Chapter 188 Good News

Hao Ren had no idea what Gadamo meant by the “real Throat of the World” or the core of the so-called space bubble zone, but judging from Izhaks’ expression, he knew it must be extraordinary. Izhaks stroked his chin, a look of unprecedented solemnity on his face. “Does the nature of this space match the records in the manuscript?”

“So far, it seems to be a perfect match,” Gadamo nodded. “The portals leading to all parts of the world, the unstable way they open, and the ever-changing mapping patterns—all of these are astonishingly consistent with the manuscript’s predictions. However, we haven’t been able to probe too deeply. That space isn’t very habitable, with no stars or solid planets, only some… strange celestial bodies that can barely provide a foothold. The royal city has to activate the Great Barrier to sustain the survival of everyone in the city, and then we have little spare capacity to send people to explore the outside.”

Izhaks nodded slightly, knowing that these things couldn’t be explained clearly for the time being. “Alright, sort out what happened in the past year, and I’ll listen to your detailed report later.”

Then he turned to his little daughter, a smile of unprecedented joy on his face. “The most important thing for me now is that my daughter is still alive! Elizabeth… I knew you’d be alright. But this thing…” Izhaks said, looking up at “himself” on the throne, “What exactly is this?”

Elizabeth’s face was still covered in the messy traces of crying and laughing from earlier, but she had calmed down by now. She tugged on one of Izhaks’ fingers, bouncing excitedly as she proudly introduced, “That’s Daddy Number Three! Hammer Uncle and I designed it together!”

The expression on Izhaks’ face was strange, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he heard the name just now. Hao Ren, on the other hand, curiously ran up to the throne and climbed up to take a look. He found that this fake “Mad Lord” was made with remarkable realism. Whether it was the rough skin or the unique armor, it was no different from the real thing, except that the flames and magma on the “puppet’s” skin had disappeared, probably because it was in standby mode. It seemed that these “special effects” were all simulated using magic.

Hao Ren climbed onto the “puppet’s” chest and looked inside from the opened hatch of the machine body. He found a sophisticated alloy cockpit inside, but he couldn’t see any joysticks or buttons. He could only see some strangely shaped alloy cylinders and neatly arranged rune stone panels, as well as a small seat. Flickers of light emerged from those control devices from time to time, and some complex runes would occasionally project from the air. With the help of the translation plug-in, Hao Ren identified the content of these runes: Pressure Index, Power Furnace, Expression Combinations, Intelligent Balance, Surface Burning Camouflage, Walking Assist Control, Running Assist Control…

Hao Ren felt a furry head nudging around his arm, and then Lily’s head popped in. “Let me see, let me see… Awoo… Is this a Gao Da driving cabin?”

“So you’ve been using this thing to impersonate Dad all along?” Izhaks also curiously went over to take a look, turning his head to look at his genius daughter with a wry smile. “I can’t believe you came up with that… Didn’t you get exposed?”

Elizabeth climbed up the puppet’s leg, proudly puffing out her chest. “Just showing my face is enough to stabilize people’s hearts! I usually keep a low profile so I won’t be exposed.”

As she spoke, the little girl lowered her head with some regret. “Unfortunately, it can only do the most basic things. It’s very troublesome to control. I adjusted the walking and running postures for a long time, and then I used the obsidian golem’s posture core to stabilize it. Also, this thing doesn’t have much combat power, can’t use magic, and doesn’t have enough power…”

The little girl kept muttering, and Izhaks affectionately stroked her head. “Elizabeth has always liked to study this kind of thing… She’s physically weaker, but her mind is exceptionally sharp, so I let her follow the little old man’s manuscript to study alchemy and astrology.”

Hao Ren glanced at Elizabeth, thinking that anyone who wasn’t blind could see that this little girl’s physique was a bit worse than a normal demon—so bad that it couldn’t be described! How could a five-meter-tall Izhaks give birth to such a little girl who was just over a meter tall?

Lily next to him was even more straightforward: “Are you two sure you’re related?”

Izhaks wasn’t annoyed, as if he had expected someone to ask this question. “Elizabeth’s mother is human.”

The scene fell silent. Lily, as the most literary one among them, opened her mouth for a long time before uttering a sentence: “I’ve already imagined over four hundred thousand words…”

Hao Ren slapped Izhaks on the arm. “Big guy, you’ve got it going on! I didn’t expect a rough man like you to take this route—how did you marry a human as your wife?”

