Chapter 1 The Sky is Warped

The sky was warping under the disturbance of an unknown force.

Seen from afar, the azure sky seemed to have transformed into an inverted ocean shimmering with light. Countless wave-like ripples covered its surface, while the torn and twisted clouds became broken whitecaps on the ocean, spreading outwards with the ripples in circles. As time passed, these strange ripples increased, gradually engulfing the entire field of view. Within that fluctuation of space and time, some bizarre scenes were gradually revealed.

This was no simple spatial transfer. Whether in terms of scale, energy level, or information volume, this was a more thrilling and unimaginable tearing. It was a connection between two worlds, where the Wall of Reality, degenerated from the world barrier, was cracking open a huge hole. Under the control of some selection mechanism, this crack crossed a "distance" indescribable with numbers, and ultimately opened up on Earth.

The Day of Arrival had come. The exiles from the Dream Plane were about to enter this world.

On the summit of a small hill overgrown with vegetation, Hao Ren quietly watched the changes taking place in the distant sky. Although his eyes were open, his body remained as still as a stone sculpture. Several ignorant and slow-witted small wild animals hopped around on him, unaware that the stone sculpture that had been here for many years had just "revived."

Looks like it's time to get up.

Hao Ren took a deep breath, slowly exhaling it. Then he blinked, shook his head from side to side, and lifted his hands from his knees. Some slender vines snapped with a soft crackling sound from his movements, and the small wild animals that had made this place their habitat finally reacted. They screamed and scattered from Hao Ren in panic, as if fleeing from some cataclysmic disaster.

The hilt of the plasma spear was entangled with plant stems and leaves, and the lower half was covered in moss. Hao Ren paid no attention to this. He casually pulled the spear from the rubble and dirt, then activated its power source. The bright ion blade immediately popped out from the front end, as useful as ever.

Perhaps there were some minor problems caused by aging, but it didn't matter. After a slight adjustment back, it would still be like new.

A series of muffled thunder-like sounds came from behind the shattered clouds. The azure sky was now gradually darkening, and ripples of energy rippled between the huge spatial folds. Dazzling blue-white lightning leaped between the spatial rifts, as if the end of the world was approaching.

Hao Ren stood up, dust, gravel, and fragments of plants falling from his body. He looked down at his condition, then softly recited the name of Raven 12345. A faint white light descended from head to toe, and wherever the white light reached, all traces of time were erased, and the accumulated dust and dirt disappeared.

He had a divinely bestowed body, untouched by dust—he just usually couldn't be bothered to use these divine arts, and there were few opportunities to use them anyway.

The sky's anomaly continued. The energy sparks covering the entire sky had become a continuous sheet, surging like an ocean of lightning and emitting a thunderous roar. Countless wild animals ran out of their nests, desperately fleeing across the plains and hills, as if to escape this incomprehensible cataclysm. Among those wild animals, one could even see running humans—they wore crude animal skins and leaves, shouting at the sky as they ran, perhaps challenging the sky, but more likely expressing fear of the angry "gods."

Hao Ren walked towards the plain at the foot of the hill, towards the area shrouded by the anomaly. He was surrounded by countless beasts and insects fleeing in the opposite direction, and a gale carrying sand and gravel blew in the air, but none of this mattered. He opened his shield, blocking the wind and dust, and steadily walked towards the plain, even taking the time to observe the situation in the spatial folds in the sky.

The spatial folds had changed. The energy sparks gradually formed a stable cyclical structure as they leaped, and gradually calmed down. The sky began to resemble a mirror, but the mirror reflected the scenery of another world.

A colossal structure appeared first, floating between the energy sparks and growing larger as it approached, until it enveloped the entire sky. Its form was reminiscent of clods of earth strung together by vines—but magnified billions of times. The "skeleton" of this structure was a massive plant structure thick enough to support the world. Those vine-like things spread wantonly in space, and between the vines one could see luminous and constantly pulsating瘤状 organs (liuzhuang qiguan, tumor-like organs). Bright runes wandered between these organs and vines, like a shimmering outer garment. The structure's skeleton passed through nine vast continents—or perhaps separately wrapped other dimensions. A layer of distorted light enveloped this structure composed of the nine kingdoms and the World Tree, a sign of the warping dimensions.

Yggdrasil, this hyperspace fortress launched by the Creation Goddess, crossed the boundary between two universes. Its tentacles were gradually reaching towards Earth, connecting with this primitive ecological planet.

Hao Ren neither stopped to admire this magnificent scene, nor did he speed up to chase after anything. He simply walked as usual, not too fast and not too slow, occasionally looking up at the sky, or using his spear to deflect the huge rocks that were falling towards him.

