Chapter 145 Withered Tentacles

Just like many ecological planets in the Plane of Dreams, life on the planet Tanagrus was born from the planting of the "First Seed." Deep beneath the surface of this planet lies the Firstborn, and the Tanarans were the second batch of lifeforms nurtured by the First Seed.

What happened on the planet Holletta (the people of Becky's hometown had not yet named their planet, so Hao Ren could only temporarily use Holletta to refer to it) also happened here: the Firstborn violently awakened and launched a ruthless attack on the Secondborn. Unlike the planet Holletta, the Tanarans were significantly less fortunate; the Firstborn they faced was not controlled by any safety device. The planet's ecosystem was reshaped, and the Tanarans, who had created a glorious civilization, vanished into thin air.

"It's even here..." Lily already had a psychological shadow regarding the Firstborn; the instant she saw those giant tentacles, she was so frightened that she became fluffy all over. "Ugh, I can feel the fur on my tail standing up… It really is standing up!"

"It seems that my guess was correct. The Firstborn is a common phenomenon in the Plane of Dreams. Many ecological planets in this world were seeded by the First Seed, and probably the first life created by all First Seeds are the Firstborn," Hao Ren took a breath. "That 'Goddess of Creation' is truly a great being… Just how many planets did she reshape?"

"Regardless of how many planets she reshaped, the point is why the Firstborn here also went berserk," Vivian looked at the sea of jungle-like tentacles in the distance, a large group of bat phantoms slowly appearing around her. "We should expand the scope of our exploration."

A large group of bats tore through the air with sharp whistling sounds, scattering in all directions, turning into blurred little dots in the high sky in the blink of an eye. Lily didn't forget to remind, "Don't forget to collect them later, don't let another Hesperiana the Second who cultivated into a spirit fall behind."

Vivian shuddered immediately, glaring at Lily: "Can't you say something auspicious!"

"Those tentacles seem to be dead," Hao Ren shaded his eyes with his hand, looking into the distance. "Should we go take a look at the scene?"

Vivian nodded, but quickly turned to Anna: "You have to go back first—the next exploration is not just 'dangerous,' we are going to face an ancient creature far beyond your imagination, even its dead remains may pose a huge threat."

Anna was already terrified when she saw those terrifying tentacles outside the city, and at this time she finally stopped acting tough. So Hao Ren nodded to Lily: "You send Anna back, directly to the entrance of the underground palace. Also, take this…" Hao Ren said, handing over a small silver-white device: "Put this near the rift, this is an energy sensor, we will know if there are Angry Spirits passing through the rift."

Lily casually carried Anna on her shoulder, and darted out in a few steps. Nangong Wuyue shouted from behind: "Run slower! Anna is an ordinary person! Can you control the acceleration below two g's!"

After Lily successfully sent Anna away and ran back to join the others, the group quickly rushed towards the hellish twisted land outside the city. They passed through broken and collapsed buildings, and also saw the remains of the city's protective walls: around Alamanda there were fifteen layers of thick alloy armor, those arc-shaped armors were more than ten meters thick, not only made of special materials, but also cast together with the base of the entire city.

However, even such a protective wall fell under the Firstborn's powerful force.

The Firstborn took root in the earth, and part of its body could even penetrate deep into the ground for several kilometers or even tens of kilometers, supporting an entire geological structure. Hao Ren had witnessed this kind of power in the Dragon Spine Mountains: a lazy stretch from the Firstborn when it awakened could easily destroy an entire area. There was no doubt that Alamanda suffered the same fate. The city's protective wall itself was made of alloy, but the Firstborn must have created violent earthquakes beneath the protective wall, which caused those thick armor plates to become brittle. Then the Firstborn's tentacles pierced into the city along the brittle armor fracture zone—on the outermost few protective wall relics, Hao Ren saw those huge tentacles that pierced deeply into the armor plates. They had decayed and died, but the ferocious posture of piercing through layers of armor still made people shudder.

