Chapter 1 An Unexpected Development

To be honest, ever since taking on the mess that was the Dream Plane, Hao Ren's mentality had improved significantly, if nothing else.

Every day, he encountered various remnants of civilizations, planetary debris, and divine relics. Every now and then, he would even run into an ancient demigod like Lockmarton exploding on the spot. Hardly any of the matters he handled were universally joyous. He even earned the nicknames "Bomb Ren" and "Corpse Collector" among his colleagues. Honed by such experiences, he had already cultivated a heart as steady as Mount Tai and nerves so thick that he wouldn't even flinch if the power went out on his computer without saving. As the saying goes, after working in a morgue for a long time, being thrown into a conflict zone in the Middle East feels like visiting relatives back home...

Therefore, with the dust settled, the culprit subdued, and the Amentir Crystal in hand, the pollution it suffered was no longer a major issue in Hao Ren's eyes.

Although the contamination of this thing was indeed a problem.

Above Platform Three, the Amentir Crystal hovered silently. It had the same size and shape as the other two crystals, but its color had completely changed. The surface of the crystal was filled with vein-like patterns, and within the crystal, large patches of shadow and dark red could be seen. But these contaminations were not the most fatal parts. The most serious was the bottom of the crystal: there were large chunks of pitch-black structures, like bone spurs growing out from the inside of the crystal. Some of these structures even showed signs of fracture, as if something had once been connected to them.

Not long ago, the nerve lines extending from the giant Dream-Weaving Brain were connected to these protrusions.

"The Mad Lord's corruption has stopped. Because the source of pollution is lost, the chaotic power attached to the crystal no longer has the ability to infect it a second time," Salamane said with a sigh. "But the damage to the crystal itself is irreversible. Its structure is already distorted. In this case, the success rate of the Amentir Crystal resonating with the other two crystals again is negligible."

"I'm having the equipment here perform a full scan of it," Hao Ren nodded gently. "Collect all the information, and then use deduction and reverse engineering to repair the distorted data, and virtually reproduce the beacon data stored inside the crystal. This is the best method I can think of."

Salamane expressed his approval of the plan: "A good idea, but simply repairing the data is probably not enough. In the end, we still need the material structure of the crystal—reproducing its material structure won't be so easy."

"Tsk, if it really doesn't work, we'll have to ask the boss for help," Hao Ren clicked his tongue. "Most likely, that silly goddess will nag me."

Salamane now knew more about Hao Ren's background and that there was a "God of the Outer Realms" supporting his actions. Hearing Hao Ren's words, the old giant was stunned: "Is it really okay for you to evaluate your goddess like that?"

Hao Ren waved his hand indifferently: "Corporate culture, corporate culture—by the way, Data Terminal, how are the faeries doing?"

The Data Terminal's tone sounded as if it had experienced the vicissitudes of life: "It wasn't easy... finally, they were all unloaded... the Guardian Giants provided a batch of new node crystals. Those blockhead faeries have already been transferred to the new crystals and should be having a blast with their little friends."

Hearing this, Hao Ren couldn't help but look into the distance. He had been a little worried before, wondering if those Amentir faeries with a black-red dull hair on their heads would encounter any problems after returning to their clan. After all, they had been more or less corrupted by the Mad Lord's power, and faeries were a super timid and neurotic race. It was hard to guarantee that the ordinary faeries who had not been corrupted would be frightened when they saw their dull-haired fellows, but the fact proved that his wild guesses were completely wasted feelings. It wasn't that the faeries' courage had suddenly grown, but...

Those ordinary faeries didn't realize that the Amentir faeries had been corrupted. Even after being told the truth, they completely forgot about it after playing with the Amentir faeries for three minutes.

Hao Ren reckoned that the faerie race belonged to the type that even if you were going to kill their whole family, it wouldn't matter as long as they didn't see it with their own eyes...

Confirming that the faeries were all safe and sound, everyone's worries were put to rest. After leaving the laboratory, Hao Ren brought up another matter that concerned him.

"Those Starry Sky People... is there still a chance for them to recover?"

Everyone couldn't help but raise their heads, looking up at the sky of the Nexus Planet.

The thick charging clouds blocked their vision. People standing on the surface could not see the sky behind the clouds, nor could they see the crystalline shield that enveloped the Holy Land, defending the planet like a crystal wall. However, everyone knew that the thoughts and lives of three thousand Starry Sky People were condensed there, unwavering for thousands of years, even to this day.

"They haven't had any response to the outside world since three thousand years ago," Salamane's holographic image said faintly, with a hint of emotion and sadness in his tone. "That impact destroyed many of the Starry Sky People's souls, and their strength was probably exhausted in the thousands of years of war that followed."

The old giant's implication was self-evident.

