Chapter 1 The desolate atmosphere pervaded the lost ancient city. The only sounds were the occasional gusts of wind and the footsteps of those around him. Hao Ren and his group continued their cautious exploration of the ancient, dust-covered streets.

The data terminal floated at the front of the group, its scanning beams constantly sweeping over every object that appeared suspicious or might hold secrets of the city's history. Collapsed sculptures and scattered stone slabs were the most valuable finds, and on some of these slabs and clay tablet fragments, the data terminal discovered the cuneiform writing that Hesperide had mentioned.

However, most of the writing had been almost completely eroded by wind and sand. Often, no more than three to five recognizable symbols could be found on a single object. With no way to form complete sentences, even the data terminal's translation system struggled to process them.

"These symbols do resemble the cuneiform writing that was common in Mesopotamia," Vivian said, looking at the text patterns the data terminal had collected, which floated before her. "The ones on the clay tablets are standard cuneiform, while those on the stone slabs are a variant modified for easier carving. But converting between the two isn't difficult..."

Hao Ren looked at the ancient writing with curiosity. "Can you translate it?"

"No," Vivian shook her head. "Although the form is indeed cuneiform, it's not the same system as the cuneiform writing that humans have unearthed in modern times. And I don't have any memory of how to interpret these things."

"Bat, do you really not remember this city?" Lily persisted with the question. "This place might be where you caused a red moon massacre, you know? How can you not remember?"

"I really have no impression," Vivian said, looking helpless. "And a massacre... that's not my style. Even when I was out of control, I would have tried to stay away from human settlements before completely losing it."

"Let's save these historical issues for later," Hao Ren said, shaking his head. He looked at the sandy street ahead. "There's another building that looks like a temple up ahead. It might have more complete writings that could help us figure out the city's origins."

Lily said "Oh," and followed along, muttering, "The largest areas in this city are all temples. Ancient people really wasted all their productivity on these places..."

As Lily said, the largest buildings in this lost ancient city were almost all temples. They were easily recognizable from their appearance: tall structures that resembled a combination of pyramids and cubes. The upper levels and front of the temples were adorned with imposing sculptures. These sculptures were also distinctive, featuring human torsos combined with the features of various ferocious beasts, perhaps reflecting the religious beliefs of this mysterious city. In those primitive, barbaric times, such crude and terrifying religious imagery was commonplace.

These temples occupied almost a third of the city's area—far beyond what was normally needed. One could only imagine how many dependent villages and human slaves were required to support such a large-scale religious system.

Now, Hao Ren and his group stood before one such temple.

It was not the enormous temple in the city's center, but a smaller shrine located near it. To reach the central temple, one had to pass by this building. This "smaller" temple was still impressively large, consisting of a massive pyramid-shaped main structure and two rectangular auxiliary palaces. The two palaces were arranged in front of the pyramid, like the forelimbs of a lion crouching on the ground. In the plaza directly in front of the pyramid were two neat rows of statues, guarding the passage to the depths of the temple like sentries.

Before heading to the city's central temple, Hao Ren thought they should first search the surrounding auxiliary shrines to avoid missing any important clues. Although the collapse of the alien dimension was still ongoing, complete collapse was at least a few days away, so he had plenty of time.

Elizabeth rode on Izhaks' shoulders, looking around at the magnificent buildings and statues. Like the religious statues in other parts of the city, these sculptures, several meters tall, were made up of human torsos and the limbs of beasts. They had the heads of lions, jackals, and crocodiles, their bodies twisted into ferocious poses, as if ready to fight at any moment. After observing them for a while, the little imp concluded, "Eww—so ugly."

For the little girl, who was used to seeing Izhaks' face, to say "so ugly" meant that these statues were indeed very ugly.

Vivian continued to act as a historical commentator. "In primitive religious worship, powerful beasts were often seen as the servants of gods or even as the gods themselves. There are two reasons for this. First, ancient humans feared the power of those beasts. They regarded the most powerful beasts as having special powers like the gods. Second, many of the 'aliens' who ruled the Earth in the earliest times subdued humans by driving various beasts and magical beasts. Many of these aliens themselves weren't much better looking than beasts—at least in human aesthetics. These 'primitive gods' were beast-gods."

