Chapter 1 After Heightening Alertness

After heightening his alertness, Hao Ren dragged Lily towards the lower levels of the temple, the dense, cloud-like black shadow gradually occupying their entire field of vision.

The black mist churned slowly, as if there was a pot of boiling broth below, yet no unusual aura emanated from it. Hao Ren conveniently grabbed a probe that flew past, and after reading the parameters recorded by the probe, confirmed that they had reached the lowest level of the building—the point where it had been cut off.

Logically speaking, passing through this black mist should lead directly to outer space.

"Landlord... what's this?" Lily felt a little uneasy, and her tail became fluffy. "I feel a little scared, you know?"

Hao Ren subconsciously wanted to pull out the data terminal from his pocket to scan the thing in front of him, but he found nothing. He remembered that the PDA was currently stuck on the console of the Tortoise Rock Platform as usual: although the main consciousness of the spaceship was now Nolan, and the data terminal couldn't get any permissions even if it forcibly connected to the console, that PDA with its problematic core still firmly stuck itself in the slot every time they set sail, as if it gave it great psychological comfort.

Hao Ren shook his head and threw the probe he had just grabbed towards the edge of the black mist. Although this thing's computing power couldn't compare to the terminal, it was sufficient as a detector, and it could also upload data to the Tortoise Rock Platform's analysis mainframe for parsing. With support from the mothership, this thing was actually no worse than the data terminal.

Soon, the analysis results were transmitted through the data link. The analysis mainframe considered this to be a "spatial phenomenon that cannot be accurately described."

"A spatial phenomenon that cannot be accurately described?" Hao Ren heard the ship's analysis mainframe give such an ambiguous conclusion for the first time. He immediately contacted Nolan to inquire about the details. "What's going on?"

Nolan responded: "The spacetime order in that black mist is clearly separated from the outside. It should be a spatial rift or an unstable spacetime warp, but this type of spacetime structure is not in any known database, nor is it a natural phenomenon. Currently, there is a lack of spacetime parameters on the other side of the rift, so it cannot be fully described."

Hao Ren frowned. He didn't like these uncertain things, but unfortunately, the Dream Plane always produced these uncertain things. Lily beside him didn't have so many worries: the husky girl's worldview was simply divided into two parts: if she encountered something she could beat, she would bully it, and if she encountered something she couldn't beat, she would just chicken out. No matter what the thing in front of her was, the choice was nothing more than these two...

"There's nothing in a ten-thousand-light-year material vacuum zone, except for this solitary floating temple, and inside the temple, there's a spatial rift. Tsk tsk, this doesn't look like anything good." Hao Ren clicked his tongue. He had no interest in jumping in to observe the details, so he continued to let the probe collect data around the black mist, while he pulled Lily away a bit and began to study the exquisite and intricate reliefs on the surrounding walls.

These reliefs were all made by mortal races. Like most religious murals, they depicted ancient heroes, warriors, and a large number of indescribable ghosts and monsters who were their enemies. Not only were there war scenes of fighting with monsters, but also sacred and peaceful paradise scenes. The content of the murals was clearly divided between good and evil, and one could easily see which side represented the builders of this temple—based on the appearance of those warriors, it was easy to see that they were a race extremely similar to humans, and there were also some humanoid species mixed in that were slightly different from Earthlings.

Hao Ren's gaze moved slowly between these exquisite and ancient reliefs, trying to find the image of the god, and the part describing the relationship between humans and gods—he could basically determine that this temple was dedicated to the Goddess of Creation, and based on the way religious murals depicted gods, this half-baked clergyman could still analyze some things about ideology, civilization level, and the like.

Lily followed behind Hao Ren, carefully deliberating for a long time with a serious face, and finally decided to knock a brick off the nearby stone wall: her Wang's Treasure hadn't been added to for a long time...

However, the husky girl had just conjured up the Huozhi Feichang Gaoxing (Fire of Great Joy) when Hao Ren discovered her intention. The latter slapped her paw away. "Don't mess around, this is an important relic, understand? What if you damage the clues."

Lily stuck out her tongue, but soon her eyes widened as she looked at the murals behind Hao Ren. "Lan... Landlord! That thing is moving!"

