Chapter 1 The Resounding of Crystals

The faint light emanating from the crystal clusters began to flicker rhythmically, and the crystals scattered across the seabed resonated like an orchestra tuning up for a concert. This was a silent resonance, for there was no sound in the deep sea, only the light dancing across the surfaces of the crystals, reflecting each other in a mysterious rhythm, as if playing a silent symphony. Soon, the rhomboid crystal fragments floating among the clusters joined in the flickering, and arcs of light shot out from one crystal, then leapt to another two through the fragments—countless such leaps dividing into two, then four, spreading almost instantaneously across the entire seabed. In the depths of the Red Moon Sea, light surged like a tide!

The data terminal saw this and immediately began shouting in its mental connection with Hao Ren, "Buddy! Why are these crystals suddenly flashing! Did you do something? Buddy...buddy?"

Hao Ren didn't respond at all to the data terminal's shouting. He stood there motionless, his palm still pressed against the crystal. In fact, from the moment the burning sensation had traveled through his hand, he had briefly lost all perception of the real world.

Because he had been drawn into a phantasm—a completely new phantasm.

Heavy clouds pressed low on the horizon, and the sky was shrouded in chaotic, thick clouds, a uniform iron-grey in texture. Countless enormous lightning bolts danced between the clouds, illuminating the cloud-covered world as bright as day. Occasionally, one or two bolts would break free of the clouds' constraints, striking the ground like golden pythons falling from the sky and exploding with deafening roars. And on that dark, heavy earth, stood countless blue-white crystals, hundreds of meters tall. They grew in clusters, like vast forests stretching as far as the eye could see.

The lightning strikes from the sky were often attracted to those giant crystals, and the powerful current was instantly injected into their interior, causing them to erupt with brilliant light. The light emitted from one crystal would "activate" more of the surrounding clusters, and the light would spread as if leaping between the crystals, often extending through dozens of crystals before gradually weakening.

Crystal clusters covering the earth, lightning charging the crystals, light leaping between the crystals—this was the magnificent sight that greeted Hao Ren when he opened his eyes.

Even if he couldn't immediately understand what was happening, he could be sure that this was definitely not a scene from the Red Moon—nor was it likely to be a scene from the Creation Star.

After trying to call his teammates and receiving no response, he vaguely realized what had happened: he seemed to have been drawn once again into a phantasm world related to the Goddess of Creation.

But this time, what he saw in the phantasm was markedly different from anything he had seen before—this world, filled with thunder and strange crystal clusters, didn't look like the battlefield of the Godslayer War, nor did it look like the place where the Guardian Giants or the First Born lived. It was quite desolate, and didn't seem suitable for any kind of carbon-based life. Why would the crystal jungle in the Red Moon Sea bring him to such a place?

Hao Ren checked his shield status, then took out his plasma long spear and Inspector pistol from his personal space, and began to cautiously explore.

Based on past experience, any time he fell into such a hallucination, it was invariably linked to some major event in the Goddess of Creation's history. Whether it was the scene of the goddess launching the Seed of Origin or the assassination of the Godslayers, the range of the phantasm was limited, and the Goddess of Creation was often at the center of everything. Moreover, a kind of mysterious "guidance" would come into play, causing Hao Ren to subconsciously head towards the core of the scene—so after confirming that this was a phantasm, Hao Ren let loose and wandered across the land, following his inner guidance.

He first examined the clusters of crystals growing everywhere, confirming that they were the same thing as the crystals on the seabed of the Red Moon, only their size was many times greater. This was probably because the Red Moon was merely a 1:8 scale "model," and the crystals on the seabed had been shrunk accordingly.

There was another advantage to this phantasm world—unlike the Red Moon, which was a "static" "snapshot," here, everything was in a state of activity: lightning was charging the crystals, the crystals were resonating, and a rhythmic hum could be heard from the depths of the earth. In the air, one could clearly feel the slight tingling brought about by the activation of some kind of energy field.

This allowed Hao Ren to observe the operation of the crystals more accurately and clearly, as well as the secrets this world might be hiding—if the data terminal were here, its scanning function would certainly provide more detailed data.

Unfortunately, Hao Ren was the only one who could enter the phantasm world.

"Seems to be some kind of signal amplification device...also functions as communication," Hao Ren said as he stopped beneath a crystal that was constantly pulsing with electricity. He carefully touched the surface of the crystal with the butt of his plasma long spear, and observed the reactions of several nearby crystals to this stimulus. "Reminds me of a neural network..."

"The lightning discharges from the sky are constant, and there's no obvious trend of increase or decrease. The clouds are very thick, it's completely impossible to observe the starry sky."

"The probe isn't working, can't fly above the clouds, probably the range in the phantasm is limited, the top of the clouds is the boundary of this space..."

Hao Ren explored this world while recording his findings. Although the absence of the data terminal brought him a lot of trouble, having this firsthand observation data would always come in handy in the future: this was the experience he had accumulated after experiencing more than one phantasm world.

