Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The erasure effect of the covert-operation drone would only last for an hour. Not many things could be done in that short time, but if used correctly, the drone could still observe many things.
Hao Ren had now a rough idea about the Heart, which was the crystal planet he saw in the illusion. He knew that it was the goddess of creation who created the planetary system, where the ‘heart’ was located. There, spacetime and everything did not entirely work according to the law of the universe. The most striking example was the independent movement and manual control of the celestial bodies.
A star was shining on the planets, but those planets did not orbit the star. One such planet was the Heart, a rocky planet that was stationary nearby the star. It rotated by not orbited the star, so there were no seasonal changes. A powerful planetary shield and defense platforms protected this sacred planet. Three planetary fortresses surrounding the ‘Heart’ could move freely within the planetary system and anchored anywhere as needed. Before the sudden revolt broke out, the three planetary fortresses moored at the three vertices of the equilateral triangle around the Heart. Other than that, there were temples, forts, surveillance towers, and facilities called the Door floating in space following a set of programs that the goddess of creation left behind. Here, even the guardian giants had no authority to make any changes to these facilities.
After the outbreak of the rebellion, Amantir destroyed Naqdal with the doomsday weapon, the Apocalypse Torrent, and the corollary effect swept through space and caused devastating damage to everything in the vicinity with more than half of the facilities in space vaporized in an instant. But the facilities around the Heart, shielded by divine power, had survived together with the last planetary fortress, Agodal.
The drone swiftly passed through the Naqdal’s wreckage field without leaving a trace. It then switched on all the sensors and began to collect as much information as possible while the erasure was still in effect.
The drone sent back the footage. Hao Ren saw wreckage floating in space. The debris, including of Naqdal and the festered monsters, had been floating there for 3,000 years. The largest fragment was as large as a continent, on which Hao Ren could clearly see collapsed temples and the ruins of cities that had long plunged into darkness. All this told of the tragic event that had taken place here.
“Did Amanti’s rebellion happen three thousand years ago?” Vivian asked casually while her eyes affixed to the images.
“Yes, Queen!” said the boy sprite, and the other two follow suit. “Three thousand years ago, Amantir suddenly fired at us!”
“At the time, some of the guardian giants on Naqdal went crazy too.”
“It scared the hell out of us.”
“But I was not afraid at all!”
Lil Pea jumped up and down. “You bluff! I know that you are the least brave among the sprites! You are even afraid of my little flame!”
The little sprite got angry. “That was because I used up all my courage at the beginning, so I am so timid now!”
“Were all the guardian giants normal before this?” Hao Ren put his hand between the fish baby and the sprite, intervening their quarrel. “Up to 3,000 years ago, all the guardian giants had no signs of infection?”
“No.” The three sprites shook their heads in unison. “The giants were kind! We had a good relationship! Everyone had been living together!”
Hao Ren turned to look at Vivian and said, “What do you think?”
“So far, all the events we encountered in the Plane of Dreams, all the clues we found came from 10,000 years ago when the goddess of creation fell,” Vivian said with her arms crossed, and her fingers tapped her elbow subconsciously. “Except here; everything was normal until 3,000 years ago. The guardian giants on Amantir suddenly went mad. That was 7,000 thousand years after the fall of the goddess.”
“So, you think it was a ‘delayed outbreak’?”
“No, I think it is the evidence that shows the Mad Lord is slowly breaking out of jail,” Vivian said. “But no matter which possibility, things are not looking good.”
The drone kept streaming back images. As it flew through an empty region of space, some soft lights flashed in the corner of the image.
The camera automatically panned and zoomed in. Hao Ren saw an intense battle was taking place.
On one side were the familiar festered monsters—those lumps of flesh, mutated giants and battleships infested with biological tissues. They were much larger than the army that had previously encircled the Naqdal Continent. On the other side was the battle fleet of the guardian giants with a proper formation and distinctive insignias.
