Chapter 1 The Crystal Nucleus Research Station

The Crystal Nucleus Research Station was never a simple research facility from its inception – in fact, Hao Ren initially defined the place as a "prison." It was initially established to house the two deranged First Borns excavated from Holletta. Although the space station's focus has now shifted more towards scientific research and planetary monitoring, its function as a prison facility has always remained.

Located adjacent to Container No. 1 in Area A of the space station, the area contained a series of isolation rooms with strict security facilities. These isolation rooms could block any energy impact below divine magic and weaken the resistance of any creature inside. The tireless patrol AIs and the sentry guns installed in the isolation zone corridors made this place a cage that prisoners could not escape.

This place was designed from the beginning to hold the most dangerous creatures in the universe, and today, Hao Ren finally activated one of the cells.

The rebel prisoner captured in Su Lun was escorted into the cell by autonomous machines. After confirming that all security devices were activated, Hao Ren remotely removed a large number of restraints from the prisoner. Various restraint devices fell off the prisoner as if they were alive, and the rebel prisoner landed on the ground in a sorry state. He slowly woke up only after the last chain left his body.

The rebel prisoner woke up from a long period of unconsciousness and was immediately surprised to find himself trapped in a strange place. He saw around him a hexagonal prism surrounded by pale blue light walls. Above this prismatic cage was a light that reached to an unseen summit, and below was a solid crystalline ground. Looking outside the prism, he saw more than a dozen other cages neatly arranged, and the ubiquitous crystalline walls blocked his view of the distance. The rebel prisoner was stunned for a moment, and soon realized that he had been captured.

Hao Ren and his party waited outside the cage for the prisoner to wake up. Noticing that the latter was looking around, he had no choice but to cough twice to attract his attention: "Ahem... stop looking, we're over here."

The prisoner turned his head, and his face immediately showed anger and hostility. He pounced on the seemingly fragile pale blue light wall, and shouted angrily: "Let..."

Before the other party could finish speaking, Hao Ren preemptively interrupted: "You're definitely going to ask me to let you out, and then I'll say no, and you'll be very angry."

The prisoner choked, and suddenly raised his finger at Hao Ren with a stern expression: "You..."

Hao Ren interrupted again before the other party could finish speaking: "Then you're going to say how dare I treat you like this."

The prisoner's face turned red: "I..."

Hao Ren continued: "Then you're going to sanction me in the name of something, or judge me."

The prisoner's face was almost swollen: "You..."

"You're definitely going to say that I'm humiliating you, or insulting the dignity of a warrior or something, but I don't mean that."

The prisoner pointed at Hao Ren's face. This was probably the first time in his life that he had communicated with someone like this, and he was a little confused at this time. Hao Ren could only spread his hands: "I really can't guess this time."

The prisoner finally found a chance to speak, and shouted almost hysterically: "Can't you let me speak first!?"

If he still had a bit of arrogance or sternness when he first woke up, then there was none left this time. The fact proves that you don't need any high negotiation skills to anger a person, just put Hao Ren's broken mouth on top, and the latter can use his instincts to steadily pull hatred until next year's Spring Festival. Even Izhaks looked at Hao Ren with an expression of admiration: "I have a large number of demon jailers who are good at interrogation under my command, and your mouth can top seven or eight of them, I mean when it comes to pulling hatred."

Hao Ren spread his hands: "I didn't say anything, it's just that these are probably the only few sentences that this guy wanted to say after waking up."

Izhaks chuckled, not paying attention to Hao Ren's ignorant remarks. He turned his head and looked at the prisoner: "What's your name?"

The prisoner felt greatly insulted, and he had no interest in answering.

Izhaks had expected this reaction, and he wasn't annoyed: "Do you know where you've been caught?"

The prisoner glanced at Hao Ren and Izhaks provocatively, and continued to remain silent.

