Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 797 The People of the Stone

"It is said that in the forgotten dark corners of the world, evil creatures from ancient times still lurk, and that the 'gate' still opens on certain nights to release alien creatures from hell—and this remains true to this day."

……

There was a person who could not be exposed to strong light, whether it was the sun in the waking world or the celestial light of the dream world, it was enough to kill him.

But this very person, after the blood moon catastrophe, went through many twists and turns to arrive at the dreamlike world of gods, and plunged headlong into the hottest and sunniest gravel desert in the west.

The daytime heat was almost enough to bake him to a golden brown on both sides, triggering a Maillard reaction, while the nighttime freezing mode would freeze his snot and soul together.

This is not a life fit for a human being.

Fortunately, he wasn't human either.

Or rather, not a person in the traditional sense.

...

The gravel desert lies thousands of miles within the western coastal region. It is an ancient area that Milo did not encounter at all during his journey south. The area covered by yellow sand here is probably the size of dozens of the Six Kingdoms peninsulas, I guess.

If he had known beforehand that the passage he had traded his most precious jar of pickled eggs with the ghouls led to such a hellish place, he would never have done it.

But there's no going back in this world, not even in a dream.

After falling into the gravel desert, he could only keep company with lizards, skeletons, quicksand, and faith insects in the ruins of a broken civilization.

These extremely harsh living conditions led to a severe deficiency of protein in their bodies.

It's not that there are no living creatures in the gravel desert, but apart from scorpions and rattlesnakes, which are venomous and have a strong odor, the rest are mostly sand monsters comparable to giant worms. The only creature that is neither poisonous nor deadly is the nocturnal desert cat.

But how can you eat a cat with such cute big eyes and big ears?

...

Of course, these were my thoughts after being stranded in the gravel desert for half a month.

Two weeks later, the result was—cats are really delicious.

...

……

In fact, the Gravel Desert is not completely desolate and deserted. Deep within the desert lie many precious oases and tribal civilizations. Even reckless caravans regularly appear on the Gravel Road, carrying goods such as salt, onyx, and rubies obtained from the port of Derasrien, preparing to travel deep into the desert to exchange them for ancient temple stones from the tribal lords.

But because the gravel desert was so vast, he had only encountered one caravan in the countless days and nights that had passed.

And these merchants had long been corrupted by the order of the gravel; they died of thirst or sunburn. The harsh desert had already robbed them of their souls, yet ironically allowed their decaying bodies to continue their arduous journey along the gravel road.

This is one of the must-see attractions in the gravel desert.

The caravan of the dead.

No one knows what factors drive the dead to continue their journey; perhaps it is related to an ancient civilization buried beneath the yellow sands of the gravelly desert.

...

But for him, even corpses were not entirely useless.

No, a corpse is more valuable than a living person.

...

After several twists and turns, he successfully collected a jar of dried eggs.

Next, all you need to do is find a spot with the heaviest smog every morning and collect dew to soak one or two of them; that will barely meet your protein needs for the day.

Yes, this light-phobic from the world of lucidity is none other than Rick, the perverted coroner who used to work in the basement of the law enforcement office in the southern part of Nanwei City.

...

Perhaps it was a series of blasphemous acts that finally brought him divine punishment.

After Emma defeated the unknown deity who suddenly appeared, the entire group was scattered by the chaotic spatial currents, and Rick ended up in the most un-dreamy of the dream world, a living hell.

Or perhaps it was because of the series of blasphemous acts he had committed that were enough to invite divine punishment that Rick gained the favor of some evil being beneath the yellow sand.

A certain dark inhabitant hidden beneath the yellow sand—no, that should be considered the ancestor of the dark inhabitants, or rather, the god of another dimension that their souls yearned for.

But that was only a vague outline of this great will. In Rick, He saw some characteristics similar to His own in the past: dross, chaos, wretchedness, and abandonment by the gods...

This is just a guess, a thought that suddenly came to Rick's mind when he listened to that ancient voice, dug three feet into the ground under the pitch-black night sky, and unearthed that strange book of poems.

A kindred spirit? A resonance?
Maybe so.

Perhaps, just three feet below the sand, lies a great being sealed away.

Perhaps this is just a fragment of His will left behind after His death here. In some more ancient civilizations, people call this fragment of will brainwaves. The more powerful the life form, the more stable and intense the brainwaves it produces and leaves behind.

...

The People of the Rock

This is the title on the cover of the poetry collection that Rick unearthed from under the yellow sand after heeded the "bewitchment" of that great will; it is a tattered collection of poems that has been almost completely weathered.

Apart from the few words in the prologue on the first page, most of the text inside is already blurred.

The two lines of text that could be clearly seen read—

"It is said that in the forgotten dark corners of the world, evil creatures from ancient times still lurk, and that the 'gate' still opens on certain nights to release alien creatures from hell—and this remains true to this day."

...

