Chapter 1 Familiar Dizziness

The familiar dizziness struck once more, this time lasting much shorter than when they entered the illusion. Hao Ren felt a brief blackout before his feet were back on solid ground, noticing that they were once again surrounded by the scenery of the silver platform.

The massive golden disk still floated before him. Lier was to his left, Lehmenduza stood not far away, and Vivian was to his right, curiously wide-eyed as she leaned in to check on him.

Hao Ren suddenly opened his eyes, startling Vivian, "Whoa!"

Then she waved her hand. "I saw all three disks go dark, but you two hadn't woken up yet, so I came to check."

Hao Ren rubbed his forehead, trying to clear his head. "Ugh… stayed in the illusion a bit longer this time."

"Dizzy, dizzy…" Lier also woke up at the same time as Hao Ren. Since she had actively opened the illusion with her divine power, even she, a true god, felt the same dizziness as Hao Ren, and she was clearly not used to it. "Won't be doing that again…"

Hearing Lier's voice, Hao Ren turned to look at the Goddess of Creation, who happened to be looking back at him. The two stared at each other, the atmosphere becoming awkward.

Considering what he had seen in the illusion, he felt it was inappropriate to say anything… Should he ask if the goddess still felt heartache?

Hao Ren thought for a moment and decided it was best not to tempt fate.

"You two…" Vivian looked curiously at Hao Ren and then at Lier, immediately sensing something was up. "What did you do? You went into that 'illusion' together? What did you see in there?"

Hao Ren was about to speak when he saw Lehmenduza standing not far away, also looking over with curiosity. He immediately swallowed his answer, coughing a few times instead. "Cough, cough, it was about the same as last time. I'll tell you more later."

Lier nodded with a straight face. "Yeah, yeah, we saw the same scene Hao Ren saw before. Nothing much."

They weren't lying. They did see the same scenes Hao Ren had seen the first time he entered the illusion, but this time, they had a first-person perspective…

Although she felt something was off, Vivian cooperated by changing the subject. "Oh… so how's the golden disk situation?"

Hearing this, Hao Ren and Lier both felt relieved. They had indeed checked the cause of the golden disk's malfunction before leaving the illusion, so Lier nodded and replied, "It should be working properly this time."

Lehmenduza stepped forward and asked respectfully, "Mother, the previous malfunction was because…"

"The memories of a god disrupted the disk's original program," Lier said, spreading her hands. "A fragment of my consciousness was attached to the disk. Although the fragment was extremely small, not even a wisp of thought, its extremely high divine rank interfered with the normal program operation. I've now recovered and cleaned up those consciousness fragments. The disk should be able to operate normally."

Lehmenduza looked relieved. "That's good. In that case, the Creation Engine can be fully assembled."

"Let's do it now," Lier instructed after a moment of consideration. "I'm here anyway. It's good to watch this thing be completed."

"Yes." Lehmenduza accepted the order and immediately began arranging the reinstallation of the three golden disks and the preparations to restart the Godheart and the Creation Engine.

The white platform moved closer to the Creation Engine's surface, making it easier for Lier to observe the engine's startup process. Under the action of tractor beams, the three golden disks floated towards the huge opening on the back of the engine. With the help of a series of engineering machines, a large number of cables and substantial-looking streams of light were drawn out from inside the engine, connecting one by one to the interfaces on the edge of the golden disks and to the "Godheart" floating near the crack.

The entire connection process was still being carried out outside the Creation Engine. Although Lier was sure she had solved the "malfunction" of the golden disks, such a large-scale project required caution. To avoid other unexpected situations, Lehmenduza did not plan to put the Godheart into the engine until the entire connection process was successfully completed.

The tense waiting process also eased Hao Ren's awkwardness after learning certain truths. He looked at the machinery in the distant space, thinking his mood was probably the same as that of a maintenance worker finally able to go home on vacation, looking at the server room before leaving his post—he really didn't want anything to go wrong…

Driven by tension, he even rarely called out the name of Crow 12345 to pray: "Please, don't let anything happen! I'm willing to have Crow 12345 explode in place three times in exchange for the successful completion of this project…"

Vivian, standing beside him, was stunned. "As a pope, are you even embarrassed to pray like that?"

