head.The pen in his hand floated and automatically wrote Crow's name on a long roll of paper.After the spelling was finished, the old man raised his head and glanced at Kuro, "Your appearance hasn't changed at all," and then looked behind Kuro, "You also brought... what should they be called? Magic The creature is here. It's very beautiful." The old man patted Kuro on the back, "Go in, your room is on the third floor, it should be the one from last time, no, it was the one from last time."

"Crow Reed." When Yue and Kerubellos walked to the third floor, they turned around to look for Crow's figure in doubt, only to find that Crow was being held back by another person.The man called Craw by his full name, "Craw Reed." The tone was drawn out in a drawn-out, haughty tone.And Kuro turned around slowly, and after recognizing who it was, he only said "Hello" briefly and planned to leave.

"Aren't you going to talk about the old days? Just talk about it, how about the thing I taught you about attack magic?" The man seemed not going to just let Crow go, and the people beside him snickered.

"I have something else to do, excuse me." After that, Kuro continued to walk up the stairs, meeting Kerubellos and Yue.

"Who is that?" Cruberos asked.

"Lord Erwin," said Clow, "he doesn't like me very much, probably because of my oriental appearance."

"I see." Kerberos nodded.

"I really hope there won't be a conflict this time." Kuro raised his head halfway and sighed slowly.

The conversation room has reached the door of the room, and the nameplate on the room has Clow's name written on it. "By the way, what's the matter with the 'attack magic'?" After entering the room, Ruberos asked the question again.Yue was silent, but looked at Kerberos with some dissatisfaction.

"It's really nothing. It's just a sword and a shield." When he said this, a long sword inlaid with rubies appeared out of thin air in Kuro's hand, and the tip of the arrow was shining.He slashed the sword towards the door out of thin air, but was blocked by something, it was an invisible barrier.Yue and Kerberos acted like they suddenly realized. "Even if he said 'he taught', he just wanted to trouble me." Kuro threw the sword to the ground, and the sharp sword disappeared before it touched the ground, "At that time I I was really scared, afraid that I would die here, surrounded by despair, they appeared under my last resort."

Clow's wish to get along peacefully came to nothing, and only one night later, Crow and his party met Earl Erwin again in the corridor, this time he was alone and not with his friends. "Where's the kid who came with you last time?" he asked. "Looks like Lucian Andersen?"

"It's Lucas Andersen," said Craw. "You know it."

"Did he die? I heard that he died, and the doctors said he died of illness." Earl Erwin asked, "What a pity, I quite like the third-rate novels he wrote that were published in third-rate magazines. ’ he repeated, ‘what a pity.’

Kuro frowned, but didn't answer.

"Those people don't know the real cause of his death, but I know it, and you know it, and everyone here knows it. It's good for a person to have his own beliefs, but it's not good if he believes too much." Earl Irwin was still talking non-stop, not caring about Clow's non-answer, "I will kill myself." In the end he kept repeating this sentence, "I will kill myself."

"Let's go." Kuro said to Yue and Kerubellos.

"What is this? Your magical creature?" Erwin finally gave up on the previous topic, and turned his attention to Yue. "It's quite beautiful, do you like this?" He looked at it with a playful look. on the moon.

"What on earth are you trying to do?" Ruberos lost his composure and almost yelled at Erwin.

"There's another one here," Erwin lowered his head, as if he didn't hear Kerberos' words just now, "You have become stronger, which is a good thing."

Crow looked at Erwin, a little impatiently.But suddenly, he saw something else, the unwrinkled white shirt was suddenly stained with blood, and a little blood was splashed on that face.He saw it, it was night, it was the empty reception room, it was Erwin falling down by the fireplace.

"If I were you, I wouldn't go to the reception room alone at night." Kulo came back to his senses and whispered to Erwin.

"Is this your challenge to me?" Erwin didn't understand the meaning of Kulo's words.

"No." Clow dropped this sentence, and continued to walk towards the auditorium, Yue and Kerberos quickly followed him. "Advice." Clow added this sentence in a low voice, but Erwin didn't hear it.

The report in the auditorium was boring and tedious. Yue and Kerubellos were surprised to find that the organizer of this rally was the old man who recorded the participants in front of the door the day before. "What's the use of saying this?" Kerberos finally whispered when he was leaving the field, and he had endured the complaint for more than two hours.

"You should not understand that people who know magic are not welcomed by most ordinary people. For some reason, ordinary people seem to be particularly afraid or disgusted by people like us. People like our side—mostly women, I don't understand why—put to death. Now it's a war, and things may be better, or worse, and the two sides are in the long run for us It's no good." Clow finished the sentence in one breath, paused for a while, and then continued, "Being a tool to win the war, or death, neither side is good."

"Magic itself is not wrong. It is just a product of its own beliefs. It is the people who use magic who make mistakes." Crow thought of this sentence and sighed.

The night finally came, and the boring and tedious day was finally over, but Kuro couldn't calm down.There was a voice in his head reminding him that something was going to happen.He thought of the vision he had seen in the morning, the vision that happened to Earl Irwin, and felt a panic for no reason.

It's just an illusion, Kuro comforted himself in his heart, just like last time, it's just an illusion that won't come true.

