Chapter 1 The Team Becomes Quiet

From then until boarding, the entire team was unusually quiet, even orderly—although the unavoidable sense of estrangement and mutual wariness still lingered around everyone, at least order was maintained. It must be said that since being sent through the portal to this place that exceeded most people's understanding, the bizarre scenery here and the incredible journey that followed had greatly diverted the attention of the "Chosen Ones." They could no longer concentrate on the questions they had wanted to think about before, because even focusing all their energy on understanding and observing this place seemed somewhat insufficient.

The Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace, docked at the private starport, slightly broke this quiet and almost dull atmosphere: it was a beautiful spaceship, although not as large as those giant civilian transport ships or low-tech battleships, but just from the special port it occupied and the massive and precise servo facilities near the port, one could see the ship's distinctiveness. After hearing that this was the ship Hao Ren had arranged for them, the Chosen Ones exclaimed in amazement, looking up at the starship's suspension struts—Hao Ren felt that more than ninety percent of their attention was focused on observing the husky head painted on the spaceship's deck...

"That's a ship sticker, a personalized ship sticker—haven't you seen car stickers!" Hao Ren said with a straight face, trying to explain the huge dog head on the ship in a serious manner.

Lili's innocent and charming face spanned three armor belts on the spaceship, jutting out from the waist-line secondary turret all the way to the engine cover at the stern...

Vivian's expression remained unchanged, but she squeezed out a voice from between her teeth: "I think you shouldn't have been fooled by the big dog's soft and hard tactics. Even painting Guo Degang on the spaceship would be better than that silly husky face."

Hao Ren: "We're leading a group, be serious..."

Fortunately, no one persistently pursued what it meant to have a husky head printed on the spaceship. They accepted this style in surprise and amusement, and some even showed a knowing smile: it seemed that after seeing a lot of incomprehensible things in this cold and unfamiliar space station, they finally saw something they were familiar with, and even the husky's face seemed a little heartwarming.

Under Nolan's guidance, the passengers boarded the ship in a relatively orderly manner under the effect of the tractor beam. So far, there were no unexpected situations.

Hao Ren came to the bridge, glanced at the passenger cabin (actually just a large lounge, anyway, there were only a hundred people in total, so there was no need to modify the hangar), and after confirming that the situation inside was okay, he sent a request signal to the Kuiper Station guidance platform to leave the station.

"Next is the moment for us to lead the group to witness miracles," Hao Ren rubbed his hands after sending the signal, with a full expression of confidence and smugness on his face, "This is a carefully designed and meticulously arranged trip for them, it will definitely open the eyes of these guys..."

Before he finished speaking, the feedback information from the Kuiper Station guidance platform had been transmitted to the bridge: "Departure request has been accepted—confirming special route z88-1350, the 'Sunset Red Homecoming Tour' is about to leave the starport, repeat, the 'Sunset Red Homecoming Tour' is about to leave the starport..."

"Just based on the name of this tour," Nangong Sanba looked at Hao Ren for a long time with a strange expression, "do you dare to say from the bottom of your heart that you designed it carefully?"

"Nonsense, can you find a name more deeply rooted in people's hearts and memories than these words?" Hao Ren said with confidence, "Besides, anyway, this kind of informal personal flight doesn't leave long-term records, it doesn't matter what kind of temporary name you give it."

The others on the bridge waved their hands: "Okay, okay, you're right, you're right..."

The Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace stirred up a burst of blue light in space, and after gradually accelerating to break away from Kuiper Station's gravitational binding circle, it suddenly disappeared into the mirror sphere formed by the warp space, and a recorder at the Kuiper Station observation tower recorded this scene:

"XX year XX month XX day, Imperial Inspector Hao Ren and his 'Sunset Red Homecoming Tour' embarked on a journey. This is the first official return to their homeland for the survivors of the Dream Plane after being stranded on Earth for ten thousand years. Although it is only a small-scale, short-term return, it marks the greatest progress in the Dream Plane incident to date. Perhaps we can finally expect those lost descendants wandering in foreign lands to have the opportunity to return home, perhaps today is a new turning point in history..."

