Chapter 1 There Are Still Survivors On This Planet

This fact greatly encouraged Hao Ren's spirits and aroused his curiosity. His attention to this matter even temporarily made him forget his terrible situation of crashing from outer space headfirst into the planet's surface: in the Dream Plane, this godforsaken doomsday world, there was no shortage of First Born and planets destroyed by the First Born. A group of drones could return at least ten ruin scan signals after wandering around, but survivors were rare, and survivors who still insisted on resisting were even more unprecedented—as could be seen from the previous few aircraft, the survivors on this planet were not only still resisting but even dared to take the initiative!

Therefore, although Hao Ren did not rashly establish communication with those aircraft, he still asked the data terminal to pay attention to them and intercept their communication content as much as possible. As long as there was an opportunity, he had to establish contact with these survivors as soon as possible.

Of course, the most important thing at this stage was to gain a firm foothold first. Cautious action was the primary condition for ensuring the completion of the mission. Now Nolan was still a heavily wounded person lying in a crater. The power Hao Ren could use was only a group of autonomous machines and the armory in his personal space, in addition to his group of friends. He estimated the combat effectiveness of these combined and believed that it was not enough to occupy sufficient control when contacting the local natives, so he had to take his time.

Survivors were not necessarily a friendly faction. After fighting a crazy First Born for thousands of years, they might be another group of lunatics.

But when Nolan fell, the noise was so loud... Maybe the natives of this planet had already noticed that a group of extraterrestrial visitors had appeared on their planet.

After those two aircraft completely disappeared from everyone's sight, Hao Ren received a communication from Nolan. The ship girl sounded a little nervous: "Boss! Are you okay over there? I just sensed a very strong energy reaction over there!"

"I'm telling you, the civilization of this planet is not as completely extinct as we thought before. There are actually survivors here..."

"Huh?!"

"And they are at war with the First Born of this planet, and it seems to be a back-and-forth fight."

"Huh, huh?!"

The data terminal sent the recorded images to Nolan, while Lily and Nangong Wuyue babbled and repeated what had just happened. Finally, Hao Ren talked about his thoughts, and Nolan expressed her agreement after a brief contemplation.

"The current situation is dire, and we do need to recover some strength before considering expanding our operations. It's best to collect enough intelligence first, so that we can take the initiative. I used to do this often when I was a 'mercenary'," Nolan said, "As for whether we have been discovered by the local natives... I don't think so for the time being, because I haven't felt anything like radar scanning me yet. Although many of my external observation devices were destroyed, I haven't become blind, and I would definitely feel it if someone was actively observing me."

"That's good then. In short, the two most important tasks at present are to collect information about the surviving civilizations on this planet as soon as possible and determine their contact level, and to restore the functions of the Behemoth Rock Terrace as soon as possible and find a way to contact the drone swarm."

"Nolan understands. This ship will launch a new batch of probes to find the survivors' base and begin observation. Captain, when will you return?"

"I'm going to continue exploring these city ruins," Hao Ren replied. "Although these ruins may have been abandoned for thousands of years, the ruins may also contain clues to the survivors... At least we can know what their civilization was like before it was severely damaged by the First Born."

"Please be careful. Although the Lullaby System has been activated, we are still standing on the head of a planetary monster—and this monster has just been provoked once. Its subconscious activity is disastrous."

Hao Ren reassured Nolan and then hung up the communication, leading the trio to continue advancing towards the center of the city ruins.

The bombing and counterattack that occurred on the distant forest boundary did not seem to affect the tranquility deep in the ruins. This desolate ruin was still peaceful. Only some wild animals inhabiting the ruins gradually began to move, adding some lively sounds to this place. Looking at this peaceful ruin and the lush plants between the ruins, Hao Ren could hardly imagine that this was a world still shrouded in the shadow of an enraged First Born: everything was too peaceful.

The First Born's cleansing of the ecosystem after going berserk was devastating. Wherever the Tide of Primordial Blood went, both organic and inorganic matter would be completely corroded, assimilated, and reset. Not only intelligent creatures but even the plants and trees of nature would be completely destroyed. However, on this planet, the First Born was in an active state, but the ecosystem was still lush and green, and the forest had even grown to the point where it could devour the civilized world.

Looking at the alien animals jumping around in the ruins, they seemed to have no idea what was happening to their world.

The only thing that could prove that the First Born and the Second Born were still at war seemed to be the bombing in the distance just now.

