Alien Knights

Stepping on the muddy path under their feet, Todd was in front and Rachel was behind. The former held the latter's hand while pushing aside the cluttered branches and bushes in front of him.

The dark gray mist, like smoke with life, enveloped every pore of the two visitors.

There was a strange chirping sound in the sky, a bit like a bird, a bit like a beast.

Todd glanced behind him, the only thing he could see was Rachel's hand.

If it weren't for the uneven ground under his feet, reminding him that the journey is still going on, he might have the illusion of straying into nothingness.

Just when Todd wondered if this road had an end, his right hand suddenly touched something hard.

After groping around in the mist, the two found a huge stone statue of a goddess wearing a crown of thorns.

Below the stone statue, there is also a stone tablet engraved with complicated words.

"Where have I seen these words?" Todd squatted down, examined the stele carefully, and said while thinking hard.

Rachel stroked the relief with her hand and replied, "These are runes."

"Rune characters, the characters that are rumored to have been created by Odin, the king of the Nordic gods?" Todd recalled the stone tablets in the ruins of the North Island, and asked Rachel, "Can you decipher the words on the stone tablets?"

"There are different versions of runes in the North Island and the barbarians, and the grammar and words of these glyphs seem to be older, so I can only understand part of them." Rachel touched them word by word, and said some words intermittently in his mouth: "The road...the creator...the will...the trial...the eternal sleep..."

Todd frowned after listening to Rachel's introduction, and asked with some uncertainty: "It doesn't sound like a good thing."

"It is rumored that the "Land of Shadows" is the home of the dead. This place is an ominous place." Rachel turned her head, looked at the road behind the stone statue, and asked, "What should I do? Do you want to continue walking?"

Todd shrugged with a smile: "I've already come here, so there's no reason to look back."

Bypassing the stone statue, the two of them walked on a path paved with bluestones, and the fog around them gradually dissipated.

Looking at the slowly clearing scenery around him, Todd said, "This... seems like a garden."

Rachel looked at the plants around her, and said strangely: "I've never seen the plants here..."

Just as Todd was about to say something, the ground suddenly began to shake, and the surrounding plants twisted their branches and began to grow wildly.

The road when they came was blocked by many thorns, and green vines wrapped around their ankles like tentacles.

"Run!"

Todd grabbed Rachel's hand and ran forward desperately.

One after another, the spears pierced through the bones broke out from the ground, pointing obliquely at the sky, strictly blocking the light from the top of the head, forming a "canopy" of dead bodies.

Using the mutated right claw to break through the "bone wall" blocking the way, Todd ran forward a few more steps, and suddenly found that the resistance from the arm was getting bigger and bigger.

Turning her head and looking back, Rachel's body was already wrapped in vines, the spikes pierced her body, blood was sucked into the stem, and the color of the flowers gradually changed from white to bright red.

The woman's mouth could no longer make a sound, only the panicked eyes were facing Todd's face.

The latter turned around and let out a roar, using all his abilities to tear at the roots of the plants, but the vines became more and more tight. Some even crawled towards Todd along Rachel's arms.

Seeing the man in front of him in pain and eagerness, Rachel, who was completely entangled in plants, smiled slightly. She lightly drew a circle on Todd's palm with her index finger, then let go of Todd's hand, and was still dragged into the ground by the vines.

Todd fell to the ground, staring blankly at the empty left hand, his face was pale and his lips trembled.

"No!!!"

Todd was completely insane. He stretched out his hands and desperately dug the ground where the woman sank, oblivious to the vines and roots covering his body.

The ground gradually cracked, Todd's consciousness gradually lost, and his body was buried in the mud.

Walking in the endless darkness, Todd watched the images and sounds flickering in front of him.

In a coffee shop on a commercial street, a woman in a white dress said to the man in front of her, "I'm getting married next month, don't worry, the groom is not you. My father gave you a chance, but you insist on sticking to your ridiculous academic ethics."

