The soldiers who had experienced the thrilling scene first-hand would still remember what they saw for many years to come.
The roar of the engines as well as the thunderous noise of the separated rocks filled the heavens and the earth. Hot air and thick fog shrouded the entire basin where the Giant Tree of Life was located. The earth shook as mountains, which had stood for thousands of years began to collapse in the distortion. Countless boulders rolled down the mountains, while the basin in the center slowly rose.
More than a dozen cylindrical spacecrafts hovered over the Giant Tree of Life. The lights from the spacecrafts shone down as they pulled a 170-km rock column out of the earth. Inside the rock column was the entangled Giant Tree of Life and First Born.
As the column slowly rose, a large number of cruisers came in. Each cruiser had a set of mechanical arms that held an anti-gravity generator. The individuals who flew the cruisers were all skilled engineers. They ascended with the rock pillar, and installed the anti-gravity generators at their predetermined positions. Everything was going smoothly according to plan.
As more and more anti-gravity generators were activated, the speed of ascent and stability of the entire mass were enhanced. A dozen or more cylindrical aircrafts responsible for the initial anti-gravity force started to disengage. About two-thirds of them quickly retreated to a distance, while the rest used their limited anti-gravity beam to maintain stability of the entire structure.
After five minutes, the bottom of the mass had still not completely emerged up from the earth. However, the upper part had left the air shrouded in dust and fog. Its grotesque appearance could clearly be seen by distant observers: tree roots were tangled together like a lump of vines, completely eroding the surrounding rocks. They left no room for soil or stone in the rock column, which was entirely occupied by these living tissues. In between the gaps of the tangled roots, occasional red pulses emitted by the First Born's deepest organ were visible—as the giant creature was still asleep, the red pulses underneath the layers of "vines" appeared faint and weak.
In the upper part of the mass, the vines clearly appeared like normal roots. That was the main body of the Giant Tree of Life—the part that had not mutated.
The formation of the cruisers as well as the towing ship hovered around the mass, and like leaves in a tornado, they constantly made minor corrections and carried out examinations on the mass. Some of the cruisers flew close to the "living tumor" that was entangled by the tentacles. Some large probes were pierced into the tumors, which according to current research understandings, were the First Born's ganglions.
They were injecting the big guy with interference pheromones, the most potent tranquilizer in the world, and effective only on the First Born.
The whole scene was as epic as it could get. It was like a miracle to the people of Holletta.
Who had better digging skills? The Aerymian elves' Sun King; with 200 drilling rigs against the earth's anal cavity, and a 500-men-strong engineering team…
Well, something like that.
The spectacular scene could be seen 100 km away, much more so near the basin. A magical shield was shimmering above the monastery, blocking out the hot tornado of air and steam. The flying debris in the air slammed against the shield, triggering layers of magical ripples. Ophra squinted as she tried to see the Giant Tree of Life's stump, but it was out of her range of sight. She sighed and appeared a little emotional. "It's less epic than the light in Dragonspine Ridge, but it's equally thrilling nonetheless."
"Dealing with a big guy with a radius of two hundred kilometres, you can't say it's not thrilling." Hao Ren shrugged. "The needle used for injecting half a tonne of tranquilizers into that thing is already one meter in diameter. Who created this massive monster?"
Lily hugged her arm and said, "Stop saying it, Mr. Landlord, I've got my goose bumps up. I'm most afraid of needle..."
Vivian looked at the husky maiden in surprise. "I didn't know you were afraid of this? You look fearless in any other days."
"That's embarrassing, it all happened a few years ago. When I first heard about the rabies vaccine, I thought it was specifically for me... I 'borrowed' two boxes of the vaccine which were expired and after emptying them into my body, I was suffering from allergies, nausea and vomiting for three days."
Vivian: "….."
"The progress over the Volcano of Dusk is slightly slower, but it goes very smoothly," Hao Ren had contacted the other team of engineers. Hilda and Big Beardy were accompanying Mhoren inspecting the operation in the Volcano of Dusk."
"The King personally went to the Volcano of Dusk?" Opra was a little surprised. "This is not in his schedule…"
"Yeah, he didn't expect the Queen of Aerym in his schedule as well. It was even more unexpected in your schedule that the engineering team I brought was of such a scale." Hao Ren shrugged. "You have to get used to the unscheduled situation."
