Vol 2 Chapter 54: Atonement: Faun (3)

Ethan and others were notified to move the camp the next day after they arrived. Faun had twenty-nine hours and thirty minutes a day. They were awakened at about six in the morning, and then hurriedly put away the tent, and under the command of a few soldiers, they helped transport some unknown boxes into the military aircraft. However, unlike Ethan’s imagined transfer by aircraft, non-people watched the large aircraft carrying groups of soldiers flying away one after another, and finally left them with a small group of soldiers leading them on foot in the forest to search for the guerrillas of the rebels. team.
Of course, some weapons were left to them.
It's just that those weapons are strangely shaped cold weapons all over the water, and they don't even have one capable of shooting bullets.
Samuel picked up a blue weapon that looked like a machete and didn't know what metal it was made of and slapped it in his hand. He stared and asked the red-haired Sergeant Wilson: "What's this?"
Sergeant Wilson bit a toothpick in his mouth and said, "Knife."
"If you really meet people from the corner, you expect us to use this kind of unearthed cultural relics against them? Are you kidding?"
Sergeant Wilson stood in front of Samuel, and two men of about the same height stared at each other viciously.
"You scumbags are good to have weapons," Wilson gritted his teeth.
Next to him, another female leader, Alpha, who seemed to be at the same level as the red-haired sergeant, glared at Wilson and explained, "These weapons were captured from some of their temples. They seem to think they were cursed by these weapons. Yes, the souls killed by them will be wiped out, so they are very afraid of these weapons. Believe me, these things may be better than guns."
Non-people lined up to receive weapons. What Ethan got in his hand was a short knife, which seemed to be polished with some kind of crystal, and it was shining with violet light in the twilight. Look carefully, there are many fine and dense runes on the blade, which are incomprehensible in the language of the horns.
According to some religious traditions, knives that are engraved in this way and made of crystals or other materials with special meaning are usually used for certain sacrifice rituals. Use it to cut the throats of livestock or people, or to pierce the heart, and present the soul of the sacrifice to God.
But why are they afraid of these "sacred tools" for sacrifice?
The non-human soldiers are divided into ten groups, each of which is led by three soldiers, entering the forest from different angles and directions. Their destination was Anas City, a horned city about 100 kilometers away that was just under the control of the human army. The city was occupied by the rebels not long ago. After the city was broken, the horned rebels who had not died in the bombing fled into the vast night forest before them and disappeared. The task of non-people this time is to search and drive them out, and then the regular army will kill them all.
The forest was very humid, and the water vapor condensed into frost covering the body and branches and leaves, and the whole tree suddenly looked like it was made of silver. Many flying insects that glow like fireflies were disturbed by them, flying out from among the perched leaves one after another, floating and shaking in the night wind that quietly arrived from nowhere. The scenery was too illusory and blurry, so beautiful that Ethan couldn't help but want to imprint it deeply in his mind and pass it on to Tanisel.
Then he actually sensed the message from Tanithel.
The message was just a sudden emotion, warm and gentle, like the temperature of a smile. Ethan clearly knew that this sentiment was not his, but Tanithel passed on to him.
Obviously separated by a distance of five hundred light years, but you can see the same beautiful scenery. Ethan felt a touch of happiness.
Reverberating around, it was probably the cry of some kind of bird, which looked a little hollow and secretive in the dim light, and it was a bit like crying after a long time. The vegetation on the ground is dense, and there are unknown creatures hidden. The soldiers walking in front of and behind them have turned on the sonar device installed on the waist. The infrasound frequency that human ears can not hear can drive away the nearby insects and ants, but they dare not. The frequency of the device is adjusted too high, because the ears of humans are much more sensitive than humans, and they can hear sounds in the band that humans cannot hear.
Stumbled and didn't go fast. The oxygen content of the air here is not as high as that of the earth. Do you have to take out an oxygen bag from your backpack to take a few breaths of oxygen? In this situation, if there is a fierce fight with people, it is estimated that they will be killed soon...
Ethan has seen horned people on TV. They have a layer of translucent hair that fits closely to the skin, which looks like a layer of skin that can reflect the surrounding environment from a distance. They have a pair of ram-like hard horns on their heads. Their eyes are long and slender. They can't see the whites of the eyes, but only a dark purple iris and cat-like pupils. They can see things in the dark, but they can’t stand the strong light, so in many cases, if they want to lose their combat effectiveness, just give them super light to make them temporarily blind, but with the invention of goggles, this trick is also Not every time it works.
