The girl with white hair and red eyes is serious about revenge

In the cab, Shaya and Aoi were discussing something. When they saw Perlis coming, they immediately called out to her:

"Ms. Perlis, do you sense anything wrong?" Shaya asked.

"I seem to have seen what the city looked like long ago," Perlis went straight to the point, "Did you see it too?"

"Yes," Shaya nodded, "I can't be wrong... That's the Shangshu City in my memory..."

"Could it be a mirage?" Aoi said, "After all, this place is close to the sea. Maybe it's a projection of a coastal city in Qilang?"

Mirage, also known as phantom illusion, is an optical illusion. It is widely believed that it is caused by the refraction of light at the temperature gradient boundary, which projects the distant scene onto the atmosphere, forming a fairyland that seems real and illusory.

But an illusion happened to be projected on the ruins of another abandoned city? This was too coincidental no matter how you looked at it.

"I don't think so..." Perlis said, "Slow down the RV."

"it is good."

Saya had lost her usual playfulness and seemed to become uneasy as she approached her hometown, being extremely cautious in her every move.

"By the way, I just heard singing... It's still there now, but it's much quieter."

"What kind of singing is that?" asked Perlis.

"I can try to hum a tune for you, but it may not be accurate."

Saya hummed a melody that was ethereal and lonely, yet also carried a chilling coldness.

Although Perlis had never heard this melody, she could feel a vague sense of uneasiness growing in her heart.

"I haven't heard of it," said Perlis, "but it feels... very familiar..."

Everyone fell silent, and the three people in the cockpit stared at the outline of the city, as if trying to capture the previous phenomenon again.

But Shangshu City seemed to be completely dead, standing lonely on the horizon, waiting motionlessly for the group of people to arrive.

......

Two hours later, the Turtle drove into the urban area of ​​Shangshu City through an abandoned road.

Along the way, no strange phenomena appeared again. The phenomena seen by the group before seemed to be just illusions. This city was dead. How could dead things move?

The only thing that made Perlis feel wrong was that Upper Hub City did not show much sign of black tide erosion.

Unlike the Black Dead Zone, which has almost become a Kuroshio Ecological Paradise, most of the buildings in Shangshu City are still intact. The old city area at the entrance to the city is full of old apartment buildings. If you look down from the sky, the age of the city's buildings radiates from the center. The city center, which is surrounded by the tallest antenna tower in the city, has the same novel and advanced architectural style as Chaoqu City. The farther away from the city center, the lower and older the buildings are.

It looks like Shangshu City has not been destroyed by the brute force of the Black Tide, but has simply been left without human care.

A city without people is like a lawn that no one prunes. It will be overgrown with weeds in a few days. The civilized order will disappear and nature will take over.

[Land Tortoise] stopped beside a dilapidated gas station. It was not because it wanted to refuel here, but because the flat land in front of the gas station was more spacious.

When Perlis got out of the car, she happened to see two slender mechanical arms walking past her in the form of two feet.

"Excuse me, excuse me."

A lazy voice came, and when Perlis looked up, she found that Lian was supported in the air by a mechanical arm, and the other two mechanical arms were checking something tied to the roof of the [Tortoise].

"What is that?" asked Perlis.

"The submersible was found in the basement of the Yuanzhen office center. Zu Ligui used it before, and I improved it a bit," Lian murmured, "Hmm... no bumps, not bad, I'll check it out later."

"That diary was also found in the submersible," Aoi got out of the car beside Perlis, "Remember what Zuligui mentioned in the diary?"

"Well, I remember," Perlis recalled the details in the diary, "'I dived into the deep darkness and glimpsed the truth in the cracks of the world.'"

"That guy speaks in a very sophisticated way, which is maddening," Aoi sighed. "Anyway, it is certain that the temple you mentioned is probably in the sea, so it is necessary to bring a submersible."

"Can you feel the location of the temple now?" Perlis put one hand on Aoi's chest.

"Ah... Stop touching me~" Aoi patted the back of Perlis's hand shyly, and soon became serious again, "To be honest, I can't sense it..."

"Huh? Why?"

"No, no, no, that's not quite accurate. To be precise, I can still sense it, but that position has changed to... all around?"

"All around? You mean..."

Before Perlis finished speaking, she suddenly felt a strong sense of crisis.

