Echoes of the Past

Chapter 12 The offerings must also be meat.

Nan'an walked very slowly through the black fog.

Swallowed by the magic power, Suiyue was sweating profusely and her steps were unsteady.

Suiyue felt the same way as Nan'an; the bond that held them together seemed to be being washed away by the faint flow of water.

It seemed that there was an invisible force within the black mist, entangled and colliding with the magic, causing the body's efficiency in absorbing magic to drop rapidly.

Beyond the messy pile of rubble on the riverbank, the path ahead should have led to a more open area of ​​the canyon, but further ahead was a woodland.

Just as he was about to step into an exceptionally dense, almost knee-high, dark grass, Nan'an suddenly stopped.

"Can you still tell your surroundings?"

After being summoned to spar with his partner, his attention was mainly on Suiyue, but Nan'an vaguely remembered that there should be a woodland near the riverbank.

Upon hearing this, Suiyue squinted, straining to discern the thick fog that blurred the view from four meters away. Confusion and uncertainty crossed her face: "Was this place originally covered in such dense... and tall grass?"

Nan'an frowned and immediately turned back to observe the way he had come.

The shallow beach and piles of pebbles that we had just walked across were becoming increasingly blurred and distorted in the thick fog, as if they had come to life and were slowly changing shape.

During their brief pause, dark thorns sprouted from the previously empty crevices between the pebbles, winding their way through the stones.

"This must be what the Fog Breakers often call spatial displacement... but it doesn't seem to be entirely like that." Suiyue swallowed, seemingly afraid of disturbing anything that might exist in the fog, and lowered her voice to a very low level. "Many Fog Breakers who venture deep into the black fog have similar feelings... everything around them seems to have 'come alive'."

This is not an isolated tale or illusion; many records of fog-breakers mention this unsettling perception, occasionally accompanied by a feeling of being watched from behind.

However, judging from the current changes in the black mist, it seems more like a rewriting than a spatial displacement.

In the areas covered by the black mist, the original things were eroded and transformed by the elements carrying the black mist, giving them the ability to come alive and change at will.

Suiyue's big eyes were now staring brightly at Nan'an.

After the initial shock, there was no longer any fear in her eyes.

The unknown brought by the descending black fog could not shake this "muscle-brain" girl. The harsh environment would only accelerate her unique adaptation.

"With your seniority, you're the one making the decisions?"

Now even his tone was eager to try, carrying the momentum of someone who could elbow the Nightmare God.

With such infectious enthusiasm, Nan'an decisively took her first step onto the grassland.

The rustling sound of his boots crunching over the grass was amplified in the stillness, making him inexplicably relive the tension of playing games secretly under the covers at night when he was a child, afraid of making any noise that would disturb his parents.

Nothing happened for the time being; no one appeared to pull him out of the safe zone and confiscate his game console.

What types of nightmares have you heard of?

"What I heard most often in Kren was a chair. The actual person who experienced it is unknown, and the time is also unknown, but it is believed to have been encountered by a senior fogbreaker from the Twin Crown City."

If the description is accurate, the chair Suiyue mentioned is very similar to the old-fashioned rattan rocking chairs that the older generation in Nan'an remembered.

Just hearing the name automatically conjures up an image of them lounging in chairs, taking a lazy nap in the warm sunshine.

It is said that the rattan chair has smooth, curved armrests and a wide, fan-shaped backrest, and the rattan has a warm, amber color—Nan'an has doubts about this, as it could also be a patina formed from years of use.

At this point, it sounds like nothing more than an ordinary piece of furniture that had been swallowed by the black mist and left behind, and it's even hard to determine whether it meets the standards of a nightmare.

However, the fog-breaker tried sitting in it and immediately discovered that rocking the chair back and forth would put the body into a deep, relaxed, trance-like state.

According to the entire team, everyone who sat in it vividly relived a peaceful and tranquil memory from their life.

Some people, just waking up from an afternoon nap, lie on the veranda of an old house, listening to the ethereal sound of wind chimes, and are suddenly struck by the realization that their long-deceased parents are still alive, chatting and laughing as they dry fruit in the yard.

Some people dream of returning to their youth when they traveled alone, lighting a campfire in the dead of night in the wilderness, and gazing up at the vast starry sky.

Others saw themselves secretly dozing off in class when they were young.

Without exception, after this brief and hazy daze, each of them was filled with energy and enthusiasm, and developed a strong desire and impulse to explore the truth of the black fog.

The team members tried to move the rattan chair away from the black mist, but it seemed to have merged with the entire earth.

I tried carefully prying the connection, but it didn't work.

An attempt was made to use magic to transfer the energy, but the magic was strangely distorted and rendered ineffective.

Limited by the rule that they could not stay in the black fog for more than 12 days, they could only take out a photo roll to complete the record and leave.

It is said that the fog-breakers also tried to find the rattan chair, but unfortunately they came up empty-handed.

