Chapter 1 The Jailer Awakens

The sudden awakening of the jailers from their sealed state stunned everyone present. Lily's barbarian soldiers howled and yelled, but only Hao Ren seemed to have expected it. He looked up at the first awakened "Colossus," a slight smirk on his face. "Looks like you've broken free from the shackles of Chaos."

Twenty-one jailers gradually awoke, sand and dust sliding from their bodies. These giants, made of rock and steel, made a rustling sound with every movement. The majestic colossus who awoke first lowered his head and looked at Hao Ren: "A divine power has dispelled the shadows in our souls. We saw your battle in a haze. Though we do not know who you are, you repelled those Annihilators..."

The colossus spoke slowly, his voice carrying a rumbling echo, as if long periods of slumber had left him extremely weak. But Hao Ren could feel powerful energy rapidly regenerating within him. Clearly, these ancient warriors had tremendous regenerative abilities.

He nodded slightly, generally guessing the reason why they had broken free of Lockmarton's control and awakened from their slumber.

Thanks to Lavinia—that fanatical Annihilator follower wanted to release Lockmarton, but she inadvertently activated the artifact disc she stole from Hao Ren. The energy of the disc was incompatible with the Ark of the Covenant, but its purification effect on chaotic energy was consistent with the power of the Creation Goddess. When the divine power poured out from the disc, it sensed the energy conflict within the twenty-one jailers, so it all flooded into these demigods!

The end result would obviously cause the Annihilator followers to curse, but for everyone else, it was an unexpected piece of good news: the jailers broke free of the nightmares that corrupted them, and just like that, they awakened!

Under the soothing of Caraccius and Lily, the somewhat startled and flustered warriors quickly calmed down. Apart from those needed to tend to the wounded, the others quickly gathered in front of the twenty-one jailers. And Hao Ren's group of super-beings, who had just teleported over, didn't quite understand the situation, but they were rich in "work experience." They seemed more calm than the others, and came to Hao Ren's side immediately.

"Are you the leader of the ancient jailers?" Hao Ren looked up at the giant's majestic rock head, as if looking up at an ancient Greek statue. "You were corrupted for three centuries? How far has Lockmarton broken through?"

"I am Loken, King of Kings, leader of the old Watchers, tasked by the Creator to suppress the original sin, Lockmarton," the giant seemed to gradually break free from the haziness of his awakening, his mind becoming clearer. He crouched down to speak to Hao Ren and the others more easily. "But Lockmarton's cunning is beyond imagination. We have disgraced our mission, our souls were invaded by darkness, and we even became the claws of Chaotic forces… Now, the core of the Forgotten Abyss has been completely opened, Lockmarton’s spiritual body is no longer bound. It is wandering the Barren Lands and has initially shaped a physical body. But the Mother’s divine power still seals the final door. Its lock is the Ark of the Covenant before you. Praise our Mother, you have stopped those claws at the last moment. We still have some time."

"I think you just felt a different kind of divine power washing over you," Hao Ren said quickly. "You should be able to understand my origin from this divine power—so now is not the time to waste time proving my identity. I'm here to solve the problem. Tell me what to do."

"You must destroy Lockmarton's physical body again, and seal its spiritual body once more," Loken said, "Or… if you can do it, completely destroy it."

Another jailer beside Loken continued, "But to complete this near-impossible task, you must enter the Forgotten Abyss and fight that monster on the Eternal Battlefield, otherwise its power will leak into the real world. Even a tiny bit would be enough to destroy the already crumbling mortal world."

Hao Ren looked up at the Crystal Pyramid. "So we still have to find a way to open the Ark of the Covenant… but that requires a key. You may not know, the Khasuan Temple, where the key was kept, fell many years ago. That artifact is now missing."

A smile seemed to appear on Loken's face: "The Khasuan Temple? Ah, there was indeed a deceptive thing stored there, but the real disc was never there to begin with!"

"What?!" Hao Ren was genuinely shocked this time. "You're saying the Radiant Disc in the Khasuan Temple is fake?"

Although he had never seen what the disc that was once stored in the Khasuan Temple looked like, he never expected that the Radiant Disc, which both the Goddess Church and the Annihilator Cult firmly believed in, was actually fake! The secret of the Khasuan Temple had been circulating among the righteous and evil sects for so many years, and it turned out to be just a deceptive facade!