The collection contains four independent short poems: "Leaving the Ancient Land," "Black Desire," "Dark Majesty," and "Star Beast," which Milo would surely find familiar.

...

What use is a thin collection of poems when one is starving and desperate?

Rick didn't know.

He thought that he might be able to use it to start a fire when he was about to freeze to death.

...

Interestingly, after obtaining this collection of poems, Rick never woke up from the biting cold in the middle of the night again. Every night, he would immerse himself in a particular dream and couldn't wake up.

In his dream, he wandered aimlessly across the yellow sand, his body feeling lighter than ever before. He felt none of the heaviness that had gripped his feet during the day. He felt as if every drop of water in his body had evaporated, yet he did not experience any significant hunger or thirst, nor did he feel tired.

He felt he could keep walking like this forever.

...

And whenever the dream ends, a burning, thirsty, exhausted, and searing pain would rush over him in an instant, biting into his body and soul.

Over time, Rick began to look forward to his dreams and to falling asleep after nightfall, and this anticipation grew stronger every day.

…“Life will find its own way.”

The soul also creates ways to comfort itself.

This is perhaps the magic of the gravel desert: when a person's spirit can no longer bear the loneliness and pain of the day, it begins to place its hopes in dreams, telling itself again and again that only dreams without pain are real.

This is the real reason why all those traveling merchants who died of hunger and thirst never stopped and continued to travel across the vast sand dunes in their living corpses.

...

……

At one point, Rick, who was "sleeping," suddenly felt a pang of hunger.

He felt he might be waking up; the real feeling of hunger and thirst gradually intensified, a sign that the dream was about to end.

When he woke up, he found that the stream of light in the sky had not yet appeared, and it was still a cold night.

"This is unreasonable."

Rick felt intense dizziness, a dizziness beyond his drowsiness limit.

"I'm probably going to freeze to death soon."

He took out the can of dried "rations," took out one or two pieces, and chewed them to replenish his energy.

Then, with great composure, he took out the scroll of poems entitled "The People of the Stone" from his bosom.

"You've finally come in handy."

He struck the gravel to create sparks, which ignited the poem.

...

But when he shakily pressed his frozen, stiff fingers against the flame, he felt no warmth at all.

It was as if the flames were an illusion.

He moved even closer, almost putting his hands into the flames to burn, but still felt no warmth at all.

Then Rick suddenly remembered that, being in a half-zombie state, he couldn't touch flames.

In the firelight, he could clearly see many tattered holes through his palm, and ten fingers with hardly any flesh left hanging from them... no, only seven and a half...

"Wait...I am..."

He suddenly remembered something.

...

……

Then, in the firelight, the first chapter of the poem, which had been burning in the flames, began to emerge...

The first line of this poem, titled "Leaving the Ancient Land," is: "Only the dead can escape from there..."

...

At this moment, Rick finally remembered.

He actually died a long time ago.

He may have died yesterday, or even earlier, perhaps when he found and ate his third desert cat, because he always found that meat particularly sweet. Of course, he may have already died on the very first day he fell into the gravel desert.

...

In a daze, the flames before Rick's eyes vanished, and the poem disappeared as well.

He returned to his dream and began to walk forward lightly and freely, without feeling cold or hungry.

But the fact is.

What he had long believed to be a dream, a dream without pain, was actually reality.

Like all those traveling merchants who died on their journeys, he had long since become a aimless walking corpse under the control of the gravel desert.

Those experiences of pain and torment, collecting dew with tattered clothes at dawn, waiting for desert cats to emerge from their nests at dusk, and chewing venomous scorpions raw at sunrise—these survival experiences are the very illusions of a dream.

He's been doing it backwards all along.

...

……

But the firelight of the poems reminded Rick.

He suddenly remembered—

"That's not right... I was already a half-zombie, and Graki's poison turned me into this grotesque state... How can a zombie die..."

"The living dead can't die..."

"I can walk out, right?"

"What else is written in those poems...? How can we leave this ancient land...?"

...

……

Later, everything seemed to confirm the opening passage of the poetry collection:

"It is said that in the forgotten dark corners of the world, evil creatures from ancient times still lurk, and that the 'gate' still opens on certain nights to release alien creatures from hell—and this remains true to this day."

That day, the "door" really opened.

What emerged from hell was not some ancient evil creature, but merely a living corpse with its body and soul utterly destroyed.

The zombie carried a glass jar and a thin scroll of poetry. Without much hesitation, he stepped over the doorway.

Because on the other side of the door was a city from his memory.

He knows every corner of this place.

The perennial rainy weather, the muddy streets, the overly decorated buildings that appear cluttered under the gloom, the city guards carrying iron bars on the streets, and the vaguely visible shadows wearing tricorn hats...

...

Rick is a little confused right now.

He didn't know whether he had "come back" or "left" completely.

However, he soon noticed some creatures carrying lanterns and with countless eyes on their heads approaching from outside the door behind him, so he quickly "closed the door."

(End of this chapter)