Chapter 18 Among the Ancient Relics Left by the Olympian Gods

Among the ancient relics left by the Olympian gods, a strangely shaped round platform suddenly caught Hao Ren's attention. This platform was off-white, with intricate decorative patterns around it, and its upper part was a smooth surface, seemingly once used to hold something. The whole platform felt like the base of some kind of sculpture – only the thing that was originally on the base was missing.

"Is there anything special about this platform?" Seeing Hao Ren stop next to an unremarkable "stone" platform, Katriana couldn't help but ask curiously.

"No… I just think it looks a bit familiar," Hao Ren said, looking at the intricate patterns around the platform. He felt like he had seen something similar somewhere, but he couldn't figure it out after thinking for a long time. "Do you know what this is?"

"Not really," Katriana said, flicking her tail. "I can tell you the origin of some things here, but others are hard to say. Sirens don't know much about the surface world, especially the items from the late Mythological Age – the world was too chaotic at that time, and hunters and aliens were killing each other, so we greatly reduced our communication with the surface world. Most of the items that fell into the deep sea in that millennium have no explanation."

Then Katriana sighed softly, "Many things will never be found out about their origin and purpose. The entire race of their creators has already been extinct."

At this time, Lily also came over and circled the round platform curiously: "Katriana, was this platform like this when it came to the sea? Was there anything else on it?"

Katriana stroked her chin, finally recalling some details related to the stone platform: "Oh, right, there used to be a severely damaged sculpture on it, but only half of the statue remained, and that half of the statue disappeared not long after this platform was collected." She shook her head slightly as she spoke: "I originally thought that the statue was integrated with the platform."

"Disappeared? Disappeared right under your noses?" Hao Ren's heart stirred when he heard this, and he vaguely thought of something.

At this moment, Vivian suddenly reacted, and she clapped her hands and exclaimed, "Ah, right, I remember! Last time we went to the Athens Sanctuary, we found a broken space left by the Olympus family, wasn't there a temple there? There was a sculpture in the temple! The pattern on the platform under the sculpture is exactly the same as this!"

Lily didn't remember what Vivian was talking about at first, but she stared at the latter's face for a while and finally realized: "Oh right! I remember too, it's that thing where the bat was carved into a stone statue and enshrined, right?"

The husky girl’s every sentence contained at least five plus signs of sarcasm when talking about topics related to Vivian, and the latter couldn't help but twitch the corner of her mouth when she heard her description: "You can't expect any good words from a dog's mouth… That's right, it's that ‘stone statue’ of me being enshrined…"

At this moment, a considerable ripple had already arisen in Hao Ren's heart. Back when he discovered the ruins of the Olympian temple in the Athens Sanctuary, he had also wondered why the Olympus family wanted to put Vivian's statue in their temple – although Vivian was on good terms with the Zeus family, she was not a member of the Olympian pantheon, and her relationship with the latter was far from close enough to put her statue in their ancestral temple. But at that time, Hao Ren and his party did not have time to find out more, and the entire space collapsed and disappeared. In addition, a lot of things happened afterwards, and Vivian's mysterious stone statue was forgotten by everyone.

But he didn't expect that this matter, which had almost been completely forgotten, would suddenly pop up again. In addition, Hao Ren had learned a lot of information about Vivian and the Creator Goddess, and the stone platform in front of him immediately gave him a strange sixth sense.

He felt that the matter behind this was probably not simple.

Hao Ren carefully examined the stone platform, and asked the data terminal to decipher the intricate patterns and symbols around the stone platform, while asking Katriana: "Besides knowing that this thing came from the Olympus family, don't you have any information at all?"

