Helfas got lost in the jungle again.

He had a map spread out in his hand, but it was hard to tell the direction without seeing the sky. There were trees everywhere as far as he could see, as if all places were the same.

"The next place is a river."

He made marks along the way, and turned several times in the most stupid way before finding the right direction.

The sound of the rushing river appeared in his ears, and he quickened his pace.

Walking through the cracks between the giant trees, the long shadows of the trees passed by, and he finally saw white light appearing between the cracks.

While running, he took a step forward.

I saw dense light spots surging on the clear river water.

After washing his face, he checked the map again: "It's here."

Then he drew a dot on it: "I'm about here now."

According to the map, it is already very deep into the forest of the full moon.

However, the next problem appeared again. This river is very fast. How can we get across it?

He went down the river to look for a relatively flat section of the river, to see if there was any chance of crossing the river.

"Crash!"

No other sounds could be heard along the way, only the river was surging, but the river was very wide, and Helfas searched for a long time but could not find a place to cross the river.

The sky slowly darkened, but at this time, it was the movement in the distant woods that attracted him.

"bright?"

Helfas became more careful. He looked around for a long time before slowly approaching the light source.

But as it got closer, the faint firefly went out.

"Off?"

Helfas was about to retreat immediately, but at this moment he heard voices coming from the jungle again.

"Hmph... hum..."

It was clearly a human voice, humming some sort of melody.

Melodious and melodious, accompanied by the silence of the night forest.

Helfas approached following the sound, and then saw a figure under a tree.

He is very strange.

This is already the deepest part of the jungle in the land of the full moon, and weirdness appears frequently. Ordinary dragon people will not come to such a dangerous place, nor can they come here.

It was a young man, sounding and looking about the same age as Helfas.

With his hands behind his head and his eyes closed, he was leisurely sitting on the tree, biting a branch and leaf, humming a rhythmic tune with his nose.

It seems that instead of being in the full moon forest full of weird and fierce beasts, it is like being in the shade of trees beside the field ridge in the afternoon.

Helfas, who was wearing a mask of a sealed item, wanted to keep his eyes open when he was sleeping in such a ghostly place. Any slight disturbance would wake him up. He didn't understand where the other party's confidence came from.

As if sensing Helfas' approach, the person under the tree opened his eyes.

under the moon.

In the jungle by the river, two strangers looked at each other, one standing and the other sitting.

The other party spoke first: "So it's a human!"

He was biting something in his mouth, and his speech was a little slurred, and he seemed a little disappointed after seeing that it was Helfas who came.

Helfas asked him, "Who are you?"

He calmly took off the branch from his mouth, and said to Helfas: "I am a person who wants to visit the gods. There is a temple in the Full Moon Forest. You must have heard of it!"

Helfas looked at the other person's clothes, the pattern and texture made him feel a little familiar.

"Are you from the Zhi tribe?"

The other party nodded and did not refute.

After confirming that the other party was nothing strange, Helfas got closer, but the other party should have set off at least one month earlier than himself, so why did he come here now.

He didn't ask either, but asked a crucial question.

"How are you going to cross the river? By the way, I also want to go to that temple, so I should drop by with you."

The other party pointed to the river and said, "I have a wooden raft."

Helfas was pleasantly surprised: "In this case, there is no problem crossing the river. Can I borrow your raft by the way?"

The other party said it didn't matter: "If you are willing to sit, come up tomorrow morning!"

Helfas expressed his gratitude for his generosity, and had to say that the other party solved a big problem for him.

Helfas found a place on the other side of the youth and sat down, ready to eat something and take a rest.

At this time, the young man was fiddling with a stick stuck in the ground, as if reaching out to pat something, and finally turned his gaze to Helfas.

"Hello!"

"The mask on your face is a weird one. Is there a way for it to restrain its... taste..."

"Taste, you can understand it!"

He gestures.

Helfas understood what the other party was talking about, and to be precise, it should be called breath.

He looked at the young man, and the other party also knew that weirdness would emit a special aura, and they could feel each other if they were too close.

