Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After performing several adjustments, Blackie was able to adapt to the unstable dimensional structure of the Scarred Nebula. She began to connect her massive body from the otherworldly dimension to the main material world. This movement caused an extraordinarily spectacular phenomenon.
In the new holy city next to Requiem, the peasants were returning home after a day of toiling. The first person who discovered the vision in the sky was a young stonemason.
The young stonemason was coming home tired after a day of work. He was rebuilding his sacred home city, for which he was proud of. Looking at the blue sky of the day and then the ember of the sunset was the only rewards he looked for.
But today, things were a little strange. As he looked up at the sky searching for the sun, which had just appeared in the world for less than a year, he only vaguely saw a scene of a looming continent hanging over the horizon.
It was as if another world had overlapped this world, the partially translucent phenomenon reminded the young stonemason of the mirage the old folks had mentioned. But no one had ever seen the so-called mirage. The land floating on the horizon was so vividly clear that the details were almost visible. As the halo expanded, mysterious light began to emerge around the floating continent where huge, strange things that looked like vines grew around, as if a giant tree was holding up the mysterious land.
The young stonemason was stunned beyond belief. Staring at the mysterious kingdom, which only got bigger in the clouds, he saw stars were twinkling in the background as if night had come early although the daylight had yet faded.
It was an optical phenomenon though, as Yggdrasil’s powerful gravitational force had refracted starlight into the planet’s atmosphere. But for the indigenous tribes of Inferno, the land floating in the clouds and the light in the day were miracles.
Blackie carefully controlled his vast body, making smooth contact with Inferno’s atmosphere while at the same time trying not to affect the planet. She moved herself to a position where she could conveniently establish a space bridge. On the surface of the planet, her appearance had attracted more and more attention.
The young stonemason finally could not help himself. He exclaimed aloud, his voice ringing in the streets, “Oh, Goddess! It’s falling down! The kingdom of heaven is falling!”
People began to notice the falling continent in the clouds. On the streets, screams of amazement of the miracle were heard throughout. Some of them screamed as they were afraid; some, who were slightly calmer, called out the names of respectable figures, looking for an explanation from their elders and ancient spirits.
Just as the chaos began to spread on the streets, the ancient souls suddenly appeared and led the tribal warriors announcing the ‘miracle’ in the clouds. “No worries! That is another world our great goddess has created. The goddess has come back and conveyed her will to the world. She wants to create a connection between the worlds of Yggdrasil that she created with our Sun Kingdom. Living in those kingdoms in the clouds are our brothers and sisters whom we have never met before.”
At the same time, the Twilight survivors on the Midgard continent saw the same thing.
They too saw a continent floating above them. As the Nine Worlds were not really in the main material world, the inverted world they saw was merely a translucent image, which did not affect the skylight. The vast ‘mirage’ had caused the Twilight people went panic. But before the fear could cause any troubles, the Steam Assembly had quickly quelled the situation. The explanation they gave was similar to those provided by the ancient souls on the inferno.
It transpired that this was the propaganda script that Hao Ren had prepared and given to them in advance. This kind of texts was common in the handbook Three Thousand Common Propaganda Scripts for Inspectors. Apparently, handling this kind of phenomenon was part and parcel of the job of inspectors.
Meanwhile, Hao Ren and his team had followed Gragon venturing deep into Requiem.
Silver-white alloy cast needle towers were erected all over the place like trees in a jungle with capacitors of various sizes scattering around. Crystal tubes and multiple cables charged with energy were interlaced at the height of tens of meters, forming a giant net in the sky. Bright arcs filled this magnificent steel capital. Requiem was now officially a ‘city.’ The construction units had been working non-stop since Hao Ren left the planet earlier, almost doubling Requiem in size, adding more safety coils to it, and allowing more automatic maintenance robots to ‘stay’ here. Now the expansion of this vast electromagnetic pulse installation had stopped, but internally, work was still ongoing day and night. Walking in Requiem, one would see the busy engineering robotic team and the neural control bolt under construction. This surreal technological installation was in stark contrast to the rudimentary city built with stones on the outside.
Soon, they came to the center of Requiem, where the big hollow called the Throat of Toka was situated.
An alloy-cast large ring was set on the ground. The center of the ring was a deep bottomless cave. Huge tentacles grew on the walls of the cave, and each of them was lined with cables and sparkling crystalline ducts while the end of the tentacles was routed and connected to the nearby steel needle towers, firmly nailed on the ground.
This deep cave led all the way down to the center of the earth, connecting the heart of Toka the First Born. The tentacles were the nerves Toka. As a giant pulse controller, Requiem was playing the role of an artificial brain, which had been running well in the past year. The flourishing ecosystem of Inferno was proof of that.
Whitey curiously floated around the Throat of Toka. She knew what those tentacles were, and felt it incredible how they worked. As if she had discovered a newfound land, Whitey floated up to Hao Ren. “This compatriot of mine seems to not have a brain,” she said.
“Specifically speaking, its brain was removed by Vivian, and then I had given it a thorough neurological surgery not long ago, completely destroying the thinking ability of the First Born.” Hao Ren pointed at the surrounding alloy needle towers controlling the nerves of the First Born. “But its basic instinct is still strong. We need the nerve-impulse controllers to keep him calm. Over the past few months, the planet’s ecosystem planning center relied on these pulse controllers to control the body of the First Born to complete the reconstruction of the planet’s environment.”
“I feel it weird to hear you said that in front of Whitey,” Lily said as she poked Hao Ren’s arm with her claw.
“That’s okay. Like I always say—I don’t mind. My mad compatriots are a huge threat to the ecosystem. I’m sure mother would not want to see them killing each other,” Whitey said.
“Can you see the difference between the mad and the normal First Borns?” Hao Ren asked. This was also an important reason why he had brought Whitey here.
After learning about the mysterious corruption suffered by Yggdrasil, Hao Ren began to wonder if there were any hidden forces behind this. Driven into insanity after witnessing the murder of his mother might sound logical, but it was nevertheless still a little far-fetched.
There were thousands of guardians out there. But except those receiving the instructions of the goddess of creation, all other guardians had changed. Their actions after the change were strikingly consistent: destroying the ecosystem that the Goddess of Creation had created. This was totally inconsistent with the will of the goddess, but in line with the purpose of the ancient evil forces.
Besides this, the other transformations of the guardians were also suspicious. The First Borns had utterly lost their logical thinking—a thing that should not have happened with their unique multi-core brain structure. The guardian giants had changed form so much that their brains became brain monsters. This was the manifestation of their hatred and search for revenge. Other than venting their anger at the mortals, no one had tried to search for the remnant of the Star of Creation. After they were done with the vengeance, they fell asleep, as if they had forgotten about the goddess of creation.
These signs were full of suspicion when studied carefully. But before finding Yggdrasil, Hao Ren did not know there was such a terrible conspiracy behind the deicidal event, and that those short-lived treacherous children were incapable of driving the guardians to insanity. So he ignored these points.
But now he knew the treacherous children indeed did not possess this ability, but the ancient evil forces did.
