Chapter 1 Black Metal Box

A stream of light flowed across the surface of the black metal box: runes activated by Hathaway formed a conduit, while Hesperides' bloodline power became the energy source for the device. A faint glow rapidly traversed the box's edges, leaving distinct traces: these straight lines neatly divided the box into over a dozen sections. Only after these lines appeared did Hao Ren realize how to open it.

However, he didn't need to open the box himself—after the seal was broken, the continuous mechanical friction sound inside the box became increasingly obvious. Finally, accompanied by a few light clicks, the ancient container disintegrated along the glowing lines, ingeniously transforming into an open structure. Nestled among the dozen or so components were four seemingly brand-new pale yellow scrolls.

That was everything.

Hao Ren hadn't expected that the Olympian legacy he'd gone to such lengths to find would be just these four scrolls. The amount of information was far less than he'd anticipated, but he knew the value of these items was undoubtedly immense. In Zeus's eyes, they were likely as important as his scepter, otherwise he wouldn't have had Heracles bring them out of Olympus.

Hesperides gazed at the scrolls and sighed softly, "Heracles braved the Hunters' encirclement with these things. How important could they be?"

Hao Ren casually took a scroll from the container. After the data terminal confirmed it was safe to open, he slowly unfurled it.

The scroll opened, covered in dense symbols. However, the structure of these symbols was extremely strange, including not only Leta runes, but also ancient Greek characters and several alphabets that had been completely lost to time. Moreover, the syntax of each sentence was abnormal. Clearly, it was written using some sort of encryption rule, but Hao Ren felt the cipher was somewhat unnecessary.

The scroll had been sealed very tightly. If the preceding sealing methods were all in order, then only a descendant of the Olympian family could open it. In that case, what was the point of encryption? And if the previous sealing methods were ineffective and the scroll fell into the hands of a powerful enemy, these ciphers would only delay the opponent's decryption time. Supernatural races generally had long lifespans, and the level of encryption of these ciphers was not that high in Hao Ren's opinion. With a little time, almost any alien family or Hunter could figure out what was written on it.

Hao Ren didn't even need any decryption time. He had the data terminal, a super-fast computing assistant, and could understand the scroll's contents almost instantly:

"...When He first descended upon this world, the universe was in chaos, and the power of disorder roiled among the stars. All things were ruled by an ancient and evil being, known as the 'Ancient King,' also called the 'Lord of Mad Howls.' This ancient tyrant used the universe as food, greedily absorbing primal energy and subjecting everything to its brutal rule. The Lord of Mad Howls was a chaotic and illogical being. As its name suggests, mad howls were the only things surrounding this tyrant..."

Hao Ren moved his finger across the scroll, simultaneously analyzing it in his mind, and softly read out the contents.

The light around him gradually distorted, and the surrounding jungle slowly descended into darkness. The sky seemed to lose its balance, tilting westward. The sun hanging in the sky was elongated into an elliptical sphere, and the sunlight crookedly tore the sky into countless terrifying strips. A heavy aura of darkness permeated between the strips, as if the end of the world was approaching.

Lily was the first to notice something was wrong. Unlike the others, this energetic husky girl couldn't focus on one thing for very long, so her attention was always wandering. Therefore, she immediately noticed the strange phenomenon in the sky and exclaimed, "Wow! Landlord, look at the sky!"

Hao Ren was instantly interrupted, and the distorted abnormalities around him also subsided in the blink of an eye. However, at the same time that he was interrupted, he subconsciously noticed the surrounding situation: the last scene of those abnormal phenomena happened to fall into his eyes.

An unspeakable feeling of coldness welled up in his heart. He immediately turned to the data terminal, "What was that just now?"

The data terminal also recorded the last scene just now: "It seems to have happened when you started reading the scroll. There were signs of chaos in the nearby space-time. However, the chaos was only maintained within a small range. This unit just called up the data from several satellites that flew over here a few minutes ago, and no obvious atmospheric anomalies were found from space."

