Chapter 1663: The Other Part of the Truth

Chapter 1663: The Other Part of the Truth

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

As Hao Ren reminded the rest of them, Lily, Vivian, and the others remembered the matter and quickly raised their arms to have a look. Before they left, everyone had undergone the marking ritual in the hall of the World Tree. A resurrection mark from the World Tree should have been on the back of their hands, but now, all of the marks had disappeared.

Everyone exclaimed in surprise at the same time. "It's gone!"

"Holy sh*t!"

"Eh?"

"Nya nya nya?!"

"F*ck!"

All right, not really in unison...

The mark of the World Tree... Its biggest function was to lock down everyone's life data, and in the event of a life-threatening moment, it would provide a valuable one-time resurrection. Its disappearance meant only one thing⁠—the resurrection had already been utilized.

Yet, no one knew that they had already died once!

"What's going on?" Lily felt her fur suddenly bristle as if she had just seen death in the face. "The resurrection token is missing! Why? I don't recall ever dying in L'Haronne..."

"Of course no one died. Based on the prepared protocols, if everyone has consumed the mark, the World Tree's forced extraction protocol will activate and pull us back into the material universe. This process cannot be stopped even by the Umbral Realm." Hao Ren waved his hand. "The mark of resurrection disappeared during assimilation when we stepped into the dream of L'Haronne. No one has any memory of that, but it had in fact happened. This process was sufficient to trigger the mark, and so it was consumed. In reality, we were still alive, so the forced extraction protocol was not activated."

Lily blinked repeatedly as her tail drooped down. "Ah... what a waste of a resurrection token..."

"No, it worked as intended." Hao Ren faintly smiled. "It warded off our assimilation to the dream of L'Haronne. Only with that were we able to operate while awake. Without that mark, we probably would have really started taking quests in White Maple Leaf City to survive, and follow that cycle for hundreds or thousands of years, until the goddess herself wakes up..."

The goddess of creation shrugged. "I'm Rheia when I'm asleep, and even I am trapped deep within the dream. It has nothing to do with me, yeah?"

Hao Ren was speechless

Why did he suddenly feel that the goddess' image had just crumbled?

Cold sweat formed on everyone's head at the same time as they heard what Hao Ren said. Looking at the back of his hand, Nangong Sanba exclaimed, "Bloody hell... that sounded really scary. If this wasn't around, forget about discovering the truth of the dream, we'll even forget who we are... Eh, wait a minute, that's not right. Based on what you saw, the mark supposedly disappeared from the start, right? Why did none of us notice it?"

"Of course you didn't. Didn't you all notice? Only after I reminded you guys that you remembered the existence of the mark," Hao Ren said slowly. "If I'm not wrong, the mark took our place in the assimilation and became part of the dream, completely disappearing from our memories. If not for that, we would not be able to totally ward off L'Haronne's influence."

As he spoke, Hao Ren remembered something and immediately opened his Dimensional Pocket to let Lil Pea out. The little mermaid was probably playing in her aquarium, as when she was released she was still holding an exquisite conch shell and bore a cheerful look. That happy look suddenly turned confused before returning to joy as she teleported to Hao Ren's shoulder, bouncing about as she waved the shell about. "Daddy! I dug a big sandpit in that tank! There are so many shells in there!"

"Alright, alright. Let daddy see your hand." Hao Ren grabbed the little mermaid's arm as he entertained her. "As I thought... even in the Dimensional Pocket, Lil Pea's resurrection mark has been consumed. She was only outside for a short while when we arrived on L'Haronne, just before we entered the city. She's been in the Dimensional Pocket, which can separate space-time continuum and the cycle of cause and effect. Technically, she should not have been affected by the dream's influence. So as I've guessed, the mark was consumed at the very beginning. After that, we received an 'awakened' buff, so when we made contact with Rheia, the source of the dream, she did not assimilate us..."

At that very moment, Nolan butted into the conversation, "Boss, why wasn't I assimilated then? I did not have a marker at all."

The shipgirl's question stumped Hao Ren. His mouth opened and closed but he could not find a plausible explanation for that. At that same moment, the lounging goddess of creation answered Nolan's confusion. "That's because your existence was beyond my comprehension."

