Steel steam and flame

After wandering around the ruins of the town for most of the time, Cassia returned along the original route. On the edge of the open space, Cassia sorted out a small space among the collapsed houses as a temporary resting place. Then he returned to the limo, moved all the things over, and found a dry place to pile them together.

It was only around five o'clock in the afternoon, and the sky was getting darker, but it would take about two hours to get completely dark. Cassia took the gun and moved along the edge of the town.

The plants became more and more lush, and there were grasses on the ground, which soon covered Cassia's knees. Soon, the air around me became colder, and the mountains covered by thin clouds took on a sense of oppression. Several clear rivers loomed among the green woods on the hillside. In front of me, the calm light blue lake remained empty all year round. , rubbing out all the not-so-pretty clouds in the sky.

The touch on the skin became much stronger. After opening the cross pupils, Cassia obviously felt that the things hitting the exposed skin were more lively.

The area of ​​the lake has become larger over time due to the injection of snow water. The water is extremely cool, and you can still see submerged stone roads and some low-rise buildings at the edge of the lake. There were a lot of water plants, and a group of huge birds returning to their nests flew across the lake. On their drooping claws, Cassia saw fish covered with silver scales.

It is not a dead lake. There are not only lush aquatic plants, but also an abundance of fish. Under those submerged buildings, Cassia was sure that she saw schools of fish swimming.

"There is a bias in the information? But it is more likely that when the strange disease spread here, a very small number of species survived and completed the evolution of their own resistance. Just like those snakes and birds, they survived , such a small-scale ecological circle has been formed in decades.”

After whittling a sharp wooden stick, Cassia carefully inserted a fish into it as an experimental subject.

They seem to be fish at the bottom of the food chain, surviving on aquatic plants. The scales seemed to have become tougher, and Cassia was amazed by the strength of the swing of the body. It was so powerful that when the group of fish was alarmed by Cassia, the shadows escaping in the water were like sharp swords thrust out.

And Cassia found several rows of sharp teeth in its mouth, which could barely cut its own skin in experiments. Although it is a herbivorous fish, the blood in the body still allows Cassia to shed a layer of skin. The idea of ​​eating fish in the evening was forced to give up halfway through.

"Everything here carries germs?" Cassia looked at the lake in front of her and the mountains behind the lake, and for a moment she didn't know where to start. Grote had only told him a place name, and the location of the holy sword was on the highest mountain there.

"It's a little hidden inside a cave, but as long as you look carefully, it's still easy to find. After entering, you should be able to see some symbols engraved in the cave. Those are the road signs. Follow them and you won't be in the cave. I got lost in the cave. After all, it is a complicated cave network. In order to prevent other people who accidentally broke in from discovering it, I still put some effort into it." Grote's original words at the time.

After the volcanic eruption here, Cassia still doesn't know whether the cave network has been affected. But the amount of exploration is a bit large, and we will stay here for a long time.

Using solid fuel and collected wood to build a fire, Cassia continued to look at the note, trying to see if she could get more information from it. The light dimmed unconsciously, but Cassia, surrounded by firelight, didn't notice much. After roasting the diary again, Cassia opened a few pages of paper with blurred writing when she was close to the limit.

"Twenty-six diamonds were found today. They are of high quality. After processing, they are estimated to be sold for more than one million holy coins. News came from the team leader that some team members are sick. It seems to be a cold. They are weak and have slight skin problems. Allergy symptoms, slight redness. I will come back to town to rest for a few days tomorrow..."

"The skeleton fossils of a creature were found in the solidified lava. After digging them out, they were initially determined to be the ribs of some huge ancient creature. They were about four meters long. Even the firearms we brought could not leave traces on them. They are very hard. The boss thinks It was so valuable that I decided to take it back and carve it into works of art to sell.”

,,,

These are the diaries written by the mineral-hunting team not long after they came here. It can be seen from this that the spread of the disease is not very rapid, and those who develop symptoms early are also those with weaker constitutions. And staying in the town for a long time is relatively safe. The address surveyor who wrote this diary wrote that most of their group of people who did not enter the mountains were "infected" at the end.

Cassia was more interested in the huge bone, but was not surprised. Such bone fossils would be buried underground anywhere. Before seeing the real thing, he couldn't tell whether it belonged to the skeleton of a dragon or a larger second-type creature.

Carefully closing the diary, Cassia put it aside and murmured to herself: "By the way, according to the words of the old people, these people never went out after they came here, and most of them died here. Since there is one The car went back, but it was also pulled by a car of people. It seems that the minerals these people found did not appear in their words? "

"Where will it be hidden?" Cassia raised her head at this time, stunned for a moment, and a misty green light appeared in the firelight in her pupils.

I don't know when night fell, and a layer of mist evaporated from the lake, covering the calm water, giving off a dim green light.

There is also some kind of material existence above the lake. The light there is very dim, but Cassia can see clearly that it is indeed the same as what is written in the diary. Under the cloudy sky, the dim colorful lights are like water plants floating slowly in the water. Rippled in mid-air.

Cassia stood up and left the range of the fire, only to realize that she had really entered a strange world.

"Are these germs?" He couldn't figure out the reason for this phenomenon. After opening the cross pupil, the lake water also had an extremely dim green color. The dense woods on the hillside and behind him, all the objects here seemed to be covered by Coated with more or less fluorescent powder, the dim light makes it no longer a substantial night.

Deep in the forest on the hillside, the rivers formed by the snow water became obvious. They became brighter and seemed to be a strip of light running through this area, connecting the top of the mountain covered by clouds with the lake at the foot of the mountain.

"Water source!"