Chapter 1 After Adjustments

After several adjustments, Xiao Hei gradually adapted to the unstable spatial structure of the Rift Nebula. She began to try to link her massive body from an alternate dimension to the prime material world, a move that would trigger a spectacular phenomenon.

In the New Holy City beside the Soul-Sealing Metropolis, the common people were returning home after a busy day. The first to notice the strange phenomenon in the sky was a young stonemason who happened to look up.

The young craftsman had just finished a day of hard work. Building this sacred home city filled him with pride, but also left him exhausted. Looking up at the blue sky and the setting sun hanging on the horizon was his reward for a day’s labor.

When he looked up at the sky, searching for the sun that had appeared in this world less than a year ago, he saw a faintly visible landscape of continents hanging upside down on the horizon.

As if the scenery of another world had suddenly leaked into this one, the young craftsman saw a landmass floating at the end of the sky. The landmass was juxtaposed with the clouds, faintly translucent. Its shape reminded him of the "mirage" phenomenon mentioned by the elders in the tribe. However, this kind of mirage had never been seen before: the land suspended on the horizon was so clear, with every detail visible. As a halo spread, it grew larger and larger. Around the suspended continent, rivers of mysterious and dreamy light meandered. Huge, strange things resembling plant vines grew around the continent, as if a giant tree was holding up the mysterious land on the horizon.

The young stonemason stared dumbfounded at the magnificent spectacle in the sky, momentarily forgetting to cry out in alarm. His eyes widened as he watched the mysterious kingdom in the clouds grow larger and larger, gradually forming a continuous expanse in the clouds. Behind that kingdom in the clouds, he could vaguely see starlight twinkling like stars in the sky. It was as if a piece of the sky had been cut away. Even though daytime had not yet passed, it presented a starry night scene.

That was the optical phenomenon caused by Yggdrasil’s powerful gravitational lensing effect refracting distant starlight into the atmosphere. Everything was simple to explain, but to the native tribes of the Purgatory Star, the land floating in the clouds and the starry night appearing in broad daylight were no different from miracles.

Xiao Hei carefully controlled her massive body to make smooth contact with the top of the Purgatory Star's atmosphere, striving not to interfere with the planet's normal operation while placing herself in a position convenient for establishing a space connection bridge. On the planet's surface, her appearance had already attracted the attention of more and more people.

The young stonemason who first discovered the strange phenomenon in the sky finally couldn't help but cry out in alarm. His voice resounded throughout the street: "Goddess! It's collapsing! The kingdom in the sky is collapsing!"

People finally noticed the large landmass gradually pressing down behind the clouds. Various exclamations of surprise rang out. Some were exclaiming in amazement at the miracle, others were fearing the collapse of the sky and the cracking of the earth. Those who were slightly calmer shouted the names of some highly respected figures, asking them to invite tribal elders or ancient holy spirits to explain the incredible phenomena in the sky.

Just as chaos began to spread through the streets, the ancient holy spirits suddenly appeared. Leading tribal warriors, they loudly announced the situation of the "miracle in the clouds": "No need to worry!! That is another world created by our great goddess! The goddess has just descended again. She has already conveyed her will to the world. She wants to establish a connection between the 'Yggdrasil' world she created and our Sun Kingdom. In those kingdoms in the clouds, live our brothers whom we have never met..."

At the same time, the Twilight Remnants on Midgard were experiencing something similar.

They also saw an inverted continent appear in the sky. Since the Nine Realms were not truly entirely in the prime material world, the inverted continent they saw was also translucent, possessing only an image without affecting the light of the sky in the slightest. These huge "mirages" also caused panic among the Twilight people. Before the panic could cause trouble, the Steam Council, with the constables, quickly appeared and suppressed the unrest in time. The explanation they used was similar to that of the ancient holy spirits on the Purgatory Star.

All the propaganda texts were sent to them by Hao Ren in advance—such texts were a dime a dozen in the "Commonly Used Propaganda Templates for Inspectors." Clearly, Hao Ren's colleagues had dealt with similar troubles many times...

At the same time, Hao Ren had led his team and Graggon to the depths of the Soul-Sealing Metropolis.

