Within the gilded starship, everything suddenly stopped. The dust particles in the air, the floating runes on the equipment, even the maintanance robots along the corridor, all had stopped seemingly at press of a button. And the ship’s crew that was going about slowly faded into transparent silhouettes, before disappearing altogether.
The veil of silence now descended upon the area, with only Hao Ren standing before Nacruel. He still wore the commander’s battledress, but even that was fading away, revealing Hao Ren’s original attire.
“When did you started suspecting me?” Hao Ren grinned as he held his hands akimbo, rephrasing his sentence. “Was that question a little bit too rushed?”
“I felt something was off the moment I stepped onto the ship.” Nacruel had an icy expression, the proud god slayer had finally tasted defeat. This defeat was even more painful than being taken prisoner. The latter was at least bareable as he could admit that he was not up to par, but this, this made him felt that he was being played for a fool. “There’s too many places in the ship that is off, wrong place in the wrong position…. I should have realised this sooner, that this was just one of your schemes.”
Hao Ren looked around, and this ship was created based on the Pattianne, the treacherous children vessel that was taken at the Solenne Gateway. He had simulated the entire detail of the ship, and even arranged for crews and some working components, but alas the illusion was ultimately just an illusion. While it may trick outsiders, it would not work on a real rebel soldier.
But he finally shook his head, signalling it did not matter. “But all of that doesn’t matter now, we’ve gotten you to speak at long last.”
Nacruel cast a furious glance at Hao Ren, and the contempt he had in this eyes had disappeared and was replaced by extreme fury and hostility. Probably only now that the proud bastard had really see the ones before him as a formidable foe. “Conniving knaves! If only I did not hope to escape from this cage, I would not have fallen for this!”
“No, you should not have hoped for that.” Hao Ren looked at Nacruel impassively. “You should be hoping that you’d actually wake up.”
As Hao Ren finished, the world collapsed.
The illusion was over, and the gilded and glorious ‘Starship of the Gods’ crumbled like sand as it faded away into the distance and all sound ceased in that instant, what was left was an hollow echo in the sinking dark abyss. Nacruel, who once thought he had regained his freedom opened his eyes as the darkness faded away, and found himself within the impregnable cell, his body surrounded by a group of buzzing arcane beings and droids.
Hao Ren stood outside the cell looking at him, all around was an intact crystal prison. The pillars were still flickering gloriously and the crystalline dome still had that forboding presence from above. There was no attack, or breach, there were no rescue force forcing their way in. In the cold hard reality, the god slayers had already been eradicated ten thosand years ago. Nacruel now had the first hand grasp of that feeling.
Hao Ren hugged his arm as he waited for Nacruel to wake up, as he asked. “What is the Cosmic Progenitor?”
The prisoner bowed his head and stayed silent, like a piece of dead rock.
“Is it another god? Another powerful race? Somesort of power? Or is it a spiritual manifest of your own creation?” Hao Ren shout out one question after another. “So you’d only decided to slay a god after listening to the voice of the Cosmic Roots?”
The prisoner kept silent.
“You’ve already spoke once,” Hao Ren shook his head. “Resistance is futile, and sides, your race is dead and gone, what good are your secrets now?”
Hao Ren knew that his questions is as good as being asked against a wall, and Nacruel had clearly decided to not speak to anyone henceforth. Hao Ren was not bothered by it and motioned to the rest that he is done for today, and left with the party. But before he exited the room he turned back and threw one last sentence at the prisoner. “Oh yeah, guess whether if you are actually asleep or awake?”
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The prisoner finally had some reaction as he heard that as he looked up by reflex before drooping his head down again.
After leaving the penitentiary zone, Hao Ren immediately contacted Zom who was in charge of the dream system. “Recalibrate the dreamweaving for Prisoner One. Under no circumstances should he be presented or allowed to touch anything that allows him to determine if he is in a real world. And reduce those purgatory style dreams. They don’t work at all.”
