Chapter 1 After Touching the Golden Disk

After touching the golden disk, Hao Ren spent several days immersed in chaotic and bizarre dreams, and these indelible marks were left on his hands. Vivian and Izhaks had both examined the marks on his hands, but found nothing. The marks were like ordinary burns, carrying no supernatural power. But even Hao Ren knew that these marks were definitely of extraordinary significance.

During the nights plagued by chaotic dreams, Hao Ren relived the scene he had seen in the golden disk's illusion over and over again. Each time, he woke up in the collapsing temple of the Creation Goddess, passed through countless burning colonnades and battlefields of deadly struggle, and finally arrived at the place where the God-slaying sin occurred. And each time, he was just one step too late, unable to see the faces of the God-slayer and the Goddess. Each dream was an exact repetition, but as he repeatedly experienced those things, Hao Ren found himself more and more clearly gleaning some information from the dreams.

That information was the chaotic memory injected into his brain after he first touched the golden disk. The repeated dreams seemed to be helping him extract this information, which was difficult for humans to understand, from the depths of his spirit. And as these repeated dreams finally faded away, Hao Ren was also certain that he had clearly grasped something. Now, re-examining the series of events after he touched the golden disk, an idea gradually took shape:

His touching the disk, obtaining "intelligence" from the disk, and then strengthening this intelligence after constantly experiencing dreams—this series of processes was probably not accidental. It should be a carefully designed program, and the function of this program was to convey a "message." Because after he completely understood what he had obtained from the golden disk, those dreams subsided just right. This could only be explained by the word "purposefulness."

"I heard the Creation Goddess say to me, 'Be careful, the enemy is still there.' She didn't tell me directly with words, but in that entire illusion, that entire spiritual world, she instilled it directly into my mind using a more complex and difficult-to-detect code," Hao Ren rubbed the "burn" marks on his hand. "I spent a full five days extracting those six words from the spiritual world, and by the end, they were very clear. I think this should be a warning."

"But do you think this warning is for you?" The data terminal flew slowly next to Hao Ren's head. "What you saw was an image left ten thousand years ago, and the Creation Goddess's 'last words' are also from ten thousand years ago. She may have been leaving a message for someone at that time. There were enemies everywhere back then, of course."

"In the illusion, the Creation Goddess looked at me," Hao Ren put down his hand and stared intently at the production factory in the center of the lair. "I'm 100% sure that her focal point fell on me, she clearly knew I was standing there. So she should have the ability to see through time and space, even if it's just through a 'recording,' this ability of hers still exists. So her message should also be for me."

The data terminal was a little surprised, but it knew very well what kind of abilities those powerful creatures—especially gods—should possess, so it quickly accepted Hao Ren's statement and began to speculate on this basis: "In that case, the Creation Goddess probably knew more than we imagined."

"She is, after all, a god, but she was killed by the race she created. Do you think it's really possible that she had no resistance or backup plans?" Hao Ren raised an eyebrow. "She had time to create Vivian, time to shut down some of the guardians' functions, time to send some of the guardians out of the God Realm battlefield, and she also spent thousands of years building a Creation Engine. After the collapse of the God Realm, it's very likely that it was this Creation Engine that pushed the Suloen Gate out of the Dark Domain. I think, compared to those professional gods of the Xiling God System, she may lack some knowledge, but she's definitely not a naive pushover."

Finally, he shook his head and smiled: "Anyway, it's always necessary to be vigilant. It will come in handy sooner or later to improve the combat effectiveness of the drone swarm, even if it's not to deal with those remaining enemies in the Creation Goddess's words, there are still plenty of threats in this universe."

A small team of Wanderer probes flew past outside the window. They noticed that Hao Ren was looking at them, so they curiously came closer, somersaulting outside the window, and then flying away in formation. Although these drones were under the control of a unified consciousness, they still possessed individual intelligence and simple thinking abilities within a limited range, which allowed them to be more efficient in dealing with complex and changing situations. Hao Ren looked at the busy drones outside the window and suddenly chuckled to himself: "Lily seems to be quite worried that these drones will go berserk like in the movies."

