Preface Connor Brandick

"Another new volume, please collect it!!! By the way, why do you feel more comfortable when you don't write the protagonist and hit the wall?

The wind rolled up the yellow sand and covered the sky, and it was dark around, as if night was coming.

Connor Brandick bowed like a shrimp and walked forward against the strong wind. The gravel swept up by the strong wind hit him and made a muffled sound. Under the robe blown by the wind is a gray armor. After several days of trekking, it has been covered with a thick layer of sand, and it is no longer as dazzling as silver before. Connor Brandick spit out a mouthful of sand, wrapped his robe tightly, pulled down the brim of his hat, and then looked up at the yellow sand all over the sky. It's like a thick sand wall, Connor Brandick thought, isoling the two worlds.

The wind is getting more and more arrogant, like cutting an axe, crying in Connor Brandick's ear. The yellow sand has formed a terrible huge wave that goes straight to the sky and rushed straight to him fiercely. He is like a weak candlelight in the wind, shaky. Connor Brandick had to stop. He jumped off the sand dune just before the huge bouncing stone hit him and temporarily rested on the other side of the back wind.

Countless sand rolled down from the sand dunes, and soon a thick layer accumulated on his hood and shawl. A stone suddenly fell from the sky and happened to hit him on the shoulder. The armor made a bang. While he was secretly annoyed that he had been defeated by fatigue and became lazy - this would be fatal. He warned himself - he hurriedly got up and built a low barrier at the bottom of the windless sand dunes with gravel, and curled up. Shrinking behind the barrier. He looked up at the sky and saw countless sand and stones roaring past his head.

I don't know when this sandstorm will stop. Connor Brandick thought distressedly. The climate change in the Black Forest and the Sand Sea is unpredictable, the sandstorm has no warning, and flash floods can also rush in a blink of an eye. Storms like this may last for as short as ten minutes or last for several days. Connor Brandick blinked his dry eyes and felt that the time passed extremely slowly, and his heart was anxious.

Anxiety is our great enemy, Connor. The red-robed monk told him that patience, waiting and detour are our motto.

Connor Brandick remembers that he was still training in the temple at that time. He was holding a wooden gun, and in front of him was a wooden man who would not fight back - he thought so.

"He won't move," he retorted, "I only need one * to go to knock it down."

"Then try it."

He rushed forward with a gun and hit the wooden man's chest for the first time. He cheered, turned around and exerted his strength. Next time he planned to defeat the enemy with one move. He stared at the wooden man's throat and came out. With a thump, the pine gun suddenly burst from it, and the wood chips hit him in the face mercilessly. He staggered forward in fear, and the wooden man's arm hit him in the chest fiercely and hit him to the ground. He was at a loss.

"You used too much strength." The monk in red robe pointed out, "It's easy to break."

The words of the red-robed monk echoed in Connor Brandick's ear. Never forget what you are after. Our search is for inner peace. Your sword doesn't dance for killing. Before he left the temple, the red-robed monk put his palms on his chest. Connor, faith is in my heart.

Faith is in the heart. Connor Brandick chewed carefully, and then he entered the meditation in a lying position.

Something has been in his brain, and he sees it again.

It has no specific image, let alone anything to refer to in reality. He believes that once it is out of the dream, it will not survive at all. It was nagging and repeated over and over again as if it were some kind of demagogic sound and sentence. He couldn't understand that he thought it was some kind of ancient language, which belonged to the language of some engulfed and disappeared tribes in the sand sea.

Connor Brandick tried his best to open his eyes and only saw something illusory, like a black mud-like monster. It is twisting, as if it were a monster on another plane, like a translucent appearance in the part of the stomach. Looking through the black fog-like film, Connor Brandick saw some buildings with ice edges, as if they were bathed in the sun. In his memory, he has only seen one thing look like this - obsidian, a strange magical substance.

The lonely warrior in the sand sea tried to get closer, but the film suddenly became blurred. An order-like whisper sounded in his ear. He didn't understand what it meant, but he guessed what it meant. He opened his eyes.

The sand sea at night is full of stars and quiet. Conor Brandick stood on the hill and looked up at the Star River. He was strippered, opened his arms and bathed in the starlight. His body trembled with the cold wind at night, but the soles of his feet touched the still hot gravel. He took a deep breath and suddenly let out a shout. The sound shook the world, and it seemed that even the clouds at night dissipated in fear. With the moon hanging high in the sky, he closed his eyes and started a set of boxing on the gravel - this was his practice. When he walked alone on the sand sea, he never stopped.

One punch; the red-robed monk once said that he should listen to the guidance of his heart. Another punch; it is his bright light. Step your legs and punch again; it tells you what path you should take... He punched faster than one punch, and the gravel under his feet rose, forming a whirlwind around him. It said, "Go south, then south."

