Chapter 1754: That Fateful Day
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Within the darkness, his senses faded away, and even his mental world had the sensation of disintegrating and turning ethereal, as if his entire self was disappearing into the universe, as if he did not exist at all. Most people would have panicked to the core when they encountered this, but Hao Ren quickly calmed down as this was not the first time he had encountered this.
Every time he was pulled by Rheia’s divine powers into the “Realm of the Goddess” it felt like that. The process in which his spirit was drawn out and inserted into the illusory world was like a rebirth, and the sensation this time around was a few times stronger than that of the past.
Hao Ren waited quietly in the darkness as he waited for the mental and physical numbness faded away and light suddenly reappeared before him. His feet were once again on solid ground.
He looked around and found himself in a magnificent grand hall, and beside him was a corridor so vast it was awe-inspiring. Ten-meter-tall crystal windows lined both sides of the corridor as faintly glowing pillars were arrayed along the hall until the end of his vision.
Between the pillars, long drapes hung from above, and the drapes seemed to be burning in golden flames, and within the flames were changing images of the legend of the creation of the world.
“So it is…” Hao Ren gasped softly, as a massive shock hit him.
This was a scene that he had seen before, the temple complex on the Star of Creation. He was brought into this place the last time he touched the Gilded Disc, but it felt different this time around.
Hao Ren frowned as he looked around, and found that there were more details than the last illusory world, and even the view in the distance was clear as day. As he stood between the pillars and the windows, he even had a feeling that this was the “real world”, and after some thought, he reckoned that this changes were caused by Rheia’s powers.
And he had entered the illusory world by accident the last time, and this time around, Rheia had dragged him in.
But speaking of which… where was Rheia?
Hao Ren looked around but he did not see any Rheia anywhere. A sudden bright light appeared by the edge of his vision, and that light exploded with a deafening din and swept up a storm of flames as it shattered part of the window panes and pillars. And as the light and exploded appeared, everything in the illusory world started operating as if a switch was flicked.
The deafening explosions rang from all over as fire and thunder raged outside as the ensuing shock wave tore through the broken windows into the hall. The entire building shook violently in the explosion as massive chunks of masonry and metallurgy fell from the high arched domes. At that moment, the world fell apart.
“They are attacking the main complex! The divine barrier has been breached!”
“The second gate has fallen! Reserve squads, quickly, get to Mother’s side!”
“The Great Hall is sinking! The Sea of Origin’s energies are spiraling out of control! The traitors have opened way beneath the hall! Hurry…”
Numerous battle cries rang from far and near as the guardians’ furious roars thundered across every hall. In between the roars were real thunderclaps and explosions. Hao Ren swiftly deployed his shield to ward off the falling rocks and the shock waves from all over, but as he looked around, there was no one.
There was no defending guardians, nor any attacking army of treacherous children.
Another roar of combat boomed beside him, and while he could clearly tell the roar was just a few hundred meters away from him, as he turned around, he saw no one. Instead, a giant broken sword had appeared out of nowhere. Thunder and flames ran along the blade as it clashed against an invisible object, as a massive explosion swallowed the entire area with a storm of debris and metal fragments blasted out towards him and slammed against the steel membrane shield.
As he raised his hand to block the deadly shards, Hao Ren tensed up. This was totally different from that other illusory world!
What happened here would affect him!
The fragments that slammed against his shields were real, and he clearly saw his shield capacity taking a nosedive with every blast!
“F*ck me! I can’t stay here any longer!” Cold sweat was all over Hao Ren’s forehead as he broke into a sprint, running towards the deepest parts of the temple complex based on his memory of the place. While he did not know what special meaning this changing illusory world was, but he felt that at the heart of this world, the place where the goddess of creation had fallen, the answer to his questions would be there.
Everything around him started to collapse, and just as he had witnessed, the ancient and sacred temple complex was quickly coming apart under the furious attack of the godslayers. The magnificent pillars and walls were torn apart like dirt as they collapsed in droves while the blood-red sea outside the temple roiled in massive waves as if wanting to consume the entire place whole.
