Chapter 1196 Asueman

Just as Hao Ren was lost in thought, An's voice pulled him back to reality:

"System self-check complete. This vessel is entering initial mode."

"Whew… that completes the reset of the prison system's final part," Hao Ren exhaled deeply, looking at Loken, King of Kings. "So, as long as we send the preset instruction set from Asueman, we can remove the divine power shielding over all of Kolo and the phase concealment within a radius of twenty thousand light-years?"

"That is correct. Do you wish to cancel it now?" Loken, King of Kings, nodded. "The entire operation will take several hours. Leave it to us. You can use this time to visit our last partner at the Nexus of Wills: the captain of the Asueman."

Lily suddenly snapped out of her daze. "Eh? This ship has a captain?"

"Nonsense, of course a spaceship needs a captain," Vivian glared at the husky. Actually, she hadn't expected that Asueman would have a captain hidden away all this time, but based on the core principle that "whatever the husky says, you must refute it," she definitely had to retort as long as Lily spoke. After saying that, she looked at Lily suspiciously. "Speaking of which, have you figured out what that husky cannon of yours was all about?"

"I'm still analyzing it, don't interrupt," Lily waved her hand vigorously, indicating that she had the situation under control. Then she realized, "What do you mean, 'husky cannon'?! I'm a tribal leader, show some respect! I've already named that move Divine Might Sky-Rending Howl!"

"So pretentious. Saying such a long name on the battlefield would get you killed eight hundred times over. Let's just call it husky cannon. Right, Hao Ren?"

Hao Ren didn't have the time to listen to those two bickering, and he didn't pay attention to what they were saying, so he just waved his hand. "Husky cannon it is. An, take us to the Nexus of Wills. We need to talk to Asueman's supreme controller."

Although An was the managing AI of Asueman, Hao Ren knew from the beginning that she wasn't the true supreme administrator of this ship. Her existence and the "Gatekeeper" were similar to Nolan's: only when the captain was unable to control the ship for some reason would she take over. And that true captain of Asueman had actually been slumbering in the ship's core all along. Ever since Lockmarton briefly broke free of control ten thousand years ago, and Kolo split into the old and new worlds, with Asueman becoming the gate blocking the old world's passage, this captain had fallen into a long period of hibernation to maintain the ship's core operation, until now that Asueman was freed from this long mission, he had finally awakened.

This was the first time Hao Ren and his group were meeting him.

Under An's guidance, they teleported into the core corridor of Asueman, heading along the corridor towards the Crystal Hall where the Nexus of Wills was located. An remained as silent as ever; it seemed that even the complete demise of Lockmarton couldn't cause any extra emotional fluctuation for her. But as they were about to reach the hall, she raised her head and looked at Hao Ren very seriously. "Thank you. You have saved a civilization."

Hao Ren smiled. "I thought you didn't have much feeling for the secular civilization of the Kolo world."

"Any civilization has value, and any race has value. I didn't understand these things before, but during these years of traveling and observing in the human world, I learned that my mission is not just to guard a prison, but to guard the meaning of this prison."

As An's voice faded, the gate to the Nexus of Wills appeared before everyone. Hao Ren was surprised to see another faintly glowing female figure in front of the gate. "Gatekeeper? You're alive?"

"Data reorganization completed using the backups left behind previously," the Gatekeeper replied emotionlessly. "Subsequently, the memory database was completed with the help of Number Two's memory data. Now returning to work."

"That's good." Hao Ren nodded. As the bizarre, triangular, magnificent gate made of crystals silently disintegrated and opened, he led everyone into this special chamber called the "Nexus of Wills."

This was a pyramidal hall with the same shape as the other chambers in the ship. The floor and walls were completely formed of various crystals. All kinds of large and small crystal clusters spread and grew in every corner of the hall, with a mysterious glow flowing over them. All of these lights flowed and converged in the center of the room, where a huge, irregularly shaped crystal stood quietly. The crystal was crystalline and almost completely transparent, and one could clearly see the contents inside.

A light cluster that looked like a solidified cloud was floating in the center of the crystal. Within the light cluster, one could see starlight-like specks, and when gazing at this light cluster, it was as if countless people were whispering in your mind, describing all sorts of obscure and mysterious knowledge.

Hao Ren had had various guesses about Asueman's "captain" before. After hearing about the other party's slumber and seemingly integrated state with the ship, he had also speculated about its life form, but at this time he still couldn't suppress his exclamation. "A Star-Kindred?!"

The captain of the Asueman was actually a Star-Kindred? A living, breathing Star-Kindred fused and symbiotic with the ship?!