"Lockmarton's corruption of mortal minds is beyond what ordinary people can imagine, so from the very beginning, we foresaw the emergence of fallen ones like the Annihilator Cult, and we also foresaw that one day, the power of the secular world would enter the cave of the Ark of the Covenant. No matter what their purpose was, they would put the Ark of the Covenant in a dangerous situation," Loken rumbled. "Like the Mother, we love those vibrant mortals, but we also know their weaknesses, so from the beginning, the Radiant Disc was stored in a place no one would think of. But Lockmarton would one day have its claws search for the key to the Ark of the Covenant, so it was still necessary to leave one or two decoys in the secular world…"

Lily jumped up anxiously. "So where is the real disc?!"

"Here—"

Loken said calmly, then suddenly raised his hand and unhesitatingly stabbed it into his chest!

With the movement of this ancient jailer, the other twenty colossi made the exact same move: raising their hands and stabbing into their chests!

However, the expected scene of splashing rocks did not appear. In the stunned gazes of everyone, a black hole appeared out of nowhere in the chest of each of the twenty-one jailers. The hole was filled with rolling mist, as if it led to another space, and in the depths of the space, faint light could be seen.

The jailers' stone hands reached into the holes, stirring up layers of ripples.

Loken took out an irregularly shaped shard from the hole in his chest. The shard was crystal clear, looking like some kind of crystal, and its material was extremely similar to the Ark of the Covenant. In the hands of the other twenty jailers, shards of the same material also appeared.

"Since it's a prison, then its key should be on the jailers from the start," a female colossus said slowly, her voice also low and rumbling, but with a hint of feminine softness. "Even in the hundreds of years of being devoured by Chaos, we have a final security lock in the depths of our souls, ensuring that the location of these fragments is not known to evil, and even if Lockmarton completely destroys us, it can't get the key—because the ring can only be reassembled when all twenty-one jailers are fully awake!"

Twenty-one crystal shards floated up from the giants' hands, spinning and approaching each other in the air. After a series of dazzling rune comparisons, they finally reassembled into a complete disc made of crystal!

"It's actually crystal…"

Hao Ren looked up at the brilliant crystal disc, muttering to himself while a somewhat surprised expression appeared on his face.

It's a crystal disc! Not a gold disc!

After a brief moment of astonishment, he turned to look at Mu Lu, only to find that the Guardian Giant's face also showed a look of confusion mixed with surprise.

Clearly, Mu Lu also did not know the origin of this crystal disc—it seemed that this thing was indeed not part of the Genesis Engine!

While Hao Ren and the others were thinking in surprise, the crystal disc had completed its reassembly and activation. Loken, King of Kings, raised his hands, holding the disc, which was as big as a giant, like Atlas, the god who held up the sky in mythology, and slowly placed it into the groove of the Ark of the Covenant.

With a heavy thud, the disc and the pyramid wall fit together perfectly. Then, the entire "Ark of the Covenant" began to emit a soft white light, and Hao Ren heard a soft but mechanical voice in his ear:

"Final protocol activated—'Kolo' security system online, accepting preset instruction set—all levels of barriers entering controllable mode.

"Report current system status—stability 30%, central area overflowed, buffer zone contamination 85%, guard zone contamination 60%, final defense zone contamination 50%, security system overall status: extremely dangerous.

"Warning: the prison is already contaminated, Lockmarton overflow index exceeds 50%, containment is about to fail, distress signal sending failed, jailers are advised to take final disposal measures immediately!"

Loken's voice came from above: "The final disposal plan is to push the entire Kolo into the World Boundary. Outside the ordered universe lies the ultimate nothingness and the vast realm. This crystal disc is both the key to opening the Ark of the Covenant, and when combined with the Ark of the Covenant, it is a powerful 'engine' sufficient to push the Kolo space out of the ordered universe. Once this program begins, everything will be destroyed."

"Wait, did you say… engine!?" Hao Ren instantly heard this keyword, and directly understood the meaning of the "realm of nothingness and annihilation" that Loken mentioned as "outside the ordered universe." "You're saying this thing is an 'engine' that can push a part of the universe structure into the void?"

"It seems you also know about the situation beyond the World Boundary?" Loken was somewhat surprised. "As you said, the Ark of the Covenant is such an engine."

The data terminal immediately floated to Hao Ren's side: "Partner…"

"I thought of it too," Hao Ren nodded slightly. "Using the disc as the activation core, and the Ark of the Covenant as the frame, used to push the universe or parts of the universe away from the void position… this is probably the prototype of the Genesis Engine!"