Chapter 857: Sacred Artifact

The massive great temple complex had an equally massive interior, endless corridors, and halls which you cannot see the end of. If Hao Ren was not riding on Lily’s back he reckoned that he would need to be on a steady jog to keep up with the two giants’ footsteps. As someone who had just showcased his prowess, that would be rather unsightly.

The group went about the inside of the templex complex for a long while, going through hidden passengeways and door before reaching its inner sanctum. Lemendusa pushed with some effort a very sturdy holdgate and pointed towards the hall behind in, it is still safe here, head in.”

Hao Ren and Lily followed behind Muru into the hall, and found themselves in a hexagonal hall. The hall was well lit, and was dotted with simple, yet grand sculptures. A circle of draping red banners hang from the ceiling, and between each banner was a ray of light, seemingly circling the black stone dais in the centre of the hall. Beside the dais sat a long robed female giant. These was probably the ‘Heve’ that Lemendusa was talking about. She seemed to be seriously injured, and beside her was a trail of dried build, and her face pale. As the great door opened, the guardian broke out of her stupor and immediately placed her hands on a piece of green crystal on the dais. Only when she heard Lemendusa’s voice did she calm down. “Heve, it’s me.”

Her eyes widen as Hao Ren and Y’zaks stepped into the hall.

“They are friends.” Lemendusa knew that Heve would have the same misunderstanding that he had, and quickly interjected before she could ask anything. “The foes outside are all dead. It is safe now. I need to tell you something…”

“Where are these people from?” Heve frowned, and her hand never left the green crystal.

Thankfully there was Muru and Lemendusa, the two guardians to explain and Hao Ren and his crew’s origins were quickly made clear. Lemendusa then told his companion that he had found out, including the time flux.

Heve’s reaction was no different than Lemendusa’s initial response. As she slowly digested her new reality, Hao Ren led Lily to a corner of the hall and summoned a few droids from his Dimensional Pocket. He then motioned for the giant husky to open her mouth, “Open up, dental care time.”

Lily gave out an obedient woof before opening up her razor sharp jaws. Hao Ren immediately saw the remnants of what the husky had gnawed on earlier between her teeth. That included a boot, a piece of belt, a shred of a mantle, and the twisted frame of a pauldron. All these were dangling on her teeth with a shiny glow. Lily awkwardly tried to use her tongue to lick the remains out, it was clear that the solid remains had left her rather uncomfortable.

The droids got their orders and immediately flew into Lily’s mouth and started cleaning up. The golden alloys were very sturdy and the droids had to resort to use laser cutters and power drills to dislodge them from Lily’s teeth. Sparks flew about within the husky’s mouth and it looked more like a constructin site with the amount of work that is going on. Hao Ren crossed his arms over his chest as he sniggered. “Rather than dental job, this looks more like a renovation.”

Lily had no way to retaliate now and could only rolled her eyes the hardest she could as she let out a series of protesting growls. Y’zaks patted Hao Ren on the shoulder with the tip of his finger. “Don’t go poke the dog. When she really bites you’d be nursing more than a bite mark.”

As Lily was busy having her teeth cleaned, the three giants too had done explaining what happened outside the temple complex. Noticing that, Hao Ren ran over. “So, all done?”

“As much as we can.” Muru nodded. “Where’s your ship?”

Hao Ren pointed towards the top. “Standing by just above the temple compex. Not sure if or when any enemies would pop out so I have Nolan on overwatch. I also have sent out probes and low-orbit sats out as well, not sure if there are any survivors…”

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Before Hao Ren could finish, Heve interrupted him, “There’s no one left. We are probably the last of the guardians on this planet… Khhhhh..khhhh”

The female giant spoke very slowly, Hao Ren was not sure if it was due to her injury or that was her normal way of speech. Her voice had a certain gentleness that is not present in Muru and Lemendusa’s. That proclaimation caught Hao Ren by suprise and he turned towards Lemendusa. “You sure?”

“After the traitors broke through the Solenne Gateway’s galactic shield, almost all of the guardians headed towards the Star of Creation as reinforcements.” Lemendusa explained. “The last message I heard was them departing. After that, all that was left on the planet was a company defending this temple complex. And Thulenne at the plaza was the last of the temple guards.”

Muru had mentioned this before, that all of the guardians in the system had fought to the very last, but what he knew stopped at there. It seemed like when the traitor army broke through one of the barriers, the guardians immediately decided to withdraw from this meaningless battlefront and headed towards the Star of Origin to man the second line of defense. By the time Hao Ren got to Solenne, the war was already ending; the planet had already completely fallen, and the last of the guardians were almost wiped out with only Lemendusa and Heve the remaining survivors.

A twist of fate? A due course of history? These two seemingly contradictory phrases suddenly came into Hao Ren’s mind. But he knew, his timing was impeccable.

“Arriving at the very last moment, into the very last battle, and meeting the very last survivors…” even Y’zaks couldn’t help himself. “There seems to be a greater force behind all these…”

“This planet was stuck in time for ten thousand years, just to let us crash the party late, is there any better ‘arrangements’ than this?” Hao Ren quipped before looking curiously at Lemendusa. “For you guys to be defending this place, what’s valuable here?”

As they fought with the traitors earlier, Hao Ren heard the commander demanding Lemendusa to hand over something, and that guardian’s company had stayed behind after the rest had withdrawn. He knew there was something here, and the temple was probably some place of great importance, so he just went ahead and ask.

A shred of hesitation appeared before Lemendusa’s face and Muru, upon seeing so placed his hand on his brethren’s shoulder. “The thing that you are protecting is a ten thousand year old historical artifact now. If there is someone to entrust it to, they would be the best choice.”

The traitors did not need to embroil themselvbes in a protracted war here. Hao Ren already knew that they had weapons capable of tearing the planet apart from space, so after destroying the planetary defence shields of Solenne, the traitors could have just blasted the planet to bits using their graviton weapons, but yet they have sent multitudes of regiments to sweep the planet and the reason for that lay within the temple that Lemendusa was guarding!

Muru’s expression immediately changed. “What is the artifcat?”

“A component of the Creation Engine.”

Looking at the sudden change in seriousness of the three guardians, Hao Ren felt that he had nothing but question marks all over his head. “What are you talking about? What’s a Creation Engine?”

“That was Mother’s most secret of creations in the last thousand of years.” Heve explained slowly. “And truth be told, we have no idea what it is for. We only know that it had something to do with her plan to ‘change the entire universe’. Mother took the creation of this secret construct very seriously and have expended many hours to personally design the item and to have multitudes of planets around the Star of Creation to produce each of its parts before bringing them back to the Star of Creation to personally assemble it. The Solenne Gateway was one of the manufactoriums of the Creation Engine, and before the war, both me and Lemendusa would be seeing these components slowly coming out of the Star Forge. After the outbreak of the war, one of the components that could not be evacuated was placed within this sanctum.”

Hao Ren scratched his head. “Sounds like a whole load of goobledygook to me… So can you let me inspect the thing?”

Lemendusa and Heve looked at each other, and after a brief contemplation, they nodded.