Chapter 1 The Abstract Tower

Hao Ren stood next to Tutanin, tilting his head to look up. What he saw was an architectural structure that was pieced together haphazardly, crisscrossing and overlapping, like an abstract painting. The interior space of the endless tower was filled with thin, pale gray mist. In the mist, countless corridors, stairs, and bridges were connected to each other in a chaotic manner. Bizarre platforms extended from the walls, along with seemingly shaky rooms, meaningless walls, and even staircases and passageways that simply broke off in the middle. Some discontinuous, seemingly forced-together broken steps connected stone platforms built out of nowhere, spiraling upwards to the end of the line of sight, making one feel dizzy at a glance.

The scene was so strange that Hao Ren couldn't immediately find logical lines in the chaotic and insane architectural structure. Many of the structures pieced together with absurd techniques even violated the laws of nature in reality. Ordinary people would suffer enormous mental pressure and damage just from seeing such a sight. After barely getting rid of this mental pollution, Hao Ren immediately remembered the scene he had seen outside the Spirit World Clock Tower before: the entire tower was like a block fortress built by a naughty child, filled with inexplicable geometric shapes and stacked structures that defied the laws of physics. Now it seemed that the interior of this tower was far more chaotic than its exterior appearance - it was simply the result of a large pile of completely unrelated buildings forcibly mixed together!

"This..." Lily tilted her head and took a look, and immediately felt dizzy like Hao Ren. "What was the structure here before?"

"The structure of the Spirit World Clock Tower has been chaotic since the second floor, and it was like this before," Tutanin said seriously, "But its previous chaos was not as serious as it is now, and... I don't recognize the combination of those stairs and platforms at all!"

As soon as Tutanin finished speaking, Hao Ren heard a rumbling sound from above. Everyone looked up at the same time, and was shocked to see a staircase in the high altitude moving out of thin air, slowly connecting to a platform protruding from the wall!

"This tower... is deforming?" Vivian felt incredible. "Is this place alive?"

Tutanin didn't say anything, just stared intently at the intricate roads and stairs above. His eyes jumped between the platforms and broken rooms, trying to piece together the correct route: "...The general roads are still there. Going up the ramp on the left should lead to the upper floors. But these roads are not stable now, and it will be a little dangerous if there are any changes in the middle."

Elizabeth raised her hand: "Can't we just fly up?"

"In this tower, seemingly empty places are more dangerous than solid ground," Tutanin said lightly, while continuing to observe the constantly changing stairs and platform structures above. After observing for a while, he finally determined that some of the routes would not change: the architectural structures fixed to the walls were quite stable, and almost all of them could be connected to form a passage. He led the team forward: "Follow me, everyone be careful of your feet."

The group followed Tutanin out of the "wine cellar" - due to the chaotic architectural structure, the wine cellar was no longer a sealed space. Not only was there no roof above, but one of its walls had also disappeared out of thin air, and one could directly walk to the platform outside.

Hao Ren and Vivian walked together. After walking not far, he suddenly saw some cracks of various sizes on the wall next to him, as if they had been cracked by external force. Some cracks were even several inches wide, and light of varying intensity leaked from them. He curiously put his eyes close to it, and the sight he saw made him a little surprised.

Looking through the cracks in the wall, he saw a brightly lit and magnificent hall on the opposite side. Many gorgeously dressed men and women were gathered in the hall, enjoying themselves in the midst of food, music, and wine. Elegant ladies and gentlemen moved their steps lightly, as if they were immersed in a never-ending feast. However, when he thought that this was the Spirit World Clock Tower, all Hao Ren felt was the eerie sense of disharmony brought about by the distortion of time and space.

The others didn't seem to notice the cracks in the wall. The demon hunters were all silently hurrying on their way. Only Vivian noticed that Hao Ren had stopped: "What did you find?"

"There's something outside the wall," Hao Ren pulled Vivian, "Look."

