Chapter 1 The Impact

The appearance of the giant legion in Frostwind City caused the anticipated shock.

Despite Grand Duke Owen's advance preparations, despite the northerners' reputation for having the strongest nerves, and despite the fact that the people living in this land dealt with incredible super-ancient relics every day, the giant legion and their transport mothership were still enough to challenge the locals' ability to accept things.

Some citizens who saw the starship landing on the city wall were frightened, and minor riots broke out.

But in the end, all the disturbances were effectively controlled—under Grand Duke Owen's timely coordination and the Northern Legion's strong execution efficiency, the city calmed down at an extremely fast speed and began to await further orders.

The discipline brought about by the unique population and social structure of the fortress city played a huge role at this moment.

As for Constance and Grand Duke Owen, Hao Ren didn't need to explain the specific situation of the guardian giants to them. Perhaps thanks to the succession of epochs, resulting in the fragmentation of inheritance and historical distortion, different inheritors often meant different civilization systems. Two inheritor organizations with mutual discontinuity might possess power with a gap as huge as Earth and Zenith Star. Constance knew this well and did not take the initiative to ask too much.

Hao Ren had indeed thought about finding a suitable entry point to let the princess understand the whole truth, including the identities of his group, but after seeing an emergency report from Nolan, he realized that the situation in this world was much more fragile than it seemed on the surface. In order to avoid affecting the last hope of this world, he had to try his best to eliminate any influence that might shake Constance.

"The power of the giant legion is enough to help you gain an advantage on the frontal battlefield. They are extremely good at dealing with those corrupted and mutated minions," Hao Ren said to Constance beside him on the city wall of Frostwind City, looking at the guardian giants gathering on the plains. "They also don't need you to provide any support, including supplies and garrisons—they bring their own supplies and can live in the transport ship. This army will go to the imperial capital with you, and their support will last until you step into the last city wall."

Constance heard the hidden meaning in Hao Ren's words: "Aren't you going to act with us?"

"No, we have other important matters," Hao Ren retracted his gaze and glanced at the Gorgon space rift in the sky. "But don't worry, Leah will act with you. She is our number one combat force. With her in command, you and your knights can be unimpeded all the way until you reach the imperial capital."

"Listening to you… Leah and the giant legion's support for us is only until the imperial capital?" Constance frowned slightly, somewhat puzzled. "Why?"

"Because the final battle must be fought by you and your knights," Hao Ren looked at Constance. "It is more appropriate for you to end your father's rule than to hand it over to us. And I believe you have this ability—don't you?"

"I didn't expect a giant legion to come to help at first, but I still went to the battlefield," Constance smiled brightly, without continuing to delve into whether Hao Ren's arrangement had other intentions. "The giant legion is yours, and you have the right to decide these things, and as long as it allows me and my knights to reach the foot of the imperial capital… that is enough for me. You are right, it is best for us to fight the last battle ourselves."

Vivian stood beside Hao Ren, but did not participate in Hao Ren and Constance's topic, but turned her attention to the Charlemagne siblings standing on the other side: "You two, have you decided? In fact, your mission has been completed, you can completely return to your Ys, so at least you can continue to live two years of peaceful and quiet days before the epoch restarts."

"If we still knew nothing about the truth, this would undoubtedly be a good choice, but after knowing the truth, it is meaningless to want to cover our eyes again," Charlemagne said calmly. "Even if this world is destined to have only two years left, we are willing to spend these two years in resistance—leave the opportunity to enjoy peaceful dreams to those who are ignorant of the truth."

Aivanna next to him smiled lightly: "Ignorance is indeed the greatest blessing—facing the truth comes at a price."

"Although your inheritance has been obliterated, you are still worthy of respect," Constance looked at the Charlemagne siblings with a much more serious expression than before. "Knowing that the world is destined to be destroyed in two years, and even if you resist to the end, you will inevitably face the fate of being erased by the world, many people will choose to cover their eyes and anesthetize themselves, but you choose to put these last two years on the battlefield… even if it is meaningless to you…"

"It's not meaningless," Charlemagne laughed. "We know that a large part of the 770,000 Black Sword Knights were ordinary people who fell on the final battlefield of the last era—although they only have a little remnant soul left, they can at least be considered to have survived the epoch transition, right? My sister and I are probably ordinary people now… then we also have a small greed, maybe we can also侥幸 (jiǎoxìng, by luck) survive the epoch transition and have a lifetime in the new era?"

Constance quietly looked at Charlemagne for a while, then suddenly laughed: "Okay, if I can see the souls of you two when I open my eyes in the new era, I will definitely try my best to reproduce the transformation technology of the Black Sword Knights."

