地狱向前 With Hell Before Them

作者：Jared Rosen

1868年6月7日

June 7th, 1868

商队把我载到了尘埃镇。

The caravan has delivered me unto Dust.

镇上萧条死寂，在铁路线以南这么远的地方，它可能会像另外的双街小镇一样，很快被沙漠吞没。我记得这里在大扩张时期曾经辉煌宏伟，然而现在剩下的只有盖满污垢的酒吧和少数几幢沉没在沙中的住宅。每个人的脸都带着一种沉重——他们看着我的眼神像是在寻求救赎，但我并不是真正的天使，我也无法回应他们的祈祷。

It is a listless and dead-eyed town, as likely to be swallowed by the desert as any other two-street this far south of the rail line. I recall it was once something quite spectacular back in the days of the Great Expansion, but now there is little left save a filth-encrusted saloon and a handful of sunken homesteads. The people’s faces are weighed down by a certain heaviness—they look to me for some measure of salvation, but I am not a true angel, and I cannot answer their prayers.

我不清楚这个地方还能在边境的黑暗中坚持多久，也不清楚当我返回的时候还能否再见到它。无论如何，我都必须继续前进。

I am unsure how long this place might weather the dark of the frontier, or if it will be here to greet me when I return. Regardless, I must press on.

我的目标在东边，被巨石形成的拱廊和绵延几里地的开阔荒野所笼罩。任何有正常理智的人都不会在这片土地定居，因为无论准备得多么充足，都无法应对这里的危机，而我要找的猎物可不是普通的强盗或拦路匪帮能比拟的。所以，我身边有一名杀手同行。已预付了一半酬劳，剩下一半事成之后补齐。

My own goal is east, shadowed by sandstone arches and miles of open backcountry. No man in his right mind would settle in these lands, as dangerously hostile as it is even for the well-prepared, and the quarry I seek is leagues beyond simple bandits or stick-up gangs. To that end, a killer travels with me. Paid half upfront, and half when the deed is done.

他是个魁梧壮硕的家伙，充满着人类共有的黑暗。我几乎可以感受到他的血液在熏黑的心脏里沸腾的温度，但是这次犯险却需要他这样的人。没有怀疑。没有犹豫。只有纯粹的力量和直觉。所以我才让猎头者德莱厄斯同行，我们将骑行进入黑峡谷的中心。

He is a towering hulk of a creature, filled with that selfsame darkness endemic to his kind. I can almost feel the heat of his blood boiling within that blackened heart, but he is the quality of man this venture requires. No doubt. No hesitation. Only raw power and instinct. Thus the manhunter Darius has joined me in this, our ride into the lonely spines of the Black Canyon.

在那片不毛之地的深处，我们将搜寻那个魔鬼，并杀了他。

It is in the depths of that bleak place that we will hunt the devil, and kill him.

June 9th, 1868It has been two days since we left the town of Dust, and Darius has scarcely spoken a word. His is a grim and unclouded resolve, fueled by some swirling anger clutched deep within his breast. He reminds me strongly of my creators in the east, but moreso of his forebears—men who years ago stormed the gardens of paradise, and slew the things within.

1868年6月9日

That is the great irony of this endeavor. A machine made in the image of the lost angels and a killer descended from killers, contracted to destroy the very product of mankind’s gravest sin. I am sure my companion is amused.

我们离开尘埃镇已有两天，德莱厄斯几乎从未开口说话。他冷漠无情而且心无旁骛，支持他的是胸中深处某种狂卷的愤怒。他让我想起东方，我的创造者，但更让我想起他自己的先民——多年前，他们践踏了天堂的花园，屠戮其中的一切。

We ride against the wind, following the scent of brimstone ash, burning hoofprints, and brushlands singed by hellfire. Here the land goes on for a thousand leagues and a thousand more, an endless, open pastiche of dirt, grass, and wild lavender that meets the sky at its middle and continues on into forever. It is a blessed country; I have explored much of it in the time since my birth, and will explore more in the decades and centuries to come, should this shell of a body hold out for that long.

