Gou is a dark elf in Warhammer

"Welcome, my friend, welcome!"

A voice came from behind. Ren, who was no longer looking at the amulet, cursed and turned around to look. A thin figure was walking towards him along the slope. Then another figure climbed up the slope from the fog gathered and swirled in the dark street, emerged from the broken arches and dark holes, and quietly slipped into sight with a manic desire.

"Welcome, friend, welcome." The first person who spoke stopped at a relatively safe range and smiled, revealing a mouthful of brown teeth. But unlike last time, the smile disappeared from his face. After observing Ryan for a moment, he said, "If you were here, you would definitely be damned."

Ryan was sure that this person was talking, talking to him. He knew the task and mission that Dacus had given him, so he put more energy into it. Now he could understand most languages. But he couldn't understand what this person was saying. The words were obscure and beyond his comprehension.

The figure moved, so fast that Ren could barely see him, the blade twisting in his hand, trying to saw through Ren's wrist where he held the sword.

Ren roared and slashed with his sword. The blade hit the figure, then passed through it, splitting it in two and falling to the ground. He spun on the spot and kicked out, sending the other figure flying backwards, hitting a nearby archway and shattering the thin glass window. As the fragments rained down, the figure collapsed among the glass, making a gurgling sound, and a fragment lodged in the figure's jugular vein.

He took a step back and came close to the figure. As he approached, he heard a sound similar to ice cracking. The sound rang again, and he realized that it was coming from the largest piece of glass, the surface of the fragment bent and stretched upward and shattered.

"I told you, now is not the time!"

The figure's hands waved, groping on the debris-strewn ground. As Ren approached, he glared at Ren, growled, and spoke a language Ren could not understand. His voice echoed with a strange sound, as if it came from far away, and yet it seemed so close.

Ryan ignored the figure's words and swung his sword away. As the fragments shattered, the figure's howling stopped abruptly and there was silence. However, before he could observe or recover, he heard the sound of metal hitting stone. He turned around nervously and a tall and thin figure looked at him from the stairs.

"Undead?"

He saw the figure holding a huge spear in one hand and a round shield strapped to the other, but that was nothing, for the figure was nothing but a skeleton wrapped in tattered armor and a fur cloak.

Other equally decayed figures stood behind the figure, one wearing a hood and a tattered cloak, leaning on a giant sickle that only farmers would use. Another was wearing relatively ornate, but now tattered clothes. The third was wearing relatively simple armor.

In addition to these four figures, there were dozens of skeletons wearing rags and holding broken weapons climbing up the hillside from all directions in the distance.

"Who..." the skeleton holding the spear asked hoarsely, his voice like sand scraping against stone.

"Stay away from me, back off!" Ryan snapped.

The skeleton didn't say anything this time. Maybe he didn't understand what Ryan was saying, or maybe the sentence just now was his limit.

"Fresh meat, meat, meat... I'm still hungry, always hungry." The figure in tattered clothes stared at Ryan and panted.

Ryan still didn't understand, and he didn't want to say anything or provoke. He had fought with the dead before, but it was not fun, no blood, no screams, no life to kill, no joy and fear. He held the blade of reality across his chest and made final preparations before the battle.

The skeleton that spoke made a disdainful gesture and waved his spear. Another skeleton in armor came forward to greet Ryan, as if he was a warrior of a great lord, and he pulled out a huge two-handed sword from the scabbard on his back.

Ryan waited for the skeleton to approach, but to his surprise, the skeleton's movements were more graceful than he expected. When the skeleton attacked, the large-scale sweeping attack almost cut him in half. But he didn't jump back and try to increase the distance between himself and the sword. He took a gamble and his left hand grasped the back of the front end of the blade, placing the blade horizontally within the sweeping range of the greatsword. This time, what he expected happened.

When the greatsword broke, he rushed forward, constantly pushing the skeleton back, leaving long and thin knife marks on the skeleton's armor. He roared and vented all kinds of anger. The greatsword in the skeleton's hand had already broken into three pieces, leaving only the tightly grasped handle. Every time the skeleton chose to retreat or advance, he could predict it, and the blade kept swinging. Although the skeleton was very flexible, his blade always hit the skeleton's armor.

The other skeletons watched this horrific dance in silence, their eyes flickering like candles in the darkness.

The Reality Blade swung out again, hissing, the air was split by the sword, and the skeleton was hit when he twisted his body. He lost his balance and fell to the ground. Ryan, who was pursuing the victory, used a move that was extremely crude and dangerous in Duruchi's eyes. He used a move that he would never use before he got the Reality Blade. He raised his hands above his head and chopped the blade down.