It was the first time that Hao Ren saw the black battleships of the guardian giants appeared in a formation. Various types and sizes of battleships flew in space, firing their guns at the enemy. At the rear of the fleet were floating towers and platforms. Judging from the lights and intertwined laser beams, they should be some kind of orbital defense facilities.
The two opposing forces had a fierce dogfight in space. The burst of light from the battle was clearly visible even from several astronomical units away. In the background of this battlefield, there was a planet shrouded in a bright shield.
The planet had a thick atmosphere, and the permanent clouds were blocking anyone from seeing the landscape on the surface. The shield above the atmosphere was so powerful that it looked almost solid, making it like a crystal shell wrapping the planet within.
It was undoubtedly the place that Hao Ren had seen in the illusion—the Heart.
But he did not find the two planetary fortresses of Agodal and Amantir.
The sprites’ eyes glued to the holographic images, specifically their homeworld from which they had been away thousands of years ago. They replied, “The planetary fortresses should be at the other end of the battlefield. Agodal is probably drowned by the light of the Heart!”
“Amantir is hidden in the shadows! The rebels definitely would not want to let it be exposed!”
The drone began to move in the direction of the battlefield, ready to collect as much information as possible before the end of the erasure effect. Meanwhile, Hao Ren’s entire attention was on the planet wrapped up in the ‘crystallized shield.’ He seemed to feel a calling.
There was an answer—the answer that the goddess of creation left for those who came after her—that was not only for Vivian but also for him.
His coming to the X-Galaxy was not an accident. It was almost an inevitable outcome behind a series of clues and events. This planet engulfed in the war was not some weird project of the goddess while she was having schizophrenia but a carefully designed undertaking, to which she had given an incredibly strong protective shield. It even inextricably linked to Vivian. The goddess of creation must have some expectations for it.
“The guards are still holding on to it, but it seems they are on the defensive.” Vivian’s voice jolted Hao Ren out of his thought. “Those monsters seem to have outnumbered the guards.”
“The biggest headache we have is that the festering power would grow as the fight continues. And some of them even master the power of the tainted blood, which means they could continue to create soldiers.” Hao Ren nodded. “The good news is that those festered monsters have not found out we have come right at their doorsteps. If we could pull off a surprise attack from behind them before they realize it, we would get the upper hand in the war. It would be even better if the guardians keep the monsters busy on the other side.”
Vivian glanced at Hao Ren. “Do you have a plan?”
“I do, if we could contact the guardian giants near the Heart,” Hao Ren said as he looked at the countdown timer on which the red numbers were ticking made him nervous. “Our drone is running out of time.”
The law of the universe had limited how long the drone could remain in the erasure state. An hour was about to pass, after which, the drone would become a regular covert-operation unit. It would remain stealthy, but not as perfect as when it was totally non-existent in causality. In this case, the minions of the Mad Lord could spot it if it continued to fly through the battlefield.
But Hao Ren still wanted to give it a shot. If those festered monsters discovered it, he would only lose a drone. It might alert the enemy commander, but the position of the drone cluster in the X-Galaxy had already been exposed anyway. It was a risk worth taking.
The drone switched off some of the reconnaissance modules after receiving commands. It redirected most of the power to the energy and began to fly toward the battlefield into the area occupied by the guardian giants as fast as it could.
When the drone entered the battlefield, it found that space around the Heart was chaotic. Flying at sub-light speed had become very difficult. To prevent getting into the space turbulence, it could only slow down and switch to conventional propulsion. Just then, the time was finally up, and the drone lost its erasure effect.
“I just hope that the clueless guardian giants will not shoot our drone down,” said Vivian, twitching her lips. “While tension rises in the battlefield, the appearance of a seemingly non-friendly unit is not a good idea.”
“Fret not.” Hao Ren waved his hand. “I have installed an IFF—identifier of friend or foe—on the spy drone to prevent from getting shot down by the friendly fire.”
“IFF?” Vivian glanced at him, curiously. “Where did you get the IFF of the Heart?”
Hao Ren looked at Vivian with a big grin and gave himself a big thumbs-up. “Trust me. I use my brain!”
