Chapter 693: Chapter 693 Survival
Warriors who had just resurrected from death were still very weak. In addition to having forcibly entered a combat state and desperately countering Sandora’s spiritual suppression, those few minutes had nearly drained them. Once identities had been confird, the opponent didn’t even have the strength to stand up.
Necessarily, we had no choice but to let him lie back down in the dical cabin; at least there, his physical strength could stop being consud.
I asked Pandora and Visca to step aside for a while. Although the nad Atlantian warrior, Ares, already knew that these two sisters weren’t the sa as the “demons” that had once destroyed his holand (well, at least theoretically), their presence here would obviously affect his mood significantly. It was like knowing sothing is fake, yet it still affects your appetite when watching “The Ring”—I suppose this analogy works, right?
Finally, Sandora and I approached Ares, who had cald down. This giant, bearing the na of the War God, had been muttering sothing in a low voice ever since he lay down in the dical cabin. It sounded like so kind of ancient prayer, but nobody could understand what it ant—perhaps it was the ancient Atlantian language.
At this point, you can see how wise it was to have used Chinese as the universal language right from the beginning of this book.
“Where did you co from?” Sandora frowned, looking at the tall man lying in the dical cabin. “In our records, Atlantis has been completely destroyed.”
“We survived, after that disaster.” Ares, pinned in the dical cabin unable to turn his head, could only look at the ceiling and respond in a deep voice, while Sandora and I stared at him like we were providing end-of-life care, making this giant figure look as distressed as could be. “When our kingdom was attacked by demons and rose from the land, the last one to remain in the city activated the Sunburn Obelisk. The Atlantis cityscape, having separated from the collapsing continent, carried Mount Olympus high into the air, finally retreating into the city where Divine Servants and the Atlantis Chosen Ones were spared. We watched firsthand as our holand plunged into boundless lava, turning into fragnts in the fires. Many went mad that day, and it took many years for them to regain their sanity.”
“Sunburn Obelisk? What is that?”
Sandora frowned. This Atlantian Artificial God, assigned the title of War God, probably used those mystifying titles to describe the machinery left behind by the initial Xyrin expedition team. Talking to him felt like deciphering codes.
“Please forgive my questioning, but that was sothing your gods created,” Ares coughed, clearly puzzled.
“The Sunburn Obelisk is a na you gave it; the Empire never created such a thing.”
“…Please forgive , the shock from a few days ago might have injured my head, I forgot this point… The Sunburn Obelisk is a huge quadrangular prism, at least hundreds of ters long, deeply buried at the summit of Mount Olympus, with part of it exposed above ground in a Great Temple, which housed Zeus’ throne. Originally it was the energy source for Atlantis, drawing energy from the Sunburn Obelisk to sustain the city’s machinery. But when the demons arrived, the gods transford it into a weapon and defense chanism that resisted several thunderbolts from the sky. My father Zeus was tasked to guard the Sunburn Obelisk, and with the energy extracted from within, he ford Lightning to counterattack the demons’ sky warships, until it was activated by the last surviving Great God Moragus, turning it into a blazing energy torch… The obelisk ford a shield enveloping the entire Atlantis city and sent us into a remote and empty Dark Space—a desolate, deadly silent place with only a dim Constant Star appearing for three hours each day above the heads of Atlantian descendants, the rest of the ti we faced near eternal night… Therefore, the light of the Sunburn Obelisk beca the last beacon of faith for the Atlantians, illuminating us for hundreds of thousands of years, sustaining us until today… cough… cough…”
Ares coughed violently, this robust warrior having exhausted too much power in his final battle, now as frail as a child.
“What he is probably referring to is a Ghost Energy Tower providing stable energy for starships, for an expedition team not dedicated to combat, such an energy source would essentially be the highest grade of equipnt,” Sandora curled her index finger to her chin, “but the defense a Ghost Energy Tower provides could hardly truly withstand an attack by General-level Apostles. It seems that the crazed version of Vi…7535 couldn’t imdiately eliminate all the Xyrin Apostles of the expedition team, instead for so reason, engaged in a prolonged tug-of-war with them, perhaps just out of poor taste while in a state of madness, but she gave the Atlantian civilization a chance to flee their ho. Go on, you surely encountered sothing, was Atlantis city transferred to another universe next to a Brown Dwarf Star? But today, hundreds of thousands of years later, how have you appeared in outer space? Was your city attacked?”
Ares closed his eyes, his expression revealing a trace of fear, which greatly surprised Sandora. Since their first eting, this powerful warrior had always shown his fierce side, fighting and roaring fearlessly with a spirit akin to Kratos’ utter fearlessness, even in front of Visca, a destroyer of his holand, he was just furious without any hint of retreat—but now he wore a frightened expression?
This could only an that Atlantis had faced a second catastrophic disaster!
