Chapter 117 God's Command?

From just those fragmentary notes, Hao Ren could deduce two shocking key points:

First, the ancient magic empire not only used amazing biochemical technology when creating the demon hunters (or ancient races), but also touched upon "divinity." Of course, Hao Ren believed that the magic empire of that time was not powerful enough to touch the true power of gods. What they came into contact with should have been the product of this power's further decay and evolution, but even so, it was enough to show that those magic emperors had indeed begun research into the power of gods. They called their research results "divine cells," which were clearly something tangible that could be manipulated and replicated!

Second, their research was actually carried out under "divine revelation"!

The last paragraph of the notes was obviously not nonsense. The person who left these records mentioned divine revelation and the will of the Goddess of Creation, and even said that progress could only be made under the blessing of the goddess. On the one hand, this confirmed Hao Ren's previous guess that demon hunters were not a blasphemous product, but were created on the premise of believing in the goddess. On the other hand, it greatly exceeded Hao Ren's expectations.

The magic emperors not only created demon hunters while adhering to their faith in the goddess, but even their project itself… was because the Goddess of Creation had sent down a divine revelation?!

Did the goddess tell them to create these "perfect beings"?

"Let me see, let me see!" Lily saw Hao Ren spacing out and couldn't restrain her burning curiosity. She immediately jumped and snatched the notes from Hao Ren's hand. The husky girl stared with golden eyes and quickly flipped through the pages, reading everything in a minute. Then, she revealed a look of surprise.

"According to this… demon hunters were created by the order of the Goddess of Creation?" Lily also saw the key point at a glance—although she was usually silly, her judgment was always good, and even in terms of judgment and observation, she was much stronger than others, after all, her instincts were powerful. "What's mentioned here is obviously the process of creating demon hunters… Wait! Landlord! I thought of a question!"

"What question?" Hao Ren was stunned. He hadn't seen any clues from these records, but he didn't expect Lily to discover something.

"This ruin is where they ‘developed’ demon hunters, right? Time was frozen here until recently, right? The equipment here is just a semi-finished product of the Origin Artifact, and can't successfully create real demon hunters, right?" Lily asked one question after another, ticking them off on her fingers. There was no pause between each question, obviously these questions didn't need to be answered. "And look at these notes, it's obvious that the people here hadn't successfully created a real ‘finished demon hunter’ until the moment the ruin was closed and time was frozen…"

Before Lily could finish speaking, Hao Ren already understood what she meant.

"In other words, this is not the place where demon hunters were ultimately created, but should only be an experimental base used in the early stages of the project," Hao Ren said, looking at the clean and new laboratory equipment around him, his eyebrows gradually furrowing together. "This place was suddenly abandoned after the project reached the most critical step, that is, successfully synthesizing stable ‘divine cells’. The entire experimental base was frozen in time and space, and the people who evacuated from here took the experimental data and other things and transferred to another place to complete the final part of the project, creating the first generation of demon hunters (ancient races)."

"That should be right," Vivian agreed. "I didn't expect you, big dog, to be able to discover problems."

"That's right, I'm very smart!" Lily had been called big dog for a long time and had already stopped reacting to the words. At this time, she happily wagged her tail, her beautiful pointed ears twitching slightly.

"Then explain why they suddenly abandoned this place," Vivian raised her eyebrows. "Why did they suddenly abandon this place when the experiment was going smoothly? This entire experimental base looks intact, right?"

"How would I know," Lily waved her hand carelessly. "Maybe the higher-ups suddenly ordered this place to be demolished. Anyway, it's all ancient history from ten thousand years ago, who are you going to ask?"

"And there are some details that I don't understand," Hao Ren's eyebrows were still furrowed. "The experimental projects here seem to have been suddenly terminated. The magic arrays and alchemy containers that Haimer the Archmage discovered that hadn't stopped can be used as evidence, but the people here seemed to have plenty of time when they evacuated. They almost took away all the research data that could be taken away, leaving us only these unimportant random notes and diaries. How do you explain that?"

Haimer, who had been listening silently, spoke at this time. Although he was still confused about the ancient secrets that Hao Ren and others were discussing, this did not prevent him from sorting out some personal conjectures based on the existing information: "Taking away the data shows that their evacuation had a reaction time, or at least they received the notification a few hours before leaving. Leaving those reaction containers and magic arrays that were still running was because it was not easy to stop them—you may not understand, some chain reaction magic experimental devices are difficult to stop suddenly, because most magic arrays have a 'self-sustaining' characteristic during operation. It will self-maintain operation, and rashly stopping it is likely to cause an explosion and backlash against the caster. For this solid base, as long as all personnel are evacuated and all data is taken away, leaving those devices and magic arrays that are reacting is actually not important. They will naturally stop smoothly after the energy is exhausted. Of course, allowing these things to operate on their own without supervision also has a certain risk of getting out of control, but compared to the consequences that may be caused by forcibly shutting them all down, the former is obviously easier to accept."

