He had no idea why this bunch of weirdos always strayed off topic. It was especially so whenever Vivian was present, where the conversation would invariably center on her misfortune. However, the talk had somehow eased the tense atmosphere.
Hao Ren was having the same thoughts as Y’lisabet’s when the magnificent sight of the Golden Manor appeared before him. After all, gold was valued differently in Tannagost and on Earth. Even the god-like otherworldlings of the ancient times could not resist the worldly temptation, and it was evident from the business empire they had built. Therefore, this Golden Manor of the Ancattero family was a treasure trove in the eyes of the otherworldling society, after all, the otherworldlings needed money to survive as the humans did. However, the Ancattero family was not disturbed all this while despite their extraordinary wealth. For Hao Ren, it was not hard to guess why. The otherworldlings had never been short of money, except Vivian. The otherworldlings practically owned the Earth in the ancient times, but things had changed in the modern times; the otherworldlings were keeping a low profile because of the threat of the demon hunters, they barely had time for the Tannaean gold.
Furthermore, they were focusing their effort on improving their strength.
Of course, the second most important reason why otherworldlings stayed away from the Ancattero family was that they were inferior compared to the Tannaean migrants regarding combat strength.
Hao Ren looked at the magnificent buildings, which were not only a manifestation of an advanced civilization of at least hundreds of years ahead of those on Earth in technology, and a representation of the technological achievements of the Tannaeans, but also an illustration of a problem. The number of Tannaeans on Earth was not only large, but they also possessed a considerable degree of industrial strength and metallurgical advancement. Just like the sirens, who fled in their colonial spaceship, the Tannaeans had brought along a large number of their assets in contrast with the otherworldlings who came here practically empty-handedly at about the same time.
Hao Ren remembered what Vivian wrote in her ancient manuscript. She had mentioned several scenes where she met the ancient gods, such Zeus and others were quarrying on Mount Olympus, Osiris was mining sand in the Nile River, and Odin and the gods of Asgard were plucking branches of ash at the seaside. Though they all had the flavor of the mysterious birth of the universe and sounded classy at first glance, when thinking carefully about it, they were only a bunch of poor guys thrown onto Earth struggling to survive by exploiting nature.
Hao Ren did not give much thought to it when he first read the manuscript. Only when he saw the Golden Manor, he realized that not all otherworldlings were the same when they first arrived on Earth; Zeus and Odin had to do stone-quarrying and logging to build houses, and the sirens had a huge Nasaton colonial ship as a start. While Tannaeans had built the Golden Manor, it was impossible for them to mine that large quantity of pure gold on Earth 10,000 years ago. Therefore, they had brought their materials and equipment from Tannagost to build the Golden Manor, which strictly speaking, was a city. There was no surprise that they eventually became the guardian of the seal until today given the strength they possessed.
While Hao Ren was having these thoughts, they passed through the outer circle of the Golden Manor, which had its unique characteristics. Like Alamanda, the city was round and divided into many zones by a series of concentric circles in the form of great barriers or continuous walls from the inside to the outside. They were now passing through under such a barrier. Y’lisabet looked at the golden gate that they had just passed through and was awed. “No wonder they have to build the manor in an alien dimension; look at the amount of gold, I wonder how heavy it is. The ground will sink if they build it on Earth.”
“It’s not entirely of gold,” Hao Ren said, shrugging his shoulders. He had studied the architecture of Alamanda before. “The construction materials contain a certain amount of gold. Their materials are very advanced. Look at the walls, they’re very thin, and the support structure is tiny. They’re relatively lightweight. I guess they had put a lot of effort into studying weight reduction technique and metallurgy.”
Lily laughed. “Being born in a place where gold is abundant might not be necessarily a good thing. I wonder how they built their first skyscraper.”
Wayne listened and was perplexed by their conversation. He was wondering how Hao Ren knew so much about the architecture of the Ancattero family. Just when he was about to ask, Lily sniffled and stopped dead in her tracks. “Wait a second. I smelled something!” she said.
“What?” Hao Ren did not get what she said.
Lily just waved her hand but said nothing. She lowered her body, moved forward and kept sniffing while the rest of them followed from behind her. Soon, Vivian and Wayne had also smelled something. It was the smell of blood, and the stench just got stronger.
Meanwhile, the fog had almost dissipated completely.
Standing at a junction, Y’lisabet pointed in a direction. “Look, over there!”
A body was lying on the ground.
They ran towards it. Wayne recognized it immediately from afar. “It’s one of the Ancattero family members!”
“There is one here, and there too! Holy moly!” Lily ran up to the body and poked her head around scanning the surroundings. “Are they all… dead?”
Hao Ren looked into the distance and was shocked beyond words. Although he had seen a scene like this before, the scene of carnage still made his stomach churn. He had lost count of the bodies as corpses just strewed along the road.
“This is…” Y’zaks squinted. “Looks like it was a brutal fight.”
The destruction was widespread. There were craters from explosion and cracks cut by sharp objects all over the city. A large number of houses were destroyed, many of them partially collapsed. The molten walls had flown down the terrain onto the road surface and buried a large number of corpses in it.
Hao Ren knelt beside a body, which did not resemble a human. The body was thin, limbs were much longer than the human’s, face flat and wide, and the exotic dark-gold skin was a unique feature. The deceased had two apparent fatal injuries to his chest and side abdomen. The dark-yellow blood oozing out the wound had dried completely, but still, the overpowering blood stench was filling the air in the surroundings.
The body belonged to a Tannaean, whom Hao Ren had only seen from a sculpture before, but now in person.
Unfortunately, the Tannaean was dead.
“The fog has been containing the spread of the stench; otherwise I would have detected them earlier on the outside,” Vivian said, bending over to check the dead body. “Looks like a stabbing weapon killed him, but the others seemed to be killed by some high-energy weapon. I’m sure it was not the sacred flame of the demon hunter.”
“There has been a fight—” Y’zaks was checking a collapsed wall, “a brutal one. It looks like the wall was blown apart by a powerful explosion, which is not a method the demon hunters would normally use.”
Hao Ren looked at the aftermath on the street. Some of the buildings on the side of the road had collapsed, some had cracked, some had almost melted, and roads were dotted with craters and dents. It seemed like the place had been shelled. It was not that the demon hunter did not possess such high-energy weapons, but as far as Hao Ren knew, they used a precision weapon, which caused less destruction to the surroundings. Even if they had used their high-energy weapons, the damage would not look like this.
He had seen the destruction that the demon hunters had inflicted upon the Athens’ sanctuary, it was completely different.
“The weapons of the Ancattero family could only cause this kind of destruction,” Wayne said as he had found the clue. “Looks in the process of killing one other, they had also blown their city apart.”
