Chapter 1060 Pit

Although Hao Ren had a belly full of questions, he clearly couldn't expect the little weakling to offer any answers.

For this little thing that acted entirely on instinct, doing things didn't require any reason. In fact, she didn't even know what the word "reason" meant.

So Hao Ren and Vivian could only huddle together, whispering and starting all sorts of speculations and discussions – although it wouldn't be wrong to call it wild guessing and nonsense. The things happening to the little one were too strange, and the nature of that great pit-way was even more bizarre.

Watching the little weakling wandering around on the nearby ground, occasionally baring her fangs and claws at the air, Hao Ren stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I think the problem lies in this little thing's 'Madness' component. Although she's harmless now (in fact, she's always been harmless), she was, after all, created by the power of the Lord of Madness. It's normal for her to have extremely high resistance to the power of chaos and corruption."

Vivian immediately looked at the great rift in the distance. She understood Hao Ren's implication at once. "You suspect this great pit-way was also caused by the power of the Lord of Madness? And because the little weakling and the Madness power have the same origin, the two won't harm each other?"

"That's the most likely answer, and it fits our basic law of causing trouble all along," Hao Ren nodded. "And more importantly, it fits our initial concept of the Dark Realm – this is where the Creator Goddess fell. The power of Madness and the power of the Goddess had a great battle here, so these two powers are the two main things in the Dark Realm. Now we can regard the vibrant ecosystem on Planet Lahrraine as the embodiment of the Creator Goddess's power. So what corresponds to it? Obviously, it's the great pit-way – this 'pit-way' perhaps represents the form of the Madness power in the Dark Realm."

Vivian thought for a moment and couldn't come up with a more convincing explanation, so she nodded. "A simple and easy-to-understand model, but we still have to figure out the situation below the great pit-way. Now even you can't resist the swallowing nature of the great pit-way, and probes and such will lose signal after entering the pit-way. We have to think of a way to observe the inside of the rift."

Hao Ren certainly knew that this was a problem that needed to be solved urgently, and in fact... he already had an idea.

His gaze slowly fell on the little weakling, who was happily playing by herself.

The little thing, who was running around on the ground, suddenly felt this gaze. The action of throwing Shadow Bolts randomly stopped instantly. She looked back nervously, and after seeing Hao Ren's eyes, she immediately made a tiny sound: "Eeee!!"

"Isn't this little thing able to resist the devouring of the great pit-way?" Hao Ren smiled slightly at Vivian, then beckoned to the little weakling. "Come here, I won't eat you – if you really don't come, I'll throw you to Raven 12345 when we get back!"

"Eee!!"

"Don't just scare her. You need to combine kindness and sternness with children," Vivian immediately glared at Hao Ren, turned her head, and showed a smile to the little weakling. "Come here, don't be afraid, we won't bully you."

Hao Ren couldn't help but size up Vivian. "You're the kind of person who could abandon a child for four hundred years and not remember them, yet you've actually developed some experience in taking care of children – I don't know how aggrieved Hesperide will be when she sees this scene."

Vivian gave Hao Ren a white eye while letting the little weakling climb onto her arm. "Didn't I have a bad brain back then? And it's not like I don't care about Hesperide. Of course, I had some problems with taking care of children before, so I've recently started actively calling Hesperide, and I'm planning to have her come to our house for a few days. By the way, are you planning to have the little weakling help probe the great pit-way?"

Hao Ren nodded while taking out a new probe from his dimensional pocket. "I was thinking that this should work. The clothes on the little weakling aren't the ones she originally had, but the ones you made for her later. When she came out of the great pit-way, the clothes on her body were intact, so I guess this little thing can not only immunize herself against the devouring of the great pit-way but can also protect a small area around her that she carries with her. Look, I've set this probe to recording mode, and we can tie it to the little weakling's body..."

The little fellow looked at Hao Ren approaching her with a suspicious silver-white machine, and immediately raised her hand and let out a burst of roars: "Ssi-ha – scare!!"

Vivian looked down at the weakling, her expression helpless. "Your plan is good, the only problem is... the person involved doesn't seem to want to cooperate."

This was a big problem. Hao Ren suddenly realized something: although the little weakling had made great progress now, not only had she gained richer emotions but she could also understand human speech, but being able to understand human speech didn't necessarily mean she would listen. What if this little thing with a mind full of paste didn't cooperate?

So he painstakingly tried to persuade her, but after some effort, the little weakling still showed no sign of softening her attitude, which made Hao Ren feel a great sense of frustration: he argued with his goddess, argued with his PDA, and now, he actually had to argue with a "probe," and the most magical thing was...

He actually lost.

The little weakling was permanently invincible because she couldn't speak.

But in the end, the little weakling was still tied to the probe by Hao Ren. It wasn't because he succeeded in reasoning, but because Vivian took out a piece of meat, and Hao Ren took advantage of the little thing being distracted to catch her in a flash of lightning, and two circles of transparent tape tied the probe to the little thing's back.