Charlemagne laughed loudly: "Then you have to work hard—maybe in the next era you can only rely on hammers and furnaces to forge weapons!"

Lily looked at them, suddenly showing a bright smile, and patted Charlemagne's shoulder: "Don't say it so tragically, the landlord is very powerful—go to the battlefield with peace of mind, this time the fate of this world is different from every time in the past!"

A few minutes later, Leah healed Charlemagne's comminuted fracture of the shoulder, and Hao Ren took Lily and Vivian into the teleportation beam.

They came to the Gorgon Abyss.

The boundless red chaotic mist filled the entire field of vision. In the vast twisted space, drifting giant stones and fragmented ruins could be seen everywhere. Large and small ancient starships were like silent tombstones, stagnating between the clouds. A low roar echoed in the air. The roar seemed to be mixed with the murmurs and whispers of countless people, but if you listened carefully, they seemed to be just the agitation and friction between the air clouds.

The Gorgon Abyss should have been silent at first, because this was originally just a battlefield wreckage in the universe. Of course, sound could not be transmitted in the universe, but the distortion of the world caused clouds and atmosphere to appear here. In these abnormal things, the alienated wind and whispers endlessly swirled, as if the universe was groaning in silence.

The three landed on a small asteroid full of ravines. The remaining factory facilities on this asteroid still had power, and vibrations would come from under their feet from time to time. And in the depths of the distant clouds, the shadow of a giant starship could be vaguely seen, which was the "Apocalypse" that Hao Ren had initially visited with a probe.

"Gorgon Abyss…" Vivian looked at the distant scenery. "Is this the other battlefield you mentioned? What did Nolan find?"

"About the truth of annihilation reincarnation and epoch transition," Hao Ren said unhurriedly. In the chaotic sky above, large and small space rifts were opening, and huge guardian battleships and countless armed drones were protruding from them. "Nolan opened the encrypted system in the earth's core and successfully established a connection with an ancient database—and that database belongs to a larger, more sophisticated super facility."

"Super facility?" Lily widened her eyes. "What is it for?"

"It calls itself 'Heart of God,' the heart of the supreme leader of that civilization in the First Era of the ancient times," Hao Ren explained. "According to the database records, the supreme leader of the First Era took out his heart, and then all the other most powerful leaders transformed that heart at the cost of their lives, turning it into that artifact. As for the function of the Heart of God… it is to reset all things in the world at the moment when the universe is completely eroded by the power of annihilation and all defenses are about to be completely lost."

"Wait…" Lily was stunned. "That is to say, the constant reincarnation and reset of this world… was actually set by the ancestral civilization of the First Era themselves?!"

"That's right, they set it themselves," Hao Ren nodded. "Constance and other inheritors have always regarded epoch transition and annihilation reincarnation as the greatest curse of this world. There are even extreme unofficial historical traditions in the ancient kingdom of Ys, such as the 'Twelve Curses,' but in fact, this reincarnation is the only legacy left by the ancestral civilization… it is a glimmer of hope they left for this world after paying an unimaginable price."

The drone legions warped in, and the mountain-like guardian fleets also appeared in formation in this chaotic space. The Gorgon "demons" wandering in the distance finally sensed the arrival of these uninvited guests and began to converge towards this area.

"The doomsday has indeed arrived, but it has never ended," Hao Ren said lightly, looking at the Gorgon ships that were constantly gathering. "The ancestral civilization used a very clever method to postpone this doomsday almost indefinitely—"

"When the end of the world comes, the order of everything in the universe will enter the most fragile state, and all the barriers of time and space will be opened up. The timeline becomes easy to manipulate, and even the world line becomes a thing that can be artificially influenced," the data terminal took over Hao Ren's words. "We actually thought of this direction before—those stacked historical fragments in the underlying data of Laerlien are very likely the result of the disorder of the timeline and the world line, but what we didn't expect at the time was that this disorder and stacking were not naturally generated, but artificially promoted by the ancestral civilization."

Hao Ren nodded: "They used the power of the end of the world to complete the ultimate breakthrough in technology at the last moment—they folded their world before all the timelines closed and before history became a conclusion."

The out-of-control Gorgon ships in the distance began to engage the guardian fleets, and bright flames once again shone on this stagnant battlefield.

"So the end of the world in this world has been continuing, so an observer from the Tumen Empire can see our arrival, so this doomsday war will not end from the sea of stars to the surface of the planet. There is only one reason: the timeline and historical trajectory of Laerlien have not closed at all. Until today, it is still an open system."

Hao Ren remembered the first sentence Nolan read in the "Heart of God" database: The doomsday may have begun, but until everything is saved, we will never allow it to end!