Lily's departure from the team was inevitable, and this made Hao Ren understand more clearly that he would eventually finish this journey alone.
Going past the twilight battle of the Mythological Era in 44 BC, this backtracking journey went deeper and deeper into history. In Hao Ren's eyes, the world of BC was becoming more and more bizarre. His original historical knowledge was subverted again and again on this long journey. It was difficult to guarantee the accuracy of human historical records, especially those involving the ancient era of the gods. There were too many supernatural traces intertwined with reality, leading the more materialistic historians of later generations to choose to extract all the myths and legends from the ancient books and hand them over to religious scholars and mythologists to discuss. But for Hao Ren, those things that were removed by the historians …
He had experienced it himself.
He witnessed one ancient kingdom after another that was not recorded in the history books. Those kingdoms were filled with dark magic power and an indescribable aura from another world. Some kingdoms were built on land that floated in the sky and operated on the power of sunlight. Some kingdoms were buried deep underground and absorbed energy from magma and rocks. Grotesque alien creatures ruled these grotesque city-states. They implemented all kinds of strange laws and formulated many rituals that modern humans found unimaginable. As slaves of these city-states, humans served their alien masters for generations and fought endless wars with other 'cities of miracles'.
He also saw many real-life versions of myths: when he passed through the Mediterranean for the second time, he found Ison under the guidance of Hesperides and found the whereabouts of Vivian at the cost of helping the legendary hero find the Golden Fleece; in Egypt, when Seth launched a sneak attack on Horus and stabbed the Egyptian patron god with a knife, he suddenly appeared and beheaded Seth on the spot in exchange for the gratitude and trust of Ra, and had the opportunity to board the anti-gravity fortress ship that roamed above the clouds, the Solar Ship. With the help of the Solar Ship's radar, he found Vivian's pyramid that had been buried in yellow sand; in ancient Babylon, when Marduk and Tiamat were in a fierce battle, Hasse shot an arrow from a nearby mountain and pierced one of Tiamat's eyeballs, so as to impress the Babylonian gods and reveal the location of the labyrinth of Vivian, the God of Blood …
The heyday of the Mythological Era lasted for five thousand years. During this heyday, what Hao Ren saw was a world where otherworldly creatures ruled the earth, humans were reduced to slaves and livestock, and countless lost ancient kingdoms were in turmoil. The rulers from the otherworldly worlds built countless large and small city-states or kingdoms. However, due to the constant wars between them and the lack of reasonable and effective social order, these ancient kingdoms were often annihilated by time before they could leave any traces of history.
There were two types of otherworldling gods that could survive the first two to three thousand years of 'adaptation period'. They either had strong innate qualities, or they had a lot of technological or magical creations that they brought from their homeworld (and these things happened to be useful on Earth). The kingdoms they built were therefore divided into two distinct types. The former was darker and more barbaric. The smell of blood could be smelled almost every day in the rocky cities, and the cruel blood sacrifice ritual was the favorite entertainment of these beast-like 'gods'. The latter, in Hao Ren's eyes, was more like a colonial base built by aliens on Earth. These ancient cities of the gods were surrounded by metal barriers and energy barriers that were beyond the times. Some of the ancient cities of the gods even had a stranded alien spaceship at their core. The primitive stone cities of human beings were built around these 'divine castles' that looked particularly sci-fi or magical. It was incongruous but mysterious.
But no matter which one it was, it did not make much of a difference to humans at that time. Even the advanced cities that were filled with the aura of advanced civilization and relied on advanced technology or magic to drive their comfortable environment was not prepared for humans.
Usually, they were prepared for humans in biochemical laboratories, radioactive mining sites, and battlefields against other city-states.
Of course, there were a few relatively gentle "paradises" among them. After all, even if there were visitors from another world who had no feelings for Earth, there would still be a few alien Madonnas (true Madonnas) who sympathized with the earthlings. However, in the face of the general trend, this little bit of kindness could not change the power of the entire era. In the entire Mythological Era, humans were living in the abyss of suffering.
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. Before the dazzling electric light faded away, it froze in the night sky. Then the whole world was filled with monotonous colors of black, white, and gray. In the blink of an eye, the world fell into silence.
The Babylonians who were worshipping in the square outside also turned into grayish-white stone statues and were quickly swallowed by the darkness from afar. Finally, only the King of Babylon, who stood at the forefront of the crowd, was left. He wore a crown and looked extraordinary. Although the gods only regarded him as a "leader of the monkeys" and a useful tool for ruling, he was still very imposing as the king of the human race. Now, the majestic king had also turned into a stone statue. He stared forward in slight surprise, and with this expression, he was forever frozen in this space and time.
