Chapter 1 An Amazing Talent

Hao Ren felt like he might have an incredible talent: whenever he decided to "capture someone alive," there was a fifty percent chance the target would self-destruct. Whether it was the brain monster that escaped last time or this rebel officer, it was always the same. He had just ordered them to take the officer alive when he saw the heroic-looking soldier dressed like the god of war suddenly raise his longsword, shout some mystical words, and then a blinding white light pierced out from every limb of the officer's body. Before anyone had time to react, a powerful heatwave accompanied by the shockwave of the explosion swept towards them.

"Careful!" Hao Ren only had time to shout before grabbing Lily by the fur on her neck and pulling the big dog to the side. Lily was still busy chewing on the tin can in her mouth and was half a beat slow to react. She was blown dozens of meters away by the blast wave and slammed into the outer wall of the temple with a howl. Fortunately, her body was sturdier than anyone else's, and a gust of hot air wasn't enough to hurt her; she was just startled.

Hao Ren was more seriously injured—he was still lying on Lily's shoulder blades when the giant husky crashed into the wall, and he was caught in between. Even though the shield cushioned the impact a little, he was still left dizzy and disoriented…

Lily slid down the temple's outer wall, shook her head to steady herself, and Hao Ren crawled halfway out of the fur on the back of her neck in a disheveled state, shaking his head and muttering, "Who did I offend… Damn, it really just exploded on the spot. So damn fierce?"

He looked up at the spot where the rebel commander had been standing. All that was left was a melted pit, with molten metal and rock flowing across the ground. A large cluster of jumping sparks circled around the pit, gradually weakening. Izhaks glanced into the pit and muttered in a low voice, "All turned to water."

"Crap, I finally got a chance to take someone alive!" Hao Ren slid down Lily's front legs and shouted in frustration next to the melted pit, "We should have crippled him first, at least so he wouldn't have had a chance to self-destruct."

Izhaks surveyed the battlefield, seemingly wanting to find any other rebels who were still breathing. However, the battle had been too brutal, and the two sides were fighting to the death. After the fierce battle, there wasn't a single person left alive, not even a body in good shape. Hao Ren noticed this as well. He could only sigh regretfully, "Forget it, I've already had the ship send out probes. Maybe there are other rebels on this planet who didn't retreat… Hmm? Lily, what are you eating?"

He then noticed that Lily was still chewing at this moment, and a constant creaking sound of metal grinding came from her mouth. After hearing Hao Ren's question, she "woo-ed?" and spat hard onto the ground.

A rebel soldier, covered in tattered armor and bloodstains, was spat out by her.

The soldier's dishevelment was beyond imagination. He had been used by Lily as a teething tool for a good ten minutes, and the armor and clothes on his body had been almost completely "re-forged." Only a few pieces of metal and cloth strips were left hanging on his body, and not to mention the wounds and bloodstains all over him—even so, he was still not dead, and even his whole body was intact. The extremely tragic injuries were only superficial wounds.

The rebels had modified their bodies to be as tough as werewolves, and they also had powerful magic and armor to protect themselves, as well as a bunch of strange, unknown protective items that were either technology or mysterious artifacts, which allowed the soldier to survive in the dog's mouth for quite a long time. After being spat onto the ground, he was obviously still in an extremely unconscious state, struggling dizzily on the ground to get up, not knowing whether the psychological damage or the physiological damage was more serious.

However, Hao Ren didn't care about that. Overjoyed, the first thing he did was to have the data terminal fly over and slam down on the unlucky guy's head. If he wasn't mistaken, this was the second time this unlucky fellow had been hit on the head by the data terminal—he didn't disappoint and fell unconscious with a thud, not even understanding what had hit him when he lost consciousness.

Hao Ren summoned an autonomous machine and a large number of binding and restraining devices from his dimensional storage. He bound the rebel soldier in layer upon layer like a ball of yarn, and finally stuffed him into a spherical crystal container used to hold dangerous biological samples, to ensure that even if this guy woke up, he wouldn't have the chance to self-destruct. Only then did he step forward and pat Lily's paw (the latter's size was now so large that Hao Ren's height could only reach the other's paw): "Good job!"

Lily nodded her head with a "woo" to happily accept the praise, then spat to the side, spitting out a chewed-up metal boot.

Hao Ren saw that there were still many metal fragments hanging between this giant husky's teeth, and he reminded her, "Don't change back yet. There are still a lot of metal scraps in your mouth. I'll have the autonomous machine brush your teeth later."

Lily happily nuzzled Hao Ren with her nose, then licked him into the air with her tongue before striding towards the temple gate with a majestic gait. Muru was here taking care of his heavily injured compatriot, who had been besieged by the rebels for a long time, and almost no part of his body was intact. But fortunately, he was still alive, and with the guardian's powerful vitality, it shouldn't be difficult to recover. He leaned half of his body against the temple gate, looking at Muru with a very confused expression: "I didn't expect to wait for reinforcements here… Which temple did you come from?"

"The situation is complicated," Muru didn't know how to explain, so he had to point to Hao Ren, "This is our new ally. He brought me here."

The guardian's attention had not been focused on Hao Ren, this inconspicuous creature, and there were many rebel soldiers interfering with the aura from the side, so he did not notice the special aura on Hao Ren and Lily. At this time, Muru reminded him, and he suddenly realized something. His first reaction was to reach for the weapon beside him and exclaim in surprise, "This aura… this is a rebel…"

"Wait, wait, calm down!" Hao Ren had expected this situation, so he didn't get too close at all. When the guardian was about to attack, he shouted, "I'm not a rebel! We're not in the same group!"

"My brother, please calm down," Muru also immediately held down the guardian's arm, disarming him in an almost forceful manner. The latter was too weak to resist. "I said, the situation is complicated. They are not rebels, but just have the same or similar bloodline."

The temple guard's eyes moved back and forth between Muru and Hao Ren. He couldn't understand the situation in front of him. "What exactly is going on? My brother, I believe that the guardian's noble will cannot be distorted, but these people…"

Muru interrupted the other's question, "Do you know that the gate of Sluun has been thrown into temporal distortion?"

"Temporal distortion?" The temple guard of course understood the meaning of these four words, but he didn't know what it had to do with the current situation. "Is the time here chaotic?"

"It has been slowed down. Although I don't know why, the gate of Sluun was thrown into a mysterious space-time, and has long lost contact with the outside universe. I searched for many years before finally finding this place," Muru said in a low voice, "The time here has been flowing at an extremely slow rate. When we found this place, we discovered that this planet had a huge time difference with the main universe, so…"

Guardians were a race with rich knowledge, and the temple guard immediately understood Muru's meaning: "It has been… how many years?"

Muru opened his mouth, suddenly not knowing how to tell the other party the current facts. Finally, Izhaks stepped forward: "The fall of planet Sluun was ten thousand years ago."

Muru nodded slightly, indicating that the news was undoubtedly true.

Guardians would not deceive their compatriots. The goddess had set this rule when designing their souls. The temple guard's face stiffened, and even he could not immediately accept this fact. After a moment of silence, he slowly raised his head, pointing to Hao Ren and Lily: "So they are…"

"They should be descendants with a certain blood relationship with the rebels, or just have a similar aura," Muru looked at Hao Ren and nodded slightly, "They are already ten thousand years apart from their ancestors, and they even come from another universe now. As you just saw, they are now on our side."

Although Muru was wary of Hao Ren and his group at first, after spending some time together and learning about many of the facts, the giant had let go of his prejudices.