Chapter 1 那艘船在什么地方？

“Where is that ship?” Hao Ren asked anxiously.

“It's probably hard to find,” Mimiron said regretfully, his eyes drooping. “Although I didn't know what it was at the time, I felt it was the key to recovering my memories and homeland, so I hid it at the bottom of a hot spring lake. Later, that lake connected to the Yggdrasil spatial chain and turned into the Well of Wisdom. My spaceship was gradually entangled by the roots of Yggdrasil. If I'm not mistaken, it gradually transferred to the trunk of the 'World Tree'.”

Hao Ren knew what Mimiron was going to say next.

“...Yggdrasil has been destroyed, blasted apart by the Demon Hunters using the remaining power of the Creation Goddess,” Hao Ren frowned. “But your ship itself is also a quasi-divine artifact. The aftershocks of the explosion won't necessarily destroy it completely.”

“So it's most likely still drifting in the spatial fragments of Vanaheim or Jotunheim. If those spatial fragments collapse, it may have drifted to any corner of this universe, which is also like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Mimiron said regretfully. “Yggdrasil was destroyed… very thoroughly. The Nine Realms are fragmented, and I don't think you can find those spatial fragments.”

“The Nine Realms…” Hao Ren immediately thought of the various legends about Norse mythology. Two years ago, his interest in these mysterious and ancient stories was limited to listening for fun, but now he was exposed to these things every day, and he listened to Vivian talking about the world thousands of years ago, so he accumulated a lot of knowledge in this area whether he wanted to or not. “It is said that the World Tree Yggdrasil runs through the entire universe and supports the Nine Realms… but I know that the real universe is far larger than what is described in Norse mythology, so what exactly is that Yggdrasil structure?”

Hao Ren wasn't just interested in Norse mythology now. In fact, Greek and Egyptian mythology were equally interesting to him, but from the legends of later generations, Norse mythology was the only one that clearly mentioned the “Twilight of the Gods” event. The historical records of the Demon Hunters also mentioned that they launched the largest-scale attack when they destroyed the Aesir and Vanir gods. In addition, with Mimiron's relationship, he was particularly curious about Yggdrasil now.

“That ‘World Tree’… of course, it couldn't run through the entire universe, but it did run through and support the Nine Realms,” Mimiron said with a look of reminiscence. “Those were nine different spatial dimensions. Even in the ancient times when various supernatural phenomena emerged one after another, such a spatial cluster structure was rare. And Yggdrasil was an extremely ancient plant. It's called a tree, but in fact, I don't know what it is. I only know that its roots and branches travel through the gaps in time and space, connecting the nine different dimensions like a string of necklaces. Following the roots of that plant, you could reach other spaces. After clearing the primitive creatures in the different dimensions, the Aesir and Vanir gods built them into fortresses, and built a 'Midgard closed laboratory' in one of the different dimensions closest to Earth, which was used to observe the activities of human society. Later generations' accounts of the Nine Realms basically came from the survivors of Midgard.”

Hao Ren thought for a while, and recalled the recorded data he saw in the Spirit Realm Clock Tower about the Demon Hunters' attack on the Norse pantheon: “The Demon Hunters directly attacked the connections of Yggdrasil at that time… so they probably didn't completely destroy the nine spaces. They just blew up the connections between these nine spaces, letting them drift away from the Earth's coordinates…”

“You really want to find my spaceship?” Mimiron naturally knew what Hao Ren was obsessed with. “Well, like I said, Vanaheim or Jotunheim, there is hope if you can find these two spatial fragments.”

“This will be my next goal for a while,” Hao Ren stood up and added the newly acquired information to his schedule. “Now… the space sightseeing tour ends here. I hope you can come with us to Athens.”