In the gentle and intimate gaze that Sandora and I shared, Ares finally began to speak. However, instead of directly answering Sandora’s query, he eloquently narrated the history after the Doomsday, “The Sunburn Obelisk sheltered us in the vast outer space for hundreds of thousands of years, God granted us endless life and patience, enabling the children of Atlantis to survive the darkest days. Since the activation of the Obelisk, the last Great God with us, Moragus, fell asleep in the Pantheon due to exhaustion, and Atlantis has been waiting for the Great God to awaken again, in order to lead his people out of the cold, dark Hell, because we discovered, despite our efforts to study the knowledge and machinery left by God, we could only make limited progress, lacking the resources to understand the truth, it was absolutely impossible to master the control thod of the Obelisk. Thus, alongside the last flicker of candlelight, Atlantis struggled for survival over hundreds of thousands of years. Until a few days ago, when a huge disaster struck. A sinful creation from the depths of Darkness struck Atlantis.”
I said, “Brother, you look robust and remarkable, reminiscent of Kratos. Can you not speak in bursts like a soap opera?”
“Sorry, I can’t describe the appearance of that thing; it was a colossal tal, striking from the depths of space, potentially even crossing through space. By the ti Atlantis’s alarm system reacted, the object had already reached the operational orbit of the city, our ancient air defense systems and a few Divine Servants of Olympus tead up to defend against the tal, but to no avail. It easily shattered the city’s defense shield and eventually crashed at the foot of Mount Olympus. This terrible impact severely damaged the foundation of the Sunburn Obelisk, and two-thirds of the city plunged into darkness. The prolonged years had damaged the self-circulating factory left by the gods, and even Hephaestus, with all his might, could not manufacture a device to repair the Obelisk, only managing to barely restore the barrier above the city. But the disaster was just beginning. The third ti Hephaestus went to check the damage at the foundation of the Obelisk, he brought nightmarish news: The Divine Servants who lived at the foot of Mount Olympus, thought to have died without a chance to evacuate after the great impact, had returned, but they had turned into twisted, insane monsters.”
“It was the one who turned into Space Amber with you.”
I nodded, piecing together the series of information.
Ares sighed deeply from his throat, “They were once the most devout saints guarding the relics of the Great God.”
“What happened afterward? Why were you sealed in a teorite? How is Atlantis now?”
“After the first report of the monsters appeared, more and more injury reports followed. Hers ventured deep into the impact site to gather intelligence, but he found that this mutation resembled the thod the demon that destroyed the civilization of Atlantis initially used to lure ordinary creatures into corruption and madness. Knowing the infectivity of that thing, my father had no choice but to order the lockdown of the foot of Mount Olympus. All able Divine Servants were recruited to fend off the infected trying to break out, and fierce fighting continued for three days and nights, with no hope of victory in sight.”
“The fourth day, sothing even worse finally happened.”
“After being impacted by the battle multiple tis, the ancient city energy system of Atlantis exceeded its carrying limit and gradually lost its ability to purify Evil Energy. The Ghost Energy Pipeline near the impact site might have been the first to burst, and Hephaestus had no way to repair it. Demon power entered the still unpolluted city districts through the gaps in the ancient barriers, and the city’s machinery, initially serving the people of Atlantis, began to explode one after another. I was involuntarily pulled into the self-destruct of factory number seven while fighting the enemy, unable to escape in ti, and was rolled into the factory’s molten semifinished products along with the enemy… The power bestowed by God allowed to survive, just like that.”
Sandora and I glanced at each other, the information provided by Ares was overwhelming, and now it suddenly overwheld us, making it difficult to grasp the crux.
The reason Atlantis’s civilization continues to exist is now quite simple to explain: At the mont when Visca entered Glory Form, the last surviving scientist of the Xyrin Expedition Team seized a sliver of hope, activated the energy matrix that was originally used for the spaceship engines of the expedition team, and made the entire city detach from the Atlantis Continent, escaping into another world—here, Ares’s description is a bit chaotic, but correcting it based on his later words, I guess the capital of Atlantis must have been transford into a colonization starship capable of deep space cruising; otherwise, even with the devilish Xyrin Technology, a re warship energy matrix would impossible grant a mixture of soil and stone the function to cruise across worlds.
Visca’s madness at that ti miraculously made this daring escape a success. In the past, 7535 only sought the pleasure of destroying everything, not caring about how many would escape from her destruction, as she felt nothing for victory, and in her view, destroying a civilization and wrecking an uninhabited planet were probably gas of the sa nature.
But a successful escape was rely the start of another chapter of hard tis. Perhaps due to severe injuries, the Imperial Technician nad Moragus fell into a prolonged slumber shortly after piloting the starship into deep space, and a makeshift colonization ship, retrofitted from a starship engine, obviously didn’t have intelligence and automatic navigation capabilities, causing the leaderless Colonization Ship to orbit bleakly around a Brown Dwarf Star for hundreds of thousands of years.