这让本次冒险显得十分讽刺。一个按照天使模样制造的机器，加上一个作为杀手后裔的杀手，缔结契约，去摧毁人类罪恶的产物。我敢肯定我的这位同伴会对此感到可笑。

Sadly, the secrets of my creation were long ago lost; I stand the first and last of the artificial angels, fueled by the very blood of the old choirs. Their whispers still reach my ears, but the gods are dead and their attendants lay scattered across the frontier, words shorn of all power or consequence, until they, too, vanish completely from the world. That is why I keep this journal: so that those who remain when the old has been lost might not forget us, and know, at least, our story.

我们逆风骑行，追踪着硫磺烟尘的气味、燃烧的马蹄印还有被地狱火烧焦的草地。我们走了一千里又一千里，这里的土地是无尽而单调的拼凑，尘土、矮丛和野生薰衣草，延伸到远远的天边。这是一片赐福的土地，从我诞生开始，就已经走遍这里的大部分，而且还将在未来的数十年上百年里继续探索，只要这副躯壳能够坚持到那个时候。

In time my own earthly form will rust and the being within will return to wherever the souls of angels are wont to go, perhaps a long way from here, and I sometimes wonder if, when my days come to an end, I will ever again look upon this land of such agonizing beauty.

遗憾的是，制造我的秘术早已失传，我成为了第一个也是最后一个机械天使，我的燃料则是旧时的圣咏团的鲜血。圣咏团的低语依然会传到我耳畔，但神明们已死，他们的侍从散落在边境各处，那些低语诉说的祷词已经没有任何力量，到最后，它们也会彻底从世界上消失。所以我才随身带着这本日志：让幸存之人在老者一去不返以后记得我们，或者，至少记得我们的故事。

总有一天，我的物质形体会生锈，里面寄宿的东西会回到天使的灵魂归宿，或许会是一段漫长的路程，我时常想，当我的年岁走到尽头，是否还有机会再看一眼这片充满痛苦之美的土地。

June 11th, 1868We smelled the ranch before we saw it. A two-story farmhouse and horse stable, both rendered down to black, ashen ruins. These are the unmistakable signs of the devil we hunt: trails marked with smoldering hoofprints and the incinerated bodies of animals and people, scattered about as if some sadistic giant had tossed them through the air before finally delivering them unto oblivion. Each creature’s burnt face twisted upward in horror and fear as they stared into the flames of some distant, devouring hell.

Damn these devils! Foreign horrors all, escaped from their prison of smoke and darkness. Some may have made this place their home; famously the great cattle-skulled stalker of the old world, prowling about this land since the time of the ancient progenitor deities. But the rest dwelt for eons within the bowels of the underworld, torturing the souls of the condemned and delivering pain upon the spirits of wicked and broken men. Then heaven fell in that first, great continental land rush, and paradise was lost to humanity for all of time.

Human souls, compromised as they were, had nowhere left to go but the great grinning maw of the pit.

1868年6月11日

Yet even hell could not hold all the wailing masses of mankind, and it burst open in a furious upwelling of flames and hatred—the devils finally rushing forth to join their cousins, the long-maligned demons. Those bestial creatures masquerading as snake-oil salesman, carnival barkers, and traveling undertakers, whose preference for plotting cruel and ironic downfalls of the desperate married happily with the newly expanded threat of hellfire and death.

我们还没看见大牧场，就已经先嗅到了味道。双层的农舍和马厩，全都化成了焦黑的废墟。这些迹象毫无疑问指向那个我们正在追踪的魔鬼：冒烟的马蹄印和被烧焦的人畜尸体七零八落地散落于地，就像是暴虐的巨人把他们肆意丢弃，送进了湮灭。每个生灵被灼烧的面孔都扭曲地向上望，似乎是在恐惧地看着远处的地狱之口。

Now heaven is empty, and hell has overflown, and these poor mortal souls can do fair little to save themselves from a damnation of their own making.

