Chapter 14 Chapter 13

It should have been quite a pleasure to walk through this valley.The roads here are all paved with small cobblestones, flat and wide, reminding Dylan of walking in the countryside along the long-abandoned railway line.The road twists and turns along the valley between the two mountains, and it looks elegant and calm.The hillsides on both sides do not give people a cramped feeling, but are gentle and undulating, covered with grass and wild flowers.If there were not those abrupt cliffs above the grassy slope, it would be picturesque here.The cliff wall that bends inward stands majestically, straight into the sky.Looking up, I can only see a sliver of sky, and the faint skylight cannot dispel the deepening shadows on the ground.Darkness enveloped the place, shadows surrounded Dylan, and she couldn't help shivering.

Tristan next to her was silent, walking like flying with a nervous expression, and quickly glanced around from time to time.His nervousness was also transmitted to Dylan. She dared not look around, but just stared straight ahead, hoping that they would pass without any trouble. Out of the corner of her eye, she could just make out the vague shapes of bats flying around.No, not bats, she realized suddenly, but demons.They leaped down the rock face and circled low above their heads.Dylan clutches Tristan's fingers, trying not to look at them. But she couldn't ignore them.She thought she heard the familiar and eerie roar again.She now associates it with demons when she hears such a cry.But what echoed in the air was not that high-pitched wailing, but another kind of noise.

"Can you hear me?" she asked briefly. Tristan nodded, grimly. It sounded like a thousand people whispering.Although he couldn't make out what he was saying, it was menacing. "What's this?" she asked tremblingly.She turned her head back and forth, scanning the sky and the cliff, trying to find the source of the sound. "Not from above," Tristan told her, "below us, listen to the ground." The request seemed outlandish to Dylan, but she listened intently for the sounds that might come from beneath her feet.At first, all she could hear was the crunch of her feet over the gravel and pebbles that littered the road.But now, when she listened carefully, she realized that those weird hissing noises were really coming from under her feet.

"What's going on, Tristan?" she asked, so softly that she could barely hear herself. "Demons. They are gathering under our feet, and they will attack when they see the opportunity. They will emerge from the ground in groups. This is their usual trick." "Why?" Dylan asked softly. "We are now in the heart of the Badlands," Tristan explained. "This is where thousands of demons lurk, where shadows almost never disappear. They know they have a chance here." "What kind of opportunity are they waiting for?" She choked up and could hardly speak.

"Once we're deep enough in the shadows, they'll attack us. They don't need the night here." His voice was serious, but the horror in his tone made Dylan shudder even more than his words. "what should we do?" "Nothing," he said with a wry laugh. "Shouldn't we run?" Dylan wasn't very good at running.Although she is not fat, her body is not very good.She has no habit of exercising, and the physical education class offered by the school is even more torture.She always felt that if she was being chased, she could only run as hard as she could.Looks like it's time to run away, she thought sadly.

"Don't run unless you have to. Save your strength and use it in a pinch." He said with a faint smile, which was fleeting. "Hold on to me, Dylan. Don't let go. When I tell you to run, run. There's a safe house right down the road, across the valley. You just run toward the house, don't Turn back. You're safe through the door." "Where will you be?" she whispered anxiously. "It's by your side." He said coldly. Dylan's eyes widened, full of horror.She tried her best to stare at the road ahead, and the fingers of the hand holding Tristan were trembling slightly due to too much force.The subterranean rumble seemed to grow louder, and the ground seemed to be bubbling and melting to allow the demons to emerge.It took her a moment to make out the patterns on the floor, and then she realized that they were shadows.She saw that the surrounding valley was getting darker and darker, and the cliff seemed to be approaching them constantly, and she couldn't help breathing more and more quickly, and the atmosphere became uneven.

They have reached the depths of the shadows, how long before those demons will break out of the ground?The air seemed to become chilly in an instant, and a gust of cold wind blew up the rock wall of the valley, blowing Dylan's hair to cover his face.The whisper of the wind echoes the noise on the ground.She could clearly make out the roars of the other demons, the wails above their heads.They are coming from all directions. At that moment it seemed to her that time had stopped on the brink of chaos.Every nerve in her body tensed, and adrenaline surged through her veins.Her muscles also seemed to fire, ready to take her command.She took a deep breath, the air filling her lungs making her ears ring.

Before she had time to exhale this breath, before she had time to blink her eyes, the time jumped to the present, and everything happened in an instant.Countless demons appeared suddenly like little black snakes, and the ground suddenly billowed with black smoke.They writhed and writhed in the air, hissing menacingly.Hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, covering the sky and covering the sky, covering her sight.Dylan stared dumbfounded, she had never seen anything like this before.A demon crawled through Dylan's chest, clawed at it, and then came out of her back, and her heart froze.