Hao Ren walked towards the light prism with a smile, until he was almost less than a meter away from the prism: "Do you know why you were caught here?"

The prisoner noticed Hao Ren's position, and his eyes flickered almost imperceptibly. Then he suddenly pounced on the position where Hao Ren was standing: "The Promised Land..."

Hao Ren was deliberately standing at this distance. He silently watched the other party rush over with a look of courage and "self-destruct." After the other party finished shouting the obligatory line, he asked unhurriedly: "How is it, didn't explode?"

After shouting "The Promised Land," the prisoner closed his eyes and waited for the self-destruction, but after holding it in for a long time, there was no movement. He opened his eyes in confusion after hearing Hao Ren's words, only to find that he was still alive and well.

Lili leaned over and asked curiously: "Hey, why do you guys have to shout 'The Promised Land will come' every time you self-destruct? Is this your standard slogan for self-destruction?"

This time, Izhaks was equally astonished by Hao Ren and Lili: when these two were paired up to pull hatred, they were as steady as a dog.

Facts have proved that the best way to crush a person's confidence and demeanor is to give him a hard blow when he feels the best. For a warrior, being captured alive on the battlefield is already a great humiliation. And now, in the most glorious and heroic moment of his life (at least he thinks so), Hao Ren and Lili came up with this again, and even the strongest person should not be able to bear it. The prisoner's fingers trembled, and he felt greatly humiliated – and was humiliated by a group of "mortals," by a group of "lowly creatures," which made him even more furious.

"It can be called heroic to die together with someone on the battlefield, but it's not very clever to think about suicide after being captured," Hao Ren didn't actually intend to deliberately anger the other party. He was just telling the truth, "This prison will seal all your power, so you can't self-destruct, and there is surveillance here, so you can't use other methods to commit suicide. You don't have to think about starving yourself to death, because..."

As Hao Ren said, he raised his finger and pointed to the top of the cage. Some strange machines and pipes emerged from the group of light: "We can knock you unconscious, and then directly use a pump gun to pour things into your stomach. We have already held a meeting to discuss all the methods to prevent you from committing suicide, and we have also prepared seventy or eighty sets of emergency rescue plans, so you will be held here until you are willing to cooperate."

The only response he received was the prisoner's long silence, and the other party's undisguised anger. Seeing this, Lili chimed in from the side: "Oh, right, it seems that the only way you have left to commit suicide now is to get yourself angry to death."

Hao Ren was immediately reminded: "Oh, right, this is a loophole. Terminal, play some light music for him, don't let him get angry to death."

The data terminal was stunned for a moment: "Are you serious?"

Hao Ren nodded: "Yes."

The data terminal felt that Hao Ren was a funny guy, and then controlled the prison system to start playing Erquan Yingyue in a loop in this space.

Hao Ren asked the prisoner a few more questions, but of course, the other party was refusing to cooperate now, so everyone quickly left this place. After leaving the isolation zone, Izhaks looked back at the crystal door that was slowly closing: "Do you think you can get information out of him by keeping him locked up like this?"

"Of course not," Hao Ren shrugged, "But we can grind him down a bit first. I've already asked the monitoring system to start recording the spiritual characteristics of creatures like the Infernals. Maybe we can directly start from his spiritual world at that time. The various arrangements now are just to weaken the vigilance of his spiritual world."

From the beginning, Hao Ren never expected to get any information from the prisoner by conventional means – as a race that dared to kill gods, they should have a very tenacious will, be able to withstand any physical pain, and be able to keep any secrets under extreme conditions. Although they would also have fear and panic (such as when they were "watched by gods"), fear and panic might not be able to pry open their mouths. Even demons could not dig out any secrets from such stubborn guys, so Hao Ren had already decided to take a detour. He would detain the Infernal for a period of time, slowly analyze the other party's spiritual characteristics, analyze his mind, and study his weaknesses. In any case, this was a project that required slow and careful work.

But he felt that he had this patience.