"Would you like to try sitting on it too?" Nan'an asked with a smile.

"Of course." Suiyue replied without hesitation, "If I could sit on it, I could definitely go back to Dawn Orphanage, eat and drink all day, and just go to class... Sigh, what's so great about growing up? I want to study for the rest of my life!"

The completely harmless Divine Nightmare like the rattan chair is one of the few in the expedition. Most of the individuals reported by the Fog Breakers are highly aggressive and cannot be ignored.

Unfortunately, after walking for half a day in this eerie meadow, the two did not encounter a single living creature, let alone an interactive nightmare.

"Nan'an..."

Nan'an was already used to Suiyue's way of addressing him, switching freely between "veteran" and his real name. When he heard her speak, he turned his head to the side.

Her face still wore that relaxed, nonchalant expression, as if she didn't care about anything.

"If I don't make it out and die in the black mist, don't bother burying me... But if someone else can summon you in the future, could you help them and persuade them to perform a sacrifice for me? Maybe I'll actually get to enjoy offerings after I die?"

Nan'an admired Suiyue for being so serious about making arrangements for her affairs one second, and then switching to eating and drinking with such ease the next.

Even in death, one still longs for a couple of offerings; that must be a certain level of spiritual attainment.

"Oh, I want to eat meat as an offering too."

Nan An laughed angrily: "You're really going to pick a fight. Besides, if it were that easy to gain the power to enjoy offerings after death through sacrifices, what about those who have devout faith?"

While he was still alive, among the groups exploring the "path to godhood" on the continent of Nora, there was a faction that specialized in becoming gods through faith.

Their actions spread among the people and gradually evolved into the view that "since the power of faith can shape gods, the specific object of faith seems to become less important."

In an instant, primitive religions rejoiced, and totem worshippers cried out, "The version update has finally come to us!"

Religious sects that point at potted plants, weeds, or a lone maple tree and shout "God is above" are springing up everywhere.

The speed of version upgrades is astonishing; when new ideas come rolling in, they never give people from the old era any psychological preparation.

Later generations drew upon descriptions of deities from ancient religious texts, extracting the phrase "a hundred aspects of the gods" and cleverly adapting it.

"Since gods have hundreds of incarnations, why can't my favorite puppet be a god?"

"Since the gods have a hundred forms, then my sword must also be a god!"

The long-standing orthodox religious leaders of the Nora continent were stunned and unable to cope with the approach of "using your scriptures to vindicate my 'God'".

Traditional religions can't keep up with the speed at which new vulnerabilities are discovered, even as quickly as they can plug existing ones.

The new religious movement had a wide reach. In the year Nan'an died, the continent of Nora was already teeming with life, and all things were flourishing.

They start by excommunicating others' faith, erecting stakes, and wholesaling heretical hats.

A religious war has broken out, with everyone getting a hat; all that's missing is Archduke Ferdinand's magnanimity.

Looking back now, Nan'an even feels that his death was perhaps "timely"... He wonders what happened to his adventurers afterward.

In short, when Suiyue claimed that she did not believe in any gods, Nan'an once suspected that she would at some point bring out a statue of a god she had never heard of before, and mutter, "Where my heart is, there the gods are; the gods have no form, and so do I."

However, it now seems that Suiyue is clearly a pragmatic warrior, whose main strategy is to recruit mercenaries by giving eggs to whoever's religious version of the religion.

It's easy to join in the fun without spending money; you might believe it for a second with just an egg. But if you want to become a believer long-term, that comes at a different price.

The grassland seemed to stretch endlessly, and the two people, who were discussing in hushed tones, were still haggling over the specifications of the offerings. In the distance, a cold, shadowy outline slowly emerged from the black mist.

Nan An suddenly stopped and reached out to cover Sui Yue's mouth, who was gesticulating wildly and talking so much that she was about to make a wish list after she died—this girl's mouth was like a floodgate that couldn't be closed once it was opened, chattering on and on. Anyone who felt stable and at ease after seeing her fit physique would be disillusioned after talking to her.

Suiyue realized what was happening, followed Nan'an's gaze and looked ahead. She stared blankly for a few seconds, then suddenly looked around.

They seemed to be at the absolute center of a vast world, with the dark sea of ​​grass stretching infinitely in all directions. In their field of vision, there was nothing but undulating waves of grass and the thick fog that swallowed everything in the distance.

In the center of this place, which should have been empty and desolate, ruled only by black mist and weeds, a rocking chair was gently swaying about 10 meters away.

It looked so out of place, as if someone had just carelessly left it there while decorating their home scene in the game to accumulate enough points and credits.

"Is there any evidence to confirm that the black fog has the ability to read minds and respond to expectations?"

Nan'an's inner alarm bells were ringing loudly.

They had just been talking about that comforting wicker chair, and now a similar object appeared before them; he wasn't naive enough to think it was a coincidence.