Chapter 1 The End

All the sealing measures in the Dark Abyss Cage were dying at an extremely rapid pace. This prison, which had been suppressed by the power of a True God for tens of millions of years, had reached the end of its lifespan after a long period of service. Those rune arrays, god-power nodes, and monitoring celestial bodies operating beyond their limits were extinguished one by one under the erosion of dark power. A shadow that seemed to possess substance was spreading from the depths of the universe, devouring those nodes that emitted a faint light in space one by one.

And those devoured nodes emitted pre-set warning signals before they were destroyed. After the warning signals were broadcast throughout the universe, a series of countermeasures began to operate rapidly.

A massive legion of drones began to gather mightily towards the center of the universe, and those drone nests and factories that had been operating at full power since long ago also set up production aggregation points at tens of millions of pre-set coordinates around the Dark Abyss. In the past few months, the Guardians Legion, which had been recuperating and restoring its combat capabilities, also left the X star cluster and arrived at the coordinates near the prison in batches.

And on the coordinate points of both the drone legion and the Guardian legion, countless floating turrets, armed satellite groups, protective barriers, and other cosmic fortresses with combat capabilities had already been set up.

The defense line formed by connecting these coordinate points was called the "Dividing Line."

It was the boundary that separated the safe universe from the mad universe.

Although the Lord of Pandemonium had not completely broken free from control, small-scale battles had already broken out in some areas.

There were almost no celestial bodies on the Dividing Line, but that was only "almost." In such a vast area of space, there were inevitably some gloomy and ancient primordial celestial bodies. Even though the Creator Goddess had deliberately cleaned up this universe in the past, some celestial bodies would still fall within the radiation range of the Dark Abyss as the stars moved.

And these solid substances would become the vanguard in the Lord of Pandemonium's escape process. Under the radiation of the Dark Abyss, these substances would disintegrate and recombine, creating monsters from the nightmare world out of thin air, and then, driven by instinct, move towards every direction in the universe that had vitality and intelligent reactions.

Letting these early derivatives escape was undoubtedly fatal. They would greatly accelerate the Lord of Pandemonium's ability to escape and pollute this world. Therefore, all the monitoring outposts on the Dividing Line were operating, and patrol forces composed of drones and the Guardian Legion were attacking everywhere, hunting down those "Fools" born from chaos, while also warming up for the upcoming formal war.

A distorted light curtain emerged in the dark and deep universe. After the light curtain dissipated, the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace arrived at the jump coordinate point, surrounded by a large group of heavy drones.

Hao Ren stood on the viewing platform on the upper level of the spaceship, looking at the scenery in the universe. The closest to the spaceship was a dark celestial body below. It was a bizarre and ugly planet that made people shudder. It floated in space like a festering and twisted tumor, its surface covered with dark red lines and eye-like structures. On the side of the planet facing the spaceship, those lines and eyes even seemed to form a human face, a face with great pain, twisted and unbearable.

The celestial bodies near the Dark Abyss were basically so terrifying. Even if they did not have an ecosystem, those inorganic rocks would still be transformed into this appearance by the power of the Lord of Pandemonium.

Countless shining light spots could be seen near that ugly planet. Those were armed drone units and the warships of the Guardian Legion bombing the surface of the planet. According to the scanning results, a large number of Pandemonium reactions had appeared on that planet, so the "cleaning troops" were carrying out cleaning work.

"Is this level of cleaning enough?" Vivian also watched the unpleasant planet with Hao Ren. "It looks like it's completely corrupted, not just monsters on the surface."

"The number of Annihilation Lances is limited, and they all need to be concentrated on the defense line of the Dark Abyss. There's no need to waste the firepower of super weapons on this kind of planet that is only polluted," Hao Ren said casually. "And we also need to collect samples to determine the degree of infiltration of the Lord of Pandemonium."

Lily leaned her head down and looked for a while, her tail slightly puffed up: "I think the main reason is that this planet is too ugly… It makes people want to blow it up entirely at a glance."

"Don't look at me," Hao Ren glanced at Vivian innocently, "I have never instilled this kind of thinking in her… God knows how she is developing more and more in the same direction as me."

Vivian curled her lips and looked into the distance: "Speaking of… is that the Dark Abyss?"

That was a zone of the universe completely without starlight.

The universe seemed to be divided into two distinct sides on this boundary. One side was full of radiant light, shining stars, and full of vitality, but the other side was sinking into complete darkness. All the light was swallowed up, and in the boundless darkness, one could only vaguely see invisible black mist slowly squirming, constantly growing and dying, but expanding itself at all times.

