Chapter 1306 - Retrieving the Crystal (1/2)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Similar to the Crapple Research Station, CARS, the main structure of the sacred mountain of Asurmen was also constructed from crystals. Different types of druse, crystal towers, and walls constituted the complex structure within the ancient spacecraft. But unlike conventional spaceships, many of the cabins in Asurmen were not directly connected. Perhaps, some extreme security requirements had necessitated such a sealed design for the key compartments from the outset. The only way to access these compartments was through the gatekeeper or defeating Asurmen’s security system. Through a portal, Lady Gloom brought Hao Ren into the Energy Circulation Hub.
It was a pyramid-shaped chamber, where lavender druse grew in all four corners. As soon as Hao Ren entered this place, he saw a massive crack above the chamber running through the wall of the sacred mountain. Looking through the crack, Hao Ren saw the gloomy sky outside. There was a white crystalline conduit, broken in half and flickering with sparks, just below the crack. The floor in front of the conduit had crumbled and sunk. A crystal, different in material compared to its surroundings, was lying quietly in the pit.
Perhaps the crystal had changed in shape and color when it passed through the Wall of Reality, because there was no way Hao Ren could have known the nature of the crystal just by looking at it. Nevertheless, his heart skipped a beat when he saw two lines of text on the crystal.
“Hearts and arrows.
“Exquisitely designed.”
Hao Ren was dead sure that the crystal did not have this “logo” when he dropped it into the Scarred Nebula. This text must have only appeared when it went through the Wall of Reality. So what was this text about? Was it the mark the goddess left for herself? Was it a credit cookie the goddess left behind after cutting the crystal? Or was it simply the manifestation of her neurotic obsession with hearts and arrows?
Whatever it was, Hao Ren was now sure who caused the situation in Asurmen—it was him.
Cold sweat was trickling down his forehead onto his toes. He had never prayed to the goddess before, but this time, he could not help but call out her name in his mind.
While having that thought, Hao Ren became conscious, quickly looking up and around. But there were no signs of divine lightning punishment. Instead, he saw a golden-white object floating at the top of the pyramid chamber.
It was a tablet, about one-meter square, and half an inch thick. It was unevenly edged and had a light on its surface. When he looked at it, Hao Ren could not help but feel a sense of tranquility.
He even felt his divine power, diffusing in a pale white halo from his body, resonating with the tablet. Two similar divine powers from different sources seemed to be interacting with each other. “Hey, bro, what’s up there?”
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from another universe where there’s a goddess. I’m a fragment falling off her body.”
“Oh, what a coincidence; there’s a goddess in my world too, but somebody has stabbed her.”
“Holy moly!”
Of course, Hao Ren made that up in his mind; he had no idea what the two divine powers talked to each other. But the truth would not be far, he figured.
Lady Gloom wanted to stop Hao Ren but was surprised to see that there was nothing bad happening to him. “You can even stare at the Tablet of Commandments directly?”
“That’s the Tablet of Commandments?” Hao Ren knew, but he asked for the sake of asking.
“That’s right. It’s something that the goddess of creation made. But I have never seen a mortal who could not only survive before it but even look directly at it without a problem. The tablet releases the thoughts of the goddess. Except for non-living things like me, normal living creatures could not stand before it.”
“When did I say that I was a mortal?” Hao Ren’s eyebrows arched. “Can you take down the tablet for me? Forget it if it’s an important component of Asurmen.”
Lady Gloom hesitated for a moment before she raised a finger in the air, and then the tablet descended slowly. “It’s not part of Asurmen. No one knows what is the goddess’s purpose by leaving it here. She placed it here without leaving behind any instruction.”
Hao Ren curiously came close to the tablet, both sides of which had some engravings. On one side was an unknown, complicated pattern. On the other side were a few lines of textual inscription.
“Who am I? Why am I here? What should I do? Do I have any meaning? What is around me? Where are their boundaries? Why do they appear like that? Are they meaningful?”
Was this what the goddess left behind?
Hao Ren’s brows knit together. Suddenly, he felt a slight burning sensation on his right hand.
A red scar appeared on his right hand, once burned by divine blood.