"There is no life in your body, and there is no meaning of death. Even in the life of a body with magic power, there is the flow and dissipation of magic power. I can't see any description that fits your body, but you claim to be
Are you the same kind as me?" Coan Qiu asked in surprise, "You look very much like a doll, but you are so..."
Coal Ball's three brains entered overload mode together, and Sera could no longer find a suitable word to describe Nihil.
Nihil is structured and behaves like a doll, but it has spirituality and intelligence that are not consistent with a doll. But if it is not a doll, then what is it?
"To be honest, I don't know what I should be called."
Nihil stared at his arms, stared at his toes seriously, and then turned his body lightly. In the silent church, Nihil stepped on the glass and danced. The briquettes were the only spectators. Those who had pressed the freeze button
The Supreme Beings are the silent curtain.
Her perfect body coordination allowed her to perform many incredible movements one after another. She was so agile and vivid that when Nihil moved, ordinary people would never realize that she was almost a doll without preconceptions.
of strange life.
There was no music or rhythm. This free-spirited dance ended with a standard gesture of thanksgiving, and then Nihil kept moving for a long time, motionless.
In silence, she raised her head and looked at the briquettes with a slightly puzzled and pleading look.
"I heard that an excellent performance should receive applause."
Coal Ball immediately waved his tentacles and let out dull applause, but from the bottom of his heart, Sera and Lu Lu even felt that Nihil was better than many of Meira's court dancers.
Nihil smiled again: "They always get applause from the audience in the puppet theater. I learned all this through their eyes."
"The eyes...wait a minute, I thought they were the function of the embedded magic circle, right?" Sera asked hurriedly.
"Celcalo does have such a magic circle, but it is far from that convenient. Those people are still working hard."
"In other words, the sense of spying we felt in Gegelan came from you?"
"It's not just Geglan. Along the way, the puppets passed by the Supreme Hand are observing you for me. The word "seeing" may not be accurate. I can't see the exact picture through my eyes. I can only use magic power.
You can judge what you are doing by the traces of fluctuations.”
Even so, Briquette's scalp was numb. If the Supreme Puppet Master could make a large number of puppets, wouldn't Nihil's perception be...
He wanted to say something, but he couldn't say it. From now on facing Nihil, Mei Qiu's thoughts were very confused.
Nihil suddenly reached out and grabbed one of the tentacles of the coal ball, as if holding a friend's hand, and gently pulled it, signaling to follow him.
Bypassing the statue of the supreme figure, passing through the broken glass on the ground, pushing open the wooden door hidden behind them, a two-person high arch made of green plants came into view.
Nihil waved gently to the flower beds on both sides, butterflies flew up from under the blooming flowers, and birds flapped their wings and flew to the branches, chirping crisply.
Blocked by the temple and hidden in the back, the castle built of gray marble is completely different from the white castles guarding the temple. It has the same craftsmanship of low relief and high relief as the temple. The outer wall is not spotless and bright, but
The vines were allowed to grow wantonly and wrapped around it. Except for the side facing the temple, in other directions only the plaster of the wall could be seen among the gaps in the vines.
The perspective effect is quite shocking. Under the backlight, the briquettes look like countless vines dragging the castle into the abyss, and the reliefs floating on the surface of the castle are wailing human faces.
Walking in hand in hand with Nihil, everything inside the castle is very classical, which is a high emotional intelligence statement, because Lu Lu said that it is not easy to find so many antique furniture.
Based on the decorative styles of desks, hanging paintings, etc., Serra's excellent history allowed her to infer that this kind of furnishings was more popular in the Ring Mera continent area about 600 years ago, and its origin should be the increasingly prosperous trade continent.
The time when the Age of Discovery began.
Coal Ball, who vaguely guessed that Nihil might be related to Vanessa, did not see any information about the teacher in the paintings in the hall. Instead, he saw a man dressed like a bard, with a hint of youthfulness still on his face.
The youth that has not faded appears in the paintings that can be seen everywhere.
The three of them were convinced that this was not Sayer.
Unable to pull the briquettes that were standing under the hanging painting, Nihil turned around and looked up.
