Alien Knights

Walking in this dense forest, the tall Valkyries walked in the forefront, and with their agility, they bypassed all the branches and shrubs that blocked the road.

Todd followed behind them, looking at the landscape in front of them, a passage leading to the depths of the "Sacred Forest" appeared as if by magic.

Brunhilde turned her head, and her silver hair danced gently along with her movements: "The leader of Muxi Town, I still don't understand why you, a pagan, insist on entering the ruins of the gods?"

Todd nodded to the Valkyrie, and said half-truthfully, "It's half curiosity, and half longing. By the way, your lingua franca is really good."

"I have learned almost every language on the continent."

Todd was taken aback for a moment, and later said in a dazed tone, "You really love learning."

"No, it's different from what you imagined. I just have a lot of time, more than you can imagine." Brunhilde looked into the speaker's eyes, turned around, and stopped talking.

Todd stepped on the soft and muddy ground with one foot deep and one shallow, slowed down his pace, and whispered to Huggins, "Have you brought anything?"

The latter shook the iron cage in his hand and gave Todd a reassuring look.

A group of people walked along this hidden and long path towards the depths of the dense forest for 20 minutes, and gradually heard the sound of gurgling water and children's laughter.

Following the Valkyrie who led the way out of the forest, Todd's eyes suddenly opened up. A wide open space appeared among the trees and boulders. A spring spouting clear water continuously turned the center of the open space into a small pond.

Four or five girls of different ages were laughing and playing by the pond. After seeing Brunhilde appear, they ran to her and grabbed her skirt, begging her loudly to join their game. The Valkyries took out the puppet toys from their luggage and handed them to the girls. Seeing the surprised expressions on the faces of these children, they showed rare smiles.

"Apart from the guardian relics, these children are our only ones."

Todd heard Brunhilde's words and couldn't help but look at her twice. The silver-haired woman was tall and tall. Judging from her young and beautiful face, she was no more than twenty years old at most, but her words and actions always gave people the illusion of having experienced vicissitudes.

Todd shook his head vigorously, driving this strange idea out of his mind, and asked the Valkyrie: "I heard that there are often people who suffer from supernatural powers on the North Island and come here to seek healing..."

Brunhilde glanced at him, touched the puppet in his hand, raised his chin, and pointed to the pond in the middle of the open space: "I know what you want to ask, have you seen that spring? It is the "Healing Spring" in the "Sacred Forest". Those people who drank the spring water changed from aliens to ordinary people."

Todd turned his head and led Huggins to the pond in the middle of the clearing.

The pond is not big, with an area of ​​no more than forty square meters. The water quality is clear with a little green light, and the visibility is excellent. Lighter at the edges, darker toward the middle. In the center of the living eye, where spring water keeps gushing out, it is pitch black without any color, like a bottomless hole, which is daunting.

Todd winked at Huggins and whispered, "Follow the plan and remember to take some samples. Also, be careful not to touch the water."

Huggins took out the tightly wrapped iron cage from behind, and opened the curtain. Inside was a dormouse infected with "frozen" bacteria. Carefully fill up the spring water with the jug, and pour out some to feed it. Tens of seconds later, the cold air on the subject's body slowly disappeared, completely turning into an ordinary dormouse.

Brunhilde touched the tops of the girls' heads and motioned them to play separately. Looking at the two standing by the pond, he said loudly, "Master of Muxi Town, don't you want to see the remains of the gods?"

Todd stared blankly at the Dormouse in the cage, and it took him a while to realize: "Okay...Okay, I'll be right here."

Following in the footsteps of the Valkyrie, Todd and Huggins walked through the open space, turned around the stone pile at the corner, and entered a small town with the atmosphere of the Middle Ages. In the simple blacksmith shop, sweating female blacksmiths are repairing weapons; in the square farmland, several tall women are planting summer wheat; on the flat ground in front of the houses, an old woman in a headscarf and a group of chattering girls are drying mushrooms and dried fruits.

The villagers looked at the two men who hadn't set foot here for a long time, and started talking in low voices.

Todd roughly counted, there are actually hundreds of people in this village belonging to the Valkyrie, but all of them are women.

Just when he was about to ask, a burst of grief-stricken cries attracted the team's attention.

Brunhilde looked in the direction of the sound, frowning, and changed direction under his feet.

Seeing this, Todd quickly followed.

A woman about 30 years old was holding a baby girl about one year old. She put her face close to the child's bloodless face, and knelt at the door of the hut, crying loudly.

Brunhild walked up to the woman, knelt down on one knee, and inspected the baby girl in her arms. After a while, the Valkyrie lowered her head sadly, and gently hugged the weeping woman.

Handing over the consolation to the other Valkyrie accompanying her, Brunhilde took one last look at the baby who had lost her life, and continued to move forward despite her grief.

Todd looked at the other person's expression, hesitated for a long time, and then said: "The baby..."

Brunhilde's footsteps did not stop, and there was no sound in his tone: "As servants of the gods, we follow the tradition and remain virgins. This means that we cannot have children. The only way we can enjoy the joy of motherhood is to wait for the outside world to give us baby girls, and adopt them in order of age. However, everyone here wants a child, but very few babies are sent every year, so every Valkyrie will treat children as treasures when it is their turn..."

Speaking of this, the Valkyrie walked to the end of the village, came to a smooth stone wall, and put her hands against a heavy boulder. With a loud roar and the sound of ground friction, the boulder weighing a thousand catties was moved aside, and a dark hole was exposed on the stone wall.

Patting the dust on his palms, Brunhilde ignored the surprised expressions of the men and walked into the cave first.

The Valkyrie took down a torch from the wall at the entrance of the cave, ignited it with a flint, and walked into the depths of the cave, saying, "But, for some reason, not many children in the village survived. Many were like that baby, who had a high fever for several days, red spots on their bodies, and finally died of exhaustion..."

When Todd heard this, something flashed in his mind, but when he wanted to think carefully, he was attracted by other things.

The murals, the rock walls on both sides of the cave are all murals.

For the mighty and invincible gods and monsters of different shapes, their names are written in ancient North Island language under each mural, such as Odin, Thor, Freyr, Heimdallr, Muspel, Hrimthurs, Loki, Fenrisulfr and so on.

Todd watched the murals move forward slowly, and finally saw a painting called "Twilight of the Gods" at the end of the cave. Asgard fell in fire and sea, the stars fell from the sky, and time no longer existed. The scorched black ground swayed and sank into the turbulent seabed, and all I could see were the huge waves, and there was only dead silence and eternal darkness in the universe.

This painting is almost the same as the description of the Nordic mythology in the previous life. But there was one place that caught Todd's attention. Right above the sky, there was a strange symbol, which consisted of upper and lower parts. The upper half is an upward pointing arrow, and the lower half is an inverted isosceles triangle.

Brunhild walked to the wall at the end, put his hands on the wall, and pushed forward. The wall in front of them sank inward, and a small path for only one person appeared in front of the team.

Todd and Huggins looked at each other, and finally decided to follow the Valkyrie to see what happened.

Drilling out of the gap, Todd opened his mouth wide in surprise as he looked at the scenery in front of him.

The world behind the mountain wall is actually a huge cave.

Looking far away, the depths of the cave can't be seen at a glance. The wide part is like a square, the narrow part is like a promenade, and the high part is 30 meters high. The top of the cave is a naturally formed tiankeng, and strong light is projected from above, bringing a glimmer of light to this mysterious underground space.

Brunhilde turned around, looked at Todd and said, "The leader of Muxi Town, welcome to the ruins of the gods. I heard that you are an alchemist, and there is something I want you to see."