该死的魔鬼！全都逃离了浓烟和黑暗的监牢，是来自异域的恐怖。有的魔鬼可能已经将这里当成了家，其中最有名的就是旧世界那个长着牛头的追猎者，他早在古老神祇的祖先时代就已经在这片陆地上徘徊。但其他的魔鬼全都在地底世界度过万古，折磨罪人的灵魂，给恶毒残破的人类精魄制造痛苦。然后在那场席卷整块大陆的圈地运动中，天堂陨落，人类永远失去了乐园。

Still, Darius seems unmoved by the destruction that so often marks our path. He speaks of his obligation to me and to the success of our venture, yet wonders aloud what a mechanical angel might gain from fighting the long-concluded battle between good and evil. He does not seem ill at ease by my presence, nor does he expect the miracles of the angels to lighten his inner darkness. He seems rather unmoved by almost everything, save the fight ahead and the reward for his victory.

人类的灵魂早已沦陷，如今他们无处可去，只有那咧着邪笑的深渊之口。

I trust the man, despite my misgivings about humanity. It is a feeling born of pragmatism, and I suspect he trusts me in kind.

然而即使是地狱，也无法容纳巨量的人类，于是它带着火焰和愤怒喷涌而出——魔鬼们终于可以跑去投奔他们的亲戚，那些长期受到诽谤的恶魔。那些野兽形态的生灵伪装成蛇油推销员、游乐园的杂耍艺人和居无定所的送葬人，他们为绝望之人精心设计残忍结局的喜好恰逢地狱火和死亡的新兴爆发。

I sometimes watch him in the dim hours when we camp for the evening, his eyes always drawn to the glittering coals within the firelight. Searching, perhaps, for something I cannot see.

如今天堂空荡荡，而地狱满当当，这些可怜的凡人灵魂几乎全都束手无策，只能等待接受自己亲手制造的地狱诅咒。

不过，面对我们一路上的种种破坏的痕迹，德莱厄斯似乎无动于衷。他对我讲述自己的契约义务，向我宣誓这次涉险的成功，同时又自顾自地反问一个机械天使能从这场早已结束的正邪大战之中获得什么。他似乎并不会在我身边感到无所适从，也不指望天使能奇迹般地减轻他内心的黑暗。他似乎对一切都漠不关心，除了即将面临的那场战斗，以及得胜后的奖赏。

我相信这个人，但我对人类和人性充满疑虑。这是出于实用主义的感觉，我猜测他也对我抱有同样的信任。

June 14th, 1868We have reached the mouth of the Black Canyon, after many days of tracking the black hoofprints of the devil’s dread riders. Darius’ horse refuses to move ahead, and so I will leave my own mount, Virtue, behind, and the two of us will continue on foot. In the end it could work to our advantage. The beasts will not spook this way, and cannot alert our target.

有的时候我会在安营过夜的时候观察他，他的双眼总是被篝火中燃烧的煤块所吸引。可能，是在寻找着什么我看不到的东西。

The manhunter carries with him a mighty hatchet, upon its hilt countless notches for countless claimed bounties. A man devoid of emotion is a man incorruptible by fear or weakness, unlike the marshals and their untoward aggression to anything less than human. His eyes are consumed with violent intent, always alert for the slightest sound or movement, even when there is nothing on the horizon—used to, as any seasoned killer is, the unpredictability of supernatural assailants.

The winds are soft, and no sound carries save the crunch of pebbles beneath our feet. Darius asks why a devil would make his home here. I tell him that for a devil, the only better place is hell itself.

We stand amid the bones of a god, slain by men not so long ago.

It was only fifty years prior that the deities who did not retreat into the Far West were hunted mercilessly by the government, gunned down by federal marshals and broken apart by skinners, tanners, and scavengers. The god’s colossal bones, too big for even these greedy men to lift, were left here—the rock quickly forming around them into what cartographers have deemed a canyon, though a canyon it is not.