At first, Hao Ren thought the husky girl was just trying to be funny, but soon he realized that this idiot was useless at everything else, except when she was scared, her expression was absolutely genuine—he immediately turned his head and saw that, illuminated by the flickering light of the Huozhi Feichang Gaoxing, the relief murals on the inner walls of the temple were slowly moving!

Like a still movie being rewound and played, the figures on the murals moved in the firelight. Warriors swung their swords, monsters raised their heads, the plants and trees carved on the stone swayed slowly, everything came alive!

Lily thought for a moment. If it was a group of small monsters, she might be able to beat them, because she had a lot of brute strength. But she was helpless against things from the mysterious realm because she knew nothing about the magical world. So this husky sprite decisively tucked her tail between her legs and hid behind Hao Ren. "Landlord! Landlord, there's something wrong with this place, awoo! Quickly get Bat and Lao Wang to come and save the day!!"

"Stop it, you're getting all scared just from seeing some slides?" Hao Ren glared at Lily, then went up to carefully observe the moving murals.

An ordinary person might really feel weird seeing this stuff, but he had seen a lot and didn't feel anything about it anymore.

The initial changes in the murals were actually very weak. The pictures were moving only by a tiny margin, and in the flickering light of the Huozhi Feichang Gaoxing, they could easily be mistaken for illusions. But as time passed, the movements of these pictures became more and more obvious. Hao Ren saw that the most drastic and obvious changes were happening on a large relief—this pattern was guarded by some smaller reliefs, perhaps depicting an important chapter in a religious story.

In this picture, a team of brave knights, led by a leader in a white cloak, bravely launched a charge. Before them was a plain burning with raging flames, like a sea of corpses.

The remains of humans and monsters were scattered all over the land. The knights charging forward seemed to be the last soldiers on the battlefield.

Tattered swallowtail flags fluttered in the wind, the knights' swords were full of gaps, their armor was stained with blood, the sky was overcast, without a trace of light, and at the end of the plain, the knights' target was a huge, chaotically twisted thing that language could not describe.

It was like a bloated mass of flesh, with all kinds of limbs growing on it haphazardly, and new limbs constantly extending from the flesh and blood, while old limbs were re-swallowed. This disgusting thing rolled at the end of the earth, more terrifying than any demon in mythological stories—even the aesthetically challenged eldest son and the brain monster seemed cuter than this thing.

And those surviving brave soldiers were launching a charge at this indescribable, horrifying monster.

Rumble—

The clouds in the mural suddenly cracked, and a flash of lightning broke through the dark clouds, but Hao Ren seemed to actually hear the thunder in his ears at that moment: hearing thunder in this cosmic vacuum!

He saw the lightning illuminate the earth, instantly dispelling the haze on the battlefield. The brave last knights charged towards the powerful enemy that could not be resisted by human power, their bodies seemingly enveloped in a holy light. And behind the clouds broken by lightning, a huge, crystal-clear mountain emerged—although it was just a mural carved on the rock, it still presented an incredible crystalline texture!

Hao Ren was completely attracted by this scene. He couldn't help but reach out, wanting to test the authenticity of the mural, to see if he could touch the light and the crystal mountain behind the light.

The edge of his right palm slowly touched the mural—and that palm still retained a red "scar," which was the "stigmata" left after contacting the God's Blood. The goddess's blood had already soaked into his skin and had not faded in the slightest.

The stigmata of the God's Blood touched the mural, and as in all stories—a sudden change occurred.

The scene on the mural shattered in an instant, cracks spread like spider webs, all the reliefs seemed unable to withstand some overly powerful force, and almost in the blink of an eye, they all fell off and peeled away from the stone wall. At the same time, the "black mist" at the bottom of the building suddenly began to surge faster as if awakened. If the black mist below had seemed like a pot of boiling water before, then now... even the black mist was boiling!

Lily, with her beastly intuition, felt that something was wrong behind her almost immediately. She immediately tugged on Hao Ren's arm, and Hao Ren also saw the black mist surging upwards. He broke out in a cold sweat and turned to run, but as in all stories—

The black mist swallowed them.