"Era 20: Human beings are driven by fate, and human beings can drive their destiny. They stand on the endless loess land with their feet, looking up at the vast and vast river of stars. Even the Creator himself is the child chasing the stars." - "Dark Book"

...

April 12, 527, New Yuan calendar.

The Sunnese Empire/The Three Major Church Control Areas of the Lost, the Old Uko Province/New Cluster Area, the Silent Highlands, and the Hope Church Control Area.

Da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

The strong brown-haired horse galloped on the concrete roads covered with loess, cracks and scattered potholes. The sound of horse hooves trampling on the ground was like a drum beaten with music.

Dylan Duck, the middle-grade Simen of the Lost Church, is riding on a horse and quickly crossing the dilapidated road with sparsely populated sky.

He was still wearing a standard suit, a long black hat, a red bow, and a pure black tie. The white shirt inside had turned yellow in the last few days, stained with some sporadic blood marks, and several small holes burned by the "burning liquid" of the unintentional person.

He wore a round "Hope and Peace" badge made of steel, with a diameter of about the length of a thumb and neatly edged.

This is a badge designed separately by the Hope Church, representing the general doctrine of the Hope Church with a certain human civilization.

Judging from the image, the medal is based on the steel color, with a pair of hands carved underneath, holding a branch with new buds. At the top is a well-proportioned dove, slightly lowering its head and looking down at everything below, but it did not want to take away the branch representing life and hope.

In addition, Dylan was wearing a black cloak.

The pure black color covered the bullet holes on the back of his suit that were formed by bullet shooting in his skin.

His feet were tightly stepped into the stirrups, and he looked like he was wearing shiny leather shoes. But in fact, only he himself knew that the pair of "leather shoes" were actually long leather boots, which could barely maintain the bright and beautiful image advocated by the Hope Church under the cover of black trousers.

This is the east of the quiet highlands, not too far from the unmanned desert to the north and the edges of the sleeping mountains in the northeast.

Before, he deliberately disguised himself as a military reporter in Chekavsk and followed Wright and others to board the "Permanent Moment" train passing through the "Zhixin-03".

On the one hand, he wanted to follow the Imperial soldiers who were scattered to the Donusk ruins camps in Chekavsk and everywhere, and take the opportunity to learn about the deployment and arrangements of some empires to the three major churches of the Lost in the Silent Highlands called "The Advent of Silent".

On the one hand, he also wanted to learn about some of the lost people lurking in the human legion and being regarded as psychics.

Holding the reins in his hand, he walked through the empty streets on a horse, looking at the huge castle of Hope Church not far away, suddenly thought of a serious, race and camp issue.

In the eyes of humans, the distinction between the lost and the psychic is sometimes not so obvious. As long as you are loyal to the empire and do not face mental breakdown, then most of the lost can be considered psychics.

The psychics who are enemies of the Empire will be directly assigned to the Lost, be rewarded, arrested, and even their families will be implicated and sent to the Imperial Prison.

But in fact, for the church of the Lost, especially the church of Hope, the difference between the Lost and the Supernatural is whether it is necessary to regularly consume "raw flesh and blood".

For humans, devouring humankind people may be contaminated with prions, which is something that moral and law cannot tolerate. The same is true for the lost. The lost people must not devour unintentional people, and can only devour the lost people to a limited extent.

Once the lost person violates the taboo, he will not only lose the power of the demon and the protection of the gods, but the burning fluid in the body will also be affected by the same energy to accelerate production and degenerate into the existence of the unintentional person.

But the lost and humans can devour each other. For humans, only the injection of potions No. 16 and No. 20 can be used. For the lost, it will sometimes help the formation of magic power in their bodies.

After almost half an hour of walking on the road without any human beings, even the Lost Children could only walk on the roads on the edge of the streets, Dylan finally had no more dilapidated roads, but a magnificent entrance to a castle.

He jumped down from the brown-haired horse, took out a pair of white gloves from the pocket of the suit top, which seemed to have not taken out for a long time, and stayed on his hands covered with scars and calluses.