And in the outermost layer of the city, you could also see some tentacles with special structures winding and growing along the protective wall, trying to invade the city from above. The surface of these vine-like tentacles had scorched marks, and on the top of the inner protective wall, you could see structures like weapon turrets: these were also remnants of that terrifying disaster back then. The Tanarans' technological strength was indeed stronger than the magic emperors of that time, at least the former had the ability to injure the Firstborn and temporarily block it outside the gate.

But in the end, all of this was meaningless: almost all fifteen armor belts were broken through. The Tanarans completed the transformation of their life forms at the last moment when the city was breached.

The group left Alamanda, which was protected by layers of armor, along a wide passage drilled out by the tentacles. Hao Ren looked back, and from this angle he more directly saw the shocking state of the golden city: its high walls were covered with cracks, the Firstborn's vines almost completely surrounded it, and everything was shrouded in an atmosphere of death and strangeness. Alamanda was like being pulled into the abyss by an evil god, and just a glance from afar made one's scalp tingle.

"Those should be the wreckage of the shield generators, and some weapon turrets," the data terminal pointed to the mechanical devices on the surface of the city's protective wall with a beam of light. "It's a pity, this was originally a very promising civilization."

"These tentacles are indeed dead," Vivian bent down to check a tentacle that spread up from the depths of the ground. The tentacle was shriveled and gray, and had been dead for a long time. "I can't feel any life in its depths… The part connected to this tentacle is also dead."

"Look at those plants in the distance," Nangong Wuyue looked into the distance at a hillside, where she could see a dense forest with a slight golden color: the forest was growing on the remains of the Firstborn's tentacles. "That should be what grew out after the ecosystem was reshaped."

After going berserk, the Firstborn would try to reset the ecosystem of the entire planet. If successful, all life within its coverage would be extinct. The Firstborn on the planet Tanagrus had obviously completed this mission, so any creatures that appeared on this land now must have developed after the ecosystem was reshaped. Looking at the forests that were growing luxuriantly on the remains of the Firstborn's tentacles, Hao Ren vaguely guessed what happened after the Firstborn destroyed the world.

The last link in this chain of creation-madness-destruction-reshaping seemed to be completed.

"It seems that after successfully destroying the second season ecosystem, the Firstborn will wither, and then a new ecosystem will be born from its remains," Hao Ren said his speculation, "Because the Firstborn and the Secondborn have consumed the 'Source Blood' contained in the First Seed, the Firstborn itself acted as the Source Blood during the ecosystem reset."

"So the Tanarans and their season's ecosystem died, and this tentacle monster also died," Lily kicked a section of tentacle at her feet. "Why did this guy do this? There's no benefit... After finishing the doomsday, it died itself."

"Yeah, why did it do this?" Vivian repeated quietly, "The saying circulating in Holletta is that the blasphemous behavior of the ancient magic emperors angered the Firstborn, but what about here? What did the Tanarans do? They were just studying various ways to get struck by lightning, who did they provoke?"

Hao Ren remembered the Firstborn's remains he saw at Izhaks' hometown: "Maybe they're crazy—after all, the Firstborn in a normal state can be communicated with, and they are very gentle. Terminal, detect the death age of these tentacles."

The data terminal replied directly: "Don't bother detecting, it's as you guessed, it's about the same era as the 'Goddess's World Extinction' that occurred in Holletta."

"Perhaps all the Firstborn in the entire Plane of Dreams have gone mad," Lily's voice trembled slightly, "The same thing should have happened on every planet seeded by the First Seed… That's why the aliens who made a contract with the magic emperors didn't come, that's why the Origin Calamity happened in Tanagrus, that's why there are so many Otherlings on Earth: they aren't all from Holletta, but from the entire Plane of Dreams… They're all refugees."

The previous many guesses finally became a reality, and the problem must lie in the source of all Firstborn—the Goddess of Creation.