Chapter 1 A Mysterious Structure

A massive electromagnetic storm exploded over the city. Because it was only a few hundred meters above the ground, the shockwave caused a gust of wind around everyone, and everything seemed to be electrified. Crackling sparks appeared everywhere in the air, and the ozone produced by ionization filled the surroundings with a pungent odor. The invisible magnetic field was even more powerful than the discharge in the air. It swept through the entire block, and within its range, all the stone statues trembled and stopped, then fell to the ground one after another.

In the sky, a huge, transparent jellyfish-like thing was revealed by the electromagnetic storm.

It looked like a cotton candy floating high in the sky, with a turbulent appearance and illusory boundaries. Countless shimmering lines extended from the bottom of this huge transparent structure, each line connecting to a stone statue guard on the ground below. After the guards destroyed by the magnetic field fell, the "connections" attached to them would be retracted, looking like a jellyfish retracting its tentacles.

This spectacular mysterious structure made everyone exclaim in amazement—except for Gun Gun. The poor cat girl was hurt and frightened, and was now hugging Hao Ren's leg and meowing non-stop, completely unaware of the situation in the sky.

Hao Ren finally saw clearly what he had vaguely sensed before. He guessed that it should be completely invisible, and even now what everyone saw was not its true appearance: it should be something that does not interact with the material world. It was only the powerful energy released by Vivian that bombarded its key nodes, causing the area where the "jellyfish" came into contact with the material world to become electrified, and the distorted discharge layer outlined its silhouette.

Hao Ren's first reaction was to raise his hand and fire a shot, then directly release a round of heavy missiles from his personal space to bombard the strange "jellyfish."

The psionic pistol stirred up a small blue flame on the surface of the "jellyfish." The ray directly penetrated its structure, but the damage caused was insignificant compared to its overall volume. The heavy missiles simply penetrated the main body of the thing. The latter seemed to be a phantom that did not exist in the real world, and did not produce any friction with the missiles.

After the missiles passed through the thing, a huge explosion occurred at the distant boundary of space. Immediately, this already unstable alien space began to collapse even more violently.

Hao Ren immediately dispelled the idea of violently destroying the "jellyfish."

"Holy crap... what is that thing?" Lily looked up, dumbfounded. "A wraith? Or the soul of the Firstborn?"

"Neither looks like it. Wraiths have no form, and the soul of the Firstborn is much larger than it," Hao Ren shook his head. "But it should be something close to a soul... I have this intuition. Elizabeth, do you know what this is?"

The little devil shook her head: "I don't know. I'm just using my experience in dealing with golem soldiers. This thing should have been floating above the city all the time, and was in a dormant state along with the golem soldiers, but our investigation of the previous temple stimulated this thing, and it suddenly woke up. This is considered the control center of the golem soldiers. I just had Vivian hit the connection nodes between it and the lower-level golem soldiers. The electromagnetic shock should make it lose its perception of the lower-level nodes for a short time—in other words, the golem soldiers will be blind for a period of time in the future."

"Opportunity knocks," Hao Ren reacted immediately, waving his hand. "Everyone, hurry to the Great Temple while we have the chance!"

Elizabeth's judgment was correct. The little devil girl was indeed a golem genius who could create her own Papa No. 1, 2, and 3. As she said, after the "jellyfish" in the sky was temporarily paralyzed by Vivian's electromagnetic storm, the golem legion on the ground also fell into a short period of chaos.

They lost control of the overall battlefield and no longer acted as uniformly as before. Instead, they began to wander around like headless flies. Each golem soldier became a blind man fighting alone, and their own intelligence was obviously not enough for these stone lumps to complete independent combat.

Hao Ren and his party advanced through the streets blocked by the golem legion in a thrilling manner. They could see the shaking giant statues at almost every intersection and main road. The latter's rampage was accelerating the destruction of this mysterious ancient city. The edge of the city had not yet collapsed into the vortex of spatial collapse, but the buildings inside the city had already been almost flattened by its own guardians. And those shaking statues basically turned a blind eye to the "invaders" running past them. Even if Hao Ren and his party accidentally got too close or encountered one or two statues head-on, the other giants around them seemed to be completely unaware when they solved these statues.

But as they continued to approach the Great Temple, Hao Ren couldn't help but click his tongue in amazement:

There were so many giant statue guards in this city!

Although he knew before that one-third of the area of this ancient city was occupied by temples, and the number of religious facilities in the city far exceeded the demand, and each temple had a number of statues far exceeding the general regulations, it was not until these statues all walked out of their respective temples and gathered into a dark, oppressive legion on the streets that Hao Ren realized that the scale of this "army" was far beyond imagination.

Even Vivian exclaimed in amazement, the number of golems in this city, even in the mythical era when demons danced wildly, could be called a militaristic configuration.

