Chapter 1 The Scenery of Sulun

Ten thousand years ago, pilgrims recorded the sight of the sacred Sulun lands with these words: This is a holy and solemn land, blessed by the Goddess, where the giants built their magnificent cities to record the greatness and glory of their Mother for eternity. They transported the wreckage of stars and planets from the depths of the universe and forged these materials into black bricks in the core of the galaxy, bricks harder than any steel, yet lighter than feathers. Hundreds upon hundreds of obelisks stood tall on the earth, with eternal light leaping between them, and the giants inlaid the tops of their temples with crystals mined from the cores of supernovas, crystals filled with energy, shining like beacons over all mortal kingdoms on the most sacred planet of the Sulun Gate.

Even now, with the planet nearly destroyed, Hao Ren could still see the glorious picture of what it once was from the ruins.

In the center of the city ruins was the largest building, made up of a large number of black stone pillars, spires, quadrangular obelisks, and strange polygonal boulders, its overall shape resembling a pointed cone with multiple edges. It was layered into many parts, each part floating with a faint, pale green light. On this giant building, which resembled a temple, many places were inlaid with that pale green crystal, and in the most densely packed places of the crystal, one could see broken, bridge-like stumps protruding from the outer wall of the temple towards the sky. Hao Ren guessed that those broken places should be the former "Light Rivers." In the heyday of the temple, more than a dozen Light Rivers used to transmit energy connected to it, filling the temple with powerful forces.

This giant building was not only a hall for pilgrimage but also a powerful weapon. It once shouldered the mission of launching devastating lasers into space, but the rebellious sons used stolen divine weapons to pierce the planet's shield and destroy these laser cannons in space.

As the Tortoise Rock slowly approached the temple, Hao Ren saw a shocking hole in one of its outer walls. The molten building walls collapsed and contracted inward, which should be the fatal damage.

The spaceship slowly decelerated and descended next to the temple, passing a series of tall stone pillars built around the hall, in front of which was a continuous platform. Hao Ren suddenly noticed something on the platform, "Wait, what's that in front? Anti-aircraft guns?"

He saw a large number of black trident-like weapons deployed on the platform, mounted on circular, rotatable chassis, and most of them pointing towards the sky. Many of the weapons had been destroyed, but some still had faint halos around them. These things certainly couldn't hit targets in space, perhaps they were used for defense within the atmosphere.

Nolan quickly scanned the state of these "tridents": "According to the energy residue, these weapons should have been used just now... There are corpses over there."

Next to a trident anti-aircraft gun, a giant was leaning against the weapon's base, not knowing if he was a soldier who had just died in battle.

"Let's go take a look," Hao Ren immediately left his seat, while calling Mulu, "Mulu, you come with us too. Lily, Lao Wang, you two come with me, Elizabeth, you stay and watch the ship."

According to the little imp's usual personality, she would definitely protest at this time. The little girl was unwilling to miss the opportunity to explore, but here she realized that the atmosphere was serious, so she didn't say a word and just nodded obediently. But it's hard to say what little ideas she has in her stomach.

Izhaks patted his daughter's head and looked up at Nolan's holographic projection and said, "If she tries to poke you with a screwdriver, just lock her in the warehouse."

Everyone: "..." Like father, like daughter!

Mulu finally didn't have to be bored in the hangar. He left the Tortoise Rock with Hao Ren and stepped on the land of his homeland again after ten thousand years. However, this place was completely unrecognizable. The cities and lands were almost all turned into ruins, and the air was filled with hot, toxic gases. Lily had to wear a life-support collar to filter the toxic gas here, and her tail was wilting under the scorching heat of the air: "It's like it's going to burn here..."

"It's already burned here. Didn't you see that the rivers and oceans have almost dried up?" Hao Ren frowned. His first feeling upon stepping into the territory of the Divine Kingdom (although this was not really entering the Divine Kingdom of the Goddess of Creation yet) was not good. This was a scorching hell, and there was hardly a single sight that could make one feel better. He quickly came to the giant he had seen before and found that she was wearing a black long uniform and was a female.