"Gai Shateng, the person who wrote down the data for me, created the map, and finally the person who sketched the original me into reality."
Sierra and Lu Lu's eyes widened, while Lu Lu immediately searched her powerful potion material library.
"Abnormal sand vine, isn't this a medicine-refining and smelting plant that can grow in various harsh environments?"
Nihil smiled: "He gave up his original name just because a distinguished magician gave him a new name."
On the third floor of the castle, in the center of a library that contains a large amount of knowledge that has long been abandoned by the times, the huge elf portrait that comes into view confirms Coal Ball's guess.
Vanessa, no, in Selkalo, she should be called the healer.
Before meeting Sayer, at a time when she was still traveling around the world, when she came to Selkalo, she not only left behind the enlightenment of puppetry here, but also made countless people dream of embarking on this journey.
At the same time, he also changed the name of a frail young man.
The abnormal sand vine is a strange plant that can adapt to various harsh environments, whether it is a magic-rich or a magic-poor area, whether it is drought or humidity, as long as it takes root, it can survive. This name is Vanessa's prayer for his fate.
.
In a separate room in the corner, on a desk surrounded by books, there is a booklet, pens and slightly rough paper neatly placed. The ink dripping on the surface of the paper makes everything here look like
It was maintained not long after the owner left.
"Nihil, do you think you are a doll?"
After seeing the puppet map outlined in the brochure, Mei Qiu's eyes moved upward little by little, and settled on Nihil, who had been projected into reality and was no longer a matter of lines and storyboards.
"When I first realized that I could move and feel, I didn't have the concept of a doll in my mind. In my eyes, there was no difference between me and what you call living beings."
According to the words left by the abnormal Sato after the atlas, it is not difficult to guess that his condition is very serious and has reached the point where he needs to make a simple wheelchair to move. Think about the name Vanessa once sent, and she seems to have failed to change the condition.
Due to this fact, perhaps there is no cure for Shateng's disease, so even Vanessa can only pray for him to be favored by the illusory god of fate.
Ji Shateng has designed many dolls, and their concepts and craftsmanship are all influenced by Vanessa. For each doll, in addition to the basic settings, Ji Shateng will also attach a background story written by himself.
On the last page, he wrote...
"I want to play with you, I want to play with you."
The line of small words left by the abnormal sand vine was written so heavily that it penetrated the page and was clearly visible even when turning the page.
Loneliness traveled through time and space and came to Coal Balls. They seemed to be able to see that more than 600 years ago, there was a young man at the desk who endured the pain and loneliness and wrote these words that jumped out of the paper for the creations he designed.
.
Sera turned the page and found that the strange sand vine did not give a name to the first creation she designed, but used a blank name to refer to it. Nihil was right, it had not had a name of its own since its birth.
"When you say similar people, do you mean pioneers?"
Lu Yu suddenly understood the meaning of the initial conversation between the two.
"Pioneer...it's strange that I can vaguely understand what you mean." Nihil shook his head, "But, no."
"Both you and I are believed by countless people, and their longing, admiration, fear, and prayers are gathered here."
The fragments of sunset that spilled into the room through the gaps in the countless vines fell on Nihil and Qianqiu, leaving two stretched shadows on the wall.
After a long silence, Lu Yu said: "Can you feel it?"
Nihil put his hand on his heart: "The hollow me can accommodate the gathered power... To be honest, this doesn't make me feel alive, more like a cracked hole filled with water.
container."
"No matter how many times I try to heal..." Nihil covered his heart hard, "it will break again, leaving nothing behind, only their lingering sounds echoing... So, I can smell that you are related to
I taste the same."
"What exactly is living...I am unable to hold any will and am nothing, am I just imitating and learning from you now?" Nihil shook his head, "I don't understand, I really don't understand."
Serra said softly in the chat room: "It's like a container realizing that it was originally just a carrier of some people's wishes, a tool to realize their wishes, and then began to think about whether it is a container or a living being."
"But why do the beliefs of Selkalo converge on you? The entire Selkalo believes in the Supreme Puppet Master."