Lorelai listened to Vivian's explanations distractedly, then suddenly frowned and looked in a certain direction. "Who's there?!"

Hao Ren immediately drew his weapon. "What's wrong?"

Lorelai stared at a cloud of sand at the end of the street behind them, her eyes slowly turning silver-white like holy flames. But after a moment, her eyes returned to normal. "Maybe it was just my imagination—for a moment, I felt like someone was watching me."

"I didn't feel anything," Lily said, shaking her ears. "My senses are sharp. If I didn't feel anything, it must have been your imagination."

"Maybe," Lorelai frowned and slowly turned away.

The temple's gate was made of heavy ironwood wrapped in copper skin. In those days, it must have been an impenetrable barrier. However, after thousands of years of wind and sand in the alien dimension, the gate had decayed severely. The remaining tattered door panels leaned crookedly in front of the entrance. Lily stepped forward and casually tossed the half-ton door panels aside, revealing the dark passage inside.

Huo Zhi Fei Chang Gao Xing lit up with a roaring flame, and in its flickering light, the group stepped into the ancient ruins.

They hadn't gone far when they saw huge guardian statues on both sides of the corridor.

They were still the same grotesque stone carvings of human bodies combined with beast heads, still in a ready-to-fight stance. The statues inside the temple were a bit smaller than those outside, but still over five meters tall, and looked exceptionally imposing.

"Strange... why are there so many statues..." Vivian muttered, frowning.

Hao Ren was puzzled. "Isn't it normal to have sculptures like this in a temple?"

"It's normal to have sculptures like this, but not this many. This is beyond what's needed for decoration," Vivian said, shaking her head. "Such a bizarre, morbid taste."

At that moment, the data terminal, flying ahead, suddenly shouted, "Partner! Partner! The murals here are recognizable!"

Hao Ren hurried over and saw the blue beams projected by the data terminal scanning a series of colored reliefs on the stone wall. The reliefs were also quite mottled and eroded, so much so that it was almost impossible to discern their original appearance with the naked eye. Even experienced archaeologists would likely need complex technical means to restore them. But compared to the stone slabs and clay tablets outside the city, which were almost completely worn smooth and fragmented, many recognizable areas remained on this mural.

With the data terminal's powerful computing capabilities, these murals were quickly restored. The text beneath the murals was also slowly pieced together and reconstructed, and displayed on the stone wall as a holographic projection—just as it had been when it was intact.

In the first image, Hao Ren saw an abstract and bizarre scene: a very large creature walking, or rather "floating," across the land. It was like an insect with many slender, sharp legs. From its layered, bone plate-like body extended several pairs of thin, long legs that were completely disproportionate to its body. The creature's sharp feet stepped on the ground, but its body was as tall as the sun and moon—likely an exaggerated depiction by the ancients, but enough to suggest how terrifyingly large the creature was. And although it had such a terrifying size, it could walk on the ground with just a few pairs of thin legs, suggesting that its body was probably "floating" in the air. It either had a large number of suspended air sac structures inside its body, or it simply had the ability to manipulate gravity.

The first image used almost all of its space to show the details of this giant creature. There was only one word under the image, which the data terminal transliterated as Er'tos. Presumably, that was the name of the giant creature.

The second image showed the creature's destructive power: it was surrounded by thunder and lightning, as well as fire meteors falling from the sky. Even the sun and moon had been swallowed into the giant beetle's body. Beneath the beetle's slender, sharp feet were collapsed city walls and dead humans. This represented the creature's ability to summon lightning and fire, and that it most likely appeared during a solar or lunar eclipse. It destroyed the human city, and the humans were helpless against it. Among the corpses, one could even see some exceptionally tall humanoid creatures with alien features. These humanoid creatures had halo-like patterns around them. After translating the text under the image, the data terminal indicated that those were the corpses of the "Old Gods."

The creature called Er'tos destroyed a "mythical city-state" ruled by aliens.

Just as Hao Ren's gaze fell on the third image, Lily suddenly stood up.

"Did you guys hear something?"

The husky girl's ears kept turning in different directions, her golden eyes shining brightly in the dim environment.