Chapter 12345 At the Suggestion of Raven 12345

At the suggestion of Raven 12345, Hao Ren once again retrieved the black-covered book from his personal space and solemnly placed it on the coffee table.

He had actually read it once before—if opening the book and immediately being dizzied by the symbols on it counted as reading.

From the day he obtained this artifact, Hao Ren knew of its value. He knew that this strange "bible" with a chain and eight armored corners contained powerful energy. If he could master even one percent of its power, he could greatly increase his chances of success when facing the Lord of Madness in the future. Therefore, on the very night he brought this thing home, he recklessly opened the book and tried to read it—it was definitely a painful memory. The opening pages were alright, but the power contained in the main text of this book was completely unbearable for a half-baked demigod like him.

It was divine text imbued with pure divine power. Each symbol contained information equivalent to the foundation of the universe. This information was unrelated to the specific content written in the divine text, but rather its inherent attribute. During that brief reading of a few minutes, Hao Ren couldn't understand a single word. He only felt countless bizarre and unpredictable symbols flying in and out of his brain, and a vast ocean of forbidden knowledge was crammed into his mind, only to disappear in the next instant. In the end, he remembered nothing. His only gain was sleeping for a full seven hours...

Raven 12345 said that the content of this book was a chuunibyou (Middle School 2nd Year Syndrome) novel that would be dropped after three chapters, a thing that the Dark Valkyrie had made up during her rebellious chuunibyou period. But for Hao Ren, the specifics of the content weren't important. The process of reading those divine texts was equivalent to gazing at the truth of the universe—moreover, he hadn't even seen the beginning of this "chuunibyou novel" yet.

Lily and Nangong Sanba sat on Hao Ren's left and right, their eyes wide with curiosity as they looked at the thick, black-covered book. Doudou jumped onto the book and slapped its cover with her tail, waving her arms and shouting, "Papa! No read book! Papa no read book!"

The little one was afraid that Hao Ren would faint for a whole day after reading for two minutes, just like last time.

"Don't worry, Papa knows how to read this book this time," Hao Ren picked up the little merman and placed her in the water basin next to him. He silently repeated the secret trick Raven 12345 had told him in his heart, then turned to look at Lily and Nangong Sanba. "After I open the cover, don't look at the main text. Just watch my movements. If I'm not right, block my eyes immediately. Lily! Put your alloy greatsword away! I want you to block my eyes, not knock me unconscious!"

Lily stuck out her tongue and reluctantly threw the alloy Greatsword x11 aside.

Hao Ren took a deep breath and solemnly opened the cover of the black-covered book.

The moment the cover opened, the book broke free from his control. It began to flip wildly on its own, as if a gust of wind was sweeping its pages. Countless symbols and information began to flood into Hao Ren's mind, and his spiritual world almost reached the brink of collapse in an instant.

However, just as the situation was about to repeat itself, Hao Ren forcefully stopped the trend of his spiritual power collapsing and immediately shielded himself from all perception of his surroundings, focusing his spiritual power solely on the "bible" in front of him.

This was the "trick" that Raven 12345 had taught him, a clever way to read divine text.

Under this extreme mobilization of spiritual power, Hao Ren finally felt the wildly flipping pages in front of him gradually stop, and the symbols flying in front of his eyes slowly retreated out of sight. He began to see some coherent sentences and phrases. These phrases weren't fixed on the pages. As his gaze shifted, these phrases were constantly changing, as if a single sentence contained the evolution of all information in the universe.

Of course, this was just an illusion. Hao Ren tried to concentrate his mind and make the pages in his field of vision more stable. Then, he outlined the question he wanted to ask in his mind: If the Creation Goddess was already corrupted by the Lord of Madness when we find her, what should we do?

The words on the pages trembled, and began to extract the most appropriate answer from the vast ocean of information contained in this bible. But the text it presented was still not clear enough, so Hao Ren had to repeatedly strengthen the impression of that question in his mind to enhance the connection between himself and the artifact.

He felt his vision darkening and his head splitting, but before he completely lost control, the few lines of text on the pages finally became clear.

He succeeded!

Hao Ren widened his eyes and stared intently at the few sentences of "divine revelation" that had appeared, wanting to engrave them in his heart. The sentences were like this:

"Step one, open the book and reason with her. If she doesn't listen, proceed to step two."

"Step two, close the book, grab the chain, and swing it around to slap her in the face."

"Step three, open the book and reason with her."

"Step four, repeat the above until she is willing to reason with you."

Below was a line of small print: Persuade with reason.

Before Hao Ren fainted, he had only one sentence in his heart: What the heck, does that "reason" mean physical reason?

