Chapter 1 Those Unforgettable Scenes

Even after many years, the soldiers who had witnessed the scene could not forget the breathtaking spectacle they saw that day.

The roar of engines and the thunderous rumble of beams evaporating rock reverberated through the heavens and earth. The entire crater basin where the Tree of Life was located was shrouded in hot wind and thick fog. The earth shook ceaselessly, and the mountains that had stood for thousands of years crumbled in the twisting. Countless boulders rolled down from the surrounding mountains, while the basin enclosed by these mountains slowly rose.

More than a dozen cylindrical flying vehicles floated above the Tree of Life, showering the earth with light, directly pulling a 170-kilometer-long pillar of rock from the ground. Entwined within this pillar were the Tree of Life and the First Born’s main body.

As this terrifying mass slowly ascended, a large number of cruisers also approached from the periphery. Each cruiser extended a set of mechanical arms, the ends of which held anti-gravity generators. The cruisers were piloted by skilled engineers who ascended with the rock pillar, constantly installing these gravity generators in predetermined locations. Everything was perfectly coordinated, busy but not chaotic.

As more and more anti-gravity generators were activated, the ascent speed and stability of the entire assembly further increased. The dozen or so cylindrical flying vehicles responsible for the initial traction quickly ceased exerting force. Two-thirds of them rapidly retreated into the distance, while the remaining ones used limited tractor beams to maintain the stability of the entire structure's ascent.

Five minutes later, the bottom of the assembly had still not completely separated from the ground, but the upper part had already left the area shrouded in dust and fog. Its grotesque and bizarre appearance was presented to observers in the distance: countless intertwined roots formed a structure like a vine ball. These roots had completely eroded the surrounding rock, resulting in the middle section of the rock pillar having almost no soil or stone, almost entirely occupied by these biological tissues. In the gaps between the roots intertwined into walls, faint dark red lights occasionally flickered – the deep organs of the First Born. This gigantic creature was still asleep, and the red light beneath the layers of "vines" therefore appeared dim and weak.

In the upper part of the assembly, the vines clearly resembled normal tree roots; that was the main body of the Tree of Life: the part that had barely mutated.

The cruiser formations and tractor ships circled around the assembly, constantly making minute corrections and detections of this sky-covering object, like leaves in a tornado. Some cruisers boldly approached the "biological tumors" intertwined with tentacles, inserting thick probes into the First Born's nerve ganglia – according to current research results, those biological tumors were indeed nerve ganglia.

They were injecting the giant with interfering pheromones, the world's strongest sedative – only effective on the First Born.

The whole scene was magnificent and shocking, already like a miracle to the natives of Holletta. As the saying goes:

Which excavator technology is the strongest? The Sun King of the Irem Elves; two hundred drills against the earth's anus, five hundred skilled pilots...

Well, it was something like that.

This spectacular scene could be seen from a hundred kilometers away, let alone near the basin. A layer of divine magic shields shone above the small monastery, blocking the hot tornadoes and rock vapors outside. The gravel and pebbles flying into the sky splattered against the shield, creating layers of ripples. Aufra strained her neck, trying to see the stump of the Tree of Life, but the latter was already beyond the range of eyesight. She muttered with some emotion, "Compared to the light from the Dragon Spine Mountains, the momentum is a bit smaller, but equally breathtaking."

"To deal with a big guy that's a hundred or two hundred kilometers in size, anything you do is bound to be breathtaking," Hao Ren shrugged. "The needles used to inject that thing with sedatives are a meter thick, and half a ton of medicine has to be injected in one go. Who told this thing to grow so big?"

Lily hugged her arms and rubbed them hard: "Landlord, stop talking, I'm getting goosebumps all over. I'm most afraid of injections..."

Vivian looked at the husky girl in surprise: "I didn't expect you to be afraid of this? You usually seem so carefree."

"Don't mention it. I didn't know any better a few years ago. When I first heard about the rabies vaccine, I thought it was specially made for me... I stole two boxes of expired vaccines. After the injection, I vomited for three whole days from allergies and rejection."

Vivian: "..."

"The progress on the Sunset Mountains side is slightly slower than here, but it's also going smoothly," Hao Ren contacted another engineering team. "Hilda and Big Beard are accompanying Moron to inspect the site over there at the Sunset Mountains."

"The king personally went to the Sunset Mountains?" Aufra was a little surprised. "That's not on his schedule..."

