Chapter 1516 New Progress

Indeed, there were no other clues at the moment. In the absence of any clear way out, digging along the clues that had already been found might not be a bad idea.

If the divine power blockade of the X Star Cluster and those dormant Star Citizen battleships belonged to the same "security system," then the control system of the former was probably related to the latter to some extent. Now that all the Star Citizen battleships were transferring energy to a certain "battlefield," then that battlefield must be extremely important.

The core area of the divine power blockade might also be there.

Lili folded her arms across her chest, her fluffy tail swaying unconsciously behind her. This was a sign that she was thinking hard. "Landlord, what do you think the situation is on that battlefield now? Are they still fighting? Or has it been completely lost..."

Nangong Wuyue widened her eyes. "The recorded start times for those dormant spaceships are all thousands of years ago. Would they still be fighting now?"

"The Executor and the Planet Eater fought for nearly ten thousand years, and the guardians of the Coro World fought Lockmarton for several epochs," Hao Ren glanced at the siren girl. "In this universe, wars lasting thousands of years are nothing rare. In fact, I think the battle on that battlefield may not have stopped even now..."

Nangong Wuyue was a little curious, her tail curving into a question mark in mid-air. "How are you so sure?"

Before Hao Ren could say anything, Nangong Sanba had already figured out the key. "Because those Star Citizen spaceships that transmitted energy and consciousness to the battlefield have shown no signs of revival to this day. This shows that the defending side has not yet won, and the divine power network, as an important security measure, is still running, which shows that the defense line has not completely fallen. Since the defenders haven't won or lost, then it's only possible that they're still in a stalemate."

Lili also reasoned, "Of course, there's also the possibility that the Star Citizen defense forces have already perished together with the invaders, and the invaders just happened not to destroy the divine power network. But these are all baseless things, and there's no point in speculating too much."

Wuyue looked at her smug brother and then at the dog girl wagging her tail, waiting for the landlord to praise her, and crossed her arms, disgruntled. "Why do I feel like I've become the dumbest one?"

Nangong Sanba chuckled. "Where do you put Gun?"

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at Nangong Sanba with sympathy. "You're courting death..."

After everyone dispersed, Hao Ren and Vivian stayed behind—of course, Nangong Sanba, who was still dizzy in the corner and couldn't get up, could be ignored. Vivian flicked a strand of hair from her forehead and looked up at the starscape displayed on the holographic projection—it was a star chart that had been explored, occupying less than a fifth of the entire X Star Cluster. "You said so confidently before, have you figured out how to find that battlefield?"

Hao Ren didn't say anything, but just manipulated the holographic projection a few times. The image of the cosmic starscape quickly faded, replaced by a set of giant antennas operating above the Executor's homeworld, and a secondary antenna array located on the planet's surface displayed in the corner of the screen.

"These are the antennas used to scan for crystal resonance signals?" Vivian recognized these things at a glance. "Are you saying that the battlefield is that mysterious planet covered with crystals that you saw in the illusion?"

"Intuition," Hao Ren nodded, "and not just intuition. The reason we were able to find this X Star Cluster is because we found the star chart deep in your soul, and the illusion I saw was sealed in your soul along with the star chart. I have a feeling that this mysterious X Star Cluster is just a box, a box that the Creator Goddess used to protect the truth, and that the mysterious planet covered with crystals is the treasure in the box. The divine power blockade network, the Star Citizen's battleships, these things are the guardians of the box. The only thing that could make these guardians go all out and throw themselves into the flames of war should be that crystal star, right?"

Vivian thought for a while and asked, "MD, have these antennas been activated?"

Although the antenna system was built by Nolan controlling the drone swarm, the data terminal was Hao Ren's most commonly used auxiliary device, so the information from various systems would eventually converge on this PDA. Hearing the mistress's call, the data terminal immediately flew over from the table, wagging its body. "It's online, it's online—it's just that we came back too early, and the secondary antenna array hasn't been fully activated yet, so the status may not be very stable, but the main antenna in orbit is fine, and it's already operating at full power."

"Have you found anything?"

"Uh... not yet," the data terminal shook its body. "Maybe the newly established system isn't perfect enough yet. So far, all we've received is background noise..."

Hao Ren frowned, feeling that something was wrong. "That's not right... If the illusion I saw wasn't fake, then the resonance phenomenon on the crystal planet is constant, and even if the crystal planet isn't releasing signals to the outside world, the crystals we have on hand have been releasing fluctuations all along. After receiving these fluctuations, the mother star of the crystals should have a feedback signal..."

"Could it be that the crystal planet is really gone..." Vivian said with some worry. "After all, we found crystal fragments here, and those fragments look like they were blown to pieces. That's not a good sign."