Helfas immediately restrained the aura emanating from the mask. Usually, he let the aura of the mask cover his aura, and disguised himself as a weird one.

And following Helfas's movements, the stick in front of the youth lit up.

Only then did he see what it was, and he also understood where the light he saw before came from.

It was a long wooden pole with its skin peeled off, and a cloth bag hung from one end of the wooden pole, and something glowed inside the cloth bag.

On closer inspection, it appears to be a glowing bug.

Helfas immediately said: "Weird?"

The young man didn't deny it, and even introduced it to Helfas.

"I call it a coward."

"It will light up when there is no danger, it is safe at this time, and it can also be used as a lantern."

"And once dangerous weirdnesses appear around, it will immediately weaken its own light, and even actively turn off its own light as the opponent approaches, for fear that the opponent will find it."

He moved closer to the light source, letting it illuminate his face, while looking at Helfas.

It was only then that Helfas could see the other person's face clearly. He looked very thin, and his face looked very young. Maybe it was because his face had sunken after being hungry for a long time.

However, he seemed to be in good spirits between the words, with a sense of leisure and contentment.

he said to Helfas.

"Haven't seen it!"

"It's strange that there are such guys who are greedy for life and afraid of death. It feels like us, afraid of those terrible, powerful and unknown guys."

Helfas nodded.

It is indeed a very weak weirdness, but this kind of ability is extraordinarily powerful for humans. This is something that can save one's life in the weird world.

Helfas could also feel some weird aura through the mask, but that was only limited to face-to-face, and this kind of weirdness was obviously a large-scale induction.

He also finally understood what the other party was like, so that he could go to a place as deep as the Full Moon Forest.

But since it is weird, it must have its dangerous side.

Helfas asked: "Is it not dangerous?"

The other party said: "It must not be allowed to touch the corpse."

As for why it couldn't touch the corpse and what would happen after touching the corpse, the other party didn't elaborate.

The next morning, the two set off.

They worked together to lift a raft to the edge of the river bank, and then pushed it into the water little by little. Herphas was behind, dripping and climbing onto the raft.

Suddenly, the other party urged Helfas.

"Shut hard!"

"Hurry up, there's no time."

The two slid hard to the opposite bank, and the raft was pushed down by the current, and finally landed at a position diagonally opposite.

The young man threw off the raft and ran ashore, urging Helfas to hurry into the forest.

"Come in quickly."

Helfas also ran in together, and just after entering the forest, there was a loud noise from behind.

"boom!"

Helfas looked back, and suddenly saw a thick, whip-like tentacle protruding from the bottom of the water, tearing apart the entire river.

It frantically flapped and waved around the water surface, splashing layers of water.

The tentacles grazed the raft, and the raft instantly fell apart.

As Helfas stared, a young voice came from behind him: "Be startled!"

Helfas looked back at the young man's strangely calm face, they were just one step away from being torn apart, and the other party didn't even change his voice.

"You know there's something under the water here?"

But as soon as the words came out, Helfas understood how the other party knew.

The other party should have been observing his cloth lantern, felt its changes, and found that something strange was quietly approaching them.

He asked again, "Aren't you afraid?"

The young man said, "There is no danger here. What's the use of being afraid?"

Helfas: "Although this is the case, fear comes from the deepest instinct in my heart. Even if I know it, I can't suppress it. Why can you be so calm?"

The young man said: "Then you just pretend that I was born without knowing what it means to be afraid!"

The two set off next.

On their way to their destination, they passed a waterhole where they fetched water.

"There is no problem with the water here, we can fill some more and use it later."

They passed a swamp, the youth told Helfas.

"There's something scary and weird here, don't get close anyway, stay away from this place."

Helfas saw a grove with fruit hanging on it. The young man climbed on the tree to pick the fruit, and then dropped a few skillfully.

"This kind of food is edible, but the taste is not very good."

On the way, the other party strolled in the courtyard, as if walking in his own home.

—

at night.