"Yeah, his schedule didn't anticipate receiving the Queen of Irem either, and your schedule didn't anticipate that the engineering team I brought would be this large," Hao Ren shrugged. "You have to adapt to this kind of unconventional situation."

After most of the anti-gravity generators were activated, the entire assembly became equivalent to a weightless target. Its ascent speed began to increase dramatically, rapidly flying towards outer space without disintegrating or causing excessive airflow. Thirty minutes later, the Tree of Life and two-thirds of the basin had already become a blurry shadow in the sky, and the place where they had once stood was only a still-hot pit, billowing with thick smoke and dust, making it impossible to see what was below.

Vivian waved her hand and summoned a gust of wind, but it only dispelled the fog on the nearby mountains for a short time. Because there was still a strong flow of hot air coming from the pit, the dust and smoke here would probably take a while to dissipate. He Ren clicked his tongue: "This reminds me of my hometown..."

Elizabeth sat on her dad's shoulders, waving her little fist and shouting loudly: "I miss home too!"

Aufra was very surprised: "Do you have such smoke every day over there?"

Hao Ren shrugged: "It depends on the situation. When the weather is good, you can see the stars, and when the weather is bad, you can breathe your fill in half an hour. The situation is even worse in Big Beard's hometown. When the weather is bad, they all run to the volcanoes to breathe fresh air."

Aufra: "...No wonder you have such powerful strength. You live in a place that hones warriors."

Hao Ren felt that Her Excellency the Marshal had subtly misunderstood something, but it seemed he couldn't explain it clearly...

An hour later, the first space signal came from the synchronous orbit of Holletta: "Team B transport group has arrived at the scheduled orbit. The 'cargo' is stable, and the 'lullaby' device is working normally!"

A few minutes later, the news of Team A's arrival also came from orbit.

The remaining task was to transport the two living First Born to the orbit of Tanagrus. However, the Irem Elves' spaceship did not have this capability, so the next work needed to be handed over to the Great Tortoise Rock Terrace.

Of course, the Great Tortoise Rock Terrace's space expansion device had its limits, at least the throughput of the storage window was limited. It was impossible to put a First Born nearly two hundred kilometers wide into the spaceship's cargo hold. Therefore, the Great Tortoise Rock Terrace would use space bubble transfer to send the two living samples to the orbit of Tanagrus.

After the Irem Elves' engineering fleet sent the First Born (and the Tree of Life entangled with the First Born) into the predetermined location, they withdrew batch by batch as planned, and the Great Tortoise Rock Terrace appeared near the two samples under the control of an automatic program. The shipboard host activated the spaceship's warp device and expanded its projection to a considerable area nearby --

The starlight from afar immediately twisted within a few hundred kilometers of the spaceship, as if an unprecedentedly huge source of gravity was interfering with the optical phenomena in that area. The starlight twisted into arcs, and then quickly gathered into rings. An entire area of ​​space was closed to form a space bubble, and the Great Tortoise Rock Terrace and the two living First Born disappeared into this closed space.

In the next instant, the starlight returned to normal, and there was no shadow of the spaceship or those two tentacle monsters in place.

Hao Ren and the others returned to the Holletta capital through the teleportation station, and the two engineering teams soon arrived. Hilda and Big Beard had previously gone to the Sunset Volcano with the king and the pope, and had now returned to meet the others through the teleportation station.

After everyone gathered, the first thing Hao Ren did was put away those frighteningly large engineering equipment to prevent the old masters of the Royal Mages Association from having a fit (and to prevent Elizabeth's screwdriver frenzy from being activated). Then he looked at the time: When the group arrived on this planet, it was morning, and now the sun was still high on the western horizon. This construction was large-scale, but it was faster than expected.

Hilda found Hao Ren, with a smile on her face: "It's done smoothly, I hope this has helped you."

"It's a great help, a great help," Hao Ren nodded quickly. "Your diplomacy was smooth?"

"What else can we talk about?" Hilda smiled and spread her hands. "We are separated by a world, and only your teleportation gate can connect us, so we just exchanged our cultures and histories. It's just to satisfy my personal curiosity... nothing too important."

At this time, Aufra came over from the side and interrupted the conversation between Hao Ren and Hilda: "Sorry to interrupt - His Majesty the King has invited the guests from another world to a banquet, this time you will have time to attend the banquet, right?"

Hao Ren smiled and glanced at Lily, whose eyes were shining, and waved his hand: "Of course, we won't miss a free meal, even the savior has to charge a wear and tear fee!"