He didn't wander among the crystal jungle for too long. After advancing in a certain direction for about two hours, following his intuition, he came to a "barrier" surging with black mist. There was no road further ahead.

The heavy black mist surged in front of him, the wall formed by the black mist reaching to the sky above and touching the earth below, extending to the infinitely distant horizon on both sides, as if the entire world had been cut off by this layer of black mist. Hao Ren was stunned when he saw this boundary: this was the first time he had seen such a situation.

He had reached the boundary of the phantasm world, but he hadn't seen the most important thing in this scene...the Goddess of Creation.

The Goddess of Creation wasn't here? This phantasm wasn't left behind by the goddess? Then what did this world mean? The lightning leaping in the sky, the crystals shining brightly on the earth, and the mysterious connection between this world and the Red Moon...was the clue cut off here?

Hao Ren shook his head, instinctively feeling that this inexplicable phantasm wasn't so simple. This "crystal world" filled with lightning and strange energy was inextricably linked to the Red Moon, and it couldn't just be such a simple scene.

He took another step forward, and reached his hand into the chaotic black mist.

At the same moment, in the outside world, the Red Moon suddenly emitted a light several times brighter than before.

The moonlight shone brightly, and the entire sky was filled with a faint red, so that all the visible stars in space were covered by the moonlight. Then the red in the moonlight gradually faded, turning into a clear, normal light, but its brightness did not diminish but increased. The people remaining on the surface of Erem Planet looked up in astonishment at this strange phenomenon. They saw that the sky seemed to have become a huge projection screen, and the Red Moon was the source of the projection. Around that bright moon, the original starry sky had been replaced by a star chart with various icons and pointing symbols. The star chart was full of unfamiliar and unknown galaxies. The galaxies were connected by complex lines, and a bright band of light leapt between the stars, seemingly indicating a hidden route, but this star chart did not seem complete. It was filled with patches of darkness, and many data had been replaced by garbled codes. Even the band of light indicating the route was intermittent, and showed a completely unidentifiable chaotic and void state at the end.

Lily immediately raised her alloy greatsword x9 and looked at Vivian, but saw that the latter was also looking up at the sky with a bewildered expression. Vivian noticed Lily's gaze, quickly turned her head, and waved her hand: "Don't pat me yet, I'm sober here! And I've seen this star chart before, it's harmless...but why did it suddenly pop up?"

Nangong Sanba immediately shouted into the communication device floating beside the summoning array: "What exactly is happening on the Red Moon?"

What answered him was the data terminal: "Hao Ren came into contact with the crystals on the seabed of the Red Moon Sea, and seems to have been sucked into the phantasm again. This unit is monitoring his condition. He's in good health right now, just don't know if his san value will be a problem..."

Hearing that Hao Ren wasn't injured, Vivian first breathed a sigh of relief: contact with phantasms wasn't scary, after all, this wasn't the first time Hao Ren had come into contact with that stuff, but this commotion...how could it be so big?

The black mist in front of him trembled violently, as if it had been greatly stimulated and was on the verge of collapse. Hao Ren wanted to pull his hand back, but events unfolded faster than he could react. In the next second, the mist had swallowed him. When he finally broke free from the mist, he found himself in some kind of interior space.

This was an extremely magnificent domed hall, comparable in scale to the goddess palace he had seen on the Creation Star, but the style was very different—strictly speaking, this was because the entire hall hadn't been finely carved and decorated, and thus seemed primitive and rough.

The entire domed hall seemed to have been carved out of the mountain. The walls and floor were uncarved rock, and the high dome was inlaid with large chunks of crystal: the material of the crystal looked exactly like the crystal clusters Hao Ren had seen on the plains.

And in the center of the crystal hall was an unprecedentedly huge crystal cluster: it was almost like a small mountain, and not inferior to the crystal spire in the Crystal Core Research Station. The top of the blue-white crystal cluster was dozens of meters away from the dome, and thick electric arcs silently leapt between the crystal cluster and the dome, as if containing enormous energy.

Beneath that huge crystal cluster, Hao Ren saw the crystals growing in an abnormal and twisted way. They intertwined with each other, forming a shape that resembled a throne.

A vaguely discernible figure stood in front of the throne, and from the back, one could vaguely make out that it was a woman.

The Goddess of Creation?

Hao Ren ran over quickly, but even when he got closer, he found that it was impossible to see the woman's face clearly.

He could only see that the figure suddenly started walking, slowly heading towards the crystal throne.

The phantasm world trembled violently, and a feeling of waking up from a dream spread from Hao Ren's heart.

He desperately wanted to grab something, but couldn't stop the collapse of this dream. In the increasingly skewed and twisted vision, he could only see that vague figure slowly sitting on the throne, then crystals grew out of the earth, sealing her and the throne together, freezing them.

The phantasm ended, Hao Ren opened his eyes, and saw that the crystal prism in front of him was gradually returning to darkness.