"Every intelligent creature."
As if to emphasise this point, the giant gritted its teeth and repeated the sentence.
"Of the entire universe?" It was unbelievable and Hao Ren sincerely found the accusation illogical. "Including those from primitive planets that never even possessed space technology? They were part of the conspirators?"
"No one is clean. They're all involved whether it's directly or indirectly," the giant replied with a rumbling voice. Then, he stared at Hao Ren and the rest for a long time. "Since you're so keen to know, listen carefully to how your forefathers committed the sin."
"I told you I'm from Earth..." Hao Ren forced a smile, and then sighed. "Well, as you say, I really want to know."
Just as Hao Ren expected, the giant was easier to talk to than the mute brain monsters.
Although the giant had a great deal of hatred towards the ordinary races, it was obviously rational, controllable, or in other words, its anger had a "human" side to it. The anger of the brain-monsters was more like the natural impulse of a beast whose fury was uncontrollable and devoid of human nature, their hatred towards the mortals was unconditional and uncompromising; hence, the attempts of Hao Ren to talk to the brain-monsters were futile.
The reasons for this change were unclear, but it must be relative to the changes in their forms of existence. It was safe to say that individual giants that had mutated into brain-monsters had turned into another different species. Hao Ren had no clue if the giant in front of him was still treating its own race that had mutated into brain-monsters as his own kind. Of course, Hao Ren could not ask now.
The giant sat back down in the centre of the container, leg-crossed and expressionless as it told the memory of the world's oldest period in a low and strange voice. "In the beginning, the world was desolate, and only a few planets had produced primitive life. The stars were silent and lifeless. Our mother first appeared in this world, she settled in the centre of the universe, and created the lifeblood—a substance that could make life. It was the extension of her strength and body, and could be seen as part of her.
"Many years later, mother gradually became curious about the universe and began to explore the entire world. She quickly became dissatisfied with the desolation of the universe, so she created the first batch of seeds as an extension of her senses, and element of life for the universe. She sent them into the space.
"The elder brothers, who were born from the seed, were the First Guardians. They quickly had sent back knowledge of the stars. Mother was satisfied and happy with the development. In order to store more information, she had created us out of the depth of lifeblood during the incubation of the Seed of Origin.
"We are the second batch of the First Guardians and living with our mother since the beginning. Our job was to collect and sort out all intelligence obtained from the stars and to protect the safety of our mother. At that time, all we needed to guard against were just some wandering objects in the universe."
Y'zaks said in a low voice, "But then there was a rebellion?"
"A race, talented race, had lost control in the course of their development," the giants clenched its fists. "Mother had never interfered with the development of those children; she did not let us interfere as well. She paid all her attention in the novelty and mysteries of the universe itself, so those little creatures that hatched from the seeds multiplied unimpededly. Some of them had grown so powerful that they even started to eye the origin of the universe. When they realised they already was the most powerful species in the universe, they began to challenge those above the mortals, and there was only one such target... mother."
Lily's eyes widened. "So they revolted against the Goddess of Creation just for this?"
"They thought that as long as the old god of the universe was destroyed, they could take her place. They had proposed a ridiculous theory of life hierarchy, and thought that all lives in the universe were predetermined on the hierarchy, and that each level of the hierarchy was not expandable nor shrinkable. Whenever life on one level died, a new one from the lower hierarchy would step up the ladder and replace the dying one. New life would be born at the lowest hierarchy to supplement this cycle. They plucked this stupid theory out of thin air and firmly believed in it. So when they became the most powerful mortal species, they decided to make themselves God."
Hao Ren's eyebrows pulled together. "So the way to become God is to kill the existing one. Didn't they know who created them?"
"They did know, because they were once one of the closest mortal species to mother," said the giant with a deeply sarcastic tone of voice. "It was because they had known so much that they became so powerful. They knew more about the mother's secret than anyone else did. They had once disguised themselves as mother's most loyal children and fooled everyone else...including us. After that, they became even stronger with the knowledge and power they had stolen. When the obtuse guardians like us finally realised that something had gone wrong, they already possessed the ability to destroy everything."
Lily still felt it a bit inconceivable. "Were the mortals really capable of killing the true God?"
"What if the power of these mortals was derived from the true God?" The giant looked at her emotionlessly. "They could do anything for the sake of power then."
"They finally revolted against the Goddess of Creation and succeeded," Vivian frowned. "But as you said, they were doing it alone as a race. What does it have to do with civilisations on other planets?"
The giant appeared angry, and stomped its fist on the floor. "When the mother needed strength, those… those treacherous children all turned a blind eye!"
Hao Ren immediately realised this was the key to the reason why the First Borns and the guardian-giants hated all civilisations so much. "What happened?"
"Mother had never expected she would be attacked by her own children. She had never done anything to hurt them. So before she realised it, she was already down. In her last breath, she sent a distress call to all seeds in the universe. Those little creatures hatched from the seeds could hear her voice and respond as long as they knew the name of the Goddess of Creation. The response was enough to allow mother to breathe. But mother had been waiting and waiting and yet no one had responded…"
The giant lowered its head, its voice low. "That was the darkest day of the universe. All the stars should be dimming I shame. The creator of sentient beings were calling for help in the centre of the universe but the things she created were keeping silent in the shadow, drinking the blood of the Creator... They don't deserve to live."
There was a moment of silence. Then Y'zaks suddenly asked, "Why didn't those races respond?"
"Because the treacherous children had made an arrogant pledge," the giant gritted its teeth again. "Those traitors had been planning everything many years ago. They secretly called themselves God and promised to other races that when the old god of the universe fell, the first mortal who surrendered to them would receive the same God-like immortality. They also used the power from the lifeblood as bait, making use of knowledge, power, wealth, and other things that could corrupt the mortals to strengthen their bewitchment. When mother were finally in danger, those greedy mortals were all silent—because by doing nothing, they would get what their desires fulfilled. In their own logic, this silence was not a sin."
Hao Ren suddenly thought of the forbidden technology of the ancient Magical Empire and those perfect species that were created with The Sacred Relic of Origins. When he first learned that the Goddess of Creation was from the deep universe and that Holletta was just a planetary civilisation, he once thought that the forbidden technology had nothing to do with the end of day catastrophe. Now he suddenly realised that those things might be the cause of the planet's destruction.
Because this technology was most likely to come from those treacherous children.
The Magical Emperors of the ancient civilisations might not be able to pose a threat to the Goddess in the deep universe, but they had still made a big mistake—that was when their creator needed help, they turned a blind eye.
They did not know whether what this giant said was hundred-percent truthful, but when they thought of it, there was no reason the giant would want to fool them. No matter how much incredible the story was, at least one thing was for sure:
What happened ten thousand years ago was indeed a sinister conspiracy. No races in this universe could really get off the hook.