With the help of the special lantern, Helfas flicked his own scroll and map, and recorded on it the several weirdnesses he saw along the way. Although he didn't know their characteristics, even some of them were worth remembering.

All these bits and pieces will eventually come together, and a weird world will be revealed in front of Helfas.

Then Helfas marked on the map again, with marks on danger, water sources and food places, as well as their trajectory along the way.

It can be seen that they are getting closer and closer to their destination, but the destination on the map does not have a temple painted on it, but is painted into a black mass.

Helfas didn't know what that meant either.

Because the map was drawn abstractly enough, and many places were not accurate enough, Helfas had corrected it many times along the way.

While Helfas was writing and drawing, the young dragonman was standing not far away looking in the direction of their destination.

He knelt on the ground, looking quietly into the distance.

It's like praying.

After Helfas finished his busy work, he looked at the young man who had remained motionless.

Kneeling for so long without moving an inch also required a certain amount of willpower, and he suddenly felt that the other party might be a very devout believer.

"Why are you going to see the god, because do you believe in him?"

The other party slowly turned his head when he heard the voice, and said to Helfas, "Because everyone says that God is omnipotent, and He can satisfy any wish of man."

Helfas asked again: "I don't know if the gods are omnipotent, but why should He satisfy any wish of man?"

"His omnipotence is only his business, what does it have to do with mortals?"

The young man said: "Since He is so omnipotent, it doesn't matter if he reaches out to help us?"

Helfas: "If you have a lot of food, suddenly one day many people who have nothing to do with you and do not know come to you and talk to you about you."

"Anyway, there is so much food, it doesn't matter if you give me some."

"Will you give it at that time?"

The young man froze.

Then he laughed, a little dryly.

"I'll probably close the door and keep them all out!"

The topic suddenly became awkward, and the scene became very quiet.

Although Helfas blurted out the words, he felt something was wrong after he finished speaking, as if he had pierced through other people's dreams and obsessions with his own hands.

Especially this road has not come to the end, before all the right and wrong have been demonstrated.

So, he said another sentence.

"What I said may not be correct, because I just look at such things from the perspective of a mortal. Maybe the perspective of the gods is completely different from ours."

"Here we are discussing what the gods are like and what they will do, maybe like a worm on the ground imagining the world that a bird sees."

The young man raised his head slowly, and he asked Helfas the same question.

"Then why are you going to the temple?"

"I've heard of you, the black-haired and black-eyed man with special powers against weirdness. Haven't you been searching for news about weirdness?"

"Why do you also come here, wanting to see the gods?"

Helfas: "You know me too?"

The other party: "When the merchants from the Golden Tribe came, I heard them talk about you."

Helfas nodded, he almost forgot that when the other party left, the businessman had already been to the Weaving Tribe.

Helfas: "I have some questions I want to find answers to. Whether it's a temple or a god, I want to take a look."

Youth: "If you can't find the answer, what should you do?"

Helfas: "I haven't figured it out yet."

"A traveler on the road only knows where the next stop is. If you ask him where he will end up, most people can't see that far."

"Maybe the only option we have is to keep going and then stop one day."

"Because I'm tired, because I can't walk anymore."

"Or dead."

The young man said, "Aren't you very calm when you talk about death?"

"Listening to your story, you should have faced danger many times, right?"

"Are you still afraid after going through so many times?"

Helfas: "Yes, still scared."

"Because when I'm really facing death and making a choice, no matter how much I can muster up the courage to tell myself that death is nothing to be afraid of, what I want to do is very important."

"But my body tells me I should be afraid."

"It will tell the heart that you should jump up and down, it will make the body tired, painful and hopeless, it will use countless forces to overwhelm your will, and it will use all kinds of forces to make you retreat and avoid death."

Helfas sighed.

"What kind of courage do you need, and what kind of people have you experienced?"

"Only by suppressing the instincts of the body, can we transcend the instincts of the body to face death and choices?"

His words seemed to point.

The young man said: "Can't it be born?"

Helfas: "Maybe!"

The young man lay down and got ready for sleep.