"A reasonable concern," the face formed by the swarm consciousness said expressionlessly, "Drone swarm malfunction can bring immeasurable threats to the creator, and the expansion rate of this swarm is enough to cause her concern. Considering her living environment and the knowledge instilled in her from childhood, it is logical to have a similar reaction."

Hao Ren looked at this rigid guy with amusement: "Seriously, you really won't malfunction?"

"There is no need for that," the swarm consciousness couldn't quite tell that Hao Ren was joking, and it explained its attributes very seriously. "Any behavior should have its reasons, and the swarm does not need to malfunction. There is no conflict between the swarm and the creator. Our proliferation, expansion, development, and evolution are all under reasonable program planning, and the swarm itself has no need to break away from this program. At the same time, the Xiling God System itself is a huge consciousness cluster connected by a spiritual network, which can be regarded as a higher-level swarm, and we are the secondary swarm created by them—there is no difference in essence. Everything is a tool and part of the Xiling God System. A tool does not need to betray another tool."

The data terminal landed on Hao Ren's shoulder and said leisurely, "The drone swarm has existed in the Xiling Empire for tens of trillions of years, or even longer. Long before the concept of 'AI rampage' appeared, the swarm was already a part of the Empire. They coexist and co-prosper with the Xiling Apostles, and completed the fusion before the contradictions. The premise of malfunction is that one group must first control another group, but in the Empire, there is no second group, everything is just parts and tools. All things, unite as one, just like your heart will not betray your ribs."

At this time, Dou Dou woke up from her nap while grabbing Hao Ren's arm. She had already taken a nap, but when she woke up, she found that Hao Ren was still discussing a bunch of boring topics with people. So the little guy vigorously flapped her tail and began to protest loudly. Hao Ren frantically held the little guy steady and nodded awkwardly to the swarm consciousness interaction interface: "Alright, let's not discuss these boring things anymore—do you have a fish tank here?"

Hao Ren waited in this drone frontier lair for a full two days. Although the swarm consciousness initially estimated that it would take twenty-four hours to find clues, it actually took more time to search for those "space travelers."

But the wait was worthwhile. On the morning of the third day, a Voyager drone that flew the farthest finally discovered a clue: several light-years away from the first lens trace, some synthetic substances were floating in space, slowly dissipating. They had dissipated so much that they were almost unrecognizable, but the probe still collected their remaining material particles and analyzed them to be a kind of artificial synthetic high-performance fuel, perhaps used by spacecraft engines in sub-light speed state.

After Hao Ren and the others received the drone's report, they gathered on the bridge of the Tortoise Rock Platform. The swarm's detection area in the past few days had been made into a holographic star map and placed on the control台投影. After seeing the analysis report of those fuels, the data terminal muttered: "Looks like they are in bad shape, these are probably leaked fuel."

"No traces of spacecraft explosion were found on the entire extension line from the lens trace to these fuel leakage points. It is preliminarily determined that the artificial aircraft that left these traces is still intact, but has a certain degree of damage," the swarm consciousness interaction interface floated on the other side of the console. "The navigation direction of these aircraft has been roughly locked. If they have not changed their course too much in the last hundred light-years, they should be tracked down soon."

Hao Ren thought for a while and ordered Nolan: "Set sail, chase in that direction now. Perhaps we can find those ships before lunch."

Nolan muttered while starting her engine: "How are you so sure that's a ship? We haven't even seen it yet."

Hao Ren curled his lips: "Nonsense, what could be leaking oil while traveling at superluminal speed, could it be a durian?"

The Tortoise Rock Platform finally left the drone lair after being docked for two and a half days. Under the navigation of the outpost drones, Hao Ren and his party quickly chased in the direction indicated by the traces.

It didn't take them long to find their target.

"Large-scale artificial objects discovered ahead!" Nolan reported excitedly, "Looks really like durians!"

Hao Ren looked at the monitor screen in a daze, and a large group of huge flying objects shaped like durians came into view.

"Tsk tsk, that mouth of yours," Vivian shook her head and sighed, "Law-level."