The center of the entire universe was like a dark void.

The depths of the Dark Abyss were not completely without light. The rune arrays left by the Creator Goddess and those "lone stars" that served as monitoring points were luminous bodies, but because the prison's remaining shielding system was still in effect, these lights could not be transmitted to the outside world. The Dark Abyss Cage was as if it were shrouded in a "horizon," and communication between the inside and outside could only rely on an extremely limited "safe line."

Previously, a night watcher in the Dark Abyss established a crystal tower near the border, and this communication line was widened to a certain extent. Hao Ren and the others could now have direct conversations with the keepers in the cage, but the dark horizon on the border still existed.

"We've seen enough here, let's go back to the bridge," Hao Ren glanced at the direction of the Dark Abyss again, suppressed the unpleasant feeling in his heart, and turned to walk towards the gate, "I need to talk to Leah."

A moment later, on the bridge of the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace, Leah had just finished reading the report sent to her by Salaman.

"The current leakage is mainly concentrated in the x-32 area, which is the area we are currently inspecting. As I expected, there is a weak point here. The Lord of Pandemonium will break through here first, and this place will also become the main channel for entering the battlefield after the war starts," Leah raised her head and looked at Hao Ren and the others, "And according to the information sent by the night watchmen, the 'discordant sound' in the depths of the Dark Abyss has disappeared, and almost all the power of Pandemonium is in a state of integration. This means that my evil god clone is about to complete the final adaptation. She and the power of Pandemonium are completely fused together."

"Sounds like bad news," Izaax stroked his chin and said, "I originally thought I could take advantage of her weakness to kill her first…"

"Actually, it's not entirely bad news," Leah shook her head, "She and the Lord of Pandemonium are united as one. On the one hand, it is true that she has become more powerful, but on the other hand, it has also created a weakness that can be eliminated for the Lord of Pandemonium. The biggest problem I encountered when I fought against the Lord of Pandemonium back then was that I couldn't completely eliminate it—it is not a real individual, nor does it have a fixed form or weakness. Back then, I was more like fighting against the universe itself than fighting against an enemy. The surrounding space-time, matter, energy, and parameters were all part of the Lord of Pandemonium. It was like swinging a sword to chop a cloud of mist, making it impossible to start, so in the end I could only choose to seal that area… because I couldn't find a way to completely eliminate the Lord of Pandemonium."

Hao Ren nodded slightly: "Now that the guy has a carrier, he can be completely eliminated."

Lily also nodded slightly: "I always feel that your description can be summarized as a series of operations against the air. After discovering that you can't win, you used administrator privileges to lock the map…"

Everyone: "…"

Vivian sighed and muttered, "What's with this feeling of 'this girl's open-minded words inexplicably hit the point, but I still want to smash her dog's head'…"

Leah was a little embarrassed for a while, but she was a True God after all, so she could get over it. She directly ignored Lily's words and continued: "Based on the new changes of the Lord of Pandemonium and the specific structure of our combat power, I have deduced the general situation after the war starts. The battlefield will undoubtedly be divided into two parts.

"The enemies we have to face are two parts. The first part is the corrupting power that spreads from the source of the Lord of Pandemonium—this corrupting power includes not only the aura of pollution, but also the monsters shaped and transformed by the aura of pollution. They are the enemy's cannon fodder, but also the only troops. Their number is absolutely astonishing and endless. The first part of the battlefield is to deal with them. The battle area should be on the periphery of the Dark Abyss, and the drone group and the Guardian troops are responsible for intercepting and annihilating them. This battlefield is very important, because every wave of corrupting power that escapes means that the balance of this universe is shifted one point closer to the critical point of madness and collapse. The polluted universe area will in turn enhance the power of Pandemonium, and the larger the polluted area, the smaller our battlefield space will be. Once there is a defeat on this battlefield, the army will fall into a snowballing pressure and eventually collapse.

"And the second part we have to deal with is the source of the Lord of Pandemonium, which is also its newly emerged core—my evil god clone. I believe that the clone has created a corrupted version of the Creation Engine, so what we have to face is an evil god plus a super artifact, plus the power bonus of the Lord of Pandemonium. This second battlefield is the link that determines the victory or defeat. If we can't win here, then it's useless to win anywhere else. The best result is just to re-apply the seal and repeat the events of the past tens of millions of years."

Speaking of this, she shook her head: "Letting history repeat itself is not our purpose here."