At the same time, Shaya's shouting came from inside the RV:

"Singing! The singing suddenly got louder!"

Perlis turned around suddenly, only to find that the light and shadow had suddenly changed in an instant - the desolate and dilapidated city suddenly disappeared from her sight, and what followed was a deep blue sky and a street scene filled with lights!

She turned her head again and was surprised to find that the radio and television tower named "Shangshu Star" was flashing strings of signal lights in the clear sky. The metallic tower body was like a fashionable and avant-garde girl showing her graceful figure, without any signs of decay.

This is Shangshu City before it was destroyed. Perlis and her group suddenly appeared on the passing streets. Cars were busy passing through the streets. This city, which was lifeless not long ago, suddenly became alive again.

......

3) Temple of the Old Blessing (Part 3)

The moment the old city scene appeared, everyone stood still. Everything before their eyes was too real that they didn't know what to do.

Perlis was the first to come back to her senses. She quickly scanned the busy streets and the people walking on the opposite street. With just a glance, Perlis found that the moving cars and people were not entangled with factors, and were obviously just illusions.

The city's bustling streets are functioning, but the expressions on the faces of all the pedestrians are extremely weird.

"It's an illusion." Perlis murmured.

There was no doubt that whatever song Shaya heard was the one that created the illusion before her eyes, trapping everyone who entered Upper Central City in the maze of the past.

Perlis recalled the corpses of unknown causes of death in the wilderness. If she acted recklessly, would the consequence be like that?

At this time, Shaya's murmur came from the side:

"...Ah...my home..."

When Perlis turned her head, she found that Shaya's eyes were a little dazed. She was staring in a certain direction not far away and was about to take a step.

"Shaya! Don't move!" Perlis shouted.

Shaya trembled as if she was awakened, and she looked at Perlis with fear in her eyes.

"I...I...I'm sorry..."

"This is just an illusion, it's fake," Perlis said, "If I'm not mistaken, this is the memory of the underworld projected into the real world..."

[The Netherworld] is a world of shadows, a world of memories. The group's previous guess could not be said to be wrong. The current scene was like a mirage. The memory of the Netherworld was projected from below to above because the boundary between the worlds was changed, and it briefly formed an infiltration phenomenon in the real world.

This may have created a situation similar to the "upper subspace" in the real world, and the current old scenery is the "lower subspace".

The method to break through the subspace is very simple. Perlis can directly tear open the crack and get out, but the problem is that except Aoi and Perlis, the other two people present cannot withstand the passage through the crack.

So, the next thing to do is to find the source of the illusion.

However...the old scene in front of her made Perlis think of a possibility - could it be that the way to get to the Temple of Blessing of the Old Ones is through this subspace with a disordered timeline?

Perlis had seen the concept of "blessing" in "Wilkin's Anthology of Fairy Tales and Poems", which referred to the bond that once existed between the [High Heaven] and [Ersa]. After the blessing was materialized, it became the so-called [Destruction Factor], which allowed the Dust Star to grow more and more prosperously under its nourishment.

But later, [Erza] severed the link that transmitted the blessing, and the blessing was no longer there.

The reason why Aoi couldn’t sense the Old Blessing Temple before...could it be because its main body was not in the current time and space?

In this case, perhaps if we start from this illusion, we can find traces of the temple.

Then, we should first find the highest perspective.

Perlis's brainstorm soon ended. She looked up at the "Upper Central Star" radio and television tower in the distance and said to the person next to her:

"We need to get up on that TV tower."

"Don't just think about it alone, share your reasoning process," Aoi had recovered from her initial shock, "Maybe we can provide some new perspectives."

Perlis then shared her reasoning with the others, including the conceptual reorganization of the name of the Old Blessing Temple. After listening, even Lian, who prided herself on being a little logic genius, murmured:

"Your idea is correct... I feel like I can no longer offer any new perspectives... This is a brand new field, and there is too much unknown knowledge for me..."

"You mean, if we climb up that antenna tower, maybe we can sense the exact location of the temple?" Aoi asked.

"Yes," Perlis nodded, "Can you sense it now?"

"I can sense it, but just like before, the same signal is coming from all directions."

"If we regard singing as a means of changing the boundaries of space, then the singer's position is probably the end of space," Perlis said. "If your induction comes from all directions, then we should find a bird's-eye view point to see how this induction is distributed."

