The Record of Unusual Creatures

The return of the otherworldlings had excited the system left behind by the goddess of creation. A hidden network of divine bursts finally emerged. However, the divine-encrypted network was so complicated that even with the computational power of CARS, there was no simple approach to crack it. On top of that, there was a bigger problem: Hao Ren could only partially activate the network because he did not know the function of the network and what effects it would cause. Enabling the ancient legacy blindly would be too risky.

Four days ago, when the “selected ones” first came to Holletta’s ecosphere and triggered the first divine burst, CARS and the drone cluster had roughly calculated the energy category. He adjusted the test program, and since then, every grouping, route, and length of stay was based on the condition of not over-stimulating the divine network.

“Hao Ren’s worry is legit,” Vivian said. She knew about what was on Hao Ren’s mind. Vivian had helped design the planning earlier. “We still have no idea what this divine network is all about, and if there any other arrangements when the goddess of creation created the divine network. If we rashly destroy or activate them, we would very likely have to face some program that we are unable to overcome.”

Lemendusa and Muru nodded solemnly as a sign of their acknowledgment.

“Better safe than sorry,” said the female giant, Heve. “We can put aside the specific content of information exchange in this divine network while figuring out the structure and mechanism of this network. Perhaps we would be able to understand its nature and how it works.”

“I have come to a few conclusions,” Hao Ren said. “First of all, this network needs a certain degree of stimulation before it was triggered. Before this, I have brought some otherworldlings, such as the sirens, returning to the Plane of Dreams, but it has not triggered the divine network. Only this time, the 100-strong tour group has activated it. So only over a certain number of exiles returning to the Plane of Dreams would trigger the network.”

“Secondly, apart from the structural form that looks like a massive data exchange network, the divine burst network should also have an extremely efficient data processing and computing power. At some key moments, the drone cluster has detected a massive fluctuation of data—over hundreds of millions of megabytes per second of data throughput transferred across the universe.

“Thirdly, this network is distributed throughout the universe. My drone cluster has not been able to cover the entire universe of the Plane of Dreams. But within the observable space, we can know that the locations of the divine burst are ubiquitous. They are randomly distributed throughout the Plane of Dreams. As long as there is a stellar system, there may be such a burst point. I’m almost sure that there are more burst points outside the line of sight of the drone cluster.

“Finally, these stars that emit divine bursts have a very unmistakeably common feature: there is absolutely no existence of life or habitable zone within fifteen light years of them.”

There was a confused look on Hao Ren’s face. He still had something that he could not understand.

“No existence of life?” Lemendusa frowned. “Are all these stars that produce divine burst located in the ‘barren zone’?”

“If ‘barren zone’ is what you call, yeah.” Hao Ren nodded. “There are no eco-planets near these stars, not even a habitable planet. Most of them are isolated stars without a planetary system. Even if there are planets nearby, the surface of these planets is either too cold or too hot due to the location of orbit. It is almost impossible to produce life under natural conditions. Since these stars are carefully selected by the goddess of creation, I have reason to believe the environment around these stars is also the result of her deliberate selection.”

“Mother loved life, and her attention was always on those places filled with vibrant life,” said Heve, who was confused too. “Why would she create such an information network completely outside any ecosystem? If this network is intended for use in areas unrelated to living things, why is the activation criteria of this network must be the contact of the exiles with an ecosphere?”

“Since the activation criteria of the network are the return of the descendants of the exiles to their ecospheres in the Plane of Dreams, then this network is certainly not for use in an area unrelated to living things,” Hao Ren said. “About the location of the network, which is way from places with life— I have a conjecture.”

“What conjecture?” Vivian, Lily, and the three guardian giants asked in unison.

“Judging from the behavioral model of the goddess of creation, I guess she was worried about the negative impact of the network on living things. Perhaps the powerful divine energy would destroy the ecosystem around those stars, or maybe this network could attract some dangerous things in the deep universe during its operation. So the goddess of creation chose to build her divine network in the barren zone.”

“I think this possibility is high.” Y’zaks scratched his jaw and nodded.

“So our cautiousness is legit,” Vivian said. Her eyebrow arched. “Whatever the real reason, each node of the network is chosen to be away from life, which means the network is harmful to life. We must not rush to activate it.”

Lemendusa looked silently at the hologram in the air. After the various test points were activated, the divine burst chart looked more complete than before. Many of the nodes that were hidden earlier had emerged out of the dark universe, together they formed a complex and magnificent three-dimensional structure. It was so complicated that it was even dizzying to look at it. This guardian giant, who once guarded the boundary of the goddess’ realm in the Gate of Solenne, frowned. He changed his viewing angle and looked at the hologram in another perspective, and he looked even more somber than before.

“Lemendusa, what have you found?” Heve first noticed the change of expression on his partner’s face.

“It seems I have seen it before,” Lemendusa said. But he was not sure. “Perhaps what I saw was an unfinished design.”

“Where did you see it?” Hao Ren could not wait and ask.

“In mother’s palace; her secret design facility,” Lemendusa said with a low voice. “Many guardians knew the existence of the secret facility, but only a few had the opportunity to see it.”

“Secret design facility?” Hao Ren said. “What is that? The goddess of creation has many secret projects?”

Lemendusa nodded slowly. “Before the deicidal war, mother had been behaving weirdly. She never used to shun her own children and was always generous in letting us participate in her grand plans, including life sowing, and space exploration. But then she built a series of secret factories and design facilities around the Star of Creation and the Kingdom of God. The blueprint for the Creation Engine is one of the products of these secret projects. We didn’t know that mother was making the Creation Engine at first until the thing was produced in her secret research facility and some of the guardians got their hands on the initial drawings. We knew the factories and laboratories, but there was no opportunity to know what she was doing inside. She had arranged soulless craftsmen and servants in those factories and labs. Those lifeless and soulless ‘magic puppets’ worked day and night but never revealed their tasks that mother had assigned to them. But even so, a small number of guardians still got the opportunity to enter the secret facilities by chance. Sometimes mother seemed to have suddenly forgotten that the facilities were restricted to us, she would call us over for discussion and then suddenly appeared to realize it and drove us out of the secret lab. That was how I had the opportunity to take a peek inside one of the secret design houses.”

“You mean the original blueprint of the information network?” A light dawned on Hao Ren.

“Yup. Mother must be working on the design of this thing at the time. It looks very similar to what I remember,” Lemendusa pointed to the hologram in midair. “She suddenly called me over and asked my view of soul and life. I still remember there was a magnificent rotunda there, the center of the hall was shimmering energy well, and the original blueprint of a complex network was suspended above it, just like this one.”

“Can you remember any details?” Hao Ren asked eagerly.

“Nothing else.” Lemendusa slowly shook his head and said no more. “Wait a second! Maybe this is useful—at that time, Mother asked me about the soul and evolution of life. But later, she asked another question that I found strange back then: she asked if one day the universe was zeroed and everything went back to its starting point, should there be a god or no god in the new world.”

“Should there be a god or no god?”

Hao Ren’s brows were knitted together as he repeated the phrase.