Chapter 1 He Once Thought...

Hao Ren had once believed that the Guardian Giants like Mu Lu and Lie Meng Du Sa, who had participated in the final battle, would have sufficient knowledge of the Creation Goddess's secrets. However, it turned out that the secrets guarded by that goddess, who had long been eroded and constantly wavered between good and madness, were far more numerous than anyone had imagined. The Creation Goddess had undertaken many "secret projects" as her will gradually fragmented, and a considerable portion of these projects were probably beyond the comprehension of the Mu Lu trio.

For instance, everything on the X Star Cluster.

Mu Lu and Lie Meng Du Sa didn't even know that there was a group of their compatriots carrying out an ancient mission left behind by the Creation Goddess on the X Star Cluster. These hidden Guardian Giants, together with the Starry Sky People, were guarding a certain defense line. They had even built massive planetary battleships for this purpose, and there was more than one such warship. On these battleships, there also lived some wonderful, chattering little creatures created by the Creation Goddess.

Yes, the names of these little creatures were indeed "Fairies."

All of this was something Hao Ren had never anticipated before arriving here.

"The Creation Goddess created us!" "Yes, yes, the Creation Goddess is so good!" "The goddess gave us a mission..." "But we can't say!"

When asked about their origins, the fairies answered in their usual chattering, chaotic manner. Hao Ren was initially very surprised that the Creation Goddess had created such a wondrous life form without anyone's knowledge. Then, he became curious about the "mission" they spoke of.

"Why can't you say?" Hao Ren asked, looking at one of the fairies standing before him—a clever little fellow with short hair, who seemed to be a boy based on his clothes. "Is it because the mission needs to be kept secret?"

"Because we're not sure what the mission is either!" the fairy said, bouncing up and down. The companions beside him echoed in a way that resembled rap: "The goddess created fairies from lightning and stone!" "Then she gave the fairies a mission, a very great mission!" "But only the Queen knows what this mission is..." "So the fairies can't tell you!"

"Queen?" Hao Ren and Vivian frowned simultaneously. The latter couldn't help but ask, "Where is your Queen? Can we meet her?"

All the fairies looked at each other and shouted in unison, "But we don't have a Queen!"

Hao Ren: "..."

He suddenly felt that trying to understand their logic before becoming familiar with this race was an impossible task. Forcibly pursuing these questions would probably lead him to die of neurasthenia sooner or later... This was the first time he had seen creatures with an even greater thought process than Lily’s, and so many of them had popped up at once!

Could it be that the Creation Goddess only had time to make a draft when she created these fairies before someone stabbed her...?

More and more fairies surged in from all directions. Hao Ren was certain that these wondrous creatures had a special way of moving—they could perhaps travel quickly and freely across this continent, because many fairies seemed to appear out of thin air from the surrounding air and stone. Looking at the increasingly numerous little fellows chattering around him, Hao Ren felt as if he was being enveloped layer by layer by countless chaotic sound waves. He realized that it was not suitable to talk in this state of being "visited" by the fairies.

"Can you take us to where you live?" He tried his best to put on a kind smile and squatted down in front of the three fairy representatives. "And... can you provide a slightly quieter environment? We can't communicate clearly with you in this chaotic situation."

He had thought that it would take a lot of persuasion to get the fairies to understand and agree to his request, but he didn't expect the fairies to understand immediately. "Ah, we know, we know! When we want to talk about important stuff we need a serious place!" "The Guardian Giants also said that we are usually too noisy..." "But we don't understand what they mean at all!" "But even though we don't understand what it means, it still feels very reasonable." "We'll take you to where we live!"

It sounded like even the Guardian Giants couldn't stand the fairies' personalities?

As Hao Ren had predicted, these fairies lived in the cities and temples left behind by the Guardian Giants—they did not have their own buildings.

They were more like a symbiotic organism, coexisting with the Guardian Giants, or rather... coexisting with this planetary warship.

Inside an ancient but well-preserved pyramid-shaped temple, Hao Ren was led by three fairy representatives to their settlement, which was one of the main living areas for the fairies. This settlement consisted of three interconnected halls. On the walls of each hall, Hao Ren saw rows and rows of crystal grids—those were the "houses" where the fairies lived.

This surprised Hao Ren and Vivian very much, even Dou Dou.

Even the little merman thought that a group of creatures living in crystal grids was too strange.

"You live... inside these things?" Hao Ren curiously observed the crystals embedded in the wall. They had a regular equilateral triangular structure, and they were densely arranged on the wall in an alternating up-and-down pattern, like prisms. The cross-sectional size of these crystals was about the size of a normal car wheel, and around each crystal, there were thin, energy-pipeline-like lines extending out, seemingly reaching deep into the building.

