Nina and Maurice walked along the forest path. The sunlight shone through the lush treetops high up, casting mottled beams of light in the forest. A thin layer of fog had risen in the forest at some point, and the sunlight diffused in the fog, making it look even more dreamy and hazy.

The elf girl who called herself "Shilin" was walking not far ahead, stopping from time to time to look back, and she always looked very patient.

"It's foggy in the forest," Nina looked up at the shadows of the trees in the distance and whispered in her heart, "It's the first time I've seen foggy here... Uncle Duncan, how's it going over there?"

She slowed down her pace, with an expression of serious listening on her face. Morris, who was walking beside her, also slowed down his pace, also listening carefully to the voice coming from the depths of his mind.

A moment later, the old scholar's voice sounded in the mental connection: "You mean... the construction records of the Lost Homeland? The data of the Pland Shipyard back then?"

The old man then listened carefully for a while, nodded solemnly, and responded in his heart: "I understand... this part of the information must still be there, but it is definitely impossible to obtain it by ordinary means. I will discuss it with Fanna later to see if we can find old friends in the city-state or the church."

The voice in the back of my mind faded away.

Nina blinked and looked at the teacher beside her curiously: "Why did Uncle Duncan suddenly want to find the construction records of the Lost Hometown?"

"I don't know. Maybe the captain found something deep inside the 'Lost Homeland in Dreamland'," Morris said casually, "but since he didn't tell us the details, it's best not to ask."

Obviously, after joining the Lost Homeland for so long, the old man has mastered the safety rules of being around the captain very well.

Then he paused, frowned slightly, and looked at the white fog lingering in the dense forest, which seemed to be getting thicker with the passage of time.

"The fog has gotten thicker..." He said with a serious expression, "I don't know much about 'forests', but I always feel that something is wrong with this fog."

Nina thought about it and was eager to try: "Use the sun to dispel it?"

Morris subconsciously glanced at "Shilin" who was walking in front, and quickly waved his hand to stop the girl's enthusiasm: "Don't be rash, your sunshine seems to be a strong stimulation for this dream."

"oh……"

And during this time of delay, Xilin, who was walking in front, stopped.

It was as if she could always accurately sense the distance between herself and Maurice and Nina. Whenever the distance widened to a certain extent, she would stop immediately, and sometimes even ask and urge curiously - just like now.

"What happened?" The elf girl looked at the two people who were muttering to each other behind her in confusion. "We don't have much time to waste - we have to return to the Silent Wall before we encounter erosion."

"It's very foggy around here," Nina immediately took two quick steps to catch up with Shirin, and took this opportunity to ask directly, "Is it often foggy here?"

"Fog?" Xilin was stunned for a moment, then looked up and around. Then, as if she had just reacted, a look of realization appeared on her face, and she smiled at Nina, "We are very close to our destination... We are almost inside the Wall of Silence."

"You mean, this fog is caused by the 'Wall of Silence'?" Morris' voice came from the side immediately, "Or, this 'fog' is part of the Wall of Silence?"

"It's really spectacular, isn't it?" Shirin did not directly answer the scholar's question, but looked around the dense forest that was gradually swallowed by the fog with a strange excitement and joy, as if she was the one who saw the Silence Wall for the first time. "Here, you can't even see its full view - but Silantis can see it, from a very high place, from the sky, Silantis's branches can overlook this wall...

"It closed in front of her eyes, isolating the entire country from the invasion of the outside world... We haven't arrived yet, there is still a little distance. Deep in the fog, there is a barrier of light. That is the main body of the Silence Wall. But it is very close, almost in the blink of an eye..."

Shireen spoke excitedly. This "mental entity" who had been exceptionally calm and even somewhat sluggish all the way seemed to have acquired extremely agile human qualities in just a few seconds. She turned around and quickly walked towards the path deep in the fog, waving to Nina and Maurice as she walked.

"Hurry up, follow me, we are about to get back to safety!"

It was the first time Nina saw someone do this. She was stunned for a moment before she reacted. She saw that Xilin was about to disappear in the depths of the flowing fog. She hurriedly followed Morris to catch up, but for some reason, she had a vague feeling...

Can't catch up.

Although before this, Shireen would always wait for herself and the teacher who fell behind, and although the "Shireen" that Shirley and Miss Lucrecia met had the same "behavior pattern", this time, Nina felt that the other party would no longer stop to wait for her - Shireen's steps were so unhesitating that she almost rushed towards the shadowy trees in the fog, like a long-lost wanderer returning home, or a drop of water returning to the ocean.

