Chapter 1 Since the Observer Established a Stable Space Channel

Since the Observer established a stable space channel between the Nexus and Tanagus, Salaman and his Guardian Legion have frequently traveled between the two places—not only because the warriors of the Guardian Legion hoped to see the legendary "Land of Rebirth," but also because of the Observer's invitation.

Originally, the Guardian Legion was bound to the X Star Cluster by its mission, and had not paid attention to the outside world for tens of thousands of years. But now, the greatest crisis threatening the Nexus has been resolved, and the "Lord of the Throne" they had been waiting for has arrived. In addition, Hao Ren and his drone legion have taken over most of the defense within the X Star Cluster. It can be said that there is no need to continue this mission—or at least there is no need for the entire Guardian Legion to remain in that place. As a result, a large number of Salaman's personnel were freed from their original tasks.

And the other parts of the Dream Plane just happen to need the power of these Guardian Giants.

The ecological supervision of Tanagus, the construction project of the Sullen Gate, the investigation of ecological planets discovered throughout the Dream Plane, and the excavation and research of the Genesis Cult and its relics and artifacts—it can be said that this messy Dream Plane is in need of manpower everywhere to rectify order and rebuild ruins. Although Hao Ren's unmanned mechanized legion can undertake most of the work, the drone legion is, after all, a group of cold machines and lacks understanding of the "local conditions" of the Dream Plane. Therefore, this universe has always been in a state of severe manpower shortage.

Just think, the Stellar Forge used by the Sullen Gate to build the Genesis Engine was only being managed by Lementusa alone—it's a situation that sounds lonely enough to make one want to die...

Therefore, the appearance of Salaman and his Guardian Legion was equivalent to solving the urgent need for manpower.

Tanagus has become the most important transportation hub in the Dream Plane due to the existence of the Crystal Core Research Station. Hao Ren has built a large number of warp acceleration rails and teleportation devices to various parts of the universe here, as well as high-throughput spaceports and warehouse facilities. The Guardian Giants rushing from the Nexus transfer here, and then head to various places in the universe that need them. The work of scheduling these guardians is jointly completed by Salaman, Mulu, and the Crystal Core Mainframe. Among them, Salaman understands his legion, the Crystal Core Mainframe understands the needs of "employment units" throughout the universe, and Mulu acts as an intermediary to coordinate and communicate between the two. This is a simple and primitive "three-person council," but it seems to be running efficiently so far.

When Hao Ren and his group returned to the Crystal Core Research Station, they saw such a busy and orderly scene.

Standing on the top observation platform of the Crystal Core Research Station, one can clearly see the busy traffic scene of those spaceport facilities in space. Mountain-like black starships slowly move beside the spaceport, and the traction beams and anchoring beams emitted by the port form neat and distinct "roads" in space like light-forged walls. Large silver-white drone motherships and swarms shuttle between the ports, like bee colonies; in the farther places, huge acceleration rails or stargates can be seen. Each flash of those massive facilities is enough to send an entire fleet into the depths of the universe.

Acceleration rails are used to send fleets to star regions that have not yet been fully explored or have complex situations and are difficult to accurately locate, while stargate facilities are usually used to connect another space base or a well-established planetary base. Hao Ren's next goal is to build a stargate between Tanagus and the Nexus, which will further enhance the connection between the two regions and effectively strengthen the signal transmission between the Crystal Core Research Station and the X Star Cluster. In this way, Zhuom can more efficiently command its "remote body" on the homeworld of the Agent, without the need for additional booster antennas as assistance.

"Before you arrived, there was never such a lively scene here," Hao Ren said with emotion. Standing beside him was a holographic image of Salaman. "Although many ports and warehouses were also built, they were all used by drones—you know, those drones only have a unified consciousness, and individual units have no setting for external communication. Millions of drones shuttle in the ports without making a single 'noise.' At that time, this place was like a ghost port."

Salaman said with emotion, "There used to be several space cities around the Founding Star, which were even more lively than this."

"One day, this universe will restore such a grand scene," Hao Ren smiled. "And we are going to take the first step today."

"I hope that the 'seed' you brought is as powerful as you said," Salaman said seriously. "This way, we can confidently enter the Dark Realm to find our mother."

Hao Ren said confidently, "Of course, it will surprise you."

Nolan's voice came from the broadcast at this time: "Boss, the route is ready, we can set off at any time."

When returning to the Nexus again, traces of the previous fierce battle still remained here.

This is inevitable. After all, it has only been more than half a month since the last great battle, and this place is piled up with countless war remnants accumulated over the past few thousand years—floating in the universe are not only broken starships and corpses, but also various difficult-to-remove activated energies and unstable space fissures. The drone swarm has been cleaning up these dangerous space debris with the highest efficiency, but much of the space debris must rely on time to slowly digest.

The wreckage floating above the Nexus was the first to be cleaned up. Now this airspace is much cleaner than before. The Guardian Giants are rebuilding the orbital defense facilities in low Earth orbit together with the drone swarm, but the situation in high orbit is not so optimistic: a large number of dark red energy clouds still occupy that area, and the starlight shows abnormal distortion when passing through the clouds. That is the effect of space fissures and gravitational anomaly points. It may take several years to clean these things up.