A fairy wearing a long dress and with short hair cheerfully hopped in front of Hao Ren. "Yes, yes! This looks small, but it's very spacious inside! We usually rest in here, like this—"

As the fairy's voice fell, she had already plunged into the crystal. The process was as easy as a ghost passing through a wall, and as the fairy entered the crystal, the crystal and the surrounding energy lines clearly brightened up.

It was as if it wasn't a fairy that jumped in, but a Nanfu battery...

Dou Dou clapped his tail and let out an exclamation in a drawn-out voice: "Wow—"

A few seconds later, the fairy's head emerged from the surface of the crystal. She blinked her beautiful big eyes, looking quite happy: "You can come in too! There's a lot of space in here!"

The other two fairies who came with her also chattered: "Yes, yes! You are a friend, and friends can enter the house!" "It's especially spacious inside." "Oh dear, I can't seem to find my psionic regulator again..."

Hao Ren scratched his head awkwardly: "Um... in theory, creatures like us can't drill into crystals like you..."

"Ah, that sounds like a pity..." The fairy jumped out of the crystal and said, shaking her head. Her two companions followed along and chanted: "Ah, that sounds like a pity..."

However, Hao Ren was no longer paying attention to the fairy's whimsical words. His attention was drawn to the crystals embedded in the wall.

The blue-white color, the unique surface texture, the faint light emitted after being filled with energy, and most importantly...

Between those crystals, he could see obvious leaping electric arcs, and the way the arcs jumped was as if they were constantly resonating.

He nudged the pDA that was pretending to be an epaulette on his shoulder: "Terminal."

The data terminal's voice sounded in his mind: "That's right, partner, this unit has confirmed the energy sample. It is indeed that kind of resonance crystal."

Hao Ren noticed that Vivian's eyes had also changed. Obviously, the latter had also recognized the origin of these crystals.

"What is the relationship between these crystals... and you?" Vivian looked at the long-haired fairy and asked in a very calm tone, as if she were asking casually.

But in fact, she didn't need to care about her tone or questioning method at all. The whimsical fairies would proactively blurt everything out: "Fairies were originally born from stones!" "Of course, the Guardian Giants also called these stones 'crystals.'" "The goddess used the power of lightning to 'transform' the fairies!"

These whimsical fairies were energy beings born from resonance crystals!

No matter how strong Hao Ren's imagination was, he hadn't thought of this before. The Creation Goddess not only started a major project on that mysterious crystal planet, but also used those crystals to create a completely new and strange race?

What exactly did she want to do? What were these fairies for?

After learning about the origin of the fairies, Hao Ren also understood another key point: "In other words, there are many such resonance crystals on this planetary wreckage, so you received the resonance signal we sent out, and your communication silence state was disrupted by our resonance signal?"

The long-haired fairy was stunned for a moment, then shouted loudly, "Ah! Ah! So it was you who were sending the signal!"

"The signals you sent made our crystals resonate!" "And the power of your signal was too high, the usual shielding methods were ineffective!" "We almost died! Those bad guys directly followed the signal and found us!"

Hearing the three little fairies chattering and yelling in a somewhat frustrated manner, Hao Ren felt a headache coming on: So these little guys only found out about this now? Nolan had clearly sent a document over before, and that document mentioned this...

Helpless, he could only first appease the few emotionally agitated little beings. He roughly explained that he had to activate the resonance antenna because he was looking for clues about the Creation Goddess, and he didn't know at the time that this would lead the fairies into danger. He also promised to make up for this mistake and always send a drone legion to protect the fairies' home until the threat of the corrupted monsters was completely resolved.

The fairies' emotions came and went quickly—in fact, they seemed to have become so cheerful that they were almost crazy. After Hao Ren's appeasement, the three little fellows all calmed down, and even became more enthusiastic than before.

Perhaps they wisely judged that being protected by a drone legion was more reliable than relying on communication silence to hide everywhere?

He had a feeling that these little guys wouldn't have such logical thinking ability...

"Okay, now that the misunderstanding has been resolved, we should talk about more important things," Hao Ren rubbed his temples. Dealing with fairies was even more tiring than practicing boxing with Lily. "As you know, we are looking for that crystal planet, the place where you were originally born—there is a war going on there, right? This Nakdal planetary fortress was also destroyed on that battlefield, right? So do you know where that battlefield is? Can you take us there?"

The three fairies said in unison: "We don't know!"