"…After the collapse of Mount Olympus, it was one of the last things to fall into the sea," Katriana frowned and recalled carefully. The "Mount Olympus" she was referring to was of course not the one on Earth, but the one that the Zeus family had created in another dimension in the past. "According to the observers at the time, she saw a crimson lightning bolt suddenly light up over the Greek peninsula, and then the lightning split the cloud bridge connecting the Greek peninsula and the sky temple. The Olympus alien space was thus exposed, hanging in the sky for several hours. Then Mount Olympus in the sky began to collapse. A hunter used a javelin to hit a temple halfway up the mountain, and the fire spread rapidly towards the top of the mountain. Because of the chaotic gravity, some seawater was even sucked up into the sky. Then the light on the peak of Olympus went out, gravity turned again, and all kinds of things fell from it. This stone platform fell at the end… Oh right, it is said that a woman holding a golden spear and round shield fell with the stone platform at that time, but she was burned to ashes in mid-air by a hunter's skyfire."

"…Among the main goddesses of Olympus, only Athena uses a spear and round shield, and the last temple to collapse was also Athena's temple," Vivian frowned slightly, bent down and stroked the edge of the stone platform with her hand, "I have been dealing with the Zeus family for many years, but what exactly are they secretly researching…"

Before she could finish her words, the stone platform suddenly released a light, interrupting all her movements!

When Vivian's finger touched a certain rune on the stone platform, an ancient spell seemed to be activated. The mysterious and complex patterns became active in an instant, and starlight flowed in the gaps of the runes, quickly illuminating the entire pedestal. Just as Hao Ren and the others were dumbfounded and didn't know what was happening, a large amount of off-white particles emerged from the surroundings and condensed into shape above the pedestal in the blink of an eye.

A lifelike statue of a goddess appeared on the stone platform. The statue was gorgeously dressed, as tall as a real person, and the details of her appearance were lifelike. It was Vivian.

"Holy crap!" Lily jumped up all of a sudden. "It's activated!"

Katriana stared blankly at the scene in front of her. She had just said that there was originally a broken sculpture on the stone platform, but that sculpture had disappeared a long time ago – at this time, she suddenly realized that the sculpture was probably not missing, but hidden after the runes below stopped working!

"What is this… a holographic projection device developed by the Olympian gods…" Hao Ren had seen such a statue for the second time, so he was much calmer. "Vivian, what did you do just now?"

"I just touched it," Vivian was also confused. "Could it be that it sensed me and started on its own?"

"The problem is what's the point of such a thing," Hao Ren shone the data terminal on the stone platform, and finally determined that this thing had no function other than forming Vivian's image. "The statue on it can't move, can't be replaced, and there are no hidden mechanisms in the platform… In short, it's just a one-to-one Vivian figurine. It's quite realistic, though."

Vivian thought about it, and thought about her life-size figurine being placed in someone else's home, and there was more than one, and suddenly she felt goosebumps all over her body while holding her arms: "Why do I suddenly feel a chill."

Lily looked at her with a strange expression: "Seriously, Zeus wouldn't be secretly in love with you, would he?"

Vivian quickly waved her hand: "Don't mess around, didn't I say that Athena developed this…"

Lily's expression became even stranger: "…If Athena is secretly in love with you, then the situation is even more serious!"

"Can you guys say something useful," Hao Ren finally couldn't stand these two treasures. "Especially Lily, a statue can make you so dirty… Hmm? What is this?"

Hao Ren's attention was suddenly attracted by a line of small characters on the edge of the stone platform. He carefully identified them, and it took him a lot of effort to roughly spell out the somewhat damaged characters:

Construct and… connect… avoid disaster…

Many of the letters above were damaged and difficult to piece together into a complete meaning, but one could still speculate from the remaining words and phrases. The meaning of this sentence seemed to be to establish contact with some kind of "existence" in order to avoid disaster. And seeing the statue of Vivian on the stone platform, it seemed that it could be completely determined who the missing predicate in this sentence was referring to.

Everyone was a little dazed after seeing this line of words, and they all looked at Vivian in unison. Lily held back for a long time and finally blurted out: "Bat, they seem to be planning to believe in you for safety…"