Hao Ren poked his head out of the gate to take a look. After confirming that the entire city of Babylon had turned into information fragments, he turned around and returned to the temple.
It was another hurried meeting. This time, before Vivian left, she gave Hao Ren a piece of advice.
"From now on, don't act as a human anymore. If you go any further, it will be difficult for you to move forward. Every human who walks in the wilderness will be regarded as a defected slave of a certain god. At least, this is the case in most places where otherworldly gods are active."
"We will meet again in the next era."
"The Mythological Era was such a terrible period." After Vivian left, Hessiana leaned against a black stone pillar and sighed. "I caught up with the end of the Mythological Era, and I could already feel what the so-called 'gods' were like. It's not surprising that a group of unorganized and undisciplined aliens came to an ungoverned planet. When the goddess of creation chose the ark's passengers, she must have thrown the dice."
Hesperides could not help but glance at Hessiana. "You are standing in front of one of the so-called gods. I still cared about humans back then. I even saved an entire city-state."
"Then the entire Olympian family is also terrible," Hessiana said mercilessly. This bold little bat had no concept of seniority in front of people other than Vivian. "You know what kind of person Hades is, and that violent Ares, and Poseidon who stirred up storms."
Hao Ren noticed that the atmosphere was a little awkward. He quickly coughed and said, "Ahem, it's all a bad debt from thousands of years ago. Let's not quarrel."
Hessiana rolled her eyes at the sky and leaned more comfortably on the black stone pillar. "Okay, okay. But then again, compared to those small city-states without any order at all, the great gods like Olympus and Norse actually have a little bit of conscience. At least, they are big families, and everyone follows the rules. As long as the human countries under their rule abide by the laws set by them, they can generally survive. But the human city-states that are ruled by mythical behemoths or solitary demons are even worse off. Sometimes, just because the demon they serve has a screw loose, the entire city-state will be destroyed. "
"Those guys are not intelligent creatures at all," Hasse said faintly. "Probably something hit their brains when they crossed the Wall of Reality. Some of them mutated on Earth and became like beasts. The humans under their rule are the most miserable, but they have no way to resist."
"Well, in this regard, you demon hunters have done a great job in killing the false gods of the world. Thank you for promoting the civilization of this planet and not letting it drown in the swamps of the Barbaric Age." Hessiana bared her teeth at the old demon hunter. She then took a deep breath and looked down at her legs, which were gradually covered by the grey-white luster of the rocks. She then looked back at the Stone Pillar of the Code of Hammurabi that she was leaning against. "Looks like I'm going to follow in the footsteps of that silly dog. The Period of Hammurabi, huh? Tsk, I can't even last as long as a husky …"
The grey-white 'Light of Petrification' spread to Hessiana's waist and abdomen, but this phenomenon caused by the solidification of time and space did not affect her speech. She rolled her eyes and seemed to want to summarize a few words to remind Hao Ren, but there was not enough time. She shook her head and said, "Forget it. You have seen a lot of things anyway. I have nothing to remind you of. Just remember to listen to Hesperides's advice. The Mythological Age was her home field. The demon hunter next to her was also an illegal armed force before 2,000 BC … "
After Lily, Hessiana became the second member to leave the team, and this time, there was no new member.
Only Hesperides and Hasse were left with Hao Ren.
They were not the only Ancients that Hao Ren knew. Odin, the King of Norse, and Gregowen, the Elder of Coldpath, were old guys who were active in the early Mythological Age and were still alive in the real world. In fact, Raven 12345 had summoned every Ancients that Hao Ren knew and left them by the portal, ready to be summoned at any time. However, there were too many uncontrollable aspects of the journey itself, and Hao Ren could not summon these people at will.
This was because he could only perform backtracking at certain nodes, and the location of the backtracking was limited to Vivian's vicinity. Considering the countess' lifestyle, this "backtracking node" could be in the center of a city in Kanzaki, or it could be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, or it could be in the vast desert, or it could even be in the crater under extreme circumstances …
Only God knew how Vivian could sleep in such a hellish place.
In short, it was entirely a matter of probability whether they could find a space-time wanderer who could be recruited as an ally in these backtrack nodes.
Instead of deliberately expanding the scope of activities and increasing the risk of failure, it was better to find a way to solve the problem on their own. This was the conclusion that Hao Ren, Hesperides, and the others came to after a discussion.
Now that Little Bat had also returned to the real world, there were only three people left in the team.
It was now 1788 BC, and there was still a long way to go.
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