The rest of them camped beside the lift shaft and stayed in contact with Hao Ren. Meanwhile, Hao Ren and Vivian had already entered the dark ancient cavern.
The light above quickly turned into a little dot as they dropped and were still dropping. Holding Hao Ren by his waist and let Hao Ren use his spear to illuminate the way ahead as they steadily descended. He looked at the steel frames and guide rails flying past him, the flapping sound of Vivian’s bat wings echoed in his ears. “We have not flown together for quite a long time.”
“Yeah, after following you to all the bizarre places, if it wasn’t space it was water, I have almost forgotten how to use my wings,” said Vivian from above, slightly adjusting her wing angles to make their descent down the shaft in a circling motion. “I still remember the first time you flew with me you were getting air sick… Err, probably not airsick, it was I who got giddy.”
“You’re kidding me. I was only shocked when you took me to the sky without warning. No layman has ever experienced it, you know,” said Hao Ren, moving his body slightly, the tactile sensation on his back made him difficult to concentrate. Vivian had immediately noticed it. She laughed slyly. “Still couldn’t get used to it after flying together so many times?”
Hao Ren compressed his lips. “No matter what, you are still a pretty girl.”
“…I never really thought about this, you know that I used to having difficulty filling my stomach,” said Vivian, blinking. Suddenly, a faint light appeared in front. She said, “Mr. Landlord, looks like we have almost reached the bottom.”
Soon, the two landed on a ring of alloy platform. The platform circled the shaft walls with a few-metre opening in the centre. The faint red light shone up from under the opening. Hao Ren got to the edge of the opening, 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 have come to this deep?”
“It’s not necessarily the centre 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 to the planet’s core appeared weak and slow. However, the magma flow was a hellish place to be in. If not for the insulation technology, the metal platform might have melt. “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. “The gravity is weaker here. We have reached the deepest part of the system where the gravity is probably less than one-fifth of the surface. Let’s look around; there should be an entrance nearby. The MDT has found a hollow space that looks like a control centre during the scanning.”
Vivian lifted her finger pointing across the circular platform. “You mean that?”
Hao Ren looked up and saw a heavy hatch with reflective metal lustre standing quietly across the platform. The weak light flashing beside the door seemed to suggest that the system behind the door was still running.
The two came in front of the entrance. Hao Ren looked at the flashing lights on the panel beside the door frame, exhaling. “We have already come this far and it’s enough to prove our sincerity. Is it still necessary to shut the door before us?”
Supposedly, no one should be responding to him, but the hatch responded. In a series of hissing sound, the circular hatch retreated a little before it rolled to a side. Hao Ren and Vivian stepped inside.
They passed through a long, safe tunnel before emerging into a rotunda.
A huge, cylindrical instrument lined with tubes was in the centre of the rotunda, extending up a dozen meters high to the dome while dim light flew in the tubes on the outside. Thick cables extended out like vine from the bottom of the cylinder on the floor before reaching into the machines around the rotunda. There was no lighting in the rotunda except the light emitted by the machines themselves, allowing them to see the ancient instruments in shadows albeit vaguely. A deep, compound humming echoes in the space like an inorganic breathing.
Hao Ren stared at the cylinder in front of him. This should be the host of the ark. He could feel that this is the heart of the planet, and the countless things, abstract and invisible, all spread from here 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 synthesised voice came out 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 mind, logic, goals… The existence of the entire system is to ensure the survival of the civilisation on this. 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 civilisation was already extinct.”
A screen on the wall lit up. A crystal-clear, aqua blue planet that glowed in space appeared on the screen. Immediately, the sun exploded in the corner of the image, the highly charged solar particles blew over the surface of the planet, but 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 had not seen what the nature of the disaster was, but the lights on the planet was dimming with an alarming rate until the planet went completely dark and silent.
As time goes by, the sun cooled and the planet froze. A layer of white covered the planet, and the entire world was lifeless. Artificial light had never been seen ever since.
Vivian turned to look at the host. “Who did it?”
“An indescribable creature. The creators called it a natural disaster,” the synthesised voice of the ark’s host reverberated in the rotunda. The screen flashed. A weird object of combination of a myriad of tentacles, roots, plants, 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 ever-twisting roots. “It destroyed the civilisation 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 this creature from the planet with the help of The Denizens of the Stars and pushing it into the sun—then The Denizens of the Stars blew up the sun. The creature was blown and burned into ashes. However, something unknown remained on the planet. It eventually destroyed the entire civilisation.”
“Something unknown?” Hao Ren felt a little confused until Vivian reminded him in a whisper. “Tannagost had a similar incident before.”
It then dawned on him. Hao Ren asked, “Is the soul of the First Born?!”
The ark host had not responded. It seemed that it could not understand what ‘soul’ meant. However, Hao Ren had already guessed what happened back then: ( Updated by NovelFull.Com)
Although the aborigines of this 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 had not been able to do: they succeeded in killing the First Born at the cost of their own sun. However, this had not been able to save their own fate—the First Born had used its soul to exterminate everyone on the planet!
This soul should have dissipated. The radar of the Petrachelys had not detected any sign that the First Born was still on the planet. It was also because the First Born had dissipated, no one had ever found evidence of the existence of the First Born.
Hao Ren had finally pieced the pieces together. He stared at the ark host with a serious look. “Who is Denizens of the Stars?”