The little weakling naturally showed great indignation, but after holding the piece of meat and gnawing on it a couple of times, she forgot about this unpleasantness...

Then Hao Ren threw her into that great pit-way filled with endless darkness.

In the short time while waiting for the little fellow to return, Hao Ren and Vivian chatted casually, and the topic quickly turned to what Leah had said about the ruins they had seen on the surface earlier: about the Anno Ruins and the speculation about the "extraterrestrial visitor."

"This world can basically be confirmed not to be the homeworld of the Godslayers," Hao Ren said. "There aren't only Godslayer ruins here – in fact, Godslayer ruins are a minority here. In addition to their magnificent palaces, there are also a large number of unknown alien civilization traces here, and according to the information provided by Leah, these ancient relics don't seem to be left by the native races of this planet."

Vivian had her own ideas: "Some of them may be completely disappeared ancient civilizations."

"Yes, completely disappeared ancient civilizations, so the relics they left behind can't find subsequent traces of inheritance, but this is definitely not all," Hao Ren nodded. "There are many Anno Ruins, and a considerable part of them certainly can't be directly explained by completely disappeared ancient civilizations. They should really come from 'outside the sky.'"

"In a specific period before the Godslayer War, various races, including the Godslayer race, suddenly visited this place, left their respective civilization traces on the ancient Lahrraine continent, and then suddenly left at the same time?" Vivian frowned and shook her head slightly. "It doesn't make sense. I can't see the meaning of doing this, and it doesn't fit our understanding of the Godslayer race. And we also guessed before that this world is the Creator Goddess's 'species repository.' The only reason the Godslayer race came here was probably to destroy it. What's the point of following a large group of other races to leave a bunch of landscape buildings here and then suddenly running away?"

Hao Ren stroked his chin: "... Blast a wonder before the final battle to collect achievement points?"

Vivian: "Play fewer games, especially the kind that makes you bald."

"There are too many things in this world that are difficult to explain, and there are inconsistencies everywhere," Hao Ren decisively changed the subject. "And now I've remembered an even more concerning detail..."

"What detail?"

"Remember the information about the great pit-way that we found in Leah's library before?" Hao Ren reminded. "What was the description of the great pit-way on it?"

Vivian recalled and said, "It's full of poisonous gas, there are monsters wandering inside, and some great pit-ways will corrupt and cover a large area of the surface world after being dug open, and leave a black forest after the corruption disappears... But according to Leah, these studies of the great pit-way were actually completed in the ordinary dungeons around the pit-way, and what was described was only the characteristics of those polluted dungeons."

Hao Ren looked around. "But we are now in such a dungeon. This underground palace and the caves here are directly connected to the great pit-way, which completely matches the descriptions in the books and by Leah, but – where's the poisonous gas? Where are the monsters in the great pit-way? And what about those strange noises? We only have an empty dungeon in front of us. We even camped in this dungeon."

These inconsistencies were actually not difficult to find, but Hao Ren and his party previously lacked too much understanding of the great pit-way, and the only information they had was from some unscientific and unverified "folk science works," so it was difficult for them to realize its abnormalities when they first came into contact with the great pit-way. But Hao Ren recalled his experiences a little when it was quiet at night, and he felt that something was wrong here.

The great pit-way he actually saw was completely different from the descriptions in the books.

Although Leah had disdainfully complained that most of the scholars who studied the great pit-way were talking nonsense, would those scholars fabricate this kind of nonsense (such as whether there was poisonous gas and monsters in the great pit-way) on some basic issues? And would they fabricate it unanimously?

"Perhaps the great pit-ways aren't the same everywhere," Vivian guessed. "Poisonous gas and monsters are probably not standard equipment."

Hao Ren clicked his tongue. "Anyway, I think there's a problem here. Let's find more information later. After all, we only flipped through a few books. And Leah's words can't be completely believed – although she always looks righteous when she speaks, I always feel that a mage who directly goes berserk and uses armor-piercing combos followed by a sweeping slash after encountering a monster in the wild isn't that reliable... By the way, how long has the little weakling been down there?"

"It's been a while," Vivian looked at the great rift. "She should be back soon."

Staring at the silent rift for a while, Hao Ren suddenly slapped his forehead. "Damn it, that little thing doesn't understand action plans and time concepts at all! What if she gets too excited playing inside and doesn't come back? Where are we going to find her!"

Vivian also realized this problem, and her face suddenly looked a little bad. "Should we tie a rope to her?"

Hao Ren waved his hand. "It's useless. The little weakling's 'anti-devouring protection zone' is definitely not that big. The rope must have exceeded her personal range. It will definitely break after entering."

"Then what if she really doesn't come back?" Vivian looked very worried. "I don't know how big the pit-way is below. What if she gets lost?"

"Can you directly 'retrieve' her? Like retrieving your little bats," Hao Ren asked. "We can just give up the probe."