At the same moment, in the "Genesis Engine Foundry" in the Sluun Nebula of the Dream Plane, the last star forge was gradually calming down under the control of Ræmendurasa. All the forging materials were taken from the core of the star and temporarily sealed on a nearby planet, awaiting the order to start work again.

Ræmendurasa stood on the control platform in space, his body, over ten meters tall, plated with a layer of gold by the light of the star forge. His expression was serious with a hint of regret as he looked at the "star forge" in front of him, which was gradually shrinking into a normal star. He couldn't help but sigh softly, "The construction project is already more than halfway done."

Múru's voice came from behind him, "The most important golden disks are still missing nine, without those golden disks as the computing hub, even if the core of the Genesis Engine is completely completed, it will be meaningless, so let's just stop it. Besides, the outer frame of the engine is still missing in the Dark Domain."

"There's no way around it, the blueprints had problems after all." Ræmendurasa glanced at his brother, then turned back to continue supervising the project in space. A large number of traction barges were busy near the "Sunport" above the star forge, transporting the parts that had already been cast and the materials that were not needed for the time being to nearby storage depots. Further away, a huge pale golden space facility was quietly floating among the stars, its shell shining with the light of the stars.

That was the unfinished Genesis Engine - this incredible device already had some preliminary form, it was like a small planet assembled from a large number of giant mechanical structures and curved metal plates. Two-thirds of the artificial dwarf planet's skeleton had been built, and a small part of the shell had been covered. The unfinished parts were like a pile of gaps that had been gnawed out. The light emitted by the engine's power pipelines and the tail flames spewed out by the engineering spacecraft flickered in these gaps, but with the assembly project suspended, all construction work had stopped. The engineering spacecraft were only responsible for daily maintenance and inspection inside the Genesis Engine.

Although this engine had a theoretically unlimited lifespan after completion, its self-repair function and stability field had not yet been activated before completion. Maintaining such a huge thing in good condition required constant maintenance.

Ræmendurasa had been supervising this project for a long time. This engine had been his great effort, from a blueprint to its current preliminary form. Now that the project was stopped, he was naturally a little disappointed.

But the message sent by Hao Ren had to be taken seriously. Ræmendurasa knew that the "Heavenly God's Spokesperson" from another world would not speak casually. Since he had urgently called a halt to the construction of the Genesis Engine, it meant that something really big had happened.

"The project here probably won't be restarted for a while," Múru was also gazing thoughtfully at the Genesis Engine in space, but he was speaking to Ræmendurasa, "Are you going back to Tanagrus first? The planet's ecology has completely recovered, you should go back and take a look."

"Of course, I'll go back," Ræmendurasa nodded, then his tone became serious, "Do you think the reason for this emergency stop is really what Hao Ren said?"

"Blueprint defect?" Múru shook his head, "Probably only Sif really believes it. You and I can feel that things aren't that simple."

"Sure enough, you think so too," Ræmendurasa exhaled, "The blueprint was personally reviewed by that deity called Raven 12345. If there were defects in the blueprint itself, the true god couldn't possibly not see it, so this is obviously an excuse."

"Hao Ren is a trustworthy person, at least he's on our side."

"Yes, so I believe he must have his reasons for doing so," Ræmendurasa nodded, "Perhaps... it's related to our mother. If it's about this, he'll probably temporarily hide the truth from us out of caution."

Múru looked into Ræmendurasa's eyes, as if trying to see something from his expression: "My brother, do you know something? I can feel... you've shielded a part of your mind."

"Yes, I know some things," Ræmendurasa said frankly, "But I can't say it. I can only tell you that I am loyal to mother, loyal to every mission she has given us, and on this premise, I will not do anything that harms her."

Múru looked at Ræmendurasa quietly for a while, and finally nodded slightly, "Of course, I trust you."

The two guardian giants did not speak again, but turned around and stared at the direction of the Genesis Engine, each immersed in thought.

Múru was thinking about what kind of fate the universe would face next, but Ræmendurasa's thoughts returned to that battlefield - for him, what happened on that battlefield still felt like it had just happened.

He recalled the arcs of energy that tore the earth apart, recalled the rebel fleet that blotted out the sky, recalled the many inexplicable, fragmented, and even contradictory orders from the Founding Star: some of the orders required all guardian forces to evacuate immediately and escape into the depths of the universe, while others required all guardians to defend their positions to the last moment.

Faced with such contradictory orders, the guardian forces chose to defend.

Ræmendurasa recalled not only these things, his memory continued to extend forward, all the way back to the days on the Founding Star before the Godslaying War broke out.

He... had once vaguely seen a very thin, almost imperceptible shadow standing next to the Creation Goddess.