Chapter 1 The Overlap

Hao Ren stood amidst the dilapidated ruins of a palace, the crumbling pillars and fractured walls gradually overlapping with fragmented images from his memory. At first, he only confirmed that the style of these palaces matched what he had seen in the golden disc illusion, thus verifying that these palaces were indeed structures on the First Born Star. But as his memory became clearer, he realized the situation was far more complex.

He glanced at the spot where he was standing, then looked up at the two nearest decorative pillars, realizing with a shudder that he was standing in the exact same spot as in his previous vision, down to the last inch!

Hao Ren turned to see a completely collapsed wall behind him, beyond which was a vast, endless dark space. He remembered clearly that when he entered the Godslayer Illusion, this wall had slowly crumbled before his eyes.

"Hao Ren?" Vivian noticed the change in Hao Ren's expression and asked with concern, "What's wrong?"

"I was in this exact spot when I entered the illusion, in this very palace. Up ahead..." Hao Ren looked into the distance, a thought striking him, and he took off running. "The place where the Goddess was assassinated is just ahead!"

Scarred decorative pillars, crooked and broken relief walls, and tall, majestic palace gates flashed past him like phantoms. Hao Ren sprinted in the direction he remembered, feeling as if he had returned to the Godslayer Illusion. The empty, ruined palace was once again filled with the valiant Guardian Giants, the glorious and mighty patricidal sons, the raging flames, and the collapsing fragments of the building falling from the dome. The shouts and cries of the Guardians and rebels echoed from all directions, but upon closer inspection, it was all just an illusion.

The real scene before him and the illusion in his memory intertwined. Hao Ren shook his head, trying to clear the images from his mind. He felt a burning sensation on his right hand and looked down to see the red mark left by touching the divine blood resurfacing, even more vivid than before.

"Partner, your mental stability is decreasing," the data terminal's voice suddenly rang out, jolting Hao Ren from his eerie trance. "Should I activate active mental suppression?"

"I'm fine," Hao Ren took a deep breath. As the illusion faded, the red mark on his hand also subsided slightly. "It must be a resonance caused by the divine blood… similar to when I touched the bloodstain last time. This place..."

He looked up and realized that his running had carried him through the outer corridors and side halls. Before him now was the last great hall at the end of the building. Like the rest of the structure, this magnificent and ancient hall was in ruins. The once exquisite murals and reliefs were unrecognizable, and cracks riddled the towering dome of the hall. Only a few legion soldiers were cleaning up the battlefield in the empty palace. Hearing the noise at the entrance, they looked over curiously.

Hao Ren waved casually at the soldiers and looked up at the end of the palace. He clearly remembered that he had stood in this very spot in the illusion, and the shocking scene of the assassination had taken place at the end of the palace.

There was nothing at the end of the palace but a gaping hole. An entire wall had vanished, and even the ground was twisted and torn. The golden disc had once been placed there, but that part of the building structure had been blasted into another space, leaving only a vast darkness outside the hole.

Vivian caught up from behind. Hao Ren pointed to the hole at the end of the palace and said, "The Creator Goddess stood there, leaning against a golden disc. The Godslayer stood in front of her… right at that raised floor tile, and thrust his sword down."

Vivian stared blankly ahead. This desolate, silent place was now just a ruin, no longer possessing its former glory. It was hard to imagine the shocking events that had once transpired here. She walked to the hole at the end of the hall, instinctively chose a spot to stand, then turned around and waved at Hao Ren. "Is this the place? The Goddess was killed here?"

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but Vivian was standing in the exact same spot where the Creator Goddess had been assassinated. The moment she turned around, Hao Ren even had a hallucination. He saw the scene of the great hall slowly collapsing in flames of war, and the Creator Goddess stood at the end of the hall, turning her head to cast a glance at him, the "bystander," across ten thousand years of time. The blurry features of the Creator Goddess gradually became clearer, and she looked exactly like Vivian.

A blaze of fire appeared in the originally empty and desolate hall, and the sounds of battle rose from nowhere. Hao Ren saw a vague, tall figure suddenly materialize in the air before Vivian. This figure wore magnificent golden and red armor and held a black longsword that seemed to be inlaid with fragments of stars. He raised his sword and thrust it toward Vivian's chest. But Vivian seemed completely oblivious, ignoring the scene as if it didn't exist. She just looked in Hao Ren's direction and waved with a grin, her voice sounding distant, as if it came from another world: "...killed here?"

"Careful!" Hao Ren seemed to know it was a hallucination, but his body reacted instinctively. He roared and charged forward, instantly covering the distance of the entire hall. Then, he threw himself onto Vivian, who only had time to gasp "Wah!" before Hao Ren crashed into her, scattering her into a cloud of bats that fluttered away.

The surrounding hallucinations vanished instantly. Hao Ren felt a large group of bats crashing around his head. The small-scale lightning storm that Vivian had instinctively unleashed shocked him like a puffed-up Lily. A moment later, Vivian reformed her figure not far away, hands on her hips, glaring at Hao Ren. "What the heck are you doing! You scared me!"

Hao Ren's hair stood on end, each strand electrified. Only then did he fully regain his senses and quickly explained, "I saw another hallucination just now..."

Vivian had been a little angry, but when she heard this, she immediately became nervous. "A hallucination? Was it the Goddess being assassinated again?"

"Yeah, and this time the Goddess was you," Hao Ren told Vivian exactly what he had seen. "The spot you were standing in was exactly where the Goddess had been standing... and then your figures overlapped."

Vivian frowned and remained silent, grabbing Hao Ren's hand. The strange red "burn" mark on Hao Ren's hand was glowing faintly and gradually fading again, indicating that the hallucination was related to the resonance of the divine blood.

The data terminal popped out of Hao Ren's pocket. "I was going to intervene just now, but I noticed that your mental stability hadn't dropped below the threshold yet, so I didn't interfere—I thought you might discover some more clues."

"No clues, but some questions," Hao Ren rubbed his still-burning palm and tapped the ground with his toe. "This place is definitely the scene of the Creator Goddess's assassination."

"This place should have been blasted into the 'Dark Domain' along with the First Born Star, right?" Vivian crossed her arms. "But judging from the situation in the Kuiper Belt, it seems that an entire palace complex was blasted into this universe."

Hao Ren shook his head gently. "Like I said, if the golden disc could be blasted over here, so could the palaces. It's just a matter of probability. The key question is: are these the only palaces here?"

Vivian immediately understood and turned to Bai Huo. "Are there any other relics here?"

"Other relics?" Bai Huo was still confused from the moment before, not knowing what these two were talking about. "What kind of relics are you referring to?"

"Anything, anything that was originally stored in these palaces, weapons, books, equipment, weapon fragments, anything," Vivian said quickly. "Especially things from this great hall. Surely the palaces weren't all empty when you first found this space?"

Only then did Bai Huo understand. "Oh, you mean those things... We did find a lot of things in these ruins back then, but other than the ones used during the Mythological War and the ones that were badly damaged and cleaned up, the rest should be stored in the Lingjie Zhongta (Spirit Realm Clock Tower), personally guarded by the Thirteen Saints."

The Spirit Realm Clock Tower was not only the fortress of the Thirteen Saints, but also a giant museum!

After hearing Bai Huo's words, Hao Ren suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. He had previously thought that if conventional combat was unfavorable, he would summon the Petrified Tortoise Rock and try to bombard the Spirit Realm Clock Tower with the ship's cannons to see if he could break the tower's "invincible shield." Now he was only glad that he hadn't acted rashly on this crazy idea, otherwise, if he had fired a few shots, how many clues would he have destroyed?!