At the class reunion in a five-star hotel, a wealthy businessman dressed in gold and silver looked at his plainly dressed classmate in front of him, shook his head and said, "I've become an associate professor at a university, why is my outfit still so shabby?! Brother, listen to me from the bottom of my heart, what is the most important thing in this world? Money! Power! And fame!"

Under the neon lights at night, in front of a table at a roadside barbecue stall, an elderly professor drank a glass of white wine and said to his students: "How long can a person live? At most a hundred years. I don't believe in Christ or Buddha. I believe in my own heart!"

If life is to pursue meaningless things, why not turn around and leave at the starting point and give up this journey?

The meaning of life is far more than that...

Todd slowly calmed down, a soft breeze brushed his cheeks, and a familiar whisper came into his ears. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying flat on the ground in the garden. The corpses, strange vines, and blood vines were all gone, and Rachel was sleeping peacefully in front of him.

Shaking his drowsy head, Todd was a little confused about what happened.

Everything just now was an illusion...?

Climbing to Rachel's side from the ground, Todd inspected the woman, and after confirming that she was intact, he let out a long sigh of relief.

"Wake up, wake up!" Todd shook Rachel gently, and the latter opened his eyes in a daze.

"Where am I?" Lying in Todd's arms, Rachel looked around and whispered, "I was obviously dragged underground by the vines just now."

Todd looked at the flowers swaying slightly in the wind on the branches, and realized something: "Everything we see may be related to these flowers, it may be pollen... In short, we must leave here immediately!"

The two supported each other and quickly left this strange place.

Walking on the bluestone path, the mist in the air is getting thinner and thinner. The distance is hidden among the forests and mountains, and a majestic temple slowly appears in the field of vision.

Looking back at the garden just now with lingering fear, Todd said to Rachel: "I understand the words on the stone tablet a little bit... The hallucination just now seems to trigger the memory deep in my heart. If the will is not firm, it is very likely that people will sleep forever in the flowers like that."

Rachel's face was still a little gloomy. She grabbed Todd's arm, shook her head and said, "There, I saw the nightmare I least wanted to see. If possible, maybe we should talk about other topics."

Todd nodded slightly, and using the ability of "Eagle Eye", he looked towards the mountain of the temple and saw the second stone statue of the goddess.

The two quickened their pace and took ten minutes to walk to the stone statue.

This stone statue depicts a goddess holding a spear and a round shield, trampling a beast with the head of a lion and the tail of a lion.

Rachel tried again to decipher the text.

"Road...Guide...Power...Trial...Dark Gate"

Todd touched the bridge of his nose and speculated: "The inscription on the stone tablet just now said 'will', and the appearance of 'power' this time, does it mean that we need to fight this time?"

Bypassing the stone statue and passing through a long underground corridor, the two walked into a building similar to an ancient Roman arena. The venue was almost the size of a football field. Standing at the entrance, they looked towards the other side and could not see the side at a glance.

Walking forward for a further distance, broken weapons and shattered shields can be seen everywhere on the ground, as well as scattered human and animal bones.

"Trialists who came from afar, first of all congratulations for passing the test of "will"."

A cold female voice echoed in the vast arena.

Todd followed the sound and saw a woman with a mask on her face, wearing a robe made of crow feathers, standing on a high viewing platform, looking down.

"The trial of "strength" should be carried out next, but it seems that the subject of your trial has just been killed by another person." The crow feather woman looked at the distant sky: "I'm afraid you will have to wait for a while..."

"That's not necessary."

An old voice came from the other side of the arena.

The old man with a stooped figure and a young girl walked slowly towards Todd, stepping on the bones under his feet.

Sabrina smiled and threw the things in her hands to Todd and Rachel.

A bloody lion's head, half a meter long, rolled to the feet of the two of them.

Watching the old man lift the hood of the cloak, Todd's eyes widened, and he shouted in surprise: "Clarence?!"