Chapter 163 God's Heart

The function of the God's Heart was very simple. The Ancestor Civilization created it solely to serve as the final failsafe for the universe: when the annihilative forces were about to destroy all order, the God's Heart would activate and reset the entire world.

But to achieve this simple function, they put a lot of effort into the God's Heart.

Resetting the world—even with rudimentary, immature technology—required a high degree of understanding and control of the universe's rules, the ability to interfere with the underlying data of the universe, and, most importantly, terrifying computing power.

A large portion of the God's Heart's modules supported this computing power, while the remaining modules were used to implement interference with the underlying laws, as well as residual interfaces left over from connections to other devices.

"I got detailed parameters from the Scepter of Governance. Although many parameters are still hard to understand, at least in terms of computing power, it's clear that the God's Heart can fully meet the needs of the Creation Engine," Hao Ren said to Lily as he watched the debris of the Earth's core around the God's Heart being quickly "salvaged" by the traction devices. "Of course, although the hardware meets the standards, they're products of two different tech trees after all. We'll need to make some slight modifications to the drivers and language conversion. And since the God's Heart wasn't originally designed to provide computing support for other devices, you'll need to work on that."

"Having qualified hardware is enough!" Lilya's face already showed a surprised expression. "I have ready-made software for that, and we also have the transcode book now. It won't take long to modify—but the size of this thing obviously doesn't match the size of the Creation Engine's core module. I'll have to modify the structure inside the Creation Engine later. Hmm, it's not too much trouble."

Hao Ren nodded, turned around, and watched the engineering machines fly around the God's Heart, installing external thrusters and space-bubble generators. He couldn't help but sigh, "Speaking of which, Nolan, didn't the information you found in the God's Heart's database say that this thing was made by the Ancestor Civilization using the heart of their highest leader?"

Nolan was puzzled, "Yes, what's wrong?"

Hao Ren stroked his chin, "Emmmmmmm… I don't know whether to say they had a big heart or what…"

"Your train of thought is as bizarre as Doggie's!" Vivian was immediately stunned. "The Ancestor Civilization's tech tree clearly reached the conceptual level! Who knows what they meant by extracting the heart—and they had subsequent processing too!"

"Ah, that's true," Hao Ren muttered, touching his hair. He looked at the God's Heart and his expression gradually became serious. "In any case, those nameless kings who sacrificed themselves to create this 'heart' back then should be able to rest in peace… The Lahrhein civilization ultimately survived, and the annihilation cycle and the apocalypse that was originally destined to come were successfully ended. They postponed the apocalypse so many times, this time it's finally been truly and permanently postponed…"

"No, the apocalypse will always come, partner. The universe also has a lifespan limit, and nothing is eternal," the data terminal said quietly. "But at least this time, they won't die because of a bizarre 'annihilation' and a hopeless war."

"This fragmented universe will eventually perish, but that day will be a long, long time from now, perhaps so long that the Lahrhein civilization will rise again, even surpassing their ancestors," Lilya said quietly. "I have a plan…"

Hao Ren looked at her curiously, "What plan?"

"The Lahrhein civilization is trapped on this planet, and outside the planet is a chaotic void. Although the divine power barrier protects them, one day this lonely planet will become their isolated island. In this situation, restoring the height of the Ancestor Civilization is almost a pipe dream," Lilya said very seriously. "The Dark Domain is controlled by independent spacetime laws, so I can't integrate it into the Dream Plane. So I want to create a starry sky around Lahrhein—that starry sky we saw when the Apocalypse was launched. I've memorized it. Although I don't know which era it was, the Lahrhein civilization must have bathed in that starlight on some day in the past… I want to return it to this civilization."

"Creating a group of stars for them, a very good idea," Hao Ren was also touched by the plan described by Lilya, but he had some questions, "Can it be done? For the official Creator Gods of the three major divine systems, this might not be difficult, but you shouldn't be able to do this yet… That's hundreds of millions of stars and planets, and a vast expanse of the universe, its scale is even larger than the entire Dark Domain now."

"I'll work hard to learn," Lilya shook her fist in front of her chest, "And the chaotic area of the Dark Domain isn't empty either. There are many fragments of information floating on its edge. I can extract materials for shaping stars from it, and I've also learned how to open the Order Field in the void recently, as well as the knowledge of the world barrier. I can reshape the Dark Domain's world barrier and expand it…"

As Lilya spoke, she had a confident expression on her face, "Maybe it will take me many years to do these things, but I can always master them. I want to complete these things before the Lahrhein mortals have the ability to fly to the stars, and then I'll help them open the barrier on the planet. Then it'll be—wow, a big surprise!"