"Okay, then shall we continue driving? Will it be dangerous?" Aoi glanced at the [Tortoise] beside him, and found it hard to imagine that this RV had also entered this space.

This really stumped Perlis. In fact, she didn't know what the nature of this subspace was. For example, would she collide with the cars on the street? Would she knock pedestrians away if she hit them? Who knows...

Before she could figure out an answer, Shaya said:

"Go ahead, I'll drive, I'll drive."

Her voice was very low, as if she was begging for mercy. Perlis looked at Shaya and saw that her face was calm, but her blue eyes were constantly flashing like water waves.

Perlis nodded and said:

"it is good."

So, the group boarded the Turtle and all squeezed into the cab. A few minutes later, the RV drove crookedly onto the main street of Shangshu City.

......

On the way to Upper Hub City, Perlis read a lot of information about the city.

According to Qi Lang's records, Shangshu has always been a city with a technological level comparable to Chaoqu, with people living a relatively affluent life and its anti-black tide measures also top-notch.

This is due to its geographical location at the estuary. In the previous era, this city was Qilang’s trading port. The elites of the entire great union gathered here, and its supporting facilities were naturally iterated with the highest priority.

When the Day of Judgment came, the city withstood the attack of the black tide like a fortress, and continued the flame of civilization with minimal damage.

But such a city was quietly wiped out one day after the Day of Judgment.

All that is left here is an empty city and the shadow of the past looming over the city.

"......"

Perlis has been paying attention to Shaya's expression. Ever since she returned to the old Shangshu City, this determined and playful girl suddenly became a little sad.

She drove in strict accordance with traffic rules, and those old shadows seemed to regard [Tortoise] as part of the traffic flow and would not take her place.

Through the car window, Perlis saw the expressions of the drivers - weird and lifeless.

Along the way, Perlis had been on high alert, fearing that something unexpected might happen. But the facts were beyond her expectations, the journey to the Upper Hub Star was very smooth, the prosperous city was running in an orderly manner in this fantasy, and nothing out of the ordinary happened.

This made Perlis feel as if she had traveled through time and space and returned to the era when everything had not yet been destroyed.

It would be great if I could really travel back in time... just keep turning the clock in the opposite direction and I could see those people again.

Carly should still urge me to eat properly, right? She is so busy on weekdays, she doesn't even eat well herself but she has to manage my diet... She is really strict.

If Dad and Mom lived together, would they take me to the sea of ​​flowers every holiday? They are really a perfect match, and we would be a family that everyone envies, right?

Grandpa Hasanka will teach me kendo strictly, right? Maybe my fighting skills will be even better than they are now.

What kind of person could Uncle Coles be? He has been to so many civilizations, so he must have stories about the entire starry sky to tell me, right?

Immersed in the scenery of Shangshu City, the corners of Perlis' mouth curled up slightly unconsciously, but sadness soon surged over her like a tide.

But... time travel is impossible...

......

3) Temple of the Old Blessing (Part 4)

It seemed like just a blink of an eye, and the [Tortoise] stopped in the open space in front of the "Upper Pivot Star" antenna TV tower.

Perlis and her group got out of the car, and after making sure the surroundings were safe, they headed towards the antenna tower.

There was no one near the entire antenna tower, the square in front of the gate was empty, the security booth at the gate was empty, and there was a cup of steaming tea on the table.

Shaya had been leading the way in front. She had never stopped looking since she got off the car, as if she wanted to take in everything around her.

"I climbed this antenna tower when I was a kid," Shaya looked back excitedly, "It's the tallest building in the entire Upper Hub City!"

Perlis could see light in Shaya's eyes, and she felt an inexplicable empathy. This was where Shaya grew up as a child. She might have wanted to come back here countless times, but the barrier of time could not be crossed.

Now she is back.

But this also made Perlis more alert - the emergence and maintenance of this fantasy obviously required human intervention, and something was urgently trying to recall the old scenes and maintain them within the scope of this city.

But Perlis didn't know why that thing did this. Shangshu City had been destroyed for decades. The city had not become a hotbed for the Kuroshio ecosystem, and this illusion had never radiated to the surrounding areas. So why did this illusion-creating being do this? What was its purpose?