After midnight, Craw woke up suddenly from the bed.When he realized he woke up, he had been staring at the ceiling for a long time.Kuro tried to recall any memory that could prove that he had indeed fallen asleep just now, but he failed, and his mind was just blank.He was so conscious now, it was as if the day's fatigue had never existed.He looked at the grandfather clock in the room, the pointer was pointing between the numbers 2 and 3 on the clock face, it was past two o'clock in the morning, and it was time for wizards to come and go.

Just as Kuro was about to try to fall asleep again, a short but sharp cry sounded from his ear, like the voice of a woman.He sat up abruptly, put on a coat, and walked out of the room as quietly as possible.It was dark in the corridor, he groped for the wall and walked to the stairs, holding on to the handrail on the side of the stairs, he walked down the stairs slowly.When he wanted to identify where he was in the villa, he found that he had come not far from the reception room.

The door of the reception room was open, and a faint light shone from inside.Kuro was a little puzzled and a little scared.He slowly approached the living room, and saw that the fireplace was still lit, and the flames were dancing on the firewood. Erwin was sitting facing the fireplace, with his back to the door.He lowered his head, not knowing what he was thinking.

What is he going to do?Before Kuro could think of the answer to this question, something happened.From the fireplace, an entity, perhaps an elf, appeared out of thin air, wearing a red dress, with hair spreading out to the left and right sides like a bird's wings.She wasn't wearing anything on her feet, and Craw thought she should be given a pair of leather shoes, red or black.

"Who are you?" Erwin raised his head and asked, his voice trembling, revealing infinite fear.

This seemed to be another unresolved question, and the girl (let's call it that for now) made no sign.Earl Erwin stood up, slowly stepped back, and slowly approached the door of the room.The girl looked straight at him.In the next second, Erwin's originally spotless snow-white shirt was stained with blood.

"Erwin!" Kuro called out his name, and hurried to support his body that was about to fall.Fortunately, the place where Erwin was injured was not critical, and it would not cause death for the time being.

"Crow Reed...you..." said Erwin, his eyes wide and terrified.

The girl did not give up the attack. She raised her right hand, and flames appeared in her palm. The girl still looked at them with a blank expression.Suddenly, clusters of tiny flames flew towards Kuro and Erwin, and Kuro instinctively raised his left hand to cover his forehead.He was unharmed, and neither was Erwin. The invisible shield protected them, and the flames faded away as they grazed the edge of the shield.

"What happened here?" An old voice gradually approached the room, and finally a figure appeared at the door. After seeing the scene in the room, the tone of the voice changed drastically, "Put him down!" Crow seemed A little dazed, "Put him down, Kuro, come out quickly."

It was too late for Crow to react, his body had already followed the old man's words, and he didn't react until they were far away from the reception room, "Why did you do that?" He asked, "Earl Erwin may die. "

"It's not 'may die', it's 'definitely die'." The old man said, "and we can't do anything about it, we can't do any intervention."

"Why?" Kuro was very surprised.

"Because this is the fate of all magicians," said the old man.They walked along the corridor, and finally stopped in front of a room that was still lit. The old man turned around, and Kuro realized that he was the organizer of this rally, "It seems that you are not I understand, let me explain it to you."

"What do you mean by 'fate'?" Clow asked, sitting on a chair in a well-mannered manner.

The old man seemed much more generous, and sat opposite Clow somewhat casually. "Magic comes from our beliefs, and it exists because of our beliefs." He said, with infinite vicissitudes in his voice, "and the power of 'faith' is far beyond our imagination. He can give us whatever we want to use." The power of magic, which can also kill us, is very dangerous, like a double-edged sword."

"Then Earl Irwin?" Clow was a little puzzled, he couldn't believe what he just heard.

"Erwin was an accident. While he believed in his own beliefs, he also denied his own beliefs, so..." the old man stopped talking, implying "as you just saw."

"Is that so?" said Craw, still in disbelief.

"However, your friend Lucas did die because of his beliefs. He believed too much in his own beliefs, so that he died." The old man said, "This is something we can't realize ourselves. If we Realizing this, our end-"

"—will be like Lord Erwin, will it?" asked Craw.

"Yes, that's it." The old man said, "All we can do is believe in our own beliefs and not interfere with others. This is very sad, and I know that one day I will also end up like that .”

"Is there no solution?" Craw asked.

"As far as everyone knows, no." The old man said, and then he smiled, "But you can try to create. I personally think that you are very talented. Maybe you can really save us from this cycle." He stood up, "Okay, you'd better go back to sleep for a while now, it's almost dawn."

Until Kuro lay down on the bed again, his mind remained incomparably sober.As his upper and lower eyelids embraced again, he felt suddenly drowsy and fell into a deep sleep.

"Thirteen." Kuro couldn't remember how many times he heard these two numbers from the mouths of magicians who were communicating with each other, "twelve."

"What happened?" Ruberos asked suspiciously.Yue shook his head, showing that he didn't know either.

"Earl Erwin was killed just last night." A magician passing by briefly explained to them, muttering "It's really unlucky" and left in a hurry.

"Kuro, what do you know?" Yue looked at Kuro with a worried expression.

"I don't know," Crow said.Facing Yue's question, he could give many answers, telling them that the murderer was a little black-haired girl, telling them the fate that the magician could not escape, telling them what they saw and heard last night, or just adding Deny, Crow Reed chose the easiest of them all.However, no, a mysterious force made him choose to remain silent and conceal the truth.

I hate the night, Kuro thought, but the day is coming.

The author has something to say: This chapter is so good in the second grade [Shameless]