1868年6月14日

Darius laughs, and the sound carries across the limestone walls and down into the open belly of the earth. Twisting and contorting, rolling across great slabs of rock as they collapse in upon one another, his voice terminates into whispers and then into nothing—and at this, the manhunter smiles.

我们寻着焦黑的马蹄印，追踪魔鬼的恐怖骑手许多日以后，来到了黑峡谷的开口。德莱厄斯的马拒绝再向前一步，所以我也会把我的马儿，弗丘，留在这里，我们两个会徒步继续前行。说到底这还是对我们有利的。只有这样它们才不会突然受到惊吓，也就不会惊动我们的猎物。

How long do you think it took those men to kill a god? he asks me. Before I can answer, he shoulders his weapon, a new hunger apparent upon his face, and marches down the trail, his pace faster than ever before.

这名猎头者带着一把大斧，握柄上的无数个刻痕，每一个都代表一颗人头的赏金。摒弃了情绪的人，就不会被恐惧或弱小所腐蚀，这是那些法警们不具备的品质，他们只会对任何非人类的东西露出固执的敌意。他的双眼被暴力的意图吞噬，最轻微的动静也能引起他的警觉，但事实上放眼望去一无所有。和任何一个老练的杀手一样，他已经习惯了毫无征兆突如其来的灵异侵袭。

柔和的风吹过，耳边的声音只有我们脚下的碎石。德莱厄斯问为什么魔鬼会在这里安家。我告诉他对于魔鬼来说，只要不是地狱，哪里都好。

我们站在一位神留下的骸骨中间，被人类弑杀没过多久。

June 15th, 1868Darius is beginning to worry me.

就在五十年前，神明退到了远西地区，而所有留下来的都遭到政府无情猎杀，被联邦的法警击毙，被剥皮人和拾荒者肢解。这位神明的遗骨巨大无比，即使是再贪婪的人也无法搬走，于是就被留在了这里。岩石在周围形成了独特的地貌，被地图学家划分为峡谷，但它不是峡谷。

I took the manhunter on for his ruthlessness, but something about this place is awakening the coiled serpent deep within his heart, and now it has given way to even darker intention. He walks with purpose, the hilt of his axe gripped tightly in his hands. When he looks at me now, I no longer see a companion, but a challenger—a man who would split the world in two if only he could muster the strength. What he sees within me is a road to that power, barely holding himself back as the sky falls away and the air grows warm and still.

德莱厄斯大笑起来，笑声回荡在石灰岩壁之间，传到地底深处。扭曲着、翻滚着、奔腾在层叠交错的巨大石板之间，他的声音衰减为轻声低语，最后彻底消失。于是，这位猎头者露出微笑。

He mutters in the night about demons and devils, and what their bargains could offer.

你觉得那些人弑神需要花多久？他问我。但还没等我回答，他就扛起武器，露出一副饥饿的表情，大步向前走去，步履比以往更快了。

Demons give you what you want, he likes to say. Devils give you what you need.

June ?, 1868The true nature of the Black Canyon reveals itself the further down we journey. Whispers from within my blood grow muted within its vast stone walls, their jagged spines ripping into the rapidly vanishing sky. Dirt and dust have given way to ghostly vegetation—fields of odd white flowers contained within valleys that should not exist, ringed by mountains that defy geologic time. Night and day seem interchangeable with each passing hour, but still we move deeper into the bowels of the rock, and deeper still into the lair of the devil.

1868年6月15日

Darius grins, now and again, asking of gods and monsters, angels and demons. His questions are fueled by odd tics; he glances behind us as though someone might be there, batting at his ears as if an insect is buzzing about. I watch him carefully as we camp each night. His wild eyes glow as they stare into the burning coals, reflecting embers as they dance upward into the still air, and he interrogates me about the god who died here and how exactly it was slain.