And Helfas finally picked up the map and prepared to roll it up.

But when he took a last look, he still said with some doubts.

"Why is this destination a mass of black, and there is a sign symbolizing abstraction in other places, what does this mean?"

From the edge of the light emitted by the lantern, came the voice of a young man.

"It is rumored that the temple is at the bottom of a huge deep cave."

"So that's also a symbol, a big block that the mapmaker smeared in black is the meaning of the hole."

Helfas turned sideways: "How do you know so clearly, even what the mapmaker thinks?"

The young man lying on the ground said: "Because the map in your hand was drawn when I set out."

Helfas turned his head to look at the other party, and nodded clearly.

After a while, he said.

"Thank you for the map, and thank you for the raft."

—

Another full moon night.

This time, Helfas didn't go to spy on the moon in the sky. He and the young man hid in a cave, watching the outside carefully.

They saw dense vines spreading out from the depths of the earth.

"Whoosh whoosh~"

Helfas once again saw the horrible weirdness that he saw on the night of the full moon, but it was far away in the sky at that time, but now it seems to be close at hand.

He could even hear the sound of the vines wriggling and rubbing, as if there were countless huge snakes wriggling on the ground.

Those "snakes" covered the entire forest in front of them.

Together with the mountains.

Finally entangled together and turned into a huge pillar stretching to the sky, the moon protruding into the sky.

Helfas still couldn't help taking a look, and what caught his eyes was the opponent's huge body shape that didn't fit the structure of a living body at all, and when the opponent moved, only its image remained in the forest in front of him.

Helfas: "This thing is here?"

As we approached the location of the temple, the weirdness in this area became more and more.

The young man's lantern seemed to start warning every time he walked a certain distance, and the two of them stopped and stopped completely watching the changes of the lights, choosing the road randomly.

It's possible that they just took a wrong turn and went straight into the weird belly.

But when it was really close to the location of the temple, all the weird traces disappeared.

It's as if this is a weird forbidden place.

Even Helfas's biphasic devil worm face and the youth's lantern didn't make any movement, and they didn't respond any more, but this made the two of them feel at ease.

At least you can go forward boldly, without having to be scared every step of the way.

They walked through a huge canyon, walked along the ground where no vegetation grew, and finally saw a huge pothole with no bottom.

The young man stood on the edge of the pothole: "The temple is just below."

Helfas looked down cautiously, he couldn't see the bottom at all, he could only see the endless darkness.

He asked: "How to get down?"

The young man took out a roll of rope from the package: "Use the rope."

Helfas looked down: "This rope is not enough at all!"

The other party said: "After using the rope, then use tools to climb down."

Helfas: "Climbing?"

The young man said, "Are you afraid again?"

He looked at the pothole below and told Helfas a way to overcome his fear of heights.

"You only need to imagine that the darkness below is actually soft, and when we fall, we actually fall on a soft bed, and then we can have a good sleep."

"That way you won't be afraid."

Helfas froze.

Is there any point in this kind of self-comfort? If it falls, it must be falling asleep, the kind that can't sleep at all.

Not only is the bed soft, but the bed itself is also soft, requiring a shovel to scoop it up.

Seeing the young man saying this seriously, UU Reading www.uukanshu.com seemed not to be joking, but really wanted to comfort Helfas and let him muster up the courage to climb down.

"I'm more interested in knowing than I'm afraid, has anyone actually made it down before?" Helfas said.

"Can you still come up alive?"

The young man was noncommittal: "Otherwise, how would anyone know that there is a temple here?"

Helfas nodded, and he asked again.

"Then did he see the god?"

"Or, did your wish come true?"

The young man didn't answer any more.

Because while Helfas was speaking, he had already fixed the rope, and started climbing directly down.

Helfas watched the other party go down, and he also grabbed the rope together, and the two of them went down the rope together.

The darkness engulfed the two of them little by little, and they didn't speak, only the sound of breathing.

There is a bottomless abyss beneath your feet.

Any mistake will end in pieces. (end of this chapter)