Izhaks chuckled, a look of reminiscence on his face as he leaned against his throne and slowly recalled, “That was when I had just started unifying the war. The reaction of the human nations at that time was the same as before. They thought another mindless demon lord had emerged, so many self-proclaimed hero extermination armies emerged to try and farm prestige. Elizabeth’s mother was one of the ‘heroes’ who came to bother me early on.”

Hao Ren and the others were dumbfounded when they heard this. Vivian’s mouth twitched as she looked at Izhaks. “Have you ever played by the rules in your life?”

Hao Ren was very curious about the story of the female hero and the demon lord. “And then what? What kind of person was Elizabeth’s mother? Was she the kind of super-powerful and kind girl, whose whole being was as holy as God’s searchlight, who fought with you a few times and converted you?”

Izhaks chuckled and waved his hand. “She was a bit powerful, but other than that, she was just a brave but silly girl. I still remember her title. At that time, she was called the ‘Sword Saintess,’ and she had a great reputation in a certain country in the human world. She seemed to be a symbol of something in that country… Anyway, she was a big figure, but in reality, she was just a silly girl with not much on her mind. She used all her energy to study how to fight, and as a result, she was persuaded by righteous words to become a national hero, and then persuaded again to come and fight the demon lord. In my opinion, the so-called national hero was just being used by the politicians above, but she was still very proud at the time.”

Lily kept pushing forward. “And then, and then?”

“At that time, there were many heroes who came to bother me, and at that time I was short of people, so I would basically try to intercept them and bring them into the group. If I really couldn’t win them over, I would let them go back and promote it more, so that they could bring more people next time,” Izhaks shrugged. “Elizabeth’s mother was also like this. She was let go by me three times in a row, and she still came dumbfounded the fourth time—the reason was that she felt upset in her heart after losing the fight. To be honest, I had never seen anyone come to punish a demon lord for this reason, so I felt it was very interesting, and then I did something interesting: I transformed into a human and secretly sneaked over to form a team with her. I said I was also a hero, and came to challenge the demon lord…”

Hao Ren couldn’t help it anymore. “Have you ever played by the rules in your life?”

“It was mainly because I was bored,” Izhaks shrugged. “At that time, I had no other entertainment, and I would occasionally observe the habits of ‘heroes’ to relieve boredom. Anyway, that silly girl didn’t suspect much and believed it. Then she said that her current skills were not enough to challenge the demon lord, and she insisted on dragging me around to ‘train,’ saying that she wanted to accumulate enough capital to go to the demon lord’s castle…”

Lanina suddenly coughed twice. “I’ve heard the old people in the city talk about this history: In order to get that neurotic hero to come to the demon lord’s castle to challenge him as soon as possible, the king led her around the territory, and several demon lords formed a group to let her solo, and even let the Hellfire Dragon lie on the ground pretending to be slain…”

“In the end, I confessed everything when she arrived at the demon lord’s castle,” Izhaks shrugged. “As a result, she was stunned for a while and said she wanted to stay.”

Hao Ren listened to the end with great interest. After waiting for a while, he thought there would be more, but there was no movement for a long time. He was very curious. “Is that it?”

“That’s it.” Izhaks nodded with a smile.

Vivian was stunned. “Can you two accept this racial difference? Not to mention anything else… Can you stand the aesthetic differences?”

Izhaks chuckled. “Demons have a different aesthetic than humans… In fact, most of us don’t really care about the form of our partners. If we feel it’s right, humans are fine too. I was with her like that, and she seemed to be able to accept my human form.”

Lily stared blankly at Izhaks’ big face, suspecting that the hero girl was already blind when she first met Izhaks…

Vivian hesitated and asked, “Then she is now…”

“Died many years ago,” Izhaks said calmly. “Ha, don’t worry, she died peacefully in her sleep. I used demon magic to extend her life. She was with me for three hundred years, but after all, she was a human, and in the end, she was unwilling to completely transform into a half-demon to extend her life again, so I respected her wishes. But no matter what, being able to spend three hundred years happily with her, I think… it’s not bad. My family life is already more fulfilling than most demons.”

As he spoke, he patted Elizabeth’s head. “And don’t I still have a precious daughter?”

Elizabeth twisted her head back and forth, curiously looking at Hao Ren and the others. The current Izhaks seemed to be slightly different from the father in her memory, but she couldn’t tell where the change was. She only knew that it might be related to this group of strange people in front of her.

“Alright, we’ll never finish if we keep talking,” Izhaks interrupted the topic, laughing heartily. “Today is a good day! Gadamo, isn’t the banquet already prepared? Notify them to make it bigger! We’re going to celebrate today!”