Only then did Lily prodded Hao Ren by the arm. “Eh Mr Landlord, Mr Landlord, why do I feel like our tactics earlier were rather underhanded.”
“What’s wrong with being underhanded? You’re expect chivalry to get that bastard to talk?” Hao Ren pursed his lips. “The only thing I’m regretting is my lack of acting skills, and the setting was a bit shoddy, otherwise a few more questions and we will be able to dig out the key info we need. Bleh, doesn’t matter anyway, at least we have something new to work with now.”
Even Y’zaks couldn’t help but to see Hao Ren in a new light. “Truth be told that idea of yours was devillishly brilliant. Even when I had thousands upon thousands of wardens, none of them were as creative as you. If you were capable of controlling souls, you’d probably be a better demon than me…”
Hao Ren could not help himself but to spew sarcastic venom back at Y’zaks. “Heh, by your current lifestyle of clutching a newspaper roll everyday, anyone with a horn would be more suited to be a demon than you eh?”
That did not go down well with Y’lisabet as she jabbed and spun her tiny horn on her head on Hao Ren’s tight. “Papa is the Demon King! He is the strongest of all demons! You can’t say that to Papa, Uncle Ren…!”
Don’t sneer at the brat’s short stature but that horn on her little head was proof of her status as a high demon, and with enough force that horn was nothing to scoff at. The moment the horn connected to his tight sparks flew as the Steel Membrane Shield activated It looked like almost as if she was setting off sparklers on his pants. Hao Ren quickly grabbed the little brat as he took her by the horn and threw her into the air before turning towards the central hall. “Lets go talk to Muru and the rest. See if they have anything to say about this ‘Cosmic Progenitor’ thing.”
Soon he had reached the central hall where the three guardian giants stood awaiting news from him. They had wanted to go to the penitentiary zone to interrogate the prisooner but they knew that they would probably fly into a furious rage upon seeing the treacherous child and would simply muck things up, so they decided to just wait there. As Hao Ren told them of the results of his interrogation, the three guardian giants expressed surprised at the success, before showing great interest and confusion about the ‘Cosmic Progenitor’.
“Neither of you know what that thing actually means?” Vivian frowned slightly.
“Sounds like a generic name.” Muru shook his head. “Could be a race, or a false god, or it might be a spiritual conjuration, but the third one is unlikely. Because what the treacherous child said is that they only obtained their powers with the help of the Cosmic Progenitor, so that thing should be something tangible.”
“That Nacruel bastard also mentioned that the Cosmic Progenitor had injected powers against divinity directly into the souls of the entire treacherous children’s race.” Hao Ren rubbed his chin. “But we have also found runes against divinity on their weapons. You mentioned that the runes were stolen by the traitors, and these two could clearly be used against divinity, but their source is clearly different.”
“Their runes will work against Mother’s powers and creations but its use is restricted. Without the runes, the traitors are still mere mortals.” Lemendusa nodded. “So they would need something to ‘transcend’, and turn their bodies into weapons against god. Seems like this power is not their own, but from a third party.”
Muru sneered. “Seems like everything they have was either stolen, or cheated, there was nothing that they could call their own.”
“Now my biggest headache is the sudden appearance of this Cosmic Progenitor.” Hao Ren sighed as he felt his head spin. “We already have so many enemies in this universe as it is, I don’t need to add another troublesome one to the list.”
Lily did not seem to mind however, “Since we already have so many enemies in this universe as it is, what difference does one more make?”
Everyone suddenly threw a surprised glance at Lily, seemingly casting her in a new light. No one thought that the werehusky would have such bravado. Lily immediately shrunk back at the weight of attention of her. “I just felt that saying that sounds…cool…”
Hao Ren sighed again. “Lily’s right, one tick in an infestion won’t make it itch more, since I’ve never planned to take it easy when I came here anyway. So lets us crack our heads on what that Cosmic Progenitor nonsense is.”