Standing in front of the crystal mountain where the Throne of the End is located, Hao Ren looked up at the sky. Although it was night, the dense charging clouds in the sky still blocked the starlight, so nothing could be seen with the naked eye. However, Hao Ren still knew the troublesome situation in high orbit. He clicked his tongue: "Tsk, it would be better to follow my plan. Just detonate a bunch of space implosion bombs in high orbit, and there will be no pollution. As for the space fissure problem, we can let the universe slowly heal itself. Anyway, space fissures are not dangerous as long as you go around them, unlike pollutants that are so troublesome..."

Salaman said with a straight face, "Although this plan is full of creativity, I believe that the power inherited by the Guardians from the Mother is enough to deal with those corrupted forces in the universe—of course, if you have a lot of expired ordnance that needs to be consumed, then that's no problem."

Hao Ren: "...Ahem, let's take a look at the situation of the Throne of the End."

Still the place where Vivian came to accept the "test" last time, still the group of fairies living in the crystal cliffs. This time, Hao Ren once again felt the overwhelming enthusiasm of the fairy creatures.

"Wow! The Queen! The Queen is back!" "Is the Queen going to turn on the machine again?" "We have already restarted the system..." "But it seems that it will still blue screen after restarting..." "But we already have a solution to the blue screen!" "The fairies plan to change the error screen to red..." "By the way, Queen, do you want to play a game of Candy Crush?" "I picked up a psionic regulator near here yesterday, I don't know who it belongs to..."

As soon as Vivian showed up, she was surrounded by a large group of enthusiastic fairies. The chattering sound even startled Salaman next to her: Usually the fairies also talk a lot, but obviously they are a hundred times more excited when they see their queen.

Later, Vivian finally calmed these chattering little ones down. Salaman quickly took advantage of this time to tell the fairies what they were going to do today.

A group of little ones immediately exploded again: "Attach something to the Throne of the End?" "Doesn't the Queen want to sit on the throne?" "That thing called the World Tree... is it replacing the Queen's position?" "Doesn't that mean the fairies won't have a Queen anymore?!"

Hao Ren had already thought that these little fairies would worry about this, and quickly explained: "After the World Tree is connected, Vivian is still your Queen, but she doesn't directly manage things, but entrusts the work to a set of procedures. It has no impact on you or her."

Not far away, Nangong Wuyue immediately poked Sanba's arm: "Isn't this explanation deceiving people?"

But a group of little fairies had already started chattering and discussing, and after a few seconds of discussion, they all started nodding together: "Okay, okay~~"

Wuyue: "...It can really be fooled!"

"After all, this group of fairies doesn't have an exact concept of 'Queen.' They are just looking for a Queen for fun," Nangong Sanba saw through it thoroughly. "As for the End Network, it was originally just an automatic network that runs with the help of the fairies' computing power."

Lily also nodded: "Actually, I already saw it. The so-called fairies and Queen, the End Network and the Throne of the End, these are two sets of systems—but they are placed on the same carrier. And now the landlord is splitting up the carrier of the Throne of the End, letting the World Tree be responsible for the work, and the bat be responsible for holding the title—tsk, isn't it just getting paid for doing nothing, making it seem like saving the world."

As soon as she finished speaking, everyone around her looked at her with the eyes of an alien creature: everyone didn't expect this dog to see the problem so thoroughly...

On the other side, after completing the negotiations with the fairies, Hao Ren finally obtained permission to enter the hall of the Throne of the End.

The little fairies returned to the crystal wall one after another, and then the entire crystal wall gradually became illusory in a burst of streamer. After a few seconds, the solid wall disappeared, leaving only a magnificent gate and a long crystal passage behind the gate.

Hao Ren walked in front, and the others followed closely. After passing through the long passage, the hall that Hao Ren had seen in the illusion finally appeared vividly in front of him.

Everything was the same as what he saw in the illusion. This hall was so simple that it was almost crude. Primitive rocks and crystals formed the main body of the hall. Some hanging crystal clusters were the only decorations in the hall. Apart from that, the only things that could attract people's attention here were the huge crystal in the center and the throne in front of the crystal.

That is the throne that symbolizes the highest authority of all things in the universe.

"Just... this little bit of stuff," Lily commented in surprise. "I thought there would at least be some sculptures or something inside."

"Mother didn't leave any decorations when she built this place, or she didn't have time to make any decorations," Salaman said. "Everything was completed in a hurry at that time."

Hao Ren came to the access port of the Throne of the End—that is, in front of the chair: "So according to the instructions, I just put the seed of the World Tree in this place and it's done?"

Before that, he had already established a data connection between the drone and the End Network, so he was no stranger to the software part of this network. However, it was the first time that he had such "intimate contact" with its hardware.

Looking at the unremarkable crystal throne in front of him, he doubted whether this thing could establish a connection with the World Tree seed in his hand.

Nangong Wuyue and Nangong Sanba began to discuss in whispers again: "Brother, how do you think the World Tree should be planted?"

"How would I know... it can't be just digging a hole and burying some soil, right?"

"That shouldn't be the case, but watering should be necessary..."

The data terminal floated to Hao Ren's side and bumped the latter's shoulder: "Who cares, just take out the seed and put it on it and try it? Anyway, it was obtained by Commander Raven, if it really can't be used, then it's her fault."

Hao Ren was strengthened in his confidence, took out the seed of the World Tree from his portable space, and solemnly placed it on the throne.