At the same time, he took off the brown mask used to prevent wind and sand, folded it twice and placed it in his pants pocket.

After doing all this, he touched the pistol at his waist, breathed a sigh of relief, and led the horse to walk near the huge iron gate.

Hope Church's castle called "Silent Stars" is located in the southeast corner of the quiet highland, a higher area than the central and peripheral areas.

There are two benefits to choosing to build the castle here. First, you can overlook the entire silent highland. With a telescope, even the movements of some imperial troops can be perfectly captured.

Second, there is a small river flowing here, a seasonal river without a specific name, with sufficient water sources almost every April to September.

It generally originates at the foot of the sleeping mountains, passes through the periphery of the quiet highland and flows into the central area, surrounding a large circle.

However, this kind of surround will not form a closed loop, and will always dry up and disappear in some dry areas covered with yellow sand. However, according to some surveys, the river has not completely dried up, and may have become an underground river, which is not a very large "silent lake" in the center.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! After walking a few steps, Dylan finally stood near an iron gate four or five meters high and ten meters wide.

He looked up at the iron gate, his inner excitement beyond words.

Since January this year, he has been traveling through various cities and towns of the empire to carry out missions. This is the first time he has returned to the castle this year, which is near the base camp of the Hope Church.

He reached out and touched the "Red River Flower" and the pattern of "Moon and Stars" carved on the iron gate railing, and there was a little sadness in his nose.

After two or three seconds of sadness, he finally pressed a red button in the center of the iron gate.

A few seconds later, two lost boys, who were fifteen or sixteen, quickly walked out of the small bungalow near the iron gate and came to Dylan.

"Who are you? Friend or enemy?" One of the teenagers asked cautiously with a cautious look on his face as he picked up the old rifle and pointed it at Dylan's heart.

"I am a middle-grade Simen, Dylan Dark. What? Is the gatekeeper now a replacement? I remember when I entered and exited the place when it was snowing heavily last year, I was still a bearded male believer. I had a good relationship with him. Every time I sarcastically slandered me, I opened the door for me. He never pointed a gun at me." Dylan said in a strange tone.

Although his face still had a professional smirk, he was very despised and even a little disgusted with the lost boy in front of him.

"Since it's a middle-grade Simen, please ask Mr. Dylan to answer the code, just reply to the previous sentence. Please don't make us embarrassed." The boy responded.

Dylan looked up at the fully armed boy in front of him.

In his impression, the Church of the Lost, at least, hoped that the lower classes of the church would wear at least the traditional costumes of the Cruzde or the Sunnese Empire, and no matter how bad it would be like the old costumes from the end of the human age to the early Steam Age, generally without any steam age or cyberpunk style.

But the two lost boys in front of him were not only wearing the old-fashioned armor of the Sunny Empire "Dark Night S-01" that could be seen at a glance, but the clothes inside were very similar to the standard clothing of workers in the Sograziyuan factory.

Moreover, one holds an old "Federal A-01" rifle, one that can only load ammunition and fire one shot at a time, and the other holds a slightly newer "Federal B-04 (modified)" and can shoot three times after loading ammunition, but is usually used for long-range sniper kills, but does not have a scope.

In short, Dylan could see at a glance that the equipment of the Lost Boy wearing a simple helmet, a face full of dirt, and a sallow background was picked up by some Imperial soldiers who came to fight from remote and backward areas.

This forced him to make a preliminary inner evaluation of the intensity of the current battle.

After thinking a little with his chin for a while, he chose to answer in the code language he used several times last year:

"The winter in the mechanical world is an eternal future, and a new era will die in the night and ice."

Hearing Dylan recited a standard codeword in the Sunnese language, the two teenagers first had a hint of suspicion in their eyes. Then, the teenager who held the rifle lowered the rifle, and the muzzle was facing the ground. After looking at the other teenager, he quickly trotted to the side and pulled down a gate on the edge of the iron door.