我开始担心德莱厄斯。

Occasionally, as he sleeps, I will spot the grinning silhouette of an outsider watching us from some distance away. Though those strange gamblers would never test the patience of an angel, I know why they have come, sensing within this killer some vicious longing for an intractable bargain.

我带上这个猎头者是看中他的无情，但这个地方似乎唤醒了他心中盘踞的毒蛇，开始显露出更加黑暗的意图。他步伐坚定，紧紧握着巨斧。现在他看我的眼神，让我觉得他不再是同伴，而是挑战者——只要他拿出力量，就能把世界一切为二。在他眼中，我只是让他获得那种力量的领路人，他只是在强忍着动手的念头，看着渐渐远去的天空，呼吸着越来越闷热的空气。

Darius is becoming a threat. But the devil is so close now—I can sense it, this thing we must slay… and no living creature can destroy one alone. Surely once the deed is done my charge will regain his proper senses, and perhaps the cloud over this place will finally lift itself forever.

他在夜里喃喃自语，说着一些关于恶魔和魔鬼的话，关于他们兜售的交易。

I have prepared myself in the event that Darius turns on me. We need each other alive until we strike into the monster’s lair, but after…

他常常说，恶魔满足你的欲望。魔鬼满足你的需求。

Well, perhaps this man will find himself dead at the bottom of the world.

Or, if fate demands it, all three of us will.

1868年6月？日

???I wonder if I will remember my death.

黑峡谷的本性开始逐渐显露。我血液中传来的低语在这高耸的石墙之间悄无声息，两侧的崖壁伸向依稀可见的天空。尘土之上长出了鬼魅的植被——一片片奇异的白色花丛出现在原本不应该存在的沟壑中，四周还包围着不符合地质年代的山丘。昼夜开始变得模糊不清，似乎每个小时都经历一次轮回，但我们依然要走向地下更深处，走向魔鬼的老巢。

The thought haunts me, at times. I remember my birth quite well—the sensation of being pulled from someplace very far from here, and awakening surrounded by the creaking and clattering of old machines. I was a miracle, I was told. Built from some archaic plan found in a great, silver city, and filled with the essence of the things that had lived there but now do not. Their whispers began to touch my ears, then, and I knew how painful it was to be the first and the last of something I could only half recall.

德莱厄斯时不时地裂开嘴，询问神明与怪物、天使与恶魔。他提问的时候总是莫名地抽动。他向后方窥伺，似乎觉得身后有人；他在自己耳边拍打，似乎时有小虫飞来飞去。每当我们安营过夜的时候，我都紧盯着他。他疯狂的双眼映着篝火中燃烧的煤块，飘摇的火星向上飞到凝固的空气中，他反复问我死在这里的那位神明生前如何，以及究竟是怎么被弑杀的。

Yet I know when I die I will remember the devil Hecarim, his skull burning within the canyon’s otherworldly darkness.

在他睡着的时候，我偶尔能在远处看到一个外来人奸笑的影子。虽然那些奇怪的赌徒永远都不敢测试天使的耐心，但我知道他们出现在这里，是因为感知到这个杀手心中渴望着一次难以拒绝的交易。

My companion had regained himself after we reached the bottom of the crevasse, where the still air broke into a calm wind, and the deep unease that had dogged us thus far seemed to finally dissipate. We found ourselves standing before the mouth of a great opening in the rock, its entrance blasted jet-black as small fires flickered across the ground, and we knew our quarry was finally within reach. The hateful riders, that roving pack of demonic horsemen that seemed to follow Hecarim everywhere, would surely meet us inside. Weapons at the ready, we entered the cave to find—

德莱厄斯正在成为威胁。但魔鬼已经非常近了——我能感知到它，我们必须杀了它……没有任何生灵能够单独完成这个任务。可以肯定，只要达成这一壮举，我的同伴就能恢复理智，或许萦绕在这个地方的乌云也会彻底散开。

Nothing.

