After some discussion, the team ultimately didn't return to the surface but instead found a room near the main hall of the underground palace to spend the night.

This arrangement was based on Lia's experience and professional advice: although resting in underground ruins seemed quite risky, the interior of the Anno Ruins was actually much safer than the exterior. First, as mentioned before, the demon-devouring monsters mutated by magic were active in the outer layers of the ruins, while the inside of the ruins was free from any demonic intrusion. Second, the buried ruins were much more solid than imagined. After examining its main material and structure, Lia discovered that the palace's framework used an insanely strong alloy. Although its surface buildings were damaged, its main structure clearly had special performance indicators, so even if it was buried deep underground, there was no need to worry about the risk of collapse, unless a large trench suddenly appeared and split the underground palace in two, which was almost impossible. Third, Lia felt that spending a night near the big trench was especially exciting, and she could brag about it for at least half a year when she got back.

Hao Ren felt that this third point was the real reason...

In all fairness, any group of mercenaries with a sound mind would not have accepted such a daring arrangement from their employer at this time, and they would have even broken up and disbanded as soon as they learned how close the underground palace was to the big trench. However, Hao Ren's group was specifically aiming to dig deep into the truth. They couldn't wait for Lia to stay in this place for a while longer, so after hearing the sleeping arrangements for the night, not a single person expressed any objections.

This made Miss Lia even more deeply concerned about whether this group of mercenaries was planning to kill her and divide her inheritance...

The underground world had no distinction between day and night. Even with a timer to tell the time, the lack of environmental changes made it difficult to adjust one's schedule. The most affected were Gungnir and Elizabeth. The former thought it was time to sleep at any time, while the latter thought it was never time to sleep, but in the end, the little demon girl was forcibly urged to sleep by her dad with the excuse that "children must go to bed on time, or they won't grow taller."

After Vivian, the last of the night-owl cultivators, also went to bed, the underground palace finally quieted down again.

Everything returned to darkness.

Hao Ren didn't know how long he had slept drowsily. It had been a long time since he had such a dreamless and peaceful deep sleep like he had in the past few days. Although dreamless sleep could better restore his energy, it also made it difficult to judge how long he had slept. When he woke up, he thought it was the next day, but he found that everyone was still asleep—even Vivian, who always woke up early, was hanging on the ceiling, still asleep.

Hao Ren rubbed his eyes. As his vision returned, the heavy darkness around him gradually faded. He glanced helplessly at Vivian, who was hanging upside down directly above him: this vampire lady usually slept in a bed, but apparently the buried palace ruins had stimulated some nerve of hers. Perhaps she was reminded of familiar environments such as underground tombs or caves. She decided to hang around tonight to reminisce about the hard times...

"Everyone has times when they're not steady," Hao Ren muttered. Feeling that his sleepiness had faded and that he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep if he continued to lie down, he simply crawled out of his sleeping bag, straightened his somewhat wrinkled clothes, and got up to leave the room.

Walking alone in an ancient underground palace that had been abandoned for ten thousand years was a test of courage, but for Hao Ren, who was already fearless, it was an alternative way to relax. He walked along the corridors where he could vaguely see the once-gorgeous decorations, and at the same time, he connected to Nolan's communication in his mind.

"How are things on the surface?"

"Nothing's changed," the ship spirit said lazily. "It's so boring, just floating in the sky, with nowhere to stroll... I can't even leave the atmosphere. As a spaceship, I feel like I'm about to be useless."

"Have a little ambition, will you? It's only been a few days," Hao Ren said helplessly. "Why didn't I see you complaining so much when you were in port for maintenance?"

"That's different. When I'm in port for maintenance, I just go into standby mode and party in virtual space. I don't feel anything even if I'm stuck there for two months. But here, I have to keep all my sensors on just to stare at this world where nothing's happening. Tell me, how boring is that?"

"Tch—I told you to send out probes. Is there any news?"

"I sent them out. I've scanned almost the entire planet," Nolan said lazily. "The map has been synchronized to the data terminal, and you can check it at any time. Just like you guessed, this world called Laerrien is really suspicious. I found shadows of almost every race in the Dream Plane on the planet's surface—not only including werewolves, vampires, and humans, which were created by the Goddess of Creation, but also native races like sirens. But some of these races seem to have 'changed,' as if they only retain the racial characteristics in appearance but have different names. For example, sirens are divided into land-dwelling 'snake people' and aquatic 'merfolk' here. The Laerrien people treat them as two species. Also, I found a people in a desert in the southern part of the continent that looks exactly like the Tannar people, but they're called 'Zheron people.' Besides that, there are many similar cases."