The elf finally disappeared in the endless fog and never looked back.

Nina and Maurice were left staring at each other in the foggy forest.

After a while, Morris looked thoughtfully in the direction where Shireen last disappeared: "Her mental reaction was that she disappeared directly at the end of this road - within a few seconds after her figure left our sight."

Nina thought for a moment and said uneasily, "Are we lost? There's fog and trees everywhere, and everything looks the same."

"We didn't know the way from the beginning," Morris said openly. "You don't have to worry about getting lost in a dream - because in theory, you will always get lost when you move around in a dream."

Nina listened to the teacher's teachings in a daze and felt that it made sense: "That's true."

Then she asked again: "What should we do next? Do you need me to 'fly' up there and take a look at the situation? I can be more restrained."

“Unless it’s absolutely necessary, try to avoid stimulating this dream,” Morris waved his hand, and then roughly confirmed the direction when Shireen’s mental response disappeared in the thick fog, and raised his hand to point to the end of the trail in the distance, “Let’s go in this direction, along the road that Shireen pointed out to us at the end.”

"good!"

In this way, the old man and the young began to trek through the fog and dense forest that seemed to have no end.

They only have a general direction.

But Nina still remembered that Shirin said before she left that they were only one step away from the Wall of Silence - in the distant past, the shelter that Silantis built for the elves was at the end of this thick fog.

It's there in the blink of an eye.

The light from the gaps in the treetops had gradually dimmed at some point, and the mottled beams of light turned into vague and suspicious shadows in the thick fog. The forest was rugged, and the trails trampled by wild animals when drinking water could not be called "roads" at all. Even such "trails" were not always available - in most places, the ground covered with dead branches and leaves was softer and more difficult to walk on than the rugged trails.

And she didn't know if it was an illusion, but Nina always felt that the ground here became more and more difficult to walk on as she went forward. The plants were becoming denser and more chaotic. The vines and bushes were crisscrossed as if they were consciously blocking the way. There was a cold atmosphere in the fog, as if... the front was not the "final refuge" at all, but the biggest shadow in this vast dream.

She stopped suddenly.

In the thick fog, she seemed to see something flash by.

Nina almost gave a 6000℃ slap.

But she restrained her overly sunny impulse in time.

"Something seemed to run past in the fog just now," Nina said to Morris a little nervously, "I was startled!"

Morris glanced at Nina and saw two clusters of golden flames jumping in the depths of the girl's eyes, and the air around her was gradually calming down from the distortion.

The old man also looked a little nervous suddenly - he was not afraid that there would be something dangerous in the fog, but he was afraid that Nina would burn the forest to death with a slap.

After all, this child is a little jumpy.

"Did you see what it was?"

"No," Nina shook her head. "I just felt like it was a very tall 'person' who ran over in the blink of an eye. But it might not be a person? The outline felt weird... like it was deformed."

"...I can't tell what it is for now," Morris said with a frown, "but I didn't sense any mental activity just now, so it's very likely just an illusion created in the fog... We don't know the principle of this so-called 'wall of silence' yet, so anything is possible in here."

He paused for a moment, then added: "The key is that you need to stay calm...control your impulse to act rashly."

Nina nodded nervously and took a few steps forward while continuing to pay attention to the movements in the fog around her.

And just at this moment, a disorderly wind seemed to suddenly blow through the dense forest.

She felt the fog in front of her eyes suddenly dissipate a lot, and then a blurry "light curtain" like a distorted mirror appeared at the end of the gradually dissipating fog.

The faint light was trembling in the fog, and the surface reflected the distorted light in the forest. There seemed to be something behind the light curtain, but it was hazy and unclear.

Nina was stunned for a moment, and then she realized - they had arrived.

That is the "light-forged barrier" at the end of the Wall of Silence that Shireen mentioned!

The next second, Nina and Morris quickly came to the light curtain.

A barrier forged by light stands majestically and solemnly at the edge of the fog, like the end of the entire forest world, extending upward to the endless sky and to the endless distance on both sides. There is also flowing light slowly wandering on the surface of the barrier, as if isolating the world on both sides of the glimmer, quietly guarding the infinite secrets on the other side.

"So... beautiful." Nina raised her head blankly and exclaimed subconsciously.

Morris walked forward, asked Nina to step back a little, then cautiously reached out his hand and touched the layer of light that seemed to have no thickness.

Then, the wall of silence collapsed silently.

This wall of light that seemed to connect heaven and earth, seemed endlessly broad, extremely magnificent and majestic, suddenly shattered silently like a soap bubble.