The blade slashed into the skeleton's torso, cutting into exposed ribs, and he tried to get up, stumbling backwards, but he could no longer rise, his torso suffering the fate of his great sword.

Ryan leaped forward and pinned the skeleton's upper torso to the ground, slamming his blade into the skeleton's sword arm, separating the skeleton's hand from the wrist. He hooked his fingers around the skeleton's skull, and the skeleton's free hand clawed at his forearm, but to no avail. With a roar, he tore the skeleton's skull off in a classic move and threw it aside.

"Next!" Ryan roared as he stood up.

The spear-wielding skeleton stared at Ryan, then he raised his spear, and the other skeletons began to move forward. This time there was no duel, only death.

Ryan gritted his teeth and raised his sword high. He knew that he would die. There were too many monsters that could not communicate, and there was no escape nearby. He prepared for the final sprint. Facing such a situation, it was better to face the difficulties head-on and die at a time of his own choosing, rather than waiting for death to find him. He started to sprint, but a word stopped him.

"No!"

This time he could finally understand. He saw the advancing skeletons stop, the skeleton holding the spear turned slightly, and when an armored figure passed through the team and climbed up the slope, the light in the skeleton's eye sockets became brighter.

But he didn't pay too much attention to the skeleton holding the spear, but looked at... He couldn't describe it, the new figure was taller than him, maybe because of his height, or maybe because of the style of the armor, it looked very tall. The armor was not bulky, but very slender. He couldn't be sure of the style because it was the first time he saw this type of armor.

On the elbows and knees of the armor were lustful faces, demonic shapes frolicking across the scarred armor. The helmet was fashioned into the shape of a grinning face, rounded and happy, with a stiff crest of black hair rising from the top of the helmet and cascading down his back. A tattered cloak of faded sky blue was worn over his back, and his hand rested on the worn hilt of a broken sword low at his waist.

"Long time no see, my friend."

The figure's voice was deep and loud, but it sounded strange.

"I don't know you!" Ryan's face darkened and he looked around vigilantly, wondering if this was some kind of trick or some kind of psychological deficit.

"I'm sorry, I'm Zuvas, you'd better follow me." The figure said while making a contemptuous gesture.

"why?"

"Because if you don't leave with me, you will die, and the dead will take you away."

Ryan paused, he looked at the skeletons that surrounded him, he was sure that if he continued to fight, he would die. He knew it was dangerous to be with Daquus, he knew, he always knew, he knew that he would die sooner or later, but he didn't want to die here, he didn't want to die now. He should die on the battlefield, die in a political conflict, or die of old age in Lustria, not die here.

"Very good." He said reluctantly as he slowly put down the Reality Blade.

"You're smart, always have been." Zuvas smiled, a hollow sound full of resentment and bitterness, and then he turned around and said, "Come on."

"Where is this?" Ryan asked cautiously after leaving the layers of skeletons.

"A pair of fleshless hands knocked on my door, and I fled desperately into the unknown." Zouvas pointed upward and waved his hands dramatically.

Ryan resisted the urge to swing his sword and stared coldly at Zuvas who was walking side by side with him. He now had too many questions.

"The evidence is right in front of you. This is the lost glory trapped between light and shadow. If you wish, I can explain more. Since I have been trapped here, I have served as a shepherd and guide for many lost souls."

"Trapped?" When Ryan heard the word, something in his heart froze.

"Yes, unfortunately, we are lost. This is Shadow Spire, Mirror City, Mirror City. You can call it whatever you like. It's like the shadow of a shadow, or the reflection cast by a broken mirror. It's imperfect. Anyway... welcome, welcome to the Mirror City, welcome... go to hell."

Ryan thought of the streets he had passed through when he was in the procession just now. Every building seemed to hang at the wrong angle. Even the shadows had a jagged quality, as if something had twisted them all out of shape.

As he moved forward, he discovered more strange things: the sky seemed to heave, will-o'-the-wisps danced in the nooks and crannies of the stone, casting a pale, tomb-green light on everything. Water poured down from invisible aqueducts in murky streams or gushed from broken reservoirs, flooding the collapsed areas.

A damp mist hung over everything, and it seemed to grow thicker as he moved through it. He caught glimpses of short, thin figures moving beside him, but heard nothing except the screech of feet on stone.

"What are they? They don't look like any of the undead I've ever killed."

"That's because they are not. The undead are nothing more than feral corpses animated by the whim of a necromancer or some form of death magic. They are all instinct and hunger, without sentience. These creatures were, and are, not dead, because they are denied death. Instead, they simply... decay? With every day that passes, they lose a little more of themselves.