Silver-white alloy-cast needle towers stood like a forest all around. Large and small capacitor devices were scattered between the needle towers. Crystal pipe networks and various cables filled with energy formed a large net crisscrossing dozens of meters above the ground. Bright electric arcs dotted this magnificent steel city. The Soul-Sealing Metropolis had now become a veritable "city." The building units that Hao Ren had left here continued to work after their master's departure, expanding the entire Soul-Sealing Metropolis by another circle, adding more safety coils while also allowing more automatic maintenance robots to "live" inside. Now, the expansion of this huge electromagnetic pulse device had stopped, but internal improvements were still being carried out day and night. Walking inside the Soul-Sealing Metropolis, one could see busy teams of engineering robots and nerve control bolts under construction everywhere—this surreal technological scene formed a sharp contrast with the simple city built of stone outside.

Soon, the group arrived at the center of the Soul-Sealing Metropolis, where the great hollow known as the "Throat of Toka" was located.

A giant alloy-cast ring was embedded in the ground. In the center of the ring was a bottomless cave. On the cave walls, thick tentacles grew winding upwards. A large number of cables and crystallized pipes flashing with sparks were fixed to each tentacle. The ends of the tentacles were pulled and connected to the nearby steel needle towers, firmly nailed to the surface of the earth.

This deep pit led all the way to the Earth's core, connecting to the vital heart of the First Born "Toka." The tentacles were Toka’s nerve lines. The Soul-Sealing Metropolis served as a function of an "artificial brain core" here, an unprecedentedly huge nerve pulse controller. Over the past year, its working state had been good, and the thriving ecosystem of the Purgatory Star was proof of this.

Bai Xiaochun curiously floated around near the "Throat of Toka." Of course, she could sense what those black tentacles were, but the way these tentacles operated made her feel incredible. She surprisingly floated to Hao Ren's side, as if discovering a new continent: "My fellow, seems to have no brain?"

"More precisely, Vivian cut off its brain back then, and then I gave it a thorough nerve surgery not long ago, completely destroying the First Born’s ability to think," Hao Ren pointed to the alloy needle towers around him that were used to control the First Born’s nerve lines. "But the First Born’s underlying instincts are still quite strong, and it must be kept in a stable state through these nerve pulse controllers. In the past few months, the planet's ecological planning center has relied on these pulse controllers to operate the First Born's body, completing the environmental reshaping of the entire planet."

Lily poked Hao Ren's arm with her paw: "I always feel like there's something wrong with you saying this in front of Bai Xiaochun..."

Bai Xiaochun waved her hand nonchalantly: "It's okay, I said I didn't care a long time ago. My crazy fellows are a huge disaster to the ecosystem. Mother probably doesn't want to see them slaughtering their brothers and sisters. This way... there's no other way."

"Can you see any changes between the First Born after going crazy and the ordinary First Born?" Hao Ren asked. This was the main reason he brought Bai Xiaochun here.

After learning about the mysterious corruption suffered by Yggdrasil, Hao Ren began to suspect whether there was a mastermind behind the madness of the Guardians. After all, although the reason "going crazy with anger after witnessing the Mother being killed" seemed reasonable, the details always felt a bit far-fetched when scrutinized.

There were thousands upon thousands of Guardians, but apart from those who received the Creator Goddess's instructions at the final moment, all the Guardians had transformed at the same time, and their actions after the transformation were surprisingly consistent: destroying the ecosystem created by the Creator Goddess. This act of revenge seemed to make some sense, but in reality, it completely contradicted the Creator Goddess's consistent ideology. Thinking carefully, it was the same route as the "eternal evil force" that planned the Godslayer!

Even leaving that aside, the other transformations of the Guardians were suspicious: the First Born completely lost their ability to think logically, but their unique multi-core brains should not have had this kind of pathological change; the Guardian Giants had undergone earth-shattering changes in their life forms, and their brains had actually left their bodies and turned into terrifying "brain monsters," but what was the point of this change in venting hatred; after all the Guardians went crazy, they had no more actions other than retaliating against mortals, and they didn't even set out to find the wreckage of the Founding Star, as if they had forgotten that the Creator Goddess's remains were missing...

Once these signs were scrutinized, almost all of them were suspicious. It was just that before finding Yggdrasil, Hao Ren had never thought that there was such a big conspiracy behind the Godslayer War. Those short-lived Godslayer rebels had no ability to induce the Guardians to go crazy at all, so he ignored these doubts.

Now he knew that the Godslayer rebels did not have this ability, but the ancient evil forces behind them did.