Hao Ren was right, this kind of special flight would not leave a long-term record in the data general database—but it was recorded in history...

However, those who had already boarded the ship and set off would not know what the recorder at the observation tower had written. At this moment, they were already in the closed sac formed by the space warp and were rushing towards the rift in the depths of the universe at faster-than-light speed.

Adeline stayed quietly in the starship lounge, surveying every stranger around her with a cautious and wary attitude, while trying to record everything she saw here in her mind. She knew that everyone around her was doing the same, so she didn't need to hide her attitude and eyes at all: or rather, this open and aboveboard wariness was one of the conditions that could guarantee "peace."

She was a Silver Witch, based in a South American vampire hermitage as a high-level consultant and mentor. Unlike those human wizards or witches who were once servants and learned a little magic from the ancient "gods," "Silver Witch" or "Silver Wizard" was a special term, a true member of the ancient gods. Adeline's memory could be traced back to the ancient Sumerian period. In those wild pioneering years of civilization, she was also the guardian god of a city on the Mesopotamian Plain—but those glorious times were long gone. Now, her memory only contained some city-state silhouettes stained with the color of yellow sand and some collapsed and burning ancient city ruins. These fragmented memories made her both bored and depressed. Perhaps in order to relieve this boring life, she agreed to the request of the vampire hermitage and, as a representative (according to the plan, this was called a "Chosen One"), responded to the call of the Dark Council and became a member of this team.

Now she was curiously looking at this place and the strange members of the team.

The werewolf from South America, seemingly a kid from the Eben family, someone she often dealt with, was still as noisy and frivolous as ever.

The vampire from Europe was no different from those in the hermitage, dull, dark, and serious. Except for that Hesperian, they were basically zombie faces, but they themselves called it the elegance and restraint of a gentleman.

The rune dwarf from Australia, ah, a guy who realized that things were not good before the end of the mythical age, then built a big ship, escaped from the center of the vortex, and lived in seclusion underground. If they hadn't left Scandinavia so early back then, perhaps the Aesir could have persisted for a while longer.

The siren from the deep sea, those mysterious races had also appeared, and their queen seemed to have personally come. That Ms. Katrina and her few followers were probably the only truly happy people here. They hadn't participated in the mythological war, nor had they been involved in any alien infighting. Sometimes it was really envious of these guys who lived in the deep sea and were detached from the world.

And them, the demon hunters from the Arctic...

Adeline's gaze inevitably fell on those demon hunters, who sat on the other side of the lounge, forming two distinct circles with almost all the aliens. There seemed to be an invisible force field around them, and even the most violent werewolf was unwilling to look in that direction even for a moment. However, these demon hunters seemed to be somewhat different from what Adeline had remembered.

They had lost a lot of their killing intent, and they no longer had that completely unreasonable fanaticism. They sat together, talking to each other in low voices or exchanging some food and drinks. Occasionally, some people even glanced over here, and then nodded with an expression that seemed to be a smile—that expression was stiff, obviously they themselves were unwilling to make this gesture, but they still reluctantly greeted them.

Adeline frowned, but still reluctantly nodded.

That demon hunter girl named "White Flame" looked very active. She was talking loudly among her companions, seemingly showing off her understanding of this place. She mentioned Star Wars, Gundam, Halo, and Steam, a bunch of strange words that didn't sound like reliable explanations, but her companions were listening with great interest.

So demon hunters can also joke.

This is really a strange place, Adeline couldn't help but think. Why are these people mixed together? Why are people of various races, various camps, and various eras squeezed into this metal-cast vehicle to participate in a "trip" that is said to be "significant" but is mysterious from beginning to end?

Adeline thought of the things she had seen along the way, and then had to admit that those things had seriously shaken some of her perceptions.

The others sitting here—as long as their intelligence exceeded the average line—should be the same.