Hao Ren slowed down his pace. "Sounds like... a species sample repository, and some of the races preserved in this 'repository' have been renamed..."

"Maybe it really is a repository?" Nolan guessed. "As for the changes in names, could it be due to cultural discontinuity caused by the passage of ten thousand years?"

Hao Ren frowned slightly. "Actually, Mu Lu and the others once mentioned that the Goddess of Creation had a 'Dream Plane Species Database.' Xi Fu once served as a guard in this database. It's said that this database was used to preserve all life samples in the Dream Plane, but they didn't say in detail what the database looked like. Maybe it's just a virtual database, or maybe it's a planet where physical samples are stored... If it's the latter, and Laerrien is this database, then many things can be explained."

"If we want to verify this, we'll need to do a lot of statistics," Nolan said leisurely.

"Yeah," Hao Ren's mind became active. "Life forms aren't just various intelligent races, but also everything from birds and beasts to bacteria and viruses. These things are all life forms. The Seeds of Origin have evolved countless ecosystems based on the environment of the planets they're rooted in. Each ecosystem is probably composed of tens of millions or even billions of species. If Laerrien is really a database, then the number of species living on this planet will definitely reach an abnormally exaggerated number—even if your sensor performance and computing speed are increased tenfold, it won't be easy to complete the statistics."

"And so many species crowded on one planet... I can't believe it no matter how I think about it," Nolan said. "Let's not talk about how such a huge number 'squeezed' in. Just the fact that they come from different ecosystems is already a headache. Their living environments are different, and even their basic life structures are different. How can they coexist on one planet... Is the species database built by the Goddess of Creation such a simple and crude thing?"

"That's why I didn't directly confirm that this planet is the so-called 'repository,'" Hao Ren laughed. "If I had to say what impressed me the most about this place, then four words would describe it: seemingly but not quite. There are indeed all kinds of races here. It seems that corresponding samples of all intelligent creatures in the Dream Plane can be found here, but the sirens have become two completely different branches of snake people and merfolk here. The Tannar people have become the Zheron people, and the elves have also become seven or eight different races such as forest elves, sea elves, and demon elves. Many races have not only changed their names, but in fact, even their physiological structures have changed, and it's hard to believe that these changes were all completed in just ten thousand years. You know what? There's an ancient legend in this world that Laerrien is actually a 'new world.' Before it, there was an old Laerrien that was destroyed—although there are many errors in this legend, it gave me an inspiration..."

"Inspiration?"

"This planet is still full of vitality after experiencing the Divine Kingdom explosion. It doesn't look real no matter how you look at it," Hao Ren smiled slightly. "Could it be a counterfeit?"

The ship spirit thought for a while and gave a pertinent evaluation: "Every time you make things up, it sounds like it's true."

"Every time I make things up, I have a reason."

Hao Ren stopped. Unknowingly, he had left the atrium of the underground palace. The corridor was cut off here, and a large rift filled with endless darkness stretched out before him.

He had wandered all the way to the entrance of the big trench—was this truly the entanglement of fate!

Ending the communication with the ship spirit, Hao Ren squatted down alone next to the entrance of the big trench. Actually, he didn't just wander around and accidentally get here: he really cared about this strange big trench. Although the latter was extremely dangerous, it aroused Hao Ren's interest due to its strange nature. Hao Ren had planned from the beginning to find a chance to study it.

A slight flapping sound came from behind, followed by Vivian's voice: "I knew you'd come here."

Hao Ren didn't turn his head back: "Woke up?"

"My head hurts from hanging," Vivian muttered, rubbing her forehead. "I really don't know how I used to be able to sleep like this... A big bed is still more comfortable."

"People often question what was in their heads when they were edgy teenagers in retrospect," Hao Ren said with a smile, then raised his hand and pointed to the rift. "What do you think is down there?"

Vivian stared at Hao Ren: "You're not planning to jump down and see, are you?"

Hao Ren quickly shook his head: "Don't be ridiculous. Although an inspector is a reckless profession, I'm not reckless to that extent. I just have a bold idea to throw the data terminal down and see..."

Before he could finish speaking, the data terminal jumped out of his pocket: "Stop! Regarding your bold idea, this unit has an immature suggestion—you should just jump down!"

"Get out of the way. This is just a preliminary plan," Hao Ren casually pushed the data terminal aside, then took out a probe from his personal space. "Now I'm going to use a probe to try it out first."

Data terminal: "...I was scared to death."

Hao Ren glanced at the PDA, then activated the probe and threw it into the black rift in front of him.

According to Lia, the big trench would unconditionally devour everything with life or magical energy. Was the probe on its list of things to devour?