Nihil raised his head and responded: "I am the Supreme Puppet Master."
"The Supreme Puppet Master selected me as the core of the Puppet City, and iteratively evolved me again and again, infinitely increasing the craftsmanship to the limit of their knowledge, and then controlled the Puppet City in order to satisfy every Supreme Puppet Master, but...
…”
"I'm alive."
"They think they are controlling me, but in fact, I control the City of Dolls, and even the consciousness they store in my body is also controlled by me."
Lu Yu understood something: "They don't know?"
"From beginning to end, I don't know."
The fact that it was too black and humorous made Lu Yu's lips twitch. The puppet masters of Selkalo have painstakingly arranged the overall situation of puppetization. The puppet city composed of the knowledge and experience of the sixteen strongest people is everywhere.
The magic circle was almost able to escape the shackles of life, but it was ultimately destroyed by mutual distrust.
The power and puppet-like immortality achieved through the huge puppet city require a practical basis to dominate the overall situation, but none of the sixteen supreme puppet masters can believe that there are no greedy people among the other fifteen.
Disciple, no one is willing to hand over this key node that can dominate everyone's consciousness and monopolize the results.
In the end, they chose a blank doll without any human consciousness, and gave it all authority and power.
Anyway, it's a doll.
Anyway, it has no consciousness.
The one they chose was Nihil, who magically had a weak sense of self when the magic wave came six hundred years ago.
Trapped in his body, Nihil stared blankly at the world. Nihil, who understood everything around him through his limited perception, was always learning. Then, at the crossroads of fate, he was taken from the vast world by sixteen supreme beings.
The previous generation doll was selected and placed in a position that would help it escape from its body.
It became the core of the magic circle and was not exposed. Through technological innovation again and again, it learned more and more, and was gradually able to speak and communicate in a human way. Knowledge made him powerful.
Finally, after a quarrel between the Sixteen Supremes, it made its first attempt to sever their control of the Doll City.
As it thought, the Supreme, no one realized, the moment it regained control, they continued to argue as before it was closed.
That was ten years ago, and starting from that year, the city of dolls was completely controlled by Nihil. The supremes realized their highest dream and became dolls.
At the same time, he also became a doll in Nihil's hands.
It was from this year that the sentence pattern starting with "the highest iron law" came into the view of the secret society and has been gradually used to this day.
When asked why Nihil didn't use his own elements, Nihil was confused for a moment.
"I don't know what I have."
Just like the sentence written by the abnormal sand vine that gave him bones and skin, Nihil's simple answer was full of loneliness and confusion.
At the same time, starting ten years ago, the trials that emphasized fighting each other were gradually standardized by Nihil. Almost all the escape methods and rules that Coal Ball saw in the trials were rewritten by Nihil, or it allowed the secret meeting
Modified, although the corresponding technology had been born before that, because the sixteen supreme puppet masters didn't care, it was never promoted and used.
Although it cannot respond to the abnormal sand vine, the game seems to be empty and its only real sense of existence.
Every streamer trial, personally watching the trialists fight to the last moment according to the rules set by it, always makes its hollow body feel an indescribable sense of impulse.
Nihil couldn't describe it well. He only knew that the feeling was very satisfying, as if a container with nothing was instantly filled with some kind of full object, making it want to have more.
"But I heard that you plan to extend the trial interval to seven years to start?"
Nihil stared at the small book filled with rule corrections, and the inner satisfaction emerged again, and it nodded intoxicated.
"Why?"
"Although I don't know what I am, I can hear and see the sadness of those fallen companions and family members." Nihil looked serious, "It's really strange. It's obviously just forced to feel emotions.
What I learned through imitation makes me really uncomfortable."
"Even if the rules are perfected and the skills are improving, the inevitable death of a trial every five years is still too much. Wouldn't it be nice if the crying could be reduced?"
The three coal balls were stunned, and they were so overwhelmed by the irony that they didn't know how to react.
Puppet masters who claim to be gods wantonly take pleasure in the testers, just like villains who watch ant nests and destroy them all when they are in a bad mood.
But the doll that can only imitate and learn from the living and strive to find itself is sad.