For the first time, they had to add the concept of "cosmic level" to their thinking process, and then turn around to think about their past thousands of years or even ten thousand years of infighting and ingenuity on that small blue planet. Those magnificent battles, glorious temples, and countless treasures all seemed insignificant at the moment of looking up at the universe.

"Attention, the spaceship is about to leave hyperspace, attention, the spaceship is about to leave hyperspace..."

The lights in the lounge suddenly started to switch, and after the brightness was reduced, holographic images slowly appeared on the metal walls on both sides, showing the view outside the spaceship.

Some red and blue stripes formed something like a tunnel, and the spaceship was moving forward in the tunnel, then the tunnel quickly shortened, dissipated, formed stable patterns of stars and nebulae, and froze as if it was fixed.

The spaceship was still flying at an astonishing speed, but on the large scale of the universe, its relative speed to the surrounding celestial bodies was almost static.

A magnificent spiral nebula appeared in front of everyone, making everyone who saw it for the first time hold their breath. The terrifying oppressive feeling brought by the all-consuming material storm even made Old Hunter Hassu's heartbeat stop for half a beat in an instant.

"...I probably won't be able to play VR anymore in the future..." White Flame muttered to herself with emotion.

The huge space building complex around the Rift Nebula and that blue-green planet, which was very different from Earth and operated like a sentinel near the "eye of the storm," attracted many people's attention. They speculated on the functions of those space buildings, and discussed whether the gate was the rift in the center of the nebula. At the same time, some people noticed the "unusual scenery" floating above the blue-green planet: some things like alien continents were floating in space, and huge green vine-like structures were connected to them. Such a scene made some aliens and demon hunters who knew something about the Aesir pantheon show thoughtful expressions.

"Dear passengers, I am the captain of this ship," Hao Ren's voice sounded in a timely manner, "You have come to the key part of this journey—what you see in front of you is the gate connecting two worlds, the Cosmic Gate, you can see it in the rift in the center of the nebula. Later we will pass through this gate, and you will truly arrive at the Dream Plane, the hometown of all of you. Before that, I would like to briefly introduce the planet next to the Rift Storm Eye, it is called Purgatory, some of you may know this name, because in the past thousands of years, the entrance to Purgatory has appeared on Earth more than once..."

"That's Purgatory!?"

"It actually exists, and in this place?"

Exclamations rang out uncontrollably in the lounge.

Hao Ren's explanation did not end, and quickly turned to another topic: "Some of you should also have noticed those 'alien continents' floating above the planet Purgatory and the plants that spread between the continents. Some of you should be more familiar with it: that is Yggdrasil. In the information pack I gave you, another identity of it was mentioned, that is, ten thousand years ago, the 'Hyperspace Ark' that all supernatural creatures on Earth took when they entered this universe. It was once the territory of the Aesir, but now it has merged with Purgatory..."

The Chosen Ones in the lounge exchanged surprised glances, and then many people quickly took out those thick information packs (they were part of the plan, which Hao Ren jokingly called the "Sunset Red Homecoming Tour Travel Manual DLC Integration Pack"), and began to seriously read the shocking truths on them for the first time.

Obviously, they hadn't really read these things seriously before... It had to be said that Lili's cheap travel advertisement cover, which she downloaded from the Internet and randomly photoshopped, was a major factor leading to this result.

The Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace slowly accelerated and approached the "Cosmic Gate" in the center of the Rift Nebula. The image of Yggdrasil was gradually swept to the rear in the picture transmitted from the external monitors.

Ten thousand years ago, countless Dream Plane refugees came to this universe on that huge "Hyperspace Ark."

Ten thousand years later, one hundred Dream Plane survivors who had forgotten their hometown were passing by this ark on the Inspector's spaceship, embarking on their first journey back home with confusion.

"We are about to pass through the Cosmic Gate," on the bridge, Hao Ren switched the internal lines, and the image of the drone swarm's collective consciousness was presented on the communicator, "Swarm, turn on all monitoring points, from now on, I want you to monitor the cosmic parameters of all known spaces in the Dream Plane."

The Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace, like a bright and shiny drop of mercury, lightly fell into that gate.