Perhaps... it was these people who refused to die, and for every person they killed, three shadows seemed to come back. Within a few days, hundreds of people turned into thousands, and a plague swept through the entire city, so the warriors in this city needed to spend a long time hunting their own bodies to rest in peace.

Maybe... who knows? One day, most of them disappeared, swallowed up as suddenly as they appeared. One more mystery in a city like this. Just like us, we are all mysteries, you and me, we disappeared from history, lost in this place, and the world continues to move without us. "Zuwas patted his chest at the end.

"I'm not a mystery, I know who I am!"

"Yes, but maybe it can be corrected?"

"You haven't explained why you were looking for me, or how you knew I would be there, or who you are? You forgot to introduce yourself, and why do you speak Elsalin?"

"I introduced myself to you when I met you. My name is Zuvas. After I got this name, I understood a lot, including the Elsalin language you spoke."

"Zuvas...what kind of name is that? What kind of bullshit name is that?"

"In the near future, you will know who I am, I promise." Facing Ryan's deliberate provocation, Zuvas just chuckled.

"Am I your prisoner, then?"

"No!" Zuvas responded in a firm tone.

"Whose prisoner am I then? The dead? Are you a slave? Has the god you serve abandoned you to the mercy of these corpses?"

"I stand where I choose, friend. No man or god commands me, but I can take control only when it suits me." Zuvas glanced at Ryan, and he spoke as if he was laughing.

"What now?" Ren wanted to smash the Chaos Warrior's grinning mask with his blade to see what was behind the mask, but he restrained himself.

"I am fit to obey our master, and so should you. Otherwise, you may find yourself buried prematurely. Perhaps you didn't know, but this is how they treat prisoners, sealing them in one of the city's great tombs. Imagine... being trapped in a box for eternity."

"Humph, I'll find a way to end my life."

"No, you can't. You can't do anything to the dead. We are all dead. We are dead, but we are not dead. This is an unsatisfactory state for anyone." Zuvas said while covering his chest with his hands.

"You seem to be quite pleased with this madness?"

"I just see the humor in it, a fitting punishment, trapping those who seek eternal life in an eternal hell, how ironic. It also makes for strange bedfellows, many servants of God, united in a common goal."

Ryan did not respond to Zuvas with words, but instead turned his head and spat.

"Are you a slave? Who is your master?"

"I am not a slave, I have no master, I am an independent individual! I have my own career, a great career, and I want to write my own chapter." "In fact, this is the definition of a slave."

A gleam of light flashed in Ren's eyes, and he raised the Reality Blade as a warning.

"I noticed that. I'm sorry, my friend." Zuvas didn't make a move to draw his sword. He raised his hands with a smile.

"We are not friends, we are not friends!"

"Oh, but we'll be friends, we'll be like brothers, you and me. By the way, go this way, it's dangerous over there."

"You're trying to keep me away from my team?"

"No, there are a small number of warriors gathered there, but they are dangerous, and some even bear the marks of serving the Dark Gods."

"Aren't they your friends? What's so scary in such a broken place?" Ryan keenly caught the meaning of Zuvas' words. As far as he knew, the Chaos Gods would attack each other, and so would their believers. There was a reason why they did not attack each other, and having a common enemy was one of the reasons.

"The Mirror City has been split into a hundred thousand fiefdoms, each with its own master or mistress. At any given moment, there are a dozen battles going on. We must remain vigilant at all times. Those believers are not like me. This is not safe."

"What do you know about gods? You exude a stench that I cannot describe. Not of desire or decay, not of ambition or blood. But you do serve the Chaos Gods. I can see the mark on you." Ryan did not put his energy into any fiefdom. In his opinion, it was not important. What was important was that he had to get back to the team immediately. Then he turned his gaze to the Chaos warriors.

"My friend, you must remember that there are more than four gods!"

"So you serve the god of vermin?"

"No. I fear that the god I serve is smaller than that. Perhaps you don't know that there are many such gods, lurking on the edge of the soul. Like bonito attached to the belly of a shark, they invisibly cling to various realms and thrive on the tide of emotions." Zuvas laughed.

“Why serve a lesser god when a greater god might welcome you?”

“Do we have a choice?”

"No, we were chosen." Ryan paused, thinking, and after a moment, he murmured.

"See, God chose you, a spendthrift God, throwing blessings to the wind."

"Watch your words!" Ryan roared.

"I'm sorry, my friend, I didn't mean to offend." Wass reached out and pushed a broken statue off its base. The statue fell and crashed into the courtyard below, breaking into pieces. He pointed to a still intact disc of sunshade glass.