"It's written in the Bible that sincere prayer is effective. The point isn't about saying nice things, but about saying things from the bottom of your heart," Hao Ren explained seriously. "And the most important thing is that she can't hear me when I say it here anyway…"

Vivian: "…"

On the other side, the connection between the Godheart and the Creation Engine had reached its most critical moment.

All the connection equipment had been prepared long ago. The entire system was only missing the golden disks. Now that everything had arrived at its respective location, with Lehmenduza's order, the last energy pipeline was connected to the Creation Engine's energy core.

"Physical connection ready, energy core ready, component connections confirmed, all monitoring points performing a final check…"

On the white platform, the stiff broadcast of the foundry's AI sounded. As each report came in, Lehmenduza looked towards Lier.

The small Goddess of Creation was calmer than ever at this moment. She nodded gently. "Ignite."

"Startup command issued, Creation Engine ignition!"

It was a magnificent and gorgeous scene.

In that instant, the pale gold outer shell of the Creation Engine seemed to show a hazy, ethereal texture, as if mist. Then it re-condensed into a solid entity. Streams of blue and white light flowed quickly through the gaps in the alloy land, making the entire artificial planet as bright as a rapidly filling heart. In the flickering light, this lifeless thing gave people the illusion that "it was alive."

Then, endless brilliance emanated from the surface of the Creation Engine. The light overwhelmed all the starlight in the vast universe, but it did not make anyone feel the slightest bit of glare. Hao Ren felt an incomparable power washing over him. If this power were unleashed, it would not only be enough to reduce him to ashes, but it would even be enough to kill a true god!

However, this power was controlled. As the ignition process proceeded smoothly, the endless brilliance quickly converged. Hao Ren saw the substantial-looking light retreat to the outer shell of the Creation Engine in the blink of an eye. As the light faded, he suddenly saw a phantom-like scene in the dark space behind the Creation Engine.

The space there trembled, and vague, uncertain things emerged. A dark red planet appeared in space, covered with a large number of twisted, proliferating keratin and flesh. At the breaks in the crust, many complex, constantly running machines could be seen. Its size was almost identical to the Creation Engine, but it exuded a strong aura of destruction and decay, completely opposite to the vitality of the Creation Engine.

Then, this ominous celestial body faded away, and a pale figure appeared there. She had almost the same appearance as Lier, but there was not a trace of emotion or warmth on her face. She looked coldly at the Creation Engine and Hao Ren's direction. A voice echoed directly in the latter's mind, crossing space and time: "...Meaningless."

All the images finally disappeared completely, and the trembling space returned to normal again. Lehmenduza, who was about to sound the alarm, looked at this scene in astonishment and asked a little blankly, "Mother, this is…"

"Just resonance. It's within my expectations," Lier said softly. "The World-Ending Goddess's engine has indeed been completed… and our engine has the same origin as it, so some phenomena are inevitable after start-up."

"Oh ho, the other side has quite the attitude," the data terminal's voice suddenly came from the side. "Don't they understand the principle that the more reckless you are, the faster you die? Do they really think they're invincible after combining with the Lord of Madness—This machine was born at the wrong time. If I had become the host of an Eternal-class battleship when I came off the production line, I would have used a galaxy-level attack to blast her so her mom wouldn't recognize her…"

This guy suddenly popping out and babbling startled Hao Ren. "Holy crap… when did you get here?!"

"I came when you were chanting about blowing up the boss," the data terminal said, shaking its body. "Damn it, you guys opened a portal and left. I wanted to catch up, but I was one step too slow and fell into your daughter's hands. That fish almost pried my shell open…"

Hao Ren: "…You didn't record anything just now, did you?"

"What's the panic? You're not the only pope in the entire universe who's constantly chanting about sacrificing our God," the data terminal said nonchalantly. "Speaking of which, is the Creation Engine… considered a success?"

Everyone's eyes fell on space.

The pale gold artificial celestial body was floating quietly in the dark space, filled with surging energy and shrouded in a layer of brilliance.

It was once designed to erase all divine power within the universe. But now, after Lier's reprogramming, it had become a weapon that could break through the defenses of the Lord of Madness and launch an attack on the Dark Abyss Cage.

"This trump card is in our hands," Lier said softly. "Soon… the main show will begin."

"We need to go back to the surface world first," Hao Ren said to the data terminal. "There's something I need Crow 12345 to help with."