我已经准备好应对德莱厄斯的背叛。我们需要保证彼此活着攻入怪物的巢穴，但之后的事……

A dark tunnel lay before us, but the riders did not make their presence known. How long had we prepared? How long had we been down here? It was difficult to say. We followed the path for a time, into the gloom, into the heat of that furnace, lit only by the glow of crackling ash that lined the edges of the cave floor. Far ahead was some sort of clearing, some opening on the other side of the canyon wall, and in it the flickering red-yellow tongues of fire that were the telltale signs of a devil awaiting his audience.

或许，这个人会死在世界的底部。

For while we had hunted the devil, he had hunted us in turn. That was and always has been the nature of the creatures. Devils are the great kings of hell, and they demand an audience with the pomp and circumstance of any old world nobility or government man from the eastern territories. Demons may lie, and trick, and deceive. They may give mortals the things they want, and extract their prices once the terrible weight of their gifts is finally appreciated. But a devil is never caught unaware, and is always prepared to give its pursuers exactly the thing they need.

又或者，如果天命难违，我们三个都会死。

Darius sneered, his eyes lit with the glimmer of so many burning coals, and I knew he had found whatever he saw within the heart of the fire.

We emerged into a barren outcropping of molten stone and searing heat, ringed by a tower of flame that seemed to climb the very walls of the canyon itself. In its center was Hecarim, his body that of a great black stallion and the monstrous torso of a man, wearing the face of a skinless, burning horse skull. From it jutted a single wicked horn, cloaked in thick smoke, and he spoke with the voice of a mountain slowly tearing itself open:

Why have you come?

My companion said nothing. The question was not meant for him to hear, but for me, since his answer had already been given. Perhaps in his sleep, in the recesses in his own dark dreams, or whispered in the echoes of rocks and dust as they crunched beneath our feet in this long journey down. Power, he had said. I must have power. And he turned as if to answer for me, raising his axe high above his head, the weapon glowing with some bedeviled, red-hot flame, that he might bring it crashing down upon me.

？年？月？日

Two arrows I did fire into his heart, and two arrows struck true. Darius fell to earth before his pact could be sealed: the power to slay everything before him, given at any cost.

我很好奇，我会不会记得自己的死亡。

Without a word, the manhunter was dead… or so I believed.

这个念头让我挥之不去。我能清楚地记得自己的诞生——那是一种从很远的地方被拉过来的感觉，在古老机器的嘈杂碰撞声中醒来。他们告诉我，我是一个奇迹。我的设计图来自一座白银古城的发现，我体内注入了生命的精粹，而那些生命早已不再存活于此。他们的低语开始传到我的耳畔，然后，我懂得了孤独的痛苦，我是第一个也是最后一个，我的记忆只有一半。

As I drew another arrow against the devil, Darius rose once more, his face twisted into a hateful grin, his axe glowing with the newly gifted powers of hell. And through the flames behind him rode the host of demonic horsemen. Hecarim’s trap had been sprung.

然而我知道，我死的时候会记得魔鬼赫卡里姆，他的头骨在峡谷的妖异黑暗中炽烈燃烧。

Through the tunnel I fled, up the winding paths of the Black Canyon toward my steed and open prairie. Pursued by the legions of hell, and the blackened heart of that wicked, brutal man. For monsters are drawn to such power, changed by it, made into a force that in time will burn the continent and everything in it to dust.

当我们抵达裂隙最底部的时候，我的同伴又变回了他自己。原本凝固的空气开始泛起微风，始终尾随我们的焦虑似乎终于散去。我们面前是一张巨大的岩石之口，入口处被墨黑色侵染，地面有许多团火苗在跳动，我们知道，猎物触手可及了。那些充满憎恨的骑手，那群恶魔样貌的骑兵队似乎一直都在追随赫卡里姆，他们肯定已经在里面严阵以待了。我们摆好阵势，进到洞穴里面——

I ride for the border town of Angel’s Perch. There is a man there, a slayer of devils and an ally of those who once called the frontier home, who can rally the wild soul of such chaotic rabble against the threats allied against them. Perhaps they would not fight for the fate of mankind, who have cast us all into damnation with their lot. But they may yet fight for themselves.