Hao Ren ran wildly through the flames and smoke, and in a short time traversed through the winding corridors and wide hall, yet he still saw no one. Nonetheless, it was clear that the godslayers had reached the final defensive perimeter and all across the temple were ruins and fire, and at the end of the path, that familiar door had already been breached, and Hao Ren could sense that that the goddess of creation was just behind the door.
A figure clad in crimson gold armor stood before the altar as he held a dark long sword that looked the Cosmic Shards, and on the altar was the goddess of creation who was quietly awaiting her death. The latter was still shrouded in a veil of light, but her distinct silhouette was still discernible.
“She didn’t look all that short that time…” Hao Ren muttered subconsciously, as he took huge strides towards the center of the hall.
He noticed that time was frozen here and the moment he stepped into the hall, the din of battle outside was no longer audible, and the conflagration in the hall bizarrely froze in the air. This was another point different from the illusory world he went through before.
He had come before the grounds of the deicide and grabbed the godslayer’s shoulder. He had seen Rheia’s look in person before, almost daily too, so he was not too concerned about the goddess of creation there, but his curiosity was drawn towards the killer who had completed the heroic act of deicide.
However, when he saw the godslayer’s face, he noticed the latter’s visage was shrouded by an impermeable fog.
“Eh….” Hao Ren gasped in surprise and thought of taking his hand away, but just as he lifted his hand, something bizarre happened.
The body of the “godslayer” suddenly melted away like a molten candle as the magnificent armor liquefied and swiftly surged up upon Hao Ren’s arm, and the latter was so caught by surprise that he did not know how to react. He swung his hand about to try to shake off the ‘foreign object’ that was climbing all over him, but he quickly realized his movements were inhibited by something, and even lifting his arm was extremely difficult.
He felt unsteady like a drunk, as his limbs all felt stiff and unusually heavy, and within this few moments, the wax-like object had engulfed him. He felt like he could no longer breathe or speak, as his entire body was stuffed into a heavy outer shell, and this ‘shell’ was starting to move again.
He saw the Cosmic Shard in the grip of ‘his’ hand and raised it up, and just like the slo-mo scene in the movies, the sword was slowly but surely piercing through the goddess of creation’s chest.
He fought all he could to take back control of his body, and to stop the stabbing motion, but even his powerful will and strength could not affect that limb that was no longer his, and until the Godslayer sank into the goddess, he realized that his efforts were futile.
He could not change what had already been recorded before in this illusory world, and even if he had changed it, there was no meaning at all.
This was just a record.
But the truth of it sent chills down his spine.
The blood of a god flowed down the blade, and some warm blood even spurted out and stained his hand. He saw ‘his’ hand freeing the hilt and the blood flowed onto his palm, leaving a scorching mark on it.
And the light-veiled figure before him became clear as well.
As all the light coalesced and took form, the originally blurry silhouette became Rheia. She was wearing the original white dress the first time they met, as she lay on the Gilded Disc behind the altar. And behind the disc, was the collapsing temple complex and the roiling red sea.
The blood of the goddess of creation flowed down the altar.
Hao Ren felt the heaviness on his arms and legs suddenly disappeared, as he regained control of his body. After recovering from the initial daze, he quickly rushed to where Rheia had fallen.
All sorts of emotions and thoughts spun in his head and he felt that his mind was like a jar of thick glue, all mucky and yet even with the shock brought by the surge of information, he still retained the last bit of his consciousness. Using this to suppress all of the negative emotions in his mind, he held Rheia up with his arm and checked on her.
When the last time he came into this world, what followed the deicide was the explosion of the Star of Creation and the coming of the Divine Wrath, and something clearly had changed in this illusory world. The explosion did not happen, neither did the Divine Wrath came. Aside from the deicide itself, everything seemed to have stalled.
Hao Ren, in his current condition, would be hard-pressed to even think of the details of this, he only felt that Rheia was gripping his arm hard, and the power of the goddess immediately ripped through the already damaged steel membrane shield, and the shock of pain had him wondering if his bones were about to break.
Rheia stared at him dead in the eye, tears welling up in hers, “That’s heartrendingly painful!”