"She's not a little bat, and she's very disobedient. I need to be very close to retrieve her," Vivian looked at her hand. "The current distance should have exceeded it. Although the little weakling flies very slowly, she's been down there for more than ten minutes."

Hao Ren tried hard to think and started rummaging through his dimensional pocket. "She won't run too far. I have experience. Even if I let her move freely, she will only move around in a very small range. I'm trying to find a way to get her out..."

Hao Ren's words were indeed based on experience. This was a rule summarized after the Data Terminal collected data on the little weakling's living habits: probably because her small size led to a different concept of distance and range than ordinary people. Running a circle with a radius of ten meters was like traveling around the world...

After a while, Vivian looked at the things in Hao Ren's hand and fell into a daze. "Are you sure this thing will work?"

Hao Ren confidently nodded while shaking the fishing rod in his hand. "Don't worry, there's nothing more attractive to her than this thing."

He moved a stool and sat on the edge of the great rift, holding a fishing rod tightly in his hand – yes, the kind used for fishing, but what was hanging at the end of the fishing line wasn't bait, but a piece of raw meat that still had blood on it. To prevent hurting the little thing, what was piercing the meat wasn't a sharp fishhook, but just an ordinary knot.

Of course, to prevent the meat from being swallowed, this "bait" was suspended in mid-air by Hao Ren, less than half a meter away from that dark "horizon." The raw meat that had lost its vitality was obviously not a living thing, so it didn't trigger the great pit-way's active swallowing reaction.

Vivian looked at the piece of meat tied to the end of the fishing line and then looked at Hao Ren with a particularly strange expression. "... I'm not saying there's a problem with the piece of meat. I'm saying your idea... How does your brain work to come up with such an idea?"

"So you can tell you're not a Chinese demon. You can't immediately connect to the Jiang Taigong fishing story."

"Are you sure you thought of Jiang Taigong fishing, or is it because you spend too much time with Lily, which leads to bizarre ideas?" Vivian looked at Hao Ren disdainfully. "And that's called a classical allusion! What the heck is a meme..."

Hao Ren said plausibly, "Modern memes are just ancient allusions. Are you not allowing the evolution of language and words?"

Vivian wanted to say something more, but there was suddenly movement in the rift.

Along with a Shadow Bolt doing Brownian motion slowly flying into the air, a small figure swooshed out of the darkness and pounced straight at the piece of meat in mid-air – in the next moment, she was hanging on it, looking as if she was determined to live or die with the piece of meat.

Vivian: "... This thing really works!"

No matter how whimsical this Jiang Taigong fishing method was, it ultimately achieved the desired result. The little weakling was successfully fished out, and the probe on her back was still there, and it didn't seem to be damaged at all.

This little thing could indeed safely bring the things she carried with her into the great pit-way: although Hao Ren didn't know what the real principle was.

"There's data!" Hao Ren carefully took the probe off the little weakling (during this process, the little one never let go of her precious piece of meat), and then immediately checked the storage status of the device and happily said, "As I imagined, the probe has been operating normally under the weakling's protection, and it's full of captured data!"

Without being told, the Data Terminal next to him had already floated over on its own accord: "Leave it to me!"

The images taken by the probe were quickly transferred to the Data Terminal's holographic projection.

The environment inside the great pit-way was obviously not suitable for shooting – even though the probe had a very good information collection module, it was still severely interfered with. After the Data Terminal's powerful decoding, Hao Ren and Vivian finally saw the video data, but the images were still very blurry and dim.

But at least there were images.

Hao Ren could finally confirm that some fragments were indeed floating in the great pit-way. The "building wreckage" captured by the last sacrificed probe was also real.

But what was floating in the great pit-way wasn't just those things.

On the dim and blurry screen, some very large things flashed by – because the shooter was a little confused egg who was constantly spinning and flying around, the stability of the picture naturally couldn't be expected – the Data Terminal cut out the valuable parts from the image, sharpened them multiple times, and enlarged them, and Hao Ren confirmed that those larger shadows were actually cities or plains floating in the dark nothingness.

Broken palaces, cities, land, and even things like spaceships, all kinds of fragments floated in a dim and chaotic background, constantly rotating, drifting, colliding with each other, annihilating and regenerating. Sometimes they presented a clear sense of emptiness like phantoms, but sometimes they became particularly real, and even had physical collisions with the lens – that was when the little weakling accidentally bumped into a fragment.

Hao Ren and Vivian put their heads together, concentrating on watching the images processed by the Data Terminal. These images contained a huge amount of information, and seemed to vaguely reveal some secrets of the great pit-way. Hao Ren also felt a huge sense of incongruity from the images, and quickly understood where this incongruity came from.

"Scale, the scale is wrong."

(A friend recommended a book written by a friend, "The Final Abyss," a type of infinite transmigration, with a decent imagination. If you are interested, you can go and have a look.)