The female giant was leaning against the anti-aircraft gun base, her huge body lifeless. Her upper body had several charred, penetrating fatal wounds, and her hand was still on a control device of the trident at the last moment. When Hao Ren stepped forward to check, the giant's hand weakly slipped down, and the control device was activated, with a sharp sound, a dazzling lightning bolt erupted from the tip of the trident and struck the empty sky.

Lily was startled.

"She's dead," Mulu knelt on one knee next to this compatriot, paying tribute with this simple gesture, "Died with honor, did not give up fighting at the last moment, the Mother will be proud of this warrior."

Hao Ren's hand touched the female giant's skin, and a warm feeling came from his fingertips: This guardian had just died not long ago, perhaps she was still alive just a few minutes ago—the firefight that everyone sensed in the distance was happening here. This anti-aircraft gun position only had one soldier guarding it, and her enemy was a fighter squadron of the rebellious sons. The difference in combat power was so great that she had no hope.

Until this moment, after seeing a guardian warrior who might have been alive a few minutes ago with his own eyes, Hao Ren truly realized what kind of place he was in: the scene of the God-Slaying War.

Previously, he theoretically deduced that the time on this planet was still frozen ten thousand years ago, destroyed three aircraft of the rebellious sons on the spaceship, and saw the still-steaming city ruins in the air, but the feeling these gave him was far less real and direct than the warrior in front of him. From the temperature between his fingers, he felt a unique sense of time and space inversion pressing down on him. The evil war that took place ten thousand years ago crossed time and space in an incredible way and slammed into him like this.

A burst of heat accompanied by the sound of magma cracking came from beside him, and Izhaks slowly transformed into a demon form to deal with any danger that might appear at any time. He looked around and suddenly strode towards a corner of the position, his voice like thunder: "There's something over here!"

Hundreds of meters away from the anti-aircraft gun position, there was a large pit emitting thick smoke, and sparks were constantly bursting out of the pit. Hao Ren and the others quickly followed Izhaks's pace, and after running to the side of the pit, they all stared wide-eyed:

A wreckage of a pale aircraft, tens of meters long, with a shell like a curled-up lobster, was lying at the bottom of the pit, with a large hole in its surface, but the overall structure was basically intact.

It was the wreckage of the "rebellious son."

Mulu turned to look at the anti-aircraft gun position: "That warrior shot down one before she died."

This sudden discovery surprised Hao Ren greatly. He was originally annoyed that he had completely destroyed three "lobster fighters"—the Tortoise Rock's artillery was too powerful, even the smallest-power secondary guns could tear the target into powder, so that he simply could not find the rebellious son's wreckage samples after the battle just now, but he didn't expect one to pop up in front of him now. He grabbed the data terminal and shone it on the wreckage: "This thing won't explode, will it?"

The data terminal emitted a blue light, scanned the wreckage, and gave a safe conclusion: "Safe, the energy storage device seems to have been punctured, there is not much energy residue in the aircraft."

Hao Ren and Lily immediately jumped into the pit and began to check the condition of the wreckage.

This strangely shaped aircraft was different from most spaceships and fighters. There was no obvious cabin structure on its curved and complex exterior, but Lily found the entrance of this thing with her nose. She waved the Fire of Very Happy, cutting the arc armor of the lobster fighter with sparks flying. Since the latter had lost its charged state, Lily quickly dug a hole large enough for herself to crawl in, and then jumped in with a whoosh.

Hao Ren picked up the piece of armor plate that Lily had cut off. He saw that the inside of the armor plate was painted with many complex patterns. These patterns were definitely not for decoration, but they didn't look like circuits or something.

"This is a divine pattern," Mulu squatted down and explained the secrets of these runes to Hao Ren, enduring his disgust, "They stole the truth of this universe from the Mother's words and inscribed it on the armor, so their army is immune to all kinds of supernatural powers and can effectively resist the spells and mental attacks of the guardians. They even engraved these runes on the skulls of their soldiers so that those soldiers also possessed the same resistance. If their chaotic weapons that can resist divinity are spears, then these divine patterns are their shields. They relied on these two things to stand at the level of fighting God."