Chapter 1100 The Face of the Mad God's Cage

The large holographic projection opened, and for the first time, the mad universe shrouded in chaos and darkness was unveiled before Hao Ren’s eyes, revealing its mysterious veil.

"The original Abyss of Darkness prison was divided into three layers. The Goddess used her divine power to forcibly create several ordered barriers in this chaos, dividing them into inner, middle, and outer three-layer defense lines, with a large number of rune arrays and artificial celestial bodies distributed on these three layers of defense lines to suppress the activities of the Lord of the Mad," Atla’s chime-like voice echoed in the room. "But after the containment failed, all tangible things were disintegrating. Now most of the barriers have been corrupted and dismantled by the power of the Mad, returning the Abyss of Darkness to its chaotic state of ancient times. However, some things still remain."

"In these areas, there are some remaining rune arrays and artificial celestial bodies, floating in the universe as fragments. Some of them have fallen into the cracks of distorted space-time. They can still play a small role and can be used as stepping stones for activities deep within the Abyss of Darkness. But they are very unstable. Basically, all fragments are constantly annihilated and reborn on an hourly basis, and the total amount is constantly decreasing."

"This is one of the original monitoring nodes. It was still operating when we evacuated, and it is estimated that it can last until the decisive battle. This node can provide data support and can also be used to forward information, which should be useful on the battlefield."

"This area originally had an armory, storing a large number of divine puppets from ancient times. However, during the prisoner's breakout, ninety percent of the puppets were consumed, but the armory itself is very strong and may come in handy."

Lilia interrupted Atla's report: "What is the situation with the Lord of the Mad?"

"The prisoner's 'derivative contamination' has completely filled the entire Abyss of Darkness, and it now has a solidified core located at the deepest part of the cage. A powerful chaotic space-time protects that core, making it difficult to approach. Under the command of this core, the originally disordered and blindly acting power of the Mad is now full of organization and discipline. They even use various tactics to deal with the Night Watchers – which is the main reason why it was able to break free so quickly."

Lilia frowned: "That 'core' has not moved?"

"No, it has remained in the deepest part since its appearance. Only the derived contamination is active."

"That guy is waiting for me," Lilia sighed. "She knows very well that I will actively look for her, so she is staying in the place where the power of the Mad is most concentrated, waiting for us to fight on her home ground. Before that, she will continue to release the power of the Mad to erode the real world, so we have no choice."

"This layer of chaotic space-time is the biggest trouble," Hao Ren stroked his chin, looking at the schematic diagram of the space-time structure presented on the holographic projection. "That Goddess of Annihilation is hiding herself in a layer of ever-changing 'shell'. I guess the space-time rules in this place must be firmly controlled by her. To pass through such a space-time structure, conventional engines or spatial teleportation spells are useless, because the 'laws' are in the hands of others."

The data terminal swayed in the air: "In that kind of place, there shouldn't be any leeway to set up a calculation center to slowly crack the mathematical laws, right?"

"Forcing a breakthrough is not impossible, it's just a matter of fighting for control of the space-time order. I am on the same level as that Goddess of Annihilation in this regard," Lilia said, crossing her arms. "But this will definitely consume a lot of my energy and stamina. The Goddess of Annihilation has a constant source of power in the Abyss of Darkness, but our power diminishes with every bit we lose."

Just then, Nolan's voice suddenly sounded from the communicator – she was parked next to the control tower, establishing a real-time data link with the drone swarm, so she had been listening in: "Perhaps we can directly destroy this layer of chaotic space-time."

"Destroy it?" Hao Ren raised an eyebrow. "What ideas do you have? We don't seem to have any 'rule-level weapons' that can be used to compete with a true god for control of the laws."

"The Hope's void engine," Nolan replied. "The void engine can travel in the endless void outside the world barrier and create an independent order field. This order field is actually a kind of 'mandatory enforcement agency'. However, the void engine itself has a safety lock, which prevents it from operating inside the world barrier to prevent damage to the order of the universe, but if we remove its safety lock and overload it in that layer of chaotic space-time..."

"We can blast a hole in any space-time structure," Hao Ren's eyes lit up. "But can it be done?"

"To be honest, it does not conform to operating specifications. This part of the setting is locked, and can't be bypassed from the operating system. Even I can't bypass it," Nolan said. "But we can throw the operating system aside..."

Hao Ren roughly guessed what Nolan meant: "You mean..."

"It's not the safety protocol's business if the ship gets damaged," Nolan said leisurely. "The Hope can isolate the control circuit of the safety lock separately. Then you find a star-destroying crowbar..."

Hao Ren: "God, a star-destroying crowbar!"

"The consequences of your crowbar are at least the collapse of space-time of several light-years. Star-destroying crowbar is still a conservative estimate!"