Before this, the Atlantians had developed an extrely high civilization with the support of the Imperial Expedition Team (perhaps rely as an evolutionary study observing animals, a conclusion that also fits with the Old Empire’s ideology of prioritizing racial interests). They also began to study Empire machinery. However, no matter how you look at it, the massive disparity in civilization levels couldn’t be bridged so quickly, not even in hundreds of thousands of years, especially since they lost the broad planetary foundation needed for research support. Atlantian technology, at its peak, was all theory and no practice: no one could develop new technology, nor could anyone restart the city’s trans-world teleportation.
Hence, the first brilliant phase of Earth civilization ended slowly and tragically for the wanderers in another world. Now, after hundreds of thousands of years, their ho planet had undergone drastic changes.
I wasn’t sure if I should tell Ares that he had finally returned to his holand.
The children of the holand who left hundreds of thousands of years ago have returned, but the holand had changed beyond recognition, even the entire planet had a new set of rulers. Ares, likely transford into a Demigod Warrior, might not be able to accept this reality.
Sandora sensed my dilemma and steered the topic in another direction, “You still don’t know what that fragnt that hit Mount Olympus was, do you?”
Ares nodded, “I only rember it tearing through the sky enveloped in dark flas.”
“It appears to be another relic destroyed by the Abyss, colliding with an Atlantis Relic,” pondered Sandora. “And then? Sothing significant must have happened, otherwise, a re physical collision couldn’t have sent you to another universe. What happened before you were engulfed by those molten materials?”
Ares strained to rember, then said uncertainly, “This intel might be useful… Before my last battle, Hephaestus was screaming in terror that the energy output from the Sunburn Obelisk was going out of control. Right before I was swallowed… I rember! The last second, soone outside the factory was screaming—”
Ares suddenly paused, then took a deep breath as if trying to reconstruct that fate-altering cry.
“Horizon!”
The Giant Warrior’s voice was deafening, even in his weakened state. However, Sandora and I didn’t bother to scold him for his sudden burst of madness.
After a mont of confusion, both of us understood the significance of those three words, “You saw the horizon in outer space! The world teleportation engine of Atlantis City was activated!”
“Yes, the horizon, the horizon,” Ares’s facial muscles twitched uncontrollably, thrilled at finally rembering this event. His intense muscle movents even made the dical cabin’s locks creek. His loud and hurried voice was ear-piercing, “Right, how could I forget that… the horizon, Atlantis has hope, we finally saw the horizon, they must still be fighting… Armor! My armor! My weapon! Euneo! Quickly send to the battlefield! There’s no ti to waste…”
Ares’s words cut off abruptly as Sandora promptly activated the dical cabin’s forced sleep function.
“That will help him calm down,” the young girl beside sighed, “It seems the intense spiritual shock has left him a bit disoriented.”
“Do you know where Atlantis went?”
After a brief pause, I spoke quietly.
“Where else can it be? The choices we can rule out are already limited; there aren’t many worlds that undergo plate-level transits…”
“Alright, Yukari Yakumo Family is really in trouble now — Hopefully, those Demigods created by the Empire hundreds of thousands of years ago can still fend off the Abyss Monster’s attacks, otherwise Ling ng and the others are going to eat people.”
Facing Sandora, full of facial twitches, I felt a wave of mixed emotions.
Just a while ago we were forcing young girls to work in corporations to redeem themselves. How quickly the tables turn, do I have to pay relocation compensation now?
Sandora gently leaned her head on my shoulder. While Ares was awake, she maintained a prestigious and commanding posture, but now she suddenly showed a vulnerable and confused side.
“Ah Jun, what on earth have we been doing…”
I thought to myself: don’t drag into this, but what ca out was ant to comfort: “The fate of Atlantis can’t really be blad on the Empire, can it?”
“If the expedition team hadn’t appeared, they would still have evolved a brilliant civilization, and Visca might not have been drawn here… the Old Empire has rashly changed the historical process of countless wisdom civilizations by observing them like animals, are we really doing the right thing?”
I pondered for a mont and explained the problem using dialectical materialism, “Anyway, if the Atlantis civilization was still around, I certainly wouldn’t exist.”
Sandora: “…I feel much better now.”
Hey! Don’t switch sides so quickly! I haven’t finished my lines yet!
After a brief mont of tenderness, I finally took care of the coquettish and comforting Sandora, then imdiately set about arranging the teleportation to Fantasy Country. The Ti-Space Administration’s strenuous efforts over the last few days hadn’t been fruitless, and we had roughly identified the division of Fantasy Country within the void. Moreover, with Ares’s world imprint as an Atlantian, we might be able to locate Fantasy Country imdiately.
However, while I was arranging the work, Lin Xue suddenly arrived.
With Lin Feng’s girlfriend Sally, and an ancient artifact: an Atlantis Relic.
(Working overti on this day is indeed very painful, and even more painful is that I will keep working overti until the first day of the lunar new year. Well, as usual, I’m pleading for monthly votes, it’s already the 29th — or consider supporting next month as well, ah, everything is dull while working overti…) (
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