After most of the anti-gravity generators had been activated, the entire mass appeared weightless as it climbed in an increasing speed without risking disintegration and causing excessive turbulence. After thirty minutes, the Giant Tree of Life and two-thirds of the basin had become a vague shadow in the sky, while the place where it once lived was now freaking hot hole with heavy smoke billowing and shrouded in dust and fog. No one could see the situation down at the bottom.
Vivian summoned a gust of wind, but the wind could only bring the fog near the hills away temporarily but not the strong heated air draft rising up from the crater. So it seemed the dust and fog might be here to stay for some time.
Hao Ren tilted his head skyward, the sky was clear, but the plume from the deep pit of the basin was slowly spreading out. Perhaps plume would engulf the whole area for a few days. "This reminds me of my hometown." He lamented.
Y'lisabet was sitting on the shoulder of her dad, waving her fist and shouted, "I also miss my hometown!"
Listening on, Opra was surprised. "You have such smoke in your hometown every day?"
Hao Ren shrugged. "It depends. When the weather is good, you can see the stars. When the weather is bad, you would gasp for air. The situation in Y'zaks' hometown is even worse. When the weather is bad, they all run towards the mouth of the volcanoes gasping for fresh air."
Opra said, "... No wonder you guys possess are so strong. So essentially you guys are living in a place where warriors are trained and tested."
Hao Ren felt that the marshal had misunderstood, but it seemed that he was also unable to clear the misunderstanding.
An hour later, the first space signal came from Holletta's synchronous orbit: "Team B logistics has arrived pre-set orbit. 'Cargo' is stable. 'Lullaby' device is working properly!"
After a few minutes, the news that Team A was in orbit was heard too.
What remained to be done was transport the two living First Borns to Tannagot's orbit. However, the Aerymian elven spacecraft were not capable of doing this. So the responsibility fell on the Petrachelys.
Of course, the space expansion installation of Petrachelys had its limit, and at least the storage window was limited. To stuff the First Born with a width of nearly two hundred kilometres into the cargo space would be out of the question, so the Petrachelys would have to use spatial bubble transfer method to send the two living samples onto the orbit of Tannagost.
After sending the First Born together with the Giant Tree of Life into the predetermined orbit, the Aerymian engineering fleet left as schedule. The Petrachelys appeared near to the two samples piloted by the auto pilot computer. The host computer of the spacecraft launched its warp function and increased the coverage into nearby space.
Starlight from afar appeared distorted within the space of several hundred kilometres around the spacecraft, as if there was an unprecedentedly large gravitational force that was interfering with the optical phenomena. The starlight was twisted into a circular arc and forming rapidly into a ring. The space was closed up becoming a spatial bubble before the Petrachelys and the two living First Borns vanished in it.
The next moment, starlight returned to normal, and the spacecraft and the two strange entangled tentacles were gone.
Hao Ren and the others returned to the capital of Holletta through the portal before the two engineering teams arrived later. Hilda and Big Beardy, who was accompanying the king and the Pope to the Volcano of Dusk, had also arrived through the portal.
As everyone was back, the first thing Hao Ren had to do was put away those scarily massive engineering equipment, so as to prevent the old guys of the Royal Masters Association getting heart attack (and by the way, to prevent the screwdriver frenzy of Y'lisabet from getting aroused). Hao Ren checked the time: they arrived on the planet earlier in the morning, and now the sun was still hanging on the west side of the horizon; it had been a massive operation but it was accomplished faster than expected.
Hilda had found Hao Ren, she was all smile. "The operation was finished successfully. I hope we have been of help."
"Yeah, sure you were," Hao Ren quickly nodded. "Is your diplomacy going smoothly?"
"What can I say?" Hilda grinned and spread out her hand. "We are two worlds apart. Only through your portal we can communicate. So we were just exchanging culture and history and things like that. I might be out of my personal curiosity...nothing too serious."
Meanwhile, Opra came up and interrupted their conversation. "I hate to interrupt you guys but the King invites all the foreign guests to his banquet. I guess you'd have time to join this time?"
Hao Ren smiled and looked at Lily whose eyes were glowing in eagerness. He waved his hand and said, "It would be impolite to decline the invitation especially when there's so much food to eat. Why not? Think of it as a compensation for our hard work!"