Hao Ren suddenly felt that the scroll in his hand was full of evil energy. He quickly threw it back into the container, while he couldn't help but think of the few sentences he had just read: Ancient King, Lord of Mad Howls, chaotic and brutal rules of the universe, and the "He" at the very beginning of the text—these records were clearly not related to the Olympian pantheon's worship of Vivian. If anything, it seemed to be describing a higher-level event.

Hao Ren couldn't help but have some associations, but he didn't think about it in detail for the time being.

Because he felt that the nature of this matter had deviated greatly from the initial expectations. The artifact was also like this, these scrolls were also like this. These things didn't seem suitable for research in this remote wilderness with a lack of equipment support. He'd better go to his safe laboratory to tinker with these dangerous things, or even more simply, go to Raven 12345's house to tinker...

Anyway, the goddess sister self-destructs every now and then, and heaven wouldn't miss him tearing down a house...

He put everything into his personal space (which already contained the artifact scepter he had found before), patted the dirt off his body, and stood up, "These things have to wait until we get back to deal with."

"Oh, oh," Lily suddenly came back to her senses from her wandering state, she tiptoed and swayed around Hao Ren, "Then what are we going to do next? Is it time for lunch?"

Hao Ren was choked for a moment, he really didn't know how this dog girl thought about things...

"Let's leave here," Vivian sighed, "But before we go home, we have to go to Corpus first, send Hathaway over, and tell Bai Huo about our discoveries here."

Hao Ren nodded, "The final fate of the twelve Hunters who disappeared three hundred years ago has been revealed, and the Olympian legacy has also come to an end. We are helping the Hunters solve a headless case."

Lily nodded repeatedly, her eyes shining, "Awoo, yeah, yeah, does that mean the Hunters will treat us to dinner?"

Everyone: "..."

The group said goodbye to Pierre and his companions at the edge of the forest, while Hesperides also set off to return to Athens. Finally, in addition to Vivian and Lily, Hao Ren had Hathaway in a ghostly state. After confirming that there was nothing left behind, the data terminal activated spatial teleportation, directly arriving at the Ice Fortress at the peak of the Arctic.

Nowadays, Hao Ren and his group have become frequent and honored guests in the eyes of the Hunters. They come and go freely in Corpus and the Ice Fortress, without any need for notification. After greeting several familiar Hunters, the group directly crossed the frost-covered streets of the fortress and arrived at the Frost Temple where Bai Huo and Hasson lived.

Along the way, Hathaway followed behind Hao Ren. Although she could change her appearance, she still maintained her noble lady image from her lifetime here. It seemed that she was uneasy, wondering if it was appropriate for her to appear here in a Hunter's uniform as a ghost—so she simply did not change her attire.

A ghost cannot be hidden here. The most elite and experienced Hunters are gathered in this place. They can recognize the aura of a ghost even through hundreds of layers of disguise, so Hathaway attracted the attention of many Hunters after entering the city. Some more experienced Hunters also recognized the taste of their own kind from Hathaway's ghostly aura, which made them couldn't help but cast more curious gazes.

However, after seeing Hao Ren and his group walking in front, these Hunters still put away their curiosity and merely watched the strange ghost enter the sacred Frost Temple.

Hathaway looked around at the familiar scenery. Returning to her hometown after three centuries, she was already a ghost. In addition to the series of events she had experienced, these made her feel a thousand emotions about everything she saw, unable to say a word.

You really can't tell that she was a talkative chatterbox in the ancient house.

Bai Huo had already received the news. This time, she did not reveal her decadent otaku image, but instead waited early with her mentor Hasson in the reception room of the temple for Hao Ren and his group.

After the two groups met, they exchanged a few casual greetings. Then Hao Ren pushed Hathaway forward, forcing the hesitant and timid female ghost to stand in front. He decided to settle the ghost lady's matter before talking about serious business, otherwise her face, which looked like she was ready to run away at any moment, was really worrying.

"This is Hathaway, the only one of the twelve Hunters who disappeared three hundred years ago... Well, it can't be considered that she survived, it should be said that she died down..."

Bai Huo and Hasson were dumbfounded.