Could it be that the First Born of this planet had not gone mad? Or had the native civilization of this planet gained the upper hand in the war, completely suppressed the First Born's activities, and even allowed the planet's ecosystem to recuperate in the thousands of years of tug-of-war?

With these questions in mind, Hao Ren and his party traveled through the collapsed and abandoned ancient buildings. What they needed to collect were mainly the written and pictorial records of ancient civilizations, but these two things were the most difficult to preserve, which required great patience.

Perhaps they should find an opportunity to look for the wreckage of those destroyed aircraft on the edge of the forest—if they fell on the forest side and were far away from the First Born's tentacles.

At noon, the group arrived at the foot of the huge building in the city center.

This large building, which resembled a four-sided pyramid, should be the best-preserved part of the city: it was obviously made of more solid materials and special construction techniques to extend the building's life as much as possible. Although all the outer cladding of its surface had fallen off, and there were large holes and wide cracks everywhere on the main body, the data terminal confirmed after using radar scanning that the skeleton of this building of unknown purpose was still intact, just like a giant beast with steel bones and iron muscles. The flesh and fur had become decayed over the years, but it still had a strong skeleton.

All indications showed that this building should be very important.

Due to the collapse of the city, the building itself had sunk more than ten meters as a whole. The original entrance was naturally buried in the rubble, but there were holes and cracks everywhere on its surface, so Hao Ren didn't have to look for any entrance specifically. After letting the data terminal roughly confirm the structure inside the building, he led the people through a relatively stable crack.

The faint blue light emitted by the data terminal and the warm flame light of Huo Zhi's Extraordinary Joy illuminated the dark interior of the building. This ancient ruin, like a decaying tomb, was full of traces left by the years. Moss and bioluminescent fungi, which grew in the dark environment, grew wantonly along the walls. Winding vines drilled out of the broken floor slabs. In some places, Hao Ren even heard the sound of running water: the underground structure of the city had evolved into an underground river. According to the data terminal's detection, this underground river connected the two depressions in the city and led all the way to the streams and underground sewers in the forest. Together with the surface water system, they nourished the nearby plant system.

A new ecosystem was operating quietly and vigorously in this ruin.

Nangong Wuyue crawled beside Hao Ren in the form of a sea serpent. Three water balls surrounded her. With the help of the relatively humid environment inside the building, she could perceive every detail around her in an all-round and three-dimensional way. Suddenly, she stopped and pointed in a certain direction with the tip of her tail: "Landlord, look at this."

Hao Ren curiously approached and used the data terminal to provide lighting. Then he found that there was a decorative sculpture there.

The sculpture had broken and collapsed, with only the upper body lying on the ground and the lower body missing. After removing the moss on the surface of the statue, its original appearance was also presented to everyone.

A statue of a human—at least it looked almost identical to a human.

"It seems that the intelligent creatures on this planet also follow information disturbance and evolved into this 'standard template' form," Hao Ren nodded. "Now we can at least determine what the native creatures of this planet look like."

"There's more than just this," Vivian's eyes flickered slightly red as she looked at a dark hall in front of her. "This is either a museum or... a place to leave messages."

Hao Ren raised his head and, following Vivian's line of sight, he understood what the other party meant.

In the hall in front of them, countless sculptures and reliefs were quietly arranged, like soldiers waiting for inspection, or like silent tombstones.

Sculptures, whether on Earth or on alien planets, have a presence in the development and inheritance of many civilizations. Whether it is a piece of wood or a rough stone casually carved in the early stages of civilization, or a delicate item cast from alloy when civilization rises, sculptures have always occupied an important position in information transmission with their direct and visual expression. If you don't consider information capacity, the accuracy and reliability of sculptures when transmitting information far exceeds any text or language. Therefore, if you want to pass on an important matter to future generations, to be passed on for thousands of years, and hope that it can be easily interpreted by later generations, then one of the best ways is to—carve it down.

Whether it is carved into a relief or made into a statue, it can keep the information for a long enough time. At least in front of some civilizations that have not yet overcome "time" itself, the "shelf life" of these statues and reliefs is sufficient.

This building may really just be a museum for exhibiting sculptures, but Hao Ren hoped more that it was a message board left by the ancient civilization in the face of disaster. Although the existence of those six aircraft had proved that there were still survivors on this planet, Hao Ren always felt that he could not place the hope of uncovering the truth of history on the "survivors" represented by those aircraft.