Chapter 182 Ancient Secrets and Waking Up

Seeing those runes, a flash of lightning seemed to strike through Hao Ren's mind. Many originally scattered or unreliable clues suddenly became clear and orderly, supported by solid facts. The ancient magic empire of Holletta and the rebellion of the Godslayer race at the Suluun Gate were linked across billions of light-years. Two civilizations with vastly different strengths were drawn into the same vortex by these runes.

"The magic emperors of Holletta obtained the knowledge inheritance of the Godslayers." At this moment, this sentence was no longer a mere speculation, but a proven fact, and the evidence was engraved on the wall.

"...It's the rune technology of the 'Prodigal Son'," the data terminal immediately found the record in the database. "Although the material of this ruin cannot be compared with the interstellar alloy of the Godslayer race, the power of these runes is real—they blocked the energy explosion that occurred here, which is why the outer hall is so complete."

"Is this considered evidence of guilt..." Vivian said softly, "Now the magic emperors and the Godslayer incident are truly inseparable."

"There were clues earlier—the ancient magic emperors obtained the technology to create 'godlike creatures' from the Prodigal Son of the Godslayers, in exchange for remaining silent at the moment of the goddess's assassination. They used this technology to create powerful demon hunters, but before they could apply it to themselves, they were wiped off this planet by the furious eldest son," Hao Ren said, shaking his head, "Now we've just found solid evidence."

Lily blinked, looking at Hao Ren and then at the runes on the wall. Her ears twitched, "But I always feel like something's wrong."

"What did you think of again?" Vivian immediately turned to look at her. The husky girl had a keen intuition, and she could always notice the details that were easily overlooked. Even the proudest ancient vampire had to admit this.

"Didn't we say it before," Lily said, arms crossed, "The ancient magic emperors created demon hunters (ancient types) under the premise of maintaining devout faith in the goddess. Doesn't that rule out the suspicion that they ever sided with the Godslayers?"

Hao Ren and Vivian nodded at the same time. This was indeed a contradiction, but if this inference were accepted, the runes in front of them could not be explained.

After mentioning this contradiction, Lily pointed to the corpses lying on the ground—they had died ten thousand years ago, but in this place where time was once frozen, their deaths were only a few days ago: "And these Holletta people, no matter how powerful they are, they're just a civilization messing around on their own planet, right? What help can their abilities give to the Godslayer race at most? Why would the Godslayer race teach them this level of technology? Artificial human technology is not so exaggerated, but these runes are high-end even in the hands of the Godslayer race, right?"

Hao Ren pinched the corner of his forehead, knowing in his heart that what Lily said was indeed a bigger doubt, and one that he had only noticed recently.

At the beginning, his knowledge was not so high. After finding out that the ancient magic civilization of Holletta might be involved in the Godslayer War, he did not doubt it. But as he came into contact with more and more fields beyond the cognition of mortals, he gradually realized how grand and terrifying the Godslayer War was, and how powerful the two sides in the war possessed beyond the limit. He gradually became suspicious of the fact that Holletta, a small planet on the edge of civilization, could also be involved in the Godslayer War: Even if the magic empire was much stronger than it is today, it was only a preliminary civilized civilization that could colonize within its own planetary system. Were they qualified to play a role in the entire conspiracy?

Hao Ren now knew how great the difference in level between the ancient Holletta civilization and the Godslayers was. At first, he thought that the latter was trying to prevent the former from responding to the Creator Goddess's call for help, so they wooed them and bribed them with technology, but now this conjecture was becoming increasingly untenable. Those powerful Godslayers had no need to "look up to" this backward civilization in the marginal zone so much. There was ample evidence for this: countless civilizations in the universe did not respond to the goddess's call, and Hao Ren had found some of their wreckage. However, there was no evidence that the Godslayer race had ever "wooed" or "bribed" these civilizations.

And these civilizations were basically stronger than Holletta back then.

Hao Ren raised his head and exchanged glances with Vivian, seeing the same confusion in her eyes.

"Maybe the elf who used the Holy Flame can give us some answers after he wakes up," Vivian said.

She did not directly use "demon hunter" or "ancient species" to call the other party, because the other party did not look like a test product from a culture tank, and the characteristics of his elven race were obviously not like a demon hunter. The power of that Holy Flame might just be a byproduct of the magic emperors' attempts to integrate "divine power" into ordinary races, and perhaps this imperfect technology caused the elf to go crazy.

But at present, everything was just speculation, and the situation could only be clarified after the elf woke up and could communicate.

Next, Hao Ren and the data terminal carefully checked the situation in this hall to try to find more clues.