"Then you have to hurry," Lily sincerely reminded, "Don't underestimate humans' ability to learn tech. If they launch an orbital telescope and you're still frantically drawing textures on other planets, it'll be embarrassing."

The husky girl's train of thought was as always above everyone else.

Lilya still wasn't used to communicating with this husky spirit. She even seriously considered it, then clapped her hands, "Then I'll first set up something like a horizon barrier for them, and then explain it with gravitational disturbances or space distortions. After it's completed, I'll remove the barrier. When they develop to the point where they can understand the truth of the universe and won't be affected by the concept of gods, I'll tell them those are all DLC…"

Hao Ren almost fell from mid-air, "God damn DLC—how did we get from such a serious topic to this?!"

Vivian silently pointed to the husky girl standing next to her with an innocent face.

"Lily, put your brain back in!" Hao Ren glared at the husky spirit. "Lilya is still studying, don't you corrupt her!"

Then he turned to Lilya, "Don't take everything this guy says seriously—it's a miracle if half of it is thought through. Especially in this damn hot place, her intell… hey hey hey Lily why are you biting people again!!"

Lilya looked at Hao Ren, then looked at Lily biting the other's arm and refusing to let go, and felt that she really needed to learn more…

At this moment, Nolan's holographic projection suddenly appeared next to everyone again. She glanced at Hao Ren, who had provoked and been bitten, and said expressionlessly, "Boss, there's a new discovery."

Nolan's voice sounded like a heavenly sound at this moment. Hao Ren quickly took advantage of this opportunity to shake his arm out of Lily's sharp teeth, "Don't make trouble, there's serious business—what discovery?"

Nolan only said two words: "Vaccine."

Whether it was Hao Ren, who was checking his tooth marks, or Lily, who was licking her teeth and preparing to find a place to bite again, as well as Vivian and Lilya, who were watching from the side, were stunned when they heard these two words.

A moment later, an engineering drone came to everyone. At the front of the drone, a black, obsidian-like stone slab was fixed with a robotic arm.

"What is this?" Hao Ren frowned. "A foundation stone?"

"That's right, it's a foundation stone, but it should be the 'mother stone' of all foundation stones," Nolan said. "It's stored in a special cabin inside the God's Heart. The security is very strict. If the Scepter of Governance hadn't given us full operating permissions, I wouldn't even know this cabin existed."

"How could the foundation stone be a 'vaccine'?" Hao Ren was a little puzzled. "According to the information we have, the Ancestor Civilization didn't develop any vaccines, did they?"

"They didn't develop a vaccine, this 'vaccine' was created by itself after each cycle of epochs," Nolan explained. "The function of the foundation stone is just like their name, the 'foundation' pivot for world reshaping. Due to the imperfection of the technology, the Ancestor Civilization couldn't manipulate the laws of the universe out of thin air like the gods. They had to set up countless 'relay points' to achieve the function of the God's Heart. These relay points are the foundation stones. Each time an era is replaced, the God's Heart needs to first collect a large amount of data from the entire universe, then reset and restart. After the restart, it needs to set up new data collection points and injection points. So the so-called foundation stone is not only a decoding book for the God's Heart's database, but also its…"

"Sensor and output terminal?" Hao Ren took over the second half of Nolan's sentence. "I understand, so the one in front of me…"

"All the foundation stones are copied from it, and after the universe is destroyed, the information of all the destroyed foundation stones will also be uploaded to this 'mother stone'. This process is a bit like mass projection, but it's obviously much more rudimentary," Nolan commented on the technology of the Ancestor Civilization and revealed how the foundation stone became a "vaccine," "Originally, the God's Heart's restart process would completely reset the madness pollution in the world, including the foundation stones, but after this process continued many times, this hastily made 'artifact' finally had a problem. I don't know which era had some flaws, but one foundation stone completed the upload in a polluted state."

Hao Ren immediately frowned, "Such a big accident? The God's Heart wasn't infected?"

"No, if the main body of the Lord of Madness was still in this universe, the infection would definitely spread further, but this universe only has the remaining power of the Lord of Madness, and these remaining powers are not so difficult to deal with," Nolan shook her head. "The God's Heart should have detected a system failure at that time. I found in the logs that it frequently reset certain key processes for a period of time—this is probably one of the reasons why the soul memories of the Inheritors were damaged, but in any case, its emergency handling had an effect. The madness pollution left in the foundation stone… was transformed, and this foundation stone itself became the vaccine we're looking for."