Ryan turned, his reflection staring behind him, his pale face making snarling movements, distorted by excessive blood loss. For a moment, he thought it was just an illusion, then he saw the shadow of a huge hand fall on him and felt something twist in his body.

"Magic!" He blinked, the image changed, and he stared at himself, tracing the familiar lines on his face, and he murmured.

"Yes, this place is full of omens, and we are thrown between secrets and mysteries."

"Can you be more specific?"

"My friend, I cannot be more blunt. Every moment casts a shadow, and this shadow comes from a hundred thousand mirrors, each of which will mark a subtle difference in an instant, and some not so subtle. Everything that has happened, will happen, or may happen will be played out on the broken surface of every mirror in this city." Zuvas shrugged and gestured.

"You're talking crazy."

"I saw myself once, not my current self, but my future self, or my past self. It's hard to tell in this place. With every death here, a mirror breaks, and each fragment is a reflection of the deceased. Not all fragments are the same. Those reflections rise and walk. Who can say which one is real and which is just an illusion? This is not madness, this is the law of this place, and you will see it sooner or later." After a while, Zuvas looked at Ryan and said.

"You make it sound like this place is beyond the gods' control."

Zuvas laughed, as he always did, as if he knew some secret joke.

"Why are you grinning, idiot?" Ryan glared at Zuvas.

"You think the gods are all-powerful? You think their games are mere infantile squabbles? The powers of destruction are eternal, but what is eternity to that which exists before thought, before perception? That which stalks in the empty space between realms, vast and hungry. Look, look up, where the stars should be, what do you see?"

Ryan looked up at the sky, his heart pounding in his chest. He saw shadows, great shadows, folding back, falling forever upward. The sky was like the surface of a mirror lit by an open flame, dotted with pinpricks of light that were not stars but something else, like cracks in glass.

Every once in a while, something would pass through the crack, casting a shadow onto the city below. It was something huge, and he couldn't make out any shape. He looked away, and suddenly he felt very small, smaller than he had felt in a long time.

A skull the size of a moon, or rather a moon shaped like a skull, was staring down at him from above. The moon lacked substance, looking almost like a trick floating into a shadowy void, but it was there. He realized that the moon was not staring at him, but at the city. He shook his head, trying to ignore the moon, the only way to be safe. When he looked up again, the moon was gone, and he exhaled with a shaky breath.

"There are monsters in the deep, hungry things that swim the Eternal Ocean, looking for anything they can devour. The Ruinous Powers are like them, but younger, and they still play with their food."

Ryan turned around and swung the sword, and Zuvas raised his sword to block. He didn't even notice Zuvas's action of drawing the sword just now. What surprised him even more was that the broken sword in front of him blocked the characteristics of the Reality Blade.

"So... are you pious, my friend? I mean no offense, I just want to warn you, there are some beings in this place who will exchange gifts for services. If I were you, I wouldn't listen to them. Come on, I'll take you where you want to go, to who you want to find, not over there, but over here." Zuvas pushed away the Blade of Reality, put away the broken sword, then spread out his hands and said.

Ryan and his so-called best friend made their way through a crumbling stone passage that stank of mud and old blood. The passage led beneath the city, through a collapsed underworld that was once a sewer system. Black dead water lapped at their legs, and strange glowing pollen floated in the miasma-filled air. The stones in the walls shifted periodically, spitting large amounts of bones into the murky water.

"Just like you see, I know you don't like it, and I don't like it either, but we have to do it this way." When they came to the intersection, Zuvas stopped, observed and whispered to Ryan.

"I don't like sneaking around in the dark!" Ryan looked around. Wherever he turned, the gaping mouth of the cross passages seemed to greet him. Some were stone arches of various shapes, while others looked like the entrances of caves, but no matter what they looked like, they did not look attractive to him and all smelled foul.

This time, Zuvas didn't say anything, but looked at Ryan with a strange look, as if Ryan had made a joke that would make him laugh, but he had to hold back from laughing.

"It suits our purpose to move unnoticed. Few would venture into this fetid mess. Also, keep your voice down. Sound carries far in these depths," he whispered after a moment.

"You act as if there are spies around and we need to be vigilant. I'm not a fool. I know what divination is. I know that some people, if they master the trick, can see the future, extending in front of them like a path in the moonlight." Ryan started the confrontation again, and this time he led the topic to another place.

"What do you think?"

"I think the path you're on is a tortuous one, and more importantly, it makes no sense."

"Of course, in addition, there are many spies in this city. These maggots sneak into the flesh of the city, listening and observing. All prisons, no matter how big, must communicate." Zuvas was silent. He was silent for a long time. Finally, he responded to Ryan's sarcasm in an understated tone.