"This city must not be an independent city-state. It is supported by other cities, either the capital or a religious center. Otherwise, with the productivity of that year, an independent city-state could not afford a golem legion of this scale," Vivian descended slightly from the sky and floated beside Hao Ren, talking about her reasoning as she hurried on her way. "But such a powerful country has not even left a name behind, which is a bit incredible. And the 'spiritual body' they used to guard the city..."

As she spoke, she looked up at the sky. The huge jellyfish-like transparent structure was still floating high in the sky, and the electrification caused by the electromagnetic storm to that area had not yet subsided. Therefore, the "jellyfish's" connection to the stone statue legion on the ground was still paralyzed, but as time went by, the discharge layer in the sky was also rapidly dimming at a speed visible to the naked eye, and this paralysis was probably about to end.

However, the Great Temple in the center of the ancient city had already appeared at the end of the line of sight.

Vivian retracted her gaze towards the sky and shook her head: "This kind of thing is rare even in the mythical era. As long as it has appeared, it must have a great reputation, but I have never heard of it, which is really incredible."

At this time, the voice of the data terminal suddenly sounded in everyone's hearts: "Regarding the name of this ancient city, this unit has figured it out."

The main body of the data terminal was still floating above the city at this moment, undertaking the responsibilities of aerial observation and crisis early warning, but it still had plenty of spare computing power to participate in Hao Ren and Vivian's topic. As the data terminal's voice fell, the small holographic projection device floating beside Hao Ren also presented the picture transmitted by the data terminal—it was the mural that everyone had previously discovered in the temple.

The mural depicted the legend of the ancient behemoth "Ertos," but at that time, the stone statue guards suddenly woke up, and Hao Ren's research on these murals had to be interrupted prematurely. Now it seemed that the data terminal had completed a comprehensive analysis of the mural content.

Hao Ren was of two minds, looking at the content on the mural while hurrying on his way, and listening to the data terminal's report at the same time:

"These murals are continuous, telling the story of the disasters this city once suffered and the glorious history of its resurgence. Initially, this city did not exist. There were only some loose tribes on this land, ruled by a group of half-beast, half-human 'gods.' They were the first rulers of this land. Later, a monster called 'Ertos' suddenly appeared. That is the thing in the first mural. It was taller than a mountain, but had thin and long legs. It walked on the ground, but its body could rise from the clouds—this monster released lightning and flames as it walked, destroying many tribes on the earth. That is the content described in the second mural. But later, a very powerful 'Great Overlord' descended on this land, and this 'Great Overlord' launched a battle against Ertos..."

Hao Ren looked at the third mural, which was the picture that had been interrupted by the stone statue guards and had not been carefully examined before.

On the screen, an image composed of abstract lines appeared in front of Ertos. This image was like a Native American-style wooden mask, with facial contours connected by exaggerated and ridiculous straight lines. Hao Ren initially thought that this was the appearance of the "Great Overlord" and sighed that there were really all kinds of rare things in the mythical era, but Vivian soon explained that this was actually just an "idealized incarnation." The Great Overlord should be too powerful, so that the primitive people did not dare to directly describe ta's appearance, so they used the simple religious concepts of the time to depict a mythologized totem detached from the human image for this "Great Overlord."

This totem was the mask floating in front of Ertos.

"The Great Overlord fought Ertos for three days and three nights. Flames and storms swept across everything on the earth. Only one tribe survived, because this tribe realized the power of the Great Overlord in advance and sought refuge behind the Overlord," the data terminal continued to interpret. "Later, the Great Overlord finally won. Ertos was torn apart by the power of the Great Overlord. Its body was divided into four parts, which fell on the ground and became four fertile lands, while Ertos's head fell in front of the last surviving tribe—this was the greatest trophy. Therefore, the beast-headed god in the tribe built a city on this head to express his awe and gratitude to the Great Overlord. The name of the city is Ertos."

In the fourth mural, was the scene of Ertos falling into the earth in pieces, and a group of humans, driven by the half-beast, half-human "ancient gods," climbed onto Ertos's head and built a city on its skull.

There was no doubt that this city was the one in front of everyone, and its name was Ertos.

"And then?" Hao Ren asked, realizing that the data terminal was silent.

"That's the end of it."

Hao Ren: "... Holy crap, that's the end of it? I was getting into it and you're telling me it's been cut off?!"

Vivian quickly comforted him from the side: "Don't be angry, don't be angry, this kind of thing is normal. Who had the time to engage in cultural inheritance in the mythical era? Not many myths from that year were complete. The Dead Sea Scrolls weren't finished either..."

Hao Ren: "..."

"These historical records should have a sequel," the data terminal continued at this time. "Based on some incomplete texts in the previous temple, this unit believes that each temple in this city has a different 'class.' The information that different classes of temples are allowed to record is different, so the records in one temple may not be complete—but the Great Temple in the center of the city should have the most complete historical data."

"The Great Temple..." Hao Ren raised his head, and the towering main body of the Great Temple was already in front of him.