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

The huge iron door folded to both sides, and after two seconds, it left Dylan about three or four meters wide to accommodate him and the horse behind him.

"Sorry, Lord Simen. The war is too fierce now, so Lord Pope directly ordered us to carefully check everyone who came here. After sensing the magic power that suppresses our power, we must also speak to you the code." The lost boy who was holding a gun and trotted to Dylan near Dylan, lowered his head, and half bowed to apologize to him.

"It's okay, it's okay." Dylan said in a low and soft voice, reaching out to touch the silver hair of the Lost Boy.

Then, he looked around the familiar space near the gate, frowned, and asked in confusion:

"Where is that bearded male believer? It's the man who has been watching the door here for more than twenty years."

"He, that uncle who has the power of the magical source of grass and trees and can turn part of his body into a tree to attack, right?" the silver-haired Lost Boy sought confirmation.

"Yes, it's him. Has the middle-level church finally raised him? I remember that he came to me with gin in December last year and said that he could sense the golden light belonging to the 'hope' sequence core in his dreams. I remember that he had configured several bottles of magic source potions for promotion during that time. Could it be that he had been promoted to a middle-level monk and was not here?" Dylan analyzed as well as the best possible aspect.

"No." The silver-haired Lost Man's expression suddenly became solemn. He was silent, and only sighed slowly after a few seconds, explaining:

"The empire's army began to assemble almost two days ago, with the goal being the strongholds established by our three major churches. Previously, because of the proliferation of unintentional people and the frequent leadership of unintentional people to attack the imperial cities, the empire has never been able to form a joint force to attack us.

But recently the Empire has achieved decisive victory in various battlefields. In addition to the series of battles near Highway 65 where Lord Alto won barely, the Empire's army has gained an absolute strategic advantage. So..." The silver-haired Lost Boy paused for a few seconds, pursed his dry lips, and continued:

"Three or four days ago, the Imperial soldiers gathered on the north and south sides of the highlands and quickly expanded the station area based on the original military camp, the chief cardinal Lord Yongchao ordered Uncle Aberman to go to the southern area to explore the camp."

"I've heard something..." Dylan nodded:

"The focus of the Chekavsk Legion and the Zhnetsk Legion led by the Imperial Crown Prince Ivant is to be stationed in the south. Now there are some problems with the 'Zhixin-03' railway line, so the northern troop transport is not smooth. The southern highway and railway line are still intact, so he and the purple-clothed cardinal who is about to betray us... Aaron, now he is planning to command the southern corps to attack northwards, but the northern corps instead have a defensive posture."

After all, they all hope that the church will be their own people. As long as they can feel the magic power and the aura of the sequence core, they will be their own people. Dylan is not guarding against his own "villain" plot, and he does not mind telling the silver-haired Lost boy about the battle situation.

“Yes, I heard that the ‘Sin Man’ of Evant deployed three major steam-style camps in the south. Maybe last year the Empire quietly moved some underground factories here.

Uncle Aberman told us that he had sneaked into the camp to check out, two of which were converted from the silent highland outposts ‘Z’ and ‘X’ established by the empire.

There are human psychics with powerful upper-level magic powers, so the upper-level church did not want to attack them actively. In fact, two months ago, he saw something interesting when he went to explore near the Imperial Camp." The silver-haired Lost Boy said with a little confidence and raised his head slightly.

"What's interesting, I want to hear it." Dylan said intriguedly.

"The crown prince moved his command to a human site, which is the ancient 'silent city', which was half flooded by wind and sand in the middle of the Steam Age.

He also dug many secret passages there, deployed some large machinery for backup, as well as many planes and airships. He himself commanded in a yellow sand-style space similar to an underground villa.

However, just a month ago, Uncle Aberman wanted to sneak into the ruins of the ancient city and investigate the empire's deployment there, but we didn't expect him to..." The silver-haired Lost Boy's voice suddenly became choked, and his eyes were filled with crystal tears.
Chapter completed!