"The war is over, but none of them can wake up?" Lily's ears drooped listlessly. "It just feels... unhappy."

A crystal supported by metal floating rings drifted silently to everyone's side, and Asu Man's voice came from the crystal: "For us, the Ancients, to be able to sleep in such a battlefield is already considered a fitting death. I think my compatriots will have no regrets."

"Your loyalty to the Goddess of Creation... is admirable," Izhaks said from the bottom of his heart. "In my hometown, there are also many 'gods,' and the fanatics can be used to describe some of their followers, but I have never seen any god who, ten thousand years after their fall, still has a group of supporters like you who fight for her without regret. The Guardian Giants are beings created by the goddess, so I can understand, but you... why do you do this?"

Asu Man was silent for a moment, and a melodious voice like wind chimes came from the crystal: "This has nothing to do with loyalty or faith. This is because every Ancient retains the memory of that dark, chaotic era, and only by experiencing that era can we understand how precious the era of order opened up by the Goddess of Creation is.

"You have not experienced it firsthand, so you probably cannot understand what kind of era that was, nor can you understand what the Goddess of Creation, who suddenly appeared before us at that time, meant to us—we never thought that there would be a god as powerful but also kind and friendly as her in the chaotic and dangerous universe. The Mad Lord is also a god to us, or something similar to a god, but he is dangerous, wild, and brutal. The Goddess of Creation is another god, with the same powerful power, but faces us with kindness and salvation. Her appearance changed not only the fate of one or several Ancients, but the trajectory of the entire universe, the trajectory of all living beings.

"Therefore, we are acting with a belief that is purer than loyalty and faith. If you insist on saying that this is another extreme of loyalty, it is actually not wrong—we will fight for the Goddess of Creation, for the order she created, because for every Ancient, maintaining this order is a part of truth, the natural law of the universe, and the natural law by which we can survive."

"Whether a god can gain eternity depends not on His power, but on His actions," Izhaks said with great emotion. "Those guys in my hometown who occupy a demi-plane and can throw a little 'divine punishment' and call themselves gods, and think they can last for thousands of generations, probably won't understand this point in their lives."

Hao Ren felt that he should also express his emotions at this time to live up to the audience, but all that came to his mind was the scene of Crow 12345 holding a bowl of noodles and looking at him blankly, so he had to agree with Izhaks's words:

The actions of some gods really determine some things too much...

For example, the issue of image.

But no matter how serious Crow 12345's image problem was in Hao Ren's mind, this time he really needed her help.

Because the analysis of the Final Network soon ran into problems.

While various post-war reconstruction works were underway, Hao Ren also began to study the Final Network system. Although he did not intend to let Vivian rashly sit on it to be the humanoid CPU, this did not mean that he had no interest in this "miracle" left by the Goddess of Creation, so he handed the work over to the Crystal Nucleus Research Station and the drone swarm to complete together—the drone swarm was responsible for acting as operators on the Nexus side, summarizing and uploading various information and data of the Final Network to the analysis host of the Crystal Nucleus Research Station, while the Crystal Nucleus Research Station analyzed the remotely transmitted data. Now, the first batch of reports was sent to Hao Ren.

"Core instructions severely damaged? More than ninety percent unexecutable?"

Seeing the glaring key summary content on the report, Hao Ren couldn't help but exclaim.

The Data Terminal was also connected to the Crystal Nucleus Research Station, and it said leisurely next to it: "That's right, with the help of the faeries, the scientific research drones established a direct connection with the system of the Final Throne and successfully read the core program of the latter, but then discovered this serious problem—the core database used to start the Final Network has problems, almost all the guiding instructions are incomplete, and this is also the real reason why the latter suddenly blue-screened when Vivian connected to the Final Network."

"It shouldn't be... Although the Corrupted Legion caused a lot of damage to the Holy Land, they never really broke through the defense of the Nexus. The Final Throne has been intact for thousands of years, and it should not have been damaged..." Hao Ren felt extremely puzzled. "Was it deliberately destroyed?"

"Regarding this point, this machine found a detail," the Data Terminal said, "Those faeries responsible for guarding the Holy Land have been troubleshooting for several days, but they have never found the real reason for the system blue screen until we intervened and found the problem with the host of the Crystal Nucleus Research Station..."

Lily, who was listening to the excitement next to her, casually said, "Is the problem with the faeries?"

"No, there is no problem with the faeries," the Data Terminal immediately denied. "But this machine learned about the faeries' working methods. Their method of troubleshooting system failures is to compare it with a 'holographic snapshot.' That holographic snapshot was left on the day the Final Network was built, and it recorded in detail all the parameters of the Final Network in a perfect state. The faeries judge the failure point by comparing the actual parameters of the network with the snapshot parameters..."

Hao Ren suddenly understood:

This Final Network has been flawed from the very beginning!