空无一物。

If you have found this journal, I ask that you join us. Our forces muster at the edge of the world. There is precious little time.

我们前方是一条黑暗的地道，但却不见那些骑手的影子。我们已经准备了多久？我们已经在这下面待了多久？很难说。我们顺着路走了一段时间，走入了阴影，走入了熔炉的炙热，唯一的光亮只有洞穴地面边缘的灰烬微光。前面远处似乎是开阔地带，地洞穿过峡谷来到了另一侧，跃动着的橘黄色火舌，这是传说故事中魔鬼迎接来客的迹象。

Hell is coming. We must rise as one, or lose the west forever.

就在我们追猎魔鬼的同时，他反过来追猎了我们。这是魔鬼一直以来从未改变的本性。魔鬼是地狱的伟大王者，他们露面的时候要求场面威严宏大，要有旧世界贵族或者东方官僚一般的气派。恶魔可能会说谎、会耍诈、会欺骗。他们可能会满足凡人的物欲，然后在礼物的重量开始显现的时候开出他们的价码。但魔鬼则永远都有备而来，永远都准备为寻找他的人提供最需要的东西。

德莱厄斯冷笑一声，他的双眼闪烁着无数煤块燃烧的火光，我知道，无论他追寻的是什么，他已经在火焰的中心找到了。

我们走出地洞，来到了一片流淌着岩浆的炽热空地，四周由火焰筑起高塔，火苗似乎是要顺着峡谷的岩壁一直向上攀登。在空地的中央，是赫卡里姆，他的身体是一匹黑色的骏马，但却长着人类的躯干，顶着一颗剥去表皮、冒着火的马头骷髅。他头上支出一根恶毒的犄角，身上披着浓重的烟雾，他说话的声音就像一座大山在崩裂：

你为何而来？

我的同伴什么都没说。这个问题并不是在问他，而是在问我，因为他的答案早已给出。或许是在他睡着的时候，在他黑暗梦境的深处，或者在这一路的漫长旅程中，通过脚下的碎石和尘土悄声回答。他的回答是，力量。我必须拥有力量。然后他转过身，似乎是要替我回答，他将巨斧举过头顶，他的斧子闪耀着奸邪赤红的火焰，他可能是要劈在我身上。

我瞄准他的心脏射出两支箭，两支箭全都命中并刺入。德莱厄斯躺倒在地，他的交易还没来得及完成：他要不计代价，获得弑杀一切的力量。

那个猎头者没有遗言，死去了……我当时是这么以为的。

我又抽出一支箭射向那个魔鬼，德莱厄斯站了起来，他的面容扭曲成了憎恨的笑，他的巨斧注入了来自地狱的力量，发出火光。而在他身后，恶魔样貌的骑兵队穿过火幕冲了过来。赫卡里姆的陷阱一触即发。

我穿过地道逃跑，沿着蜿蜒的黑峡谷向上跑到我的坐骑身边，回到平原上。地狱的军团在我身后追赶，与他们一起的还有那个残酷恶人的黑心。怪兽会被这样的力量所吸引，所改变，变成一种可怕的力量，迟早将这片陆地上的一切烧成灰烬。

我向天使镇进发。那里有一个人，他曾弑杀魔鬼，他是所有边境先民的朋友，他能将乌合之众的狂野之魂团结起来，共同对抗集结起来的威胁。或许他们不愿为人类的命运而战，因为正是人类才让我们陷入这痛苦的诅咒。但他们会为自己而战。

如果你找到了这本日志，我请求你加入我们的行列。我们的战斗力集合在世界的边缘。时间不多了。

地狱将至。我们必须团结奋战，否则就将永远失去西部。