Terrifying thunder echoed between heaven and earth. The atmosphere, unable to withstand this powerful disturbance, stirred up storms thousands of meters high. The powerful energy carried by the spatial rifts was also released, transforming into lightning that streaked across the sky as the storms formed. Some small electric arcs were guided to the earth, sweeping across the world like licks.

A fire broke out in the distant forest, and countless panicked animals rushed out of the forest. Flames burned on their bodies, and the high-energy radiation caused their flesh to peel off as they ran. Countless beasts fell on the desolate earth, quickly turning to ashes.

The flocks of birds in the air also lost their way. They had accelerated as much as possible to escape the "point of arrival," but the spatial rift at the point of arrival had expanded to hundreds of kilometers wide, and was still expanding rapidly. No matter how fast the birds flapped their wings, they could not outpace the speed of the spatial rift's expansion—they fell from the sky in droves, their brains cooked by radiation, their feathers charred like charcoal.

Hao Ren looked up at the sky, past the vines of Yggdrasil and the gaps between the nine kingdoms. He seemed to be able to see the scenery on the other side of the universe. The disaster of another world was erupting. At this moment, the world-destroying cataclysm caused by the fall of the Creation Goddess had swept across the entire Dream Plane.

And that divine avatar created by the Creation Goddess had already crossed the Wall of Reality forty-eight hours ago. Her first stop was the Purgatory Planet, where she underwent her first split—but the Purgatory Planet was not within the Sandbox System's records, so what happened in those forty-eight hours could not be projected here.

Hao Ren could only wait expectantly on Earth, waiting for the half-portion of that divine avatar—Vivian Anseista—to descend on this planet.

He didn't know the exact moment, but his intuition was pounding. He knew he would see that moment.

The crack in the sky gradually stabilized. The material transfer channel opened. Some of Yggdrasil's tentacles extended through the gap, stirring unconsciously between heaven and earth. Strings of green vines like tentacles licked the hills, brushed through the forests, and stirred the clouds. She confirmed that this place was suitable for the inhabitants of the ark to survive—or at least wouldn't cause them all to die. So she began to unload her cargo hold.

A giant ship brimming with golden light was ejected from the branches of the World Tree. It struggled to fly on this alien planet, but its posture was extremely dangerous. It left a crooked trail in the sky, the end of the trail pointing towards Egypt.

A continuous mountain range was ejected from the void next to Vanaheim or Jotunheim. It was enveloped in a powerful force field of light, flying straight towards the Mediterranean Sea. The cloaking effect caused by the warping of space gradually made it transparent, and finally disappeared from sight.

A strange disc-shaped spaceship was the third to be ejected. Hao Ren also recognized it—it had an outer structure like overlapping shells and a sea-blue dome. Beneath the dome was filled with clean seawater, seawater from Aio.

The Nastrond arced through the air, flying towards the Pacific Ocean.

As the unloading program was executed, more and more "escape pods" began to appear around Yggdrasil's tentacles. These fragments of worlds stored in other dimensions were ejected from the "mothership" as if gushing out. They flew through the sky along the newly calculated trajectory, some of which Hao Ren could barely recognize with his knowledge of mythology and experience accumulated from his journey through time, but most of them he couldn't recognize at all.

The "escape pods" that were unloaded varied in size. Some were huge fragments of space including entire mountain ranges, while others were just dilapidated spaceships, mottled castles, or even several aliens wrapped in energy bubbles: the Creation Goddess didn't have time to plan carefully. In her haste, she collected all the seeds she could collect, but only a few of these seeds could survive on this alien planet.

"Gods" descended on this planet—as refugees.

Hao Ren had no interest in paying attention to the magnificent scenery in the sky anymore. He simply turned his head as if sensing something, looking towards a corner obscured by Yggdrasil's massive body. There, the sky was also twisting, but the twisting area had differences from the surrounding area that were difficult to detect with the naked eye.

It was like finding a specific ripple in a large area of ​​irregular ripples. Under normal circumstances, it was difficult to do, but under the influence of intuition, Hao Ren noticed that corner.

He saw a new crack opening in the sky there, a glimpse of the scenery of an alien planet flashing through the crack, and then a red meteor shot out of the rift, falling straight to the earth.

She landed a few hundred meters in front of Hao Ren. If he hadn't noticed her trajectory in advance, it would have been easy to assume that she had entered this world together with Yggdrasil.

Hao Ren came to the impact point of the "meteor". He saw a small crater, the inside steaming with heat, dark red mist overflowing outwards, and at the bottom of the crater, a long-haired woman was climbing up somewhat awkwardly.

Her eyes met Hao Ren's, revealing a hint of curiosity.

Hao Ren smiled. "Long time no see."