"Don't be so unlucky," Hao Ren said quickly. "And I don't think it should be. The Creator Goddess's grand design shouldn't be so fragile."

Just as Vivian was about to say something, the data terminal suddenly shouted, "Partner! The remote thought array has been successfully activated, and Zhuom is coming over!"

The construction progress of the remote thought array was faster than the crystal detection antenna. In fact, this set of facilities had already been completed when Hao Ren and the other two returned. However, this system was special and complex. In order to be compatible with the spirit of a demigod creature, it underwent a series of debugging and parameter settings after completion.

Now, this system has finally passed the overall acceptance and can play its role.

The "remote thought array" built on the Great Plains stood on its base like a steel city. The center of this triangular base was a huge circular hole, which was the original location of the Great Rift—artificial nerves extended from the hole, connecting to the nervous system of the eldest son underground, and to the three symmetrically distributed data processing centers on the surface.

The huge antenna device stood on the extension line of the vertex of this triangular "city," reaching a height of several thousand meters, like a straight sword, shining with a silvery-white light in the sun. At this moment, energy had been injected, all systems were in operation, and faint blue veins appeared on the surface of the silvery-white tower. As these veins flickered, Zhuom's will crossed countless light-years of space, breaking through the limitations of the speed of light, and was about to descend on this planet.

Hao Ren stood under the tower, watching the completion of this important facility, and the frustration caused by searching for the crystal planet was reduced a lot.

"Establishing connection... Connection established, synchronization rate rising... 50%... 60%... 70%..."

With the broadcast sound resounding throughout the facility, Hao Ren saw a large-scale holographic projection appearing around the giant tower. A small antenna icon also appeared in the upper right corner of the holographic projection, with several vertical lines arranged from short to long behind the icon. At this time, the fourth vertical line had turned from gray to white.

Lili craned her neck, her tail wagging behind her. "Wow... the signal is almost full!"

"So who exactly designed this interface!" Hao Ren jumped up the moment he saw the icon. "I don't remember having this thing!!"

An autonomous machine floated over, with Nolan's half-body image floating on top of it. "Come on, boss, it looks more intuitive this way."

"So it was you..." Hao Ren had only said half a sentence when he heard the broadcast saying, "Synchronization rate 100%, connection stable, consciousness transmission successful."

Hao Ren immediately forgot about educating his own ship girl and quickly turned his head to look at the holographic projection around the giant tower. The holographic projection flickered twice, and then a series of huge symbols appeared on it:

hi~o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

Zhuom's emoticon skills had developed to a strange degree!

"Uh... looks like the connection is going smoothly..." Hao Ren saw the expression sent by Zhuom, and the words he had prepared in advance instantly didn't know how to say them, so he could only awkwardly say hello first, "I thought you'd have to mess around for a whole day, after all, we haven't had anything go smoothly for days."

The symbols on the holographic projection disappeared and were replaced with a funny expression.

Yes, it was the funny expression...

Hao Ren felt a vein popping on his forehead instantly. "Speak properly!"

A word popped up on the holographic projection: "Oh."

"Don't just send words, you should be able to speak now," Hao Ren said. "This system integrates the current research results on the eldest son. Your spirit can not only drive the eldest son's body on this planet, but also control the various auxiliary facilities in this base. The remaining computing power of the data processing center can also help you think about some problems—try out the effect."

A little man spitting bubbles appeared on the holographic projection. After a few seconds, a slightly unfamiliar electronic synthesized voice resounded through the base. "Ah... can you hear me, can you hear me... Whoa, it really works!"

"Looks like the brain-computer interface is in good condition," Hao Ren nodded with a smile. "Move your limbs a little to see how the body control is—take it easy, don't affect the ecological zone."

Hao Ren's reminder was superfluous. As an excellent gardener, Zhuom certainly knew how to "stretch his muscles" a little without harming the surface life.

Everyone felt the ground beneath their feet begin to tremble slightly. Immediately afterward, a muffled sound like thunder came from the direction of the battlefield ruins in the northern Great Plains, which had completely lost its vitality. The ground bulged in front of everyone's eyes, and a black thing grew up like a mountain range and gradually separated from the ground...

It was an incredibly thick tentacle, which at first was like a mountain range, but then turned into a giant pillar sweeping across the sky. This indescribable and terrifyingly huge limb twisted within the atmosphere, emitting a heart-shaking roar. Its dark and wrinkled surface was covered with indescribable patterns. The entire tentacle slowly bent into a terrifying symbol:

It was just a smiling face in cursive script.

Hao Ren: "..."

So why does such a Cthulhu-style guy have to make a living by selling cute things!

Anyway, Zhuom was finally online...