Something got stuck in her hair, pulling and tugging, and her scalp tingled.There were also sharp claws that firmly clamped her shoulders and arms, dragging her hard. "Dylan, run!" Tristan's voice cut through the noise and confusion, right into the center of her head. run!She repeated herself in her heart.run!But she couldn't move, her legs were completely stiff, as if they had forgotten how to move. She used to watch horror movies where people would go limp and fall prey to axe-wielding murderers, and she'd laugh at them all the time, but now it's her turn, and she's too scared to move .

He took Dylan's hand sharply, and she stumbled forward.Run, run, run, she kept chanting silently, gathering all her strength to follow him along the road.Screaming demons circled her, but luckily they couldn't keep up with her and grab her for a moment. The scenery around her was moving rapidly with her galloping, and although she hadn't seen the safe house yet, she knew that she was about to find it.But when she was sprinting with all her strength, she knew that she couldn't run like this for too long. She felt her legs were burning, and she couldn't control it anymore.The breathing became more and more rapid and uneven, and every time I took a breath of cold air, there was a heart-piercing pain in my chest.Her arms were still swinging evenly, struggling to keep her running, but her pace was getting slower and slower.The claws of the demons had grabbed her and pulled her back hard, and her steps slowed even more.She knew she couldn't go on unless the cabin was right in front of her eyes.

Something grabbed her hand so hard it almost knocked her backwards.Dylan's shoulder socket - a sharp pain, could not help but scream.After a while, she realized what was going on.Her hands were already clenched into fists, and she was bare-handed. "Tristan! Tristan! Help!" she said weakly between gasps. "Dylan, run!" she heard him yell.He is not by his side.Where has he gone?She didn't dare to look back for fear of falling.With all her might, she did what he told her to do—run, run as fast as she could. what is that?Directly in front of her, at a distance of about 400 meters, there is a dim cube.That must be the safe house.She whimpered in relief, and tried her best to tense her already exhausted muscles as a last-ditch effort. "Come on, come on, come on, come on!" she muttered softly, ordering her body to move on.At this moment, she forgot about the pain, and instead ran faster than before. She forced herself to run the remaining few meters at a sprint speed.The door was open, waiting for her to enter. "Tristan, I saw the hut! Tristan!" Immediately, several evil spirits swooped down on her, tore open a hole and got into her body, and the last few words choked in their throats.The ghouls seemed invisible, but she could feel them scratching at her heart.She faltered and staggered, losing control of her own legs. "No," she gasped, "no, no, please. I should be there! I have to go there!" But she couldn't move at all.Those pairs of cold hands grabbed her internal organs, twisting and twisting, the coldness pierced her bones, making her breathless.Every inch of her body longed to stop, lie on the ground, and let the demons drag her gently to the dark place to put her to sleep.There, she can rest in peace without struggling. Suddenly, Tristan's words echoed deep in her consciousness, "Just run towards the house and don't look back. You'll be safe once you're in the door." Then the exact image of what he said to her appeared in her mind. She moved forward again, step by step, by will, toward the open door.Every step hurts, every breath hurts.Her body was screaming, telling her to stop, to give up.But she is still firm, tenacious, and struggling to move forward.The screams and growls and hisses grew louder as she approached the door inch by inch.The demons intensified their attack, dragging and tugging, tearing and tearing at her.They whirled before her eyes, trying to blind her eyes.Just a few meters away from the gate, she fell to her knees, exhausted.She squeezed her eyes shut, forced her aching lungs to breathe, and began to crawl forward.The ground beneath her was icy cold, and the pebbles scratched her palms and dug into her knees.She moved forward desperately, only thinking about moving forward. The moment she crossed the threshold, the noise disappeared immediately, and the coldness in her body turned into dull pain.She has exhausted all her strength now, collapsed on the ground, panting heavily. "Tristan, we made it!" she said hoarsely, and she didn't even have the strength to lift her head off the ground. He didn't answer.There was no sound of breathing behind him, and there was no movement in the cabin.Her heart suddenly became cold again, ten times colder than before.She was too scared to turn around. "Tristan?" she asked quietly. She rolled over on her back for a moment, her eyes closed tightly in fear of seeing the horror again.In the end, the desire to know the truth overwhelmed the inner fear.She barely opened her eyelids and looked at the scene in front of her. No. She burst into tears immediately.The front door is empty, and the night outside the window is dark. Tristan didn't stand out.