With an expert in local Holletta magic technology explaining, it was much easier to sort out these minor doubts. Hao Ren nodded as he listened, but still felt a little incredible: "But just leaving the operating experimental equipment… it really doesn't sound like something a precise and stable magic laboratory would do."

"But if things are urgent, there's no way," Haimer spread his hands. "An unexpected change must have happened at the time, which only allowed them to collect the available data, but not to process the various experimental devices that had already started operating."

"What kind of change could it be?" Hao Ren said, while subconsciously looking at the surrounding architectural structures that seemed intact. Just from the surface, it was impossible to see that any accident had occurred here that would cause the entire base to be completely emptied.

Lily's ears twitched and she involuntarily looked in a certain direction. Her gaze passed through the door of the laboratory and landed on the door at the end of the hall.

"What are you looking at?" Vivian glanced at the husky girl.

Lily's ears turned back and forth: "Could there be an answer behind the second door? The people here evacuated urgently, but they carefully closed every door when they left—if it's the outermost door of the base, that's fine, but why did they seal the doors inside the base layer by layer? And the more internal the door, the more tightly it was sealed. Haimer also said that the second door is much more difficult to deal with than the main door of the base."

Hao Ren had to think highly of Lily's intuition once again. The husky girl's words made his heart light up: the change might not have come from outside, there might be something wrong inside the base!

They quickly came to the second door. Facing the closed door, everyone felt a little nervous.

It was a door made of an unknown super-hard alloy. The nearly five-meter-high metal door was decorated with patterns in the style of the ancient magic empire. A series of tiny sparks jumped between the gray-white metal door and the surrounding light golden door frame. These sparks were injected into the straight line grooves on the door, and faintly carried a texture like flowing liquid.

For today's alchemists and magic construct technicians in Holletta, this door alone was already an invaluable heritage. With just one glance, anyone with discerning eyes could see that it simultaneously contained a large number of high-level settings such as charging reinforcement, rune encryption, energy deflection protection, and reactive shield. No wonder Haimer the Archmage, such a rising genius who was outstanding even in the Royal Magician Association, was at a loss when facing this door, making no progress for several days, and had only just figured out its charging principle.

"Terminal, can you handle it?" Hao Ren took out the data terminal and asked it to scan the energy flow of the door.

"It's not troublesome, but it will take a little time," the data terminal scanned it roughly and understood the operating mechanism of the door. "Give this unit thirty minutes, of course, if you are willing to give this unit two high-explosive armor-piercing shells, it will be faster…"

Hao Ren threw the terminal towards the door: "Get lost, do your job honestly!"

"Tch, a guy who exploits labor."

The data terminal mumbled, but still obediently floated in front of the second door, connecting its energy with the magic conduits on the door, and began to crack the door's encryption using normal procedures.

Its calculation speed far exceeded Haimer and his team of apprentices many times!

Haimer the Archmage and several apprentices stared blankly at the scene in front of them. They watched the energy flow on the door become smoother and smoother. This was a sign that various warning magic arrays were ceasing, so they were all dumbfounded: they had been tossing for several days without any effect, and this thing that looked no bigger than a brick went up and fiddled with it for a while and the door opened?!

However, Hao Ren didn't care what Haimer and his apprentices were thinking. He just quietly looked at the super-alloy door, thinking about what kind of change had occurred inside this base back then—although he guessed that the internal problems led to the evacuation of the personnel here, he always felt that something was wrong, for no other reason than that the hall outside looked too bright and intact.

Although the emergency evacuation of the year inevitably led to some mess in the various laboratories, in addition to this mess, no traces of damage could be seen in the outer area of the base. Even the door in front of him, which may have been used to block danger, did not have any damage or signs of being impacted—if there really was a major accident in the deep layers of the base, how could there be no leakage at all?

It definitely wouldn't be ten thousand years of time that erased these traces: because the time and space here were once frozen!

And just as these thoughts were turning in Hao Ren's mind, the data terminal's cracking work was gradually coming to an end. The runes on the door were dimming one by one, looking as if they could be opened at any time.

"Everyone stand back a little." At the critical moment, Hao Ren still had the spirit of caution. He signaled everyone to retreat to prevent any dangerous things from rushing out from behind the door and catching everyone off guard.

And the door gradually slid open to both sides after making a series of creaking mechanical sounds.

Suddenly, a strong warning of danger struck his heart!