The giant looked at Hao Ren in anger, not appearing to be very cooperative.
However, Hao Ren still felt that he was making great progress because this time, he had accidentally caught a giant who had yet to turn into a brain monster. This giant was obviously easier to talk to than the other brain monsters. Probably due to the fact that the unmutated giant still possessed some of its sanity. Compared to his previous attempts to talk to the mute brain monsters, this giant was shouting at him.
Considering all things, a shouting match was still an achievement.
Lily could not help but step up to the giant and say, “Hey, super big guy! We want to ask you a few questions!”
Demonic runes were restraining the giant and it did not even have the ability to self-destruct. However, it was being b*tchy. “Just let me die, or shut up.”
Lily was jumping around trying to dodge saliva that was spurting out of the giant’s mouth (generally, other novels do not mention details like this). She yelled, “Don’t do it, we’re not going to hurt you! We just want to know about the situation here…”
Vivian buried her face in her hands, turned away and said, “After smashing up its spaceship, this doesn’t sound very convincing.”
Hao Ren knitted his brows together as he glanced at the giant. Suddenly, he waved his hand and said, “Never mind. Bring it to the Crapple Research Station. We won’t make the same mistake again.”
With the experience of the last brain monster’s “jailbreak”, Hao Ren knew that this creature of incredibly strong mind power was very difficult to contain. Their intangible mind power was especially handy in exploiting security flaws. Although the giant had lost all of its strength and was unable to escape, out of caution, Hao Ren still decided to send it over to CARS. At least there, no souls could ever escape no matter how powerful they were.
The Petrachelys and the black spacecraft were now in Holletta’s orbit, while CARS was on the other side of Holletta. The distance between the two was very close, so it did not take much effort to transfer the giant to its new cage. A group of autonomous robots pushed the giant, which was retained by the demonic chain into a cylindrical container that was reinforced with layers of crystal and energy barriers. The container was a dedicated vessel to collect all kinds of dangerous creatures. Not only could it block mind powers, but it was also very strong structurally—at least, no mortal race in that universe could break through its barrier.
The container was massive. A dozen-meter-tall creature looked like a human inside a typical room. The giant looked at the crystal structure and advanced instruments around it. Its eyes finally exuded a little sense of curiosity, perplexed at the existence of such an advanced race that was capable of building such things in the universe. It became angry again. “You treacherous child! Did you steal the power of your mother? How was this cage made?”
“Tell me how I can make you understand?” Hao Ren spread out his hand haplessly as he stood outside the container facing the giant. “I’ve come from another universe. I know nothing about this world. But knowing that you and a bunch of tentacle-monsters were ravaging this world, I’m curious to know why. I don’t care what your reasons are. What you did is a serious violation of the laws of the Empire. Of course, if you’re cooperative, I can appeal for more leniency.”
The giant cracked up upon hearing what Hao Ren said. It sat cross-legged on the floor, and with a mocking expression on its face, it leaned over and looked at the “little human” in front of him. “From another universe? Are you saying that you have nothing to do with those traitors? Ick—”
The giant spat and turned to stare at Hao Ren. “I can smell the stench of them on you even behind this layer of crystal.”
Becoming a target of scorn had Hao Ren baffled. He turned to look at Lily and Vivian next to him. “To be honest, you’re not wrong to say that these two individuals beside me are in some way related to the people in the Plane of Dreams, but I’m an Earthling through-and-through…”
The giant said nothing as if it was too lazy to entertain its “enemy”. As kind-hearted as Hao Ren was, facing such a mulish guy was really upsetting. But he could not do anything about it except stare back at the giant in the cage. He thought about how he should deal with the guy? Torture? The giant would definitely not budge. Threats? He had nothing in hand to coerce it. Reason? Hao Ren did not even believe he was capable of that. The only time he knew things would unfold exactly as he said was when he swore and became a mouthpiece…
“To tell you the truth, I think you better cooperate with me.” Hao Ren persuaded it with one last-ditch effort. “You may feel that you are strong-willed and firm in belief, but the guy who is a lot more powerful than you are has been caught by us. Its fate is worse than yours—it’s been thrown into a jar and become a research sample. You can see it for yourself if you don’t believe what I say.”
While saying, Hao Ren activated the holographic projection device next to the container. The images of the First Borns in Container 1 and 2 immediately popped up. The two giant tentacles were immersed in a thin medium solution. It seemed that nothing had changed since they were first incarcerated here. The only things that were obviously different were the additional complicated test instruments and reinforced restraints on the tentacles and some tissue nodes: as the creatures always convulsed in sleep, Hao Ren was worried that they would damage the test instruments in the container.
“How can you treat our siblings like this?” The giant was finally moved. It looked even more irritated now. “You’re treacherous! They are your siblings!”
“I can’t help it. They wanted to destroy the world,” Hao Ren sighed. “As the survival of the world was at stake, I couldn’t just watch them wipe off the entire ecosystem.”
Y’zaks hugged his arms. He looked on before he took two steps forward and said to the prisoner in the cage, “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn, but we’ll make you speak today. If necessary, I will consider interrogating your soul directly. It’s your freedom to remain silent, but I will have ways to make you talk. Don’t test my patience. Now I can see that the strength of your soul is just as good as any mortal.”
The giant seemed beginning to notice Y’zaks. It looked down at him, said with a surprised voice. “Hmmm, you’re a strange creature, one that I’ve never seen before.”
Hao Ren was a bit puzzled. He looked at Y’zaks. “What does it mean?”
Y’zaks had not fully grasped what it meant. He looked around at the others, pointed to his nose, and asked the giant, “Am I not the same with them?”
The giant snorted. “Yet another ignorant one.”
“That’s very cocky,” said Y’zaks, laughing. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to study what was wrong between you and me. Now tell us: what the explosion of the new red star aka the star of the goddess of creation was all about? What about the loss of control of the First Borns? What happened to you guys?”
The giant suddenly staggered to its feet when it heard the word “goddess of creation”. It pressed against the inner wall of the crystal container and asked, “These are what you want to know?”
“We want to know the truth,” Hao Ren looked into the giant’s eyes, calmly. “Believe it or not, we really don’t know anything about it, and we’re not in cohort with the Second Borns like you have mentioned. This universe has a problem, a very serious problem. A true goddess who created all things was killed, and now I must investigate what had happened back then, if possible, I would also want to trace the murderer down. Probably you think the smell on our bodies is similar to the treacherous children. But we are not together.”
The giant stared deadly at Hao Ren. Suddenly it giggled. “Oh, I believe you know nothing about that. But I don’t think that you are not descendants of the treacherous children. Of all of you…”
The giant looked around before its eyes landed on Y’zaks. “…only he is clean.”
Then he glanced at Vivian once again, albeit bizarrely. “And this one… I can’t really tell.”
Lily was as clueless as a tub of crap on a rainy day. “What are you talking about? You mean you can see where their ancestors came from?”
“Of course I can,” said the giant. “Because we used to help our mother copy every detail of intelligent species before she was murdered by the treacherous children.”
“Did the mortals really collude with them and murder the true goddess?” Hao Ren realized he was finally peering into the truth. He was excited. “Who did it?”
“Everyone other than the ancient ones.” The giant gritted its teeth. “All intelligent creatures!”