Chapter 646: Once Upon A Time
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The rest of them camped beside the lift shaft and stayed in contact with Hao Ren. Meanwhile, Hao Ren and Vivian were already in the dark ancient cavern.
The light above quickly turned into a little dot as they dropped and dropped. Vivian held Hao Ren by the waist and allowed him to use his spear to illuminate the way ahead as they steadily descended. Hao Ren looked at the steel frames and guide rails flying past him. The flapping sound of Vivian's bat wings echoed in his ears. "We haven't flown together for quite a long time."
"Yeah, I've been following you to all kinds of bizarre places; if it wasn't space, it was water. I've almost forgotten how to use my wings," said Vivian from above. She adjusted the angle of her wings slightly to descend down the shaft in a circling motion. "I still remember the first time you flew with me, you were getting airsick... Umm, probably not airsick, I was the one who got giddy."
"You're kidding me. I was only shocked when you took me to the sky without warning. No regular man has ever experienced it, you know," said Hao Ren, moving his body a little. The tactile sensation on his back made it difficult for him to concentrate. Vivian immediately noticed it and she laughed slyly. "Still can't get used to it after we've flown together so many times?"
Hao Ren compressed his lips. "No matter what, you're still a pretty girl."
"...I never really thought about this, but you know that I used to have difficulty filling my stomach," Vivian said, blinking. All of a sudden, a faint light appeared in front of them and she said, "Mr. Landlord, looks like we've almost reached the bottom."
Soon, the two landed on a ringed alloy platform. The platform circled the shaft's walls and there was an opening about a few meters wide in the center. A faint red light shone up from under the opening. Hao Ren got to the edge of it, poking his head over the railing and peeking down. To his surprise, he saw a pool of magma at the bottom.
"Could that be the core of the earth?" Vivian also took a glance, wide-eyed. "We've come this deep?"
"It's not necessarily the center of the earth, but it should be very close," Hao Ren looked at the dim red light that was moving slowly. The planet's core temperature was already declining; the magma flow near the planet's core appeared weak and slow. However, it was a hellish place to be in. If not for its insulation technology, the metal platform could have melted. "This should be the energy source of the entire system. A heat exchange system between the core and the surface… It's an engineering feat."
"The senile old men on Earth should really come here to take a look..." said Vivian. "By the way, why am I feeling a sense of weightlessness under my feet?"
Hao Ren took a few steps. "Gravity's weaker here. We've reached the deepest part of the system where the gravity's probably less than one-fifth of the surface. Let's look around; there should be an entrance nearby. The MDT found a hollow space, which looks like a control center during the scanning."
Vivian lifted her finger and pointed across the circular platform. "You mean that?"
Hao Ren looked up and saw a heavy hatch with a reflective metallic luster, standing quietly across the platform. The weak light flashing next to the door seemed to suggest that the system behind the door was still running.
The two went up to the entrance. Hao Ren looked at the flashing lights on the panel beside the door frame, exhaling. "We've already come this far, it's enough to prove our sincerity. Is it still necessary to shut the door in our faces?"
No one should have responded to him, but the hatch did. After a series of hissing sounds, the circular hatch retreated a little before it rolled to the side. Hao Ren and Vivian stepped in.
They passed through a long, safe tunnel before emerging into a rotunda.
A huge, cylindrical instrument lined with tubes was in the center of the rotunda, extending up a dozen meters high to the dome. On the other hand, dim light filled the tubes outside. Thick cables extended out like vines from the bottom of the cylinder on the floor to the machines around the rotunda. The only source of light in the rotunda came from the machines themselves, allowing both of them to see the ancient instruments in the shadows, albeit vaguely. A deep, compounded hum echoed in the space like inorganic breathing.
Hao Ren stared at the cylinder in front of him. It was probably the ark.'s host He could feel that it was the heart of the planet. Countless things, abstract and invisible, all spread from there out to the entire planet. He took a deep breath. "I've come. Why don't you say something?"
The machines remained silent for a few seconds before a deep, cold synthesized voice came from the cylinder. "My mission is to manage the ark and bring the creators to a new home safely. I was created and they gave me a mind, logic, goals... The existence of the entire system is to ensure the survival of the civilization. This is the only thing I know that I should do."
Hao Ren stared at the host as if he was looking at a living person. "What happened here?"
"Before the ark set sail, the civilization already went extinct."
A screen on the wall lit up. A crystal-clear, aqua blue planet, which glowed in space appeared on the screen. Immediately, the sun exploded in the corner of the image, and the highly charged solar particles blew over the surface of the planet. However, a powerful shield had protected the planet from being ripped apart; it survived. Yet, after surviving the supernova, something abnormal began to happen to the planet. Hao Ren could not see what the nature of the disaster was, but the lights on the planet began to dim with an alarming rate until the planet went completely dark and silent.
As time went by, the sun cooled and the planet froze. A layer of white covered the planet, and the entire world was lifeless. Artificial light was never seen ever since.
Vivian turned to look at the host. "Who did this?"
"An indescribable creature. The creators called it a natural disaster," the synthesized voice of the ark's host reverberated in the rotunda. The screen flashed, and a weird object that looked like the combination of a myriad of tentacles, roots, plants as well as meat appeared on the screen. It was difficult to describe how weird the thing was; only a sense of terror that seemed to evoke biological instincts pervaded through the creature's ever-twisting roots. "It destroyed the civilization on the ark after it died."
As it turned out, the thing on the screen was none other than the First Born. But Hao Ren was still surprised when he heard what the ark host had said. "After it died? You killed it?"
"It came out of the ground, but the creators succeeded in detaching the creature from the planet with the help of the Denizens of the Stars, pushing it into the sun—then, the Denizens of the Stars blew up the sun. The creature was blown up and burned into ashes. However, something unknown remained on the planet. It eventually destroyed the entire civilization."
"Something unknown?" Hao Ren felt a little confused until Vivian reminded him in a whisper. "Tannagost faced a similar incident before."
It then dawned on him, and Hao Ren asked, "The soul of the First Born?!"
The ark's host did not respond. It seemed that it could not understand what "soul" meant. However, Hao Ren had already guessed what happened back then.
Although the aboriginal people of the planet had not been able to surpass the technological level of the First Born, with the help of the Denizens of the Stars, they did achieve something the other Second Borns could not: they succeeded in killing the First Born at the cost of their own sun. However, this could not save their own fate—the First Born had used its soul to exterminate everyone on the planet!
Its soul should have dissipated as the Petrachelys' radar had not detected any signs of the First Born on the planet. It was also because the First Born had dissipated that no one ever found evidence of its existence.
Hao Ren had finally pieced it together and he stared at the ark's host with a serious look. "Who are the Denizens of the Stars?"