"Eh..." Nolan was taken aback,

"The dream has a limit, and even if there were much more margin of variables, I cannot describe something I cannot comprehend. You... part of you is totally beyond my knowledge, and thus exceeded L'Haronne's world view. If I controlling the dream while awake, I could probably come up with a reasonable explanation of your existence, but L'Haronne was an automated one, and that prevented it from assimilating you..."

Hao Ren raised an eyebrow at the goddess' explanation. He did not understand how such a civilian frigate like Nolan would confound the goddess of creation. Even if that goddess did not go through proper education she was still a sterling model of self-studied success. She should at the very least be able to understand most of the stuff in the universe, but he quickly realized that neither Nolan nor the Petrachelys had something really super high-tech...

The void engine.

The goddess of creation had slowly cultivated her research tree, and her highest achievement was just sending Vivian and the Ark of Yggdrasil to the Surface World just next door. Thus, she did not fully comprehend or understand cross-world navigation techniques and Nolan... she had the void engine that allows her to travel in the void, and freely across worlds!

Aside from the engine, everything on the Petrachelys or Hao Ren and his mates were easily understood and replicated objects, as such when they were able to be fully immersed in the dream, but the existence of the void engine meant the assimilation of Nolan into the dream got 'stuck' somewhere along the way...

As the questions regarding L'Haronne were getting answered one by one, Hao Ren felt glad. The goddess of creation then suddenly stretched her lazy bones, "I do wish to continue chatting, but we have been too long on this ruin. If you don't mind, let's leave this place and find a better place to talk? I have plenty to do..."

Hao Ren knew that the "plenty of things to do" that the goddess had just spoken off included her plans for self-destruction. Convincing the latter to abandon her plan and accept his new idea would not be that easy. So, he decided to slowly talk to this uneducated yet willful goddess on how to save the world once they got out of the place.

But before leaving the Umbral Realm, he still had one thing on his mind. "I have a question. It is about L'Haronne itself. Was it just created out of thin air? Or does it have an... origin?

As he had expected, the goddess of creation's expression changed slightly at the question. She then looked up, beyond the floating temple ruins floating in the darkness to the dark beyond: There was a torn planet sitting quietly in the void, as a faintly glowing mist engulfed the surface of the torn-into-two planet.

Just like how the broken heaven could be seen from L'Haronne, L'Haronne could be seen above the broken heaven. There was a unique intersection between dream and reality here.

Due to the interference of the chaotic mist, even a demigod's vision could now clearly see the details on the planet's surface. But through the blurry silhouettes, one could still make out some of the objects of the planet.

Like that narrow plains sandwiched between two long mountain ranges...

"You see them right..." Only after a while did the goddess retract her gaze and sigh. "That's right. That is L'Haronne... an actual place that once existed."

"Was it caught by the explosion?" Hao Ren asked. "And you then took it as the basis of the dream?"

"No, it was here all along... outside the edge of the world."

Hao Ren's eyes widened as he heard that as he almost jumped at the revelation. "Wait a minute! You mean that L'Haronne... has been here all along? In this place beyond the worlds of order, teetering close to the void?!"

At this moment, a surge of information entered Hao Ren's mind. All sorts of guesses and predictions ran through his mind. That led him to feel like his brain was about to boil, and one of these guesses was the most direct, and the most implausible took up at least half of his brain capacity:

Aside from the Plane of Dreams and the Surface World, there once existed a third universe?!

"Surprising, right? I was surprised myself," the goddess of creation said blandly. "When the Star of Creation blew up, I thought I would have been sent alongside the debris of the kingdom out of the world, and get destroyed by the place you call the 'void'. But unexpectedly I fell into this place, a narrow and dark universe. There was even a planet called L'Haronne here, and a group of peaceful mortals lived there. As I was dying then, and my will were still roaming around the ruins of the Star of Creation. I tried my best to bind the planet against the energy shock wave from the Star of Creation. I managed to delay it for two hundred years... but I failed in the end, and the shock wave from the ruins of the heavenly kingdom tore everything apart in this tiny universe, including L'Haronne."

From that day, the heavily-wounded goddess of creation fell into a deep sleep, and L'Haronne became her dream.