Chapter 1 The Third 'Shirley'

In a sunlit forest clearing, Nina and Morris stopped, together gazing at the tall figure who seemed to materialize out of thin air, now standing with a surprised expression at the forest crossroads.

"Didn't you receive the order to retreat?" After a moment of surprise, the elven girl, dressed in light hunting clothes and holding a strange long-handled weapon, spoke. Her voice was as melodious as a forest spring. "Why are you still wandering outside the Silent Wall?"

Nina and Morris exchanged a silent glance, then nodded to each other.

"Uncle Duncan," Nina said in her mind, "we've encountered a third 'Shirley' here... Yes, she mentioned the Silent Wall as well."

Morris quickly composed himself, nodded to the elven girl who had suddenly appeared at the edge of the clearing, and said calmly, "We didn't receive any news... What's the situation now?"

The elven girl frowned, seemingly surprised by Morris's "ignorance," but the surprise quickly faded from her face. "The situation is bad. The erosion phenomenon is spreading outside the Silent Wall. Currently, only the area inside the Silent Wall is safe within the kingdom. We still haven't found the Creator's whereabouts. All elves must immediately return inside the Silent Wall and receive Selantis's protection."

Still haven't found the Creator's whereabouts?!

Morris immediately noticed this extremely informative sentence, but he quickly controlled his expression and nodded seriously. "Can you take us to the 'Silent Wall'?"

"Of course not, encountering a 'Forest Walker' like you is their good fortune," the elven girl nodded immediately. "You might be among the first Forest Walkers to patrol inside the Wall – follow me, while there are still no signs of erosion."

As she spoke, she turned and walked into the depths of the forest, but after taking a few steps, she suddenly stopped and looked back slightly. "By the way, I'm called Shirley... Please remember this name."

So, after traveling for some time, Shirley began to boldly ask the elf all sorts of questions. Most of these questions didn't yield any meaningful answers, but sometimes... a casual question could bring a surprise.

"Hush!" Shirley lowered her voice. "Something corrupted has entered the forest..."

After trekking through the forest for an unknown amount of time, Shirley even began to doubt one thing: did this place called the "Silent Wall" really exist?

Shirley was stunned for a moment, and then she heard the rustling sounds coming from the distant bushes, from deep underground, from the shadows of the trees, and even from the air.

…

She had been trying to avoid this.

But before she could ask anything more, she saw Shirley, who had been immersed in sadness and somewhat dazed a second ago, suddenly raise her head. The elven girl's eyes had suddenly become sharp at some unknown time. She tightly gripped the long-handled battle-axe in her hand and looked up at a certain direction in the depths of the forest.

"How far is it to the 'Silent Wall'?" Shirley asked proactively after the other party spoke.

However, this surprise only flashed in her mind for a moment. Shirley immediately reacted and entered a state of combat. While tensing all her muscles and paying attention to the direction where the dark tentacles were gathering, she whispered a reminder to Shirley beside her, "Be careful, these guys can move through the shadows, and they're very durable, not easy to kill!"

Ah-Dog flew out like a giant meteor hammer, slamming into the first Sun Spawn remnant that appeared with full force. Accompanied by a muffled sound as if smashing minced meat, the tall and thin figure didn't even have time to observe the environment in the dream world before being directly smashed into a large piece of exploding, flying, corrupted flesh.

Shirley felt that it was inappropriate to call the "Great Demon God" by name so directly, as it might provoke the elf in front of her – but she soon realized that she was overthinking it.

For some reason, Wen Hua always felt that Shirley's last sentence had a self-hypnotic meaning.

Shirley was no stranger to this kind of "problem." She would have problems when she heard knowledge beyond her understanding while taking lessons with Alice – the main symptom being a blank mind.

Shirley instantly relaxed as well. "Huh? What happened?"

"After the Creator disappeared? The Creator disappeared?!" Shirley's eyes widened instantly. Although she didn't listen carefully during class, she listened very carefully when the captain and others were chatting, so she naturally knew what the elven legends were about. "The Creator you're talking about, is it... Saslozka?"

Even if she mentioned some strange questions, Wen Hua would simply ignore them. Apart from "leading lost people to the Silent Wall," the elf didn't seem to be affected by anything else at all.

"It's still very far, the Silent Wall is very far away," Shirley replied seriously, but her answer was as good as saying nothing. "We can't rest for too long, we must return to Morris's protection as soon as possible, we must... get there before the erosion phenomenon catches up."

In the next second, the chains tightened, the wind whistled, and Shirley took a few steps towards the closest figure, using all her strength to swing her arm around – it was a Meteor Dog!

Shirley was thinking wildly, recalling what she had learned in class, and then she looked up at the elf leading the way.

Shirley always walked briskly. The flat and difficult forest was like a part of her body. She walked through the annoying trees and vines as easily as the wind blowing through a courtyard.

Or, to put it another way – this elf was a little too stable.

Tentacles condensed from pure shadows were surging in all directions!

Corruption?

Shirley finally stopped.

The scenery was monotonous, and the road was even more difficult. The forest ground covered with rotten leaves was soft and wet. The vines, thorns, and roots protruding from the ground made it easy to trip people. She had once thought that the narrow, bumpy alleys in the slums of the lower city, cut into pieces by steam and gas pipes, were the most difficult roads in the world, but now she realized that, for humans, even the most dilapidated corners of the town were far more friendly than this purest "nature."

She hadn't asked, because she was worried that this overly "basic" question would stimulate the elven girl in front of her – according to Ms. Lucrezia, "Shirley" was a "native mind" active in the dream world. Shirley didn't quite understand what a native mind was, but she could roughly understand that it was a very difficult thing to deal with. Even a slight mention of knowledge beyond the "boundary," information from outside the dream world, or even just asking a few more questions could cause this mind to have problems.

However, what Shirley was waiting for was the moment they condensed into human form.

Wen Hua also stopped instantly – the elven girl didn't turn her head at all, but at the first moment Shirley stopped, she seemed to feel it.

But after interacting for a while, Shirley found that this "Shirley" didn't seem as "unstable" as she had initially imagined.

"What exactly is this 'erosion phenomenon'?" Shirley thought for a while and finally asked the question that had piqued her curiosity all the way.

What was that the captain said… something about "the transforming power of civilization"?

They were remnants of the Sunspawn… were they annihilation cultists?!

Shirley didn't seem to notice Shirley calling the main god by name at all. She was just immersed in some inexplicable sadness, her eyes drooping. "The Creator will return, He is just inspecting the borders, it's just that He has gone a little further this time… Before He returns, Morris will protect all the elves with the Silent Wall… Morris will wait for Him to return."

Selanti and Nina quickly exchanged glances, and then nodded in unison.

And at almost the same time, around Shirley and Shirley, in the shadow-crossed dense forest and bushes, one after another tall and thin figures were constantly emerging…

"Erosion… happened after the Creator disappeared," Shirley stopped, unlike the disregard in most situations before. This time, she answered Shirley's question seriously, "We don't know what it is, but it devours and distorts things in the forest, turning them into… incomprehensible forms, very chaotic."

She used her own way to understand the concepts that Lucrezia had explained to her, thinking that if she mentioned questions that shouldn't be mentioned, it would also cause this elven girl named "Shirley" to crash.

The elven girl named "Wen Hua" turned around and continued to lead the two uninvited guests behind her into the depths of the forest, towards… the "chaotic wall" she kept mentioning.