"Speaking of which, if you use this method to break the void engine… are you okay?" Hao Ren waved his hand and asked the question he was most concerned about. "I remember that the void engine is connected to the largest energy pipeline of the power group, and it is connected to all the thrusters, right..."

"I can temporarily shield the energy supply of other engine groups when you mess things up, so I can still fly after the void engine is scrapped, and I can still move around when you guys are fighting, but the ability to warp and void travel is definitely temporarily gone – the warp generator and the void engine are too close, and they definitely can’t be saved."

Hao Ren took a light breath: "One-way passage..."

"Yes, a one-way passage."

The scrapping of warp and void travel also means that the Petrified Royal Turtle will not be able to leave the battlefield. Once the battle collapses, it will not be possible to leave the Dark Abyss space-time with only the sub-light-speed conventional engine and the light-speed warp thruster, so... this will be a one-way passage.

"Then, I should also talk about the way back," Hao Ren suddenly said, and raised his hand to interrupt Lily who wanted to speak. "It’s not to discourage morale, but there should always be more arrangements, right? Just like the Yggdrasil Ark that Lilia sent to the surface world back then, we also need to prepare some 'arks' to deal with the worst-case scenario."

As he spoke, he switched the holographic projection on the observation platform. The projection showed the "Inter-World Gate" located in Collow, and a large number of space-time accelerators and warp tracks distributed throughout the Dream Plane universe.

Lilia looked at them: "This is..."

"This is the evacuation route," Hao Ren said. "It was originally a transportation system built by the drone swarm during the expansion process in the Dream Plane. I transformed part of the backbone network and added large-scale acceleration devices. Through them, you can arrive at the Inter-World Gate located in Collow from any corner of the Dream Plane within twenty-four hours – and outside this Inter-World Gate is the safe and stable surface world."

"You have been messing around with the construction plan of the drone swarm these past few days. So, you were doing this?" Vivian said in surprise, then frowned. "But can this thing evacuate everyone?"

"No," Hao Ren shook his head directly. "Even if ninety-nine percent of the ecological planets in the Dream Plane have now become extinct, considering the throughput of these accelerators and the limitations of the gate, we cannot evacuate everyone. The satellite swarms set up above each planet can only transfer up to one-tenth of the ecological samples from the surface of the planets according to an 'Ark Plan'. So, this is just a final plan. Once things really get to that point... we have no choice."

Lily's ears and tail slowly perked up: "But so much information passes through the Wall of Reality at once, wouldn't the two universes..."

"So, there is another layer of arrangement in the surface world," Hao Ren said quietly. "Raven 12345 has made preparations. Before the Wall of Reality begins to collapse and the conflict of laws is about to affect the surface world, she will instantly destroy the entire Dream Plane, so that all the impact generated when the Wall of Reality collapses will be absorbed by the remains of the Dream Plane. And the 'refugees' transferred to the Rift Nebula will then be resettled on the spot until the 'compatibility processing' is completed before they are allowed to leave there. In this way, the damage is controlled to a minimum."

Lilia sighed softly: "...This is really not a pleasant plan."

Then she raised her head and smiled: "But the plans I made back then were also as unpleasant as this plan."

"Therefore, we must strive to prevent things from really developing to this point," Hao Ren said. "I will upload the details of this evacuation plan to the public database. Everyone can take a look and discuss any problems. Besides that, does anyone have anything to add?"

No one expressed any more opinions, so Hao Ren announced that the discussion was over, and everyone could go back to rest – the drone swarm would make the final fine-tuning of the fortress based on today's battle situation, and the Night Watcher fleet that had just been evacuated would also undergo rest and inspection to ensure that there were no infected people who had slipped through the net.

Vivian stayed behind.

"I didn't know you had arranged such an evacuation plan," she looked into Hao Ren's eyes. "And the last step of this evacuation plan... is to destroy the entire Dream Plane."

"It was formulated by me and Raven 12345 together. According to her, this can also be regarded as the last lesson that needs to be mastered to become a formal inspector," Hao Ren also stared at Vivian. "Sometimes, someone has to make some cruel decisions."

Vivian pinched him lightly: "So, you didn't even tell me and did these things yourself?"

Hao Ren pretended to grimace, then pressed Vivian's hair: "Don't worry, the meaning of us standing here is to ensure that these cruel decisions will never have a time to be put to use, isn't it?"

Vivian rolled her eyes, slapped away the hand messing around on her head, thought about it, and then went forward and hugged Hao Ren: "We both have to go back alive, right?"

Hao Ren smiled and hugged Vivian tightly: "Of course. And in order to prevent triggering some strange flags, I haven't proposed to you until today, so can this battle be unstable?"

"Always so improper!"