They don't like to see foreigners, they insist on wearing the heavy and dimly colored clothing of their own ethnic group, eating uncooked food, sprinkling some salt and condiments at most. They also have their own cities and cultures, and they use modern computers and machines to plow their fields, but they still retain a bloodthirsty temperament. Every year, each city always holds a hunting contest to win the first place. Will be considered a heroic character.
The people on earth always think that they are uncivilized savages, and even think that their intelligence is not as high as other more open planet races, but Ethan always feels that it's just that people don't know them enough. Every time I saw their unique indifferent and sluggish expressions on TV, it gave him a sense of discomfort. I always felt that there were clusters of dense light flashing in the depths of those eyes, and there was a trace hidden in the corners of the tightly pressed mouth. Invisible sneer.
Ethan didn't want to mess with them at all.
I haven't seen a single figure for two days. On the third day, Derek found some odd-shaped spherical objects tied with sticks and string hanging on the tree. Some people said it was a bird's nest, but there were obvious man-made knots in it. The more they went forward, the more ball-like weaves hung on the tree, and Ethan became more and more disturbed, suspecting that those things resembled the wooden human figures that witches hung on trees to curse in ancient times.
Now they are deep in the mountains and forests, far away from the horned settlements. Could it be that so many things were made by the fleeing horned rebels?
Do they really have time to do so many things that seem to be very complicated?
Of course he didn't believe in such things as witchcraft, but he inexplicably intuitively felt that the situation was not good. I don't know if it is a coincidence recently. He seems to have a lot more intuition than before, as if he is more sensitive to the surrounding environment, but because of this he can experience more fear than ordinary people.
But what he needs to control most is fear.
He whispered to Samuel, "We shouldn't go deeper..."
Samuel glanced at him, "Do we have a choice?"
Tai Feng patted him on the shoulder, seeming to want to comfort him. Ethan just smiled bitterly and shook his head, secretly squeezing the knife in his hand.
At about twenty-six that night they camped as usual. One day on Faun is too long, and the difference between day and night is too small. Walking in one day is like walking two days at night. After dinner, Ethan was exhausted and lay in his sleeping bag. When he was about to sleep, he suddenly heard a strange sound from somewhere deep in the forest that he didn't know if it was singing or hissing.
He sat up, pricked his ears and listened, trying to tell if it was a bird call. However, after a while he was quite sure that it was a human voice, and couldn't tell whether it was painful or caring howling. He couldn't determine the direction of the sound source. It seemed that no matter how he turned his head, the sound was coming from every corner, a ghostly stream in the faint stream of grass blades and flying insects.
Several other soldiers and non-humans also sat up alertly, obviously this voice was not an illusion of his own.
Wilson took the gun, quickly pointed at a few inhumans and another soldier next to him, and whispered, "You guys follow me to see, don't make any noise."
Ethan was not among the chosen ones, but Samuel followed. Tai Feng moved to his side and whispered, "Could it be a horned man... I heard that their beliefs are very strange, they often call them crazy and tie up live animals. He broke his stomach and wiped the blood on his body."
Ethan didn't know what to evaluate, so he replied, "It shouldn't be our people calling anyway."
"They are planning something." Derek leaning on another tree said while chewing gum he didn't know where he got it from. "I helped those big men intercept the intelligence of the Ophiuchus alliance. The horned rebels are in contact, saying that they will prepare for them."
"Prepare? What preparation?" Ethan asked.
Derek shrugged, "This is not something I can talk about. Anyway, it is not a good thing to have a relationship with the Ophiuchus Alliance."
After about an hour, Wilson and the others came back, but their faces were a little confused, and they seemed to be worried. Other soldiers asked what was going on, but Wilson just waved his hand casually, "It seems like a bird crying, a false alarm."
Bird calls?
Ethan was pretty sure that it was definitely not a bird calling. He looked at Samuel, who just shrugged, "We searched for the sound and vaguely saw a fire in the woods. But when we sneaked past, the fire was extinguished in a flash, and the sound disappeared. Where there should be a fire, you can’t even find the burnt branches, and there is no half-person figure. It stands to reason that we are so close, if someone runs away, we can definitely see it. But there is no one, the fire is like It’s never existed.
Samuel said and shook his head.
It’s not like we all have the same visual and auditory hallucinations collectively, right?