This race had disappeared from the Plane of Dreams universe for ten thousand years. Even in the years when they hadn't disappeared, they were elusive, and few people had ever seen them. Yet one of them had appeared here, and was also one of the wardens of the Kolo prison, participating in the Creator Goddess's plan to suppress Lockmarton, having been suppressed here since countless ages ago!

The instant he saw the Star-Kindred, countless pieces of information flashed through Hao Ren's mind: various past conjectures about the Star-Kindred; the various activities of the Star-Kindred after the Creator Goddess fell; the unusual understanding that this mysterious race showed towards the Creator Goddess and her creations; their mysterious state of always hiding in the shadows, yet their figures ran through everything…

What kind of connection did they have with the Creator Goddess?

In Lockmarton's early memories, the first native life forms of the Plane of Dreams that the Creator Goddess came into contact with should have been these Star-Kindred. At that time, these mysterious races were living in desolate "star tombs," but because Lockmarton's soul was shattered and its memory distorted, the scenes that Hao Ren could see in the phantasm were quite limited, and many scenes were difficult to distinguish as true or false: they came from the memory of a crazed demigod, and Hao Ren certainly didn't dare to believe them completely.

Just as these various thoughts emerged one after another, Hao Ren suddenly heard a gentle voice ringing in his mind:

"Greetings, Godblood Bearer."

Hao Ren was taken aback. "Godblood Bearer?"

"When you first visited this ship, I sensed it. It is on your right hand: the bloodstain of that deity," the gentle voice said unhurriedly. "Her blood appearing here… Fate is truly an unfathomable thing."

"I have many questions," Hao Ren composed himself and said seriously.

"I also have many questions," the gentle voice said. "But first, I need to confirm one thing: you… where do you come from?"

Hao Ren had answered this question countless times, but he wasn't impatient. "I come from another universe. Another god reigns there. I think An should have told you these things already."

"Is that so…" Asueman's voice was noncommittal, seeming to have some different opinions, but ultimately he didn't say much more. "You have already proven yourself with your actions. I think you can be trusted. Ask away. I hope you can get the answers you want."

"Did the Creator Goddess send you to guard Kolo? What is your relationship with the Creator Goddess?"

"She ended the madness and darkness of the universe's Age of Ignorance, and ushered in an era of order and peace. Our entire race benefited from her grace," Asueman said quietly, seemingly lacking the emotional fluctuations that humans could understand. "Therefore, the Star-Kindred submitted to her, willingly becoming her jailers and sentinels in the darkness. Even if eras change and history is sealed, our mission will never end."

"After destroying Lockmarton, I read its early memories, and in those early memories, I saw the Creator Goddess discovering you, but those memories were fragmented and disordered, especially Lockmarton's own process of falling. It has been completely stripped away by the power of Chaos. Do you know how Lockmarton fell? Did it come into contact with a crazed and dark primal will? We call this primal will the 'Lord of Pandemonium'. I wonder if it's the same thing as the madness and darkness of the universe's Age of Ignorance that you mentioned."

"Lord of Pandemonium…" Asueman's voice paused. Even he seemed to subconsciously be wary and avoid mentioning this name. "It has been a long time since I heard someone directly call out that name. The name itself is a kind of spell with power. Any race in the universe will use this name to refer to that primal force of madness. I can be certain that you and I are talking about the same thing. To answer your question, I must start from the beginning, from the earliest state of this universe, so that you can understand what exactly happened back then."

After a few seconds of pause, after waiting for Hao Ren and everyone else to prepare themselves, Asueman continued. "In the era of this universe's origin, in the era before the Creator Goddess arrived, the Lord of Pandemonium was the master of all things. It was born from the earliest energy tides, blind and idiotic. Although it had no reason, it relied on primal instincts to affect the operation of the entire universe. Under its influence, the entire universe was in an extremely chaotic and dangerous state. The perilousness of this world at that time was far beyond what you can imagine.

"Stars collapsed and were reborn irregularly; various celestial systems could collapse at any time. Nothing was absolutely peaceful. Under the gaze of the Lord of Pandemonium, everything was in a state of being destroyed at any moment. Only those completely extinguished and dead stars and barren, icy star regions had relative safety, but they were equally shrouded in the shadow of random destruction at any moment.

"The earliest life appeared and survived in that kind of environment: the Star-Kindred, the Entropy Demons, the Star-Wrecks, the Negative Energy Walkers, the Shadow Beasts, a whole bunch of lives that might seem inconceivable to you, lives that would almost be impossible to be born in a normally ordered universe, thus appeared in the energy aftershocks of the Lord of Pandemonium, and struggled to survive.

"We, these creatures from the primordial era, are actually extensions of the Lord of Pandemonium."