Chapter 1 The Ancatro Family's Resting Place

Hassu ordered some of the demon hunters to stay in the family hall to monitor whether any remaining Shadows of Chaos were entrenched there. He himself led several elite demon hunters, including Bai Huo, to set off with Hao Ren for the Ancatro family's ancestral resting place.

Led by Andahill, the group arrived at the resting place, the unusually large obelisk that Wayne had mentioned earlier.

The obelisk was located in the center of a large, open square. It was three to four hundred meters high and had a solemn and imposing three-story structure. Each layer of the tower body narrowed inward, and at the top of the spire was a huge metal device suspended high in the air. There were no buildings around the obelisk. The empty square was only sparsely populated with neat rows of golden pillars, surrounded by shimmering light, the purpose of which was unclear.

This was the Tana people's family resting place. Hao Ren had originally thought it would be a more gloomy place, since it was essentially a super-large cemetery. But the atmosphere here did not make one feel that way at all. It was filled with warmth and light, a bit like some kind of large landscape architecture. The setting of this place showed the Tana people's emphasis on funeral affairs.

Unlike other heteromorphs, the Tana people had relatively short lifespans. Although still far longer than humans, they were still considered short-lived compared to demon hunters or vampires. Therefore, their family territory would have such a large-scale mausoleum and very formal funeral customs. In demon hunter culture, the funeral part was relatively weak. Most of them died in battle in their later years, and their bodies were usually difficult to preserve, so their funerals were simple and plain. Vampires, on the other hand, were the most fond of tombs and coffins among all heteromorphs. They put more effort into studying various coffins and mausoleums than humans—except they usually studied these things for sleeping. We won't discuss that…

"Their hiding place is underground," Andahill led the group towards the obelisk. "It would be difficult for you to find it without someone to lead the way."

Hassu looked at Andahill with some surprise. "I didn't expect them to tell a demon hunter about their secret shelter."

Andahill's expression was gloomy. "A month ago… the situation was special. We couldn't care less about the difference between demon hunters and heteromorphs. We had to leave survivors to tell others what happened."

"You met with the Ancatro family to discuss the issue of innate hostility?" Hassu asked. "You concealed this amazing move from the Council of Elders—to be honest, I always knew that Elder Amutura's ideas were somewhat special, but I didn't expect him to go this far, and to mobilize so many demon hunters at once."

"If we didn't hide it from the Council of Elders, we wouldn't be able to do anything," Andahill replied frankly. Judging from her attitude, she was clearly one of the strong supporters of Amutura's doctrine. This showed that the seemingly rigid, stubborn, and united demon hunters in the eyes of outsiders actually had many different schools of thought, and there were many rebellious ones. "And Amutura didn't act on impulse. He consulted a lot of information and conducted thousands of experiments on the bloodlines of demon hunters and heteromorphs. We just didn't expect the problem to be at a more fundamental level."

"So you paid a huge price," Hassu said blandly.

Andahill said nothing, but silently came to the base of the golden obelisk. She put her hand on a wall that looked no different from the surrounding area. The wall then emitted a faint light, and alien characters and symbols appeared on its surface. This should be considered a touch screen made by the Tana people. Andahill entered a series of instructions on the wall, which must have been given to her by the Ancatro family.

With a slight mechanical whirring sound, the golden wall slowly opened to both sides, revealing a sloping staircase leading downwards.

"What exactly was the exchange of blood ritual you performed for?" Hao Ren couldn't help but ask curiously as he walked down the long staircase leading underground. "Is it related to the projects Amutura was researching?"

"It's not an exchange of blood, but a purification ritual using the blood of both parties, with the aim of trying to artificially end innate hostility. According to Elder Amutura's research, innate hostility between races is something hidden in the bloodline, and it is a non-material form," Andahill replied. "He believes it is an implant from a third party, a time bomb buried in our bloodline, so he wants to solve this uncontrollable factor no matter what. His research has not made much progress in the past thousand years, but recently there has finally been a rapid change…"

"Is it the sudden weakening of innate hostility among the races in recent months?" Vivian said casually.

Andahill nodded slightly. "That's right, that's it. The significant reduction in innate hostility finally provided us with enough data, so Elder Amutura completed part of his research and came up with a ritual to purify the bloodline. He decided to first have some of the demon hunters under him and members of the Ancatro family perform this ritual. Many of the demon hunters under him were deeply affected by this innate hostility reduction event, and the Ancatro family is a relatively gentle branch among the heteromorph races. This fits the conditions perfectly and allows us to come together without worrying about fighting directly. Actually, we originally planned to ask the sirens for help. They are gentler than the Ancatro family, and demon hunters have almost no hostility towards them, but they are elusive and difficult to find…"

Hao Ren thought to himself that this was the downside of each side blocking information. If the demon hunters had contacted him earlier, the situation would definitely be different: the two sirens in his house were so idle every day that they were coming up with all sorts of tricks. Aersa was still running a restaurant, but Nangong Wuyue was so bored that she was drinking paint and scaring people by painting herself in all sorts of colors…

"Did the Shadows of Chaos appear after you performed this ritual?" Hassu asked.

Andahill was silent for a moment, then nodded. "The ritual started smoothly. The demon hunters and Ancatro family members who underwent bloodline purification completely got rid of the influence of innate hostility, but soon the situation began to get out of control. We found that everyone's innate hostility was rapidly disappearing. Even the people farthest from the ritual site were affected. Elder Amutura and Clan Leader Vogus were no exception. At first, I thought the ritual was working beyond expectations, but Elder Amutura quickly realized that it wasn't the 'bloodline purification' ritual that was working, but something else in the hall: we triggered a switch. Elder Marduk tried to stop the ritual, but it was too late. Those Shadows of Chaos suddenly emerged from under everyone's feet. We didn't have time to react."

At the end of the long staircase was an elevator. Andahill led everyone to stand on the platform of the elevator and activated the button to take them deeper underground. She continued to describe the scene a month ago: "The first to lose control were Abaddon and Kroani. They stabbed Elder Marduk, and then the situation spiraled out of control. The demon hunters and the Ancatro family not only attacked each other, but also began to kill each other. In the end, Elder Amutura barely regained his sanity and let me and Clan Leader Vogus retreat—we were the only ones at the scene who hadn't been invaded by the Shadows of Chaos."

The elevator arrived deep underground. Hao Ren saw a heavy metal gate in front of him, and on both sides of the metal gate, on the seemingly very solid walls, were inlaid huge glass windows. Behind the glass windows, some gray and white shadows were neatly arranged.

"During the evacuation, we found that the Shadows of Chaos had leaked out and were constantly emerging from all corners. People came from all directions of the city as if they had received an order, and they started fighting in the city center: the situation was completely out of control. Clan Leader Vogus did his best to gather the clan members who were still conscious. We came to this shelter and began to consider how to avoid the invasion of the Shadows of Chaos."

Hao Ren came to the huge glass windows. A chill seemed to faintly penetrate the windows. He tried hard to distinguish the scene opposite the glass windows. Finally, he saw that there were neatly arranged rows of transparent containers placed vertically. A white mist floated between these containers. Based on the ice around the containers, the temperature in the room was extremely low.

"People who stop thinking will not be invaded by the Shadows of Chaos," Andahill pointed to the gate. "My range of reason binding spell is limited, so we used this room. Vogus said this is a hibernation facility—I hope my operation at the time was correct."

Hao Ren looked up at the alloy gate and saw a line of text above the gate:

"Fourth Cryogenic Hibernation Segment"