"So, who are we spies for? Or, who are you a spy for? Are you a maggot?" Ryan sneered again, having stepped on something unpleasant. He put out a hand to support himself to prevent himself from falling, but the wall supporting him collapsed and bones rushed towards him like a tide. He cursed and pounded, breaking several sticky skulls.

"I thought I told you to be careful." Zuvas, who was walking in front, turned around and said, welcoming the ribs thrown by Ryan. After hitting the ribs aside, he responded to Ryan's words, "No, we are not spies. As I always tell you, we are friends, be patient."

"Stop chattering and give me what I want. Either you die or I die!" Violence trembled in Ryan's body, causing every nerve in his body to twitch, and his voice echoed eerily in the tunnel.

"Be quiet, my friend. Be quiet, this is not the place for loud talking. Be quiet, listen, listen!"

"What's that? More dead bodies?" Ryan was about to say something when he heard the sound of splashing water in a nearby passage. He stopped and tilted his head to listen.

"Quiet! We have told them where we are, look!" said Zuvas, drawing his sword.

Something moved in the dark passage, and a new smell filled the air, a sickly sweet smell like rotting flesh. A thing emerged from the darkness, a broken, bent shape, almost animal-like, but not quite. It was thin and ragged, like a mummy left in the mud, and it wore tattered robes and tarnished jewelry.

Its head hung at a broken angle, its features withered, its sparse, colorless hair clinging to its scalp, its eyes and mouth sewn shut, but it moved incredibly quickly. Its clawed hands groped for the edge of the passage as it crawled into view.

Ryan stopped where he was, not thinking of taking a step toward the monster, whose head turned like a bird, as if listening. Zuvas stretched out an arm and pointed upward, and he slowly raised his head as Zuvas directed.

Two more unseen bodies clung to the ceiling, their heads tilted, listening. Three more bodies emerged from the far passage and scurried along the wall.

He heard more splashing sounds, echoing deeper into the tunnel. It sounded like there were dozens of them, all converging toward where he was, maybe more. More of the monsters crawled out of the darkness, on all fours, clinging to the walls, slithering through the water.

Zuvas signaled Ryan not to move, and when one of the monsters approached, Ryan barely moved. Even if Zuvas didn't say anything, Ryan wouldn't move, because he knew that he and Zuvas could never outrun this group of monsters, and running would only lead to death.

One of the monsters found the fallen helmet, lifted it out of the water, and then threw it back into the water, crushing it easily.

Ryan's eyes widened immediately when he saw this scene, and he held back the urge to gasp.

Now, there were dozens of monsters in the passage, all surrounding Ryan, some squatting in the water, some standing and swaying, although their movements were different, they were all listening.

The stalemate lasted for a long time, until Ren felt something in the air, a pulsation, like the buzzing of insects, as if these blind corpses were looking for something. He looked at Zuvas and saw Zuvas making a gesture. He saw that Zuvas was holding a stone in one hand.

Carefully, without alarming the monsters, Zuvas threw the stone into a passage, where it bounced and clattered away into the darkness.

All at once the monsters turned and crawled toward the sound, their leathery limbs rustling strangely as they swarmed into the passage.

Zuvas silently pointed to a damaged wall. When Ryan saw it, he looked towards the passage, watched the broken figure disappear into the darkness, and followed Zuvas through the gap.

They walked up a flight of rough steps covered with a layer of slime. Unlike Zuvas, who walked quickly, Ren walked more slowly, his feet slipping on the stone. At the top of the steps was a square passage covered with some kind of black mold and covered by a thick shroud. Zuvas tore off the shroud, and the two climbed up into a large room that reeked of stagnant water and rotting wood, and then more steps awaited them.

"Let's go up." Zuvas gestured and spoke calmly.

"What are those?"

"There are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of unpleasant creatures here? Lost souls, driven mad by the city, lost in the darkness. They hunt by sound, and if we fight them, more monsters will be attracted by the noise." Zuvas shrugged and said indifferently.

"Maybe we can fight non-stop, but they don't care. They are part of the city, part of the city's hunger. Your arms will eventually get tired, and then they will tear you apart. Many times, we are nothing. We must stay humble, just like... forget it. Don't ever forget this, Ryan, now, let us out." Seeing that Ryan remained silent, Zuvas talked to himself, his voice constantly echoing in the passage.

"You act like a prophet, and the plots you lay out are like a spider weaving a web, one thread after another."

"Friend, I am not a prophet. I don't have that ability." (End of this chapter)