“Athens…” Mimiron narrowed his eyes. “Well, I'm also curious about what the descendants of those aliens living in the sanctuary look like. I stayed in the Spirit Realm Clock Tower for too long. The last time I saw the outside world was during the Asgard explosion. These years, I can only learn about the changes outside from the Demon Hunters' books and discussions – I think I should thank you, leaving that place isn't a bad thing.”

Hao Ren just smiled and said nothing.

After handing over the Turtle Rock Platform to the port staff, Hao Ren directly led his group of demons and monsters to the Athens sanctuary on Earth.

The impact of the Corvus Rebellion was not limited to the Demon Hunter Group, but also affected the entire "supernatural society" on Earth. When Hao Ren led an army of ten thousand demon kings to fight the Elder Council head-on, the alien families in the various sanctuaries on Earth were also experiencing their own turbulent autumn – the sudden disappearance of the nemesis brought not only a sigh of relief, but also an undercurrent that made the family heads' nerves tense.

Cautious and vigilant elders, wavering middle ages, and restless new generations who want to overthrow the existing order at any time, after losing the pressure of "Demon Hunters," various contradictions arise between these people. What's even more disturbing is the friction and suspicion between the various races: although the truth about the Demon Hunters' upheaval is not yet clear, some reckless guys have already begun to consider rushing out of the sanctuary and dividing the territory, and these reckless youths are a great threat to anyone who is not of their race.

Just as Hao Ren said: whether you admit it or not, regardless of its cause, the Demon Hunters have in fact created the current "peaceful situation" for the various supernatural races. As an ultimate threat, as a common flood and beast faced by all aliens, they forcibly "suppressed" those contradictory supernatural races together and kept them away from the human world. Once this external pressure disappears, all kinds of demons and monsters will want to emerge.

But they chose to emerge in the twenty-first century when human civilization has developed to this day, which is a big problem.

Hao Ren asked Mimiron to stay in his personal space for the time being (he hoped that this giant could show up at a more appropriate time), and he and Vivian came to Hesperides' antique shop.

This old shop shrouded in the atmosphere of past times is no different from the past. The small shop is still filled with all kinds of strange and old objects. Almost everything seems to be covered with a thick layer of dust and is dull and dull. It seems that no customers have ever touched them. Hao Ren has ample reason to believe that Hesperides' shop has never been able to make a business since it opened – although there are countless priceless "genuine goods" on display here, including the masks worn by pharaohs, the crowns on the heads of queens, the stone slabs and papyrus of ancient sages, each of which is not only guaranteed to be genuine, but also more or less contains mythological power, but Hesperides has never intended to actually sell these things. She just puts these old antiques on the shelves and lets herself be shrouded in this solidified time.

Although the "Goddess of Twilight" has always behaved calmly, every time she sees her antique shop, Hao Ren knows that she is no different from other ancient people who survived from the mythological era: surrounding herself with a pile of old antiques, using the remaining fragments of history to piece together the glorious times in her memory, wiping these old antiques while recalling the days of the past, and wasting away day after day.

When Hao Ren and his party walked into the antique shop, Hesperides was sitting behind the counter, holding a faded iron mask, wiping it over and over again, as if she hadn't heard the sound of customers entering the door at all.

“The shadow interlayer is completely closed,” Vivian sat down in front of Hesperides unceremoniously, and took the iron mask from the other party's hand. “Is the situation inside the sanctuary very bad? Could it be that you old guys can really be held hostage by a group of reckless youths?”

Hesperides looked at Hao Ren and his party, and curled her lips: “No, it's just that it's too noisy inside, so I came out to find some peace and quiet, and closed the door to prevent some reckless youths from running out to cause trouble.”

After a pause, she threw the rag in her hand to the side: “So… I guess you just came back from some amazing place? Did you figure out what happened to the Demon Hunters?”

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at each other, and he was still responsible for speaking: “We went to the headquarters of the Demon Hunters. If there are no accidents, the hunt will end.”

*Ka-cha*

With a crisp sound, a piece of the wooden counter was pinched off by Hesperides.