Vivian also leaned over and took a look. In addition to being surprised, she recognized something: "That seems to be... the place where Odin held banquets. I remember Asgard had a hall like this."

"The Norse pantheon?" Hao Ren was shocked. Odin and the Norse gods had ended thousands of years ago. How could their remnants appear in the cracks in the walls of the Spirit World Clock Tower?

He frowned, came to a larger crack and wanted to see more details, but as soon as he put his eyes close to it, he saw a flash of swords and swords attacking him!

Hao Ren quickly calmed down. He saw that the previously closed hall had been replaced by an open battlefield. Countless warriors in gorgeous armor with blurred faces were fighting on the battlefield. Fighting against them were mutated beasts and hideous humanoid giants. A black dragon emitting thick smoke was slowly crossing the sky, and smoke and flames fell from the dragon's body, igniting the mountains and forests, while the poisonous gas on it rotted and cracked the entire earth.

At the edge of this chaotic battlefield, a dazzling light like the rising sun was slowly overflowing from the horizon, filled with the aura of holiness and destruction.

"...It's the Twilight of the Gods, the battle that took place in Asgard. Those soldiers are Einherjar," Vivian recognized the scene again. "I saw it in the distance at the time. The Aesir and other primitive gods fought a chaotic battle, and Yggdrasil almost collapsed into the real world. Later, the demon hunters launched a sneak attack when both sides were most exhausted. They first destroyed Jotunheim, and then launched annihilation magic bullets at the magic hub of Yggdrasil from the breakthrough point in Jotunheim."

"...It's the weapon of the Spirit World Clock Tower..." Hao Ren murmured, and looked at another crack. This time, what he saw was a golden giant ship floating in the clouds. The golden giant ship traveled through the sea of clouds, shining brightly like a sun, and countless figures shook on the giant ship, each of them tall and strong, with handsome faces. The giant ship broke through the sea of clouds, revealing the land below, and the Nile River flowed windingly on the land.

Ra's sun boat.

"These are all images from the age of mythology," Vivian said in a low voice. "Were they collected by the demon hunters?"

At this time, Bai Huo's voice came from the front, interrupting Hao Ren and Vivian: "What are you two doing there?"

"What's going on with these cracks in the wall?" Hao Ren took a few steps to catch up with the team, pointing to the cracks on the wall that revealed the ancient scene. "Are they all ancient video materials left by your ancestors?"

Bai Huo was stunned after hearing Hao Ren's words: "Cracks? What cracks?"

Then she glanced at the wall: "There's nothing there."

"You can't see it?!" Hao Ren was very surprised. He immediately pulled Lily next to him, "Can you see the cracks in the wall?"

Lily had a question mark on her head: "Huh?"

No one else could see those things!

Hao Ren quickly asked everyone around him, and finally completely determined that only he and Vivian could see the gaps that showed the past scenes. This situation immediately made him feel a little creepy.

After listening to Vivian's description, Bai Huo made a speculation based on her understanding of the Spirit World Clock Tower: "What you see is probably the afterimage of space-time distortion. The Spirit World Clock Tower is in the most unstable gap in space-time. In fact, even we don't know how big this tower is. Sometimes some inexplicable rooms or doors will suddenly appear in the middle floors of the tower, but most of the time they are just phantoms that can be seen but not touched. You may have encountered something similar."

Hao Ren was noncommittal. He knew that what Bai Huo said made some sense, but it was definitely not the same thing that he and Vivian saw!

"I was born from divine blood, and you have directly touched divine blood," Vivian whispered to Hao Ren, "I'm afraid the problem lies here: this tower is a relic of the Goddess of Creation, and we two have established a connection with it!"

"That is to say... the Spirit World Clock Tower has been automatically monitoring the alien races on Earth, and because we both have a connection with divine blood, we have obtained some kind of permission to browse the database?" Hao Ren was extremely surprised. "What exactly does this tower do?"

Vivian shook her head: "God knows. Its current appearance is obviously mutated. Maybe it was originally... Wait, there's someone ahead!"