Connor Brandick followed its guidance. He came to the Black Forest Sand Sea from the bustling Mass and entered the inland quicksand field from the coastal yellow sand city. His footsteps did not stop. He walked for a full month, and the voice still urged him to "south".

Where is the front? He didn't know and had nowhere to ask. He could only follow the teachings of the red-robed monk and give his fate to his heart to the voice of that person in his heart - the god he worshipped.

When the noon sun was at its peak, Connor Brandick rested under a dead red poplar. A broken blanket was put on the branch, forming a narrow shadow. He sat cross-legged in it and opened the kettle. There is no drop of water left inside. To be precise, there hasn't been a drop of water in it since three days ago, but he doesn't seem to worry about it at all. He took out a dry cake from the bag and chewed it, making the saliva fully moist and hard, like a stone. Maybe we should eat it later? Connor Brandick thought that it would not be too late to eat when he found a water source. As he thought, he choked the piece of dry cake. The red-robed monk said that it was a far more difficult journey than the ascetic, but he didn't think so. The voice in his heart became clearer and clearer since he entered the sand sea. It tells him every fatal danger and where every oasis is.

Now, an oasis is on the way south, where you can see it by crossing three sand dunes.

When the sun turned west, Connor Brandick packed up and began his long journey again. When he climbed over the first dune, he saw the scene he saw the most along the way--

A caravan fell here forever.

He counted five people in total. Three middle-aged people, two young people, and three mules. They all fell in the shadow at the bottom of the sand dunes, swarted, like loofah without water, leaving only disgusting skins. The flies buzzed, and several lizards heard his footsteps get into the ground in panic. A desert fox looked up at him and buried its head to gnaw the body. He had to drive it away with a long sword. He pulled up his robe to cover his mouth and nose, swallowed the bile, held his breath, and then squatted down to check their bodies.

They showed no sign of being attacked by any guy - there was some kind of sand sting in the black forest sand sea, and he was glad that he had not encountered it all along the way - they all died of lack of water - there was still food in the package. Connor Brandick sighed heavily, and the oasis was ahead, but they couldn't stick to it. Thank the gods, he prayed in his heart.

Connor Brandick buried them. Although he knows that it is meaningless and the corrosives will soon find their sand holes, this is the limit of what he can do. Then he found some food from the goods of the caravan and stuffed something useful into his backpack. The dead are over, and it is better to use them to save another life than to bury them.

He packed up and went back on the road.

The remaining two hills seemed to be close in front of him, but it was not until nightfall and the sand sea became cold again that he climbed the last hill. Looking from a high place, there is a sunken basin under your feet, and an oasis seems to be the most dazzling gem in the yellow sand, reflecting the reaction of the sky, shining with a brilliant luster. However, in this quiet halo, Connor Brandick saw what surprised him - a light. He rushed down the sand dunes without thinking, like a playful child sliding down the sand slope and running to the gray tent.

"Is anyone there?" He asked softly outside the tent. His voice came all the way in the open sand sea.

"I've been waiting for you for a long time, desert rider." Inside, there was an old girl's voice. She was like a broken bellows in a blacksmith's shop and coughed violently for a moment. Come in." She said, "Come in quickly. There is tea and wine here."

Connor Brandick wondered how the other party knew he would come. He hesitated for a moment, and finally listened to his inner impulse, lifted the curtain and walked in.

The tent is not too big. Connor Brandick must bend over to keep his head from touching the top. There was a dim oil lamp and hundreds of white cloth hanging down. An old man sat cross-legged in it, hiding in the shadow of countless cloth strips. Connor Brandick could only see her wrinkled cheek and a pair of bright eyes that were not like the old man.

"Hello." He greeted politely. Excuse me, who are you? Why do you live here?

She looks like an astrological witch, but how can she live alone in the depths of the uninhabited sand sea?

"I want to wait for someone who is sent here." The old lady said, "But I didn't expect them to choose you."

Connor Brandick was shocked, "Do you know...someone will come here?"

"Of course I know." The old lady said, "God knows everything. As his devout believers, we will also know everything.

"You mean..." The voice deep in my heart is the whisper of God?" But why did you choose me and let me do something?"

"Wait, wait patiently." The old lady stretched out her right hand and pulled off a piece of black cloth on the table. Only then did Rona Brandik notice that there was a black crystal the size of a fist under the black cloth. Obsidian?"

"It's it." The old lady seemed to see through his heart, "It can predict and show the future. When God is still alive, God also uses it to communicate with his followers.

His heart was so terrrant that he couldn't say a word. You mean..."

"I saw the future revealed to us by God..."

"Future?"

"Blood and frost." Every word the old lady said made him tremble. Revenge and Su Sheng.

"What can I... do?" He was afraid, "I can't be ordinary..."

"You can do a lot." The obsidian seemed to shine more brightly than the midday sun, shaking his eyes. He vaguely saw something dangerous and deadly. He felt that he would never be able to defeat those monsters. But what can be done now is patience, waiting and defense.