It could be confirmed that the direct cause of the abandonment of this experimental base was the explosion in the central laboratory. The explosion instantly destroyed the central laboratory and killed everyone inside, but the power of the explosion did not spread outside: the "divine power" runes engraved on the laboratory walls blocked the shock wave, allowing the outer areas of the base to escape unscathed. After noticing the accident, the people in the outer area did not try to open the inner area door to recover the losses. Perhaps they confirmed through some monitoring means that the central laboratory had been completely destroyed and had no salvage value, or perhaps they were worried that the runaway "monster" in the laboratory would be out of control. In short, they chose to directly abandon this place and seal it permanently, and then completed the ancient species research somewhere else with the rescued data, synthesizing the first batch of "perfect creatures."

The cause of the explosion should be the runaway of the "Holy Flame Avatar."

In the pile of molten base wreckage in the center of the hall, Hao Ren found a twisted and deformed metal bracelet. The bracelet was woven from thin, winding vine-like alloy threads and had a clear elven style. Soon he found another bracelet on the elf who was in a coma, which proved that the base in the center of the laboratory was indeed prepared for the elf.

Probably because the bracelet was carried by the elf himself, it escaped the impact of the energy runaway and was not completely destroyed.

While checking these clues, Vivian raised a question: "Why do you think time has been frozen here for ten thousand years?"

Vivian's reminder made Hao Ren recall this question that he had almost forgotten.

The ancient magic empire did not have the ability to control time—or rather, it did not reach the point where it could freeze a ruin for ten thousand years.

Space-time magic was not uncommon on this planet. In fact, even Haimer had mastered one or two spells such as "time acceleration" or "stasis technique," but even they themselves never believed that these spells truly controlled the power of time. They mostly regarded this kind of magic as a small-scale, temporary force field spell, achieving the effect of simulating time acceleration or deceleration by interfering with the movement of matter in the spellcasting area. In the ancient magic empire, space-time spells were even more powerful, but they did not go beyond the scope of this "false simulation."

On this planet, no one had truly touched the truth of the passage of time.

"Maybe it's related to these runes?" Hao Ren frowned, looking at the dense divine power runes on the wall. "The Godslayer race should have this ability. At least, it shouldn't be too difficult for them to just bind a small experimental base."

"It is also possible that the energy burst back then distorted the space-time structure here," the data terminal also participated in the discussion. "According to the rune density on the wall, a very powerful energy must have gathered in this room back then—maybe all the ancient facilities in the entire Dark Mountain Range served this laboratory, converging all these energies into one point, and then bursting out instantly may indeed lead to space-time distortion, and the blocking and compression effects of the surrounding runes will further amplify this process."

Hao Ren frowned. All guesses were just guesses. After bold assumptions, there must be careful verification. He instinctively felt that there must be undiscovered things here, perhaps buried under the molten and deformed ruins.

He remembered the notebook he found in the external laboratory, and the various words on the notebook.

Oracle...divine cells...fusion...

It was impossible for the Holletta people to create divine cells out of thin air. For mortals, the extraordinary power of "divine power" must have a carrier before they could perceive and control it. How did the first oracle and divine power fall into the hands of the ancient magic emperors?

What "medium" did they use to receive those great powers and infuse them into biological cells to "produce" "products"?

If this was the first testing ground for demon hunters—or rather, the "perfect creature project," then there must be the original source of divine power! That was the energy source for the entire project!

This source of divine power should be in this central laboratory. The people who escaped from this base used the divine cells they had created to complete subsequent research. They did not have the opportunity to take away the things in the central laboratory at that time—even if the explosion destroyed everything here, as a carrier of divine power, some fragments of that "energy source" should remain, right?

"Find it quickly, there should be an energy source here," Hao Ren immediately ordered. "They wanted to create the original divine cells, so there must be a divine power source. They can't create divine power out of thin air. Those energies must be placed in a container..."

Vivian was stunned for a moment: "Maybe it's already exploded..."

"But there shouldn't be no fragments left, it's the carrier of divine power after all!"

Everyone immediately busied themselves, searching under the charred and deformed ruins for any fragments of material that looked suspicious and exceeded the level of ancient civilization, but just as they were starting to search, a high-level knight who was left outside to guard suddenly ran in.

"L... Lord!" The knight shouted in a panic, "She's awake! She's awake!"

Hao Ren was stunned for a moment before realizing that the other party was saying that the "Holy Flame Avatar" had awakened.

Vivian noticed that there was a strange expression on the knight's panicked face, so she asked, "Did she speak after she woke up?"

"Y... yes!" The knight nodded vigorously, with an incredible expression on his face. "She said... she said she is Lolissa!"