I became a god by treasure hunting after arriving 500 years early

Countless crimson flowers bloomed across the grassland, painting the vast expanse in vivid red, like the mythical "Other Shore." But this "Other Shore" was no Heaven.

The growth of such magical plants required an immense amount of water.

The grassland was withering at a staggering pace, changing appearance day by day.

Massive swathes of the original vegetation were completely drained dry, revealing barren, yellow soil.

The air temperature continued to rise, climbing to 40 degrees Celsius in just a few days, hot enough to feel like a furnace.

This strange mutation made everyone profoundly uneasy.

On the fifteenth day, a colossal mirage suddenly appeared in the sky!

"Look quickly!"

On the boundless desert and the hard alkali crust, the heavens bore no bird, the earth carried no beast, the vast emptiness stretched for miles, desolate and full of scars. A crumbling city wall, reduced to broken fragments of ruins, came into view.

Dilapidated mud houses, a ruined temple with only a few supporting beams remaining, collapsed half-buildings—all intertwined with the palatial grandeur of the Snake-man Palace, forming a primitive and ancient city steeped in wild desolation.

Through the floating satellite in the sky, Lu Yuan could see the shadowy image of this ancient city. His pupils expanded, and he drew in a sharp breath.

This scene… felt hauntingly familiar.

He immediately realized that this was no mere "mirage." Rather, it was…

Material from a Different Space was falling into this world!

"The ability of Multiple Alternative Spaces!!"

"There really is a [Monster] manipulating all of this…"

Lu Yuan's eyes widened as he recalled his past battles with the [Monster]. "This should be the true appearance of the Snake-man City during the Ancient Epoch. It's just that the [Monster]'s space manipulation ability had divided it into two parts—one being the city itself, the other being the Snake-man Palace."

"Now, for some unknown reason, the [Monster] has forcibly merged them back together."

"But didn't the palace originally lack any [Ghost] entities?" Miss Conch speculated, "Our grassland world might be the first layer, while [Ghost] might originally reside in the second layer."

"Now that [Ghost] has awakened, and the [Monster] can no longer sustain itself, it's simply banished it to the first layer. But there's likely a third layer, and even a fourth layer."

"I really want to control this [Monster]. If I could control it, every problem would be solved."

"That's probably not possible. It hasn't shown itself for years," Miss Conch replied. "The one you defeated before was the Early Epoch's [Monster], but this one—capable of breeding intelligent creatures and never running out of energy—you'll never encounter it in this lifetime."

Lu Yuan realized that ever since Miss Conch became the "Human Race Empress," her manner of speaking had become increasingly peculiar. He immediately seized her pigtail and let out an angry growl, saying, "I can't beat that [Ghost], but I can certainly bully you!"

"Anyway, there's only a few days of life left. Might as well mess with you more," he teased.

Old Cat, watching the pair bickering in such dire circumstances, muttered under its breath, "These two are seriously twisted."

It whispered to itself, "There must be enormous secrets hidden here. Comrade, the time to embezzle has come. I know you'll rise from this, seizing plenty of good loot…"

"Could you stop imagining me so weirdly?"

Lu Yuan released the pigtail.

He truly had no options left—the Greedy Demon God was temporarily out of his reach, and hydrogen bombs seemed meaningless. He couldn't escape, nor could he catch the [Monster].

His spatial teleportation ability could indeed allow him to break into a Different Space. But at the very least, he needed to "conceptualize" the form of the Different Space's existence.

Three-dimensional beings find it incredibly difficult to comprehend such high-dimensional overlaps. As of now, he had nowhere to teleport to, nor could he imagine where "Multiple Alternative Spaces" might exist.

"Maintain the lowest level of detection! Reduce activity in the city!"

"Apart from soldiers on duty shifts, everyone should try to stay inside the Sky Pit. We still need to keep observing to see if [Ghost] emerges."

…

Lanpeng Civilization similarly remained in hiding, only deploying a few unmanned probes for long-distance detection, making minimal moves otherwise.

The fall of material from the Different Space lasted nearly a month.

The newly added area was a land of deathly stillness.

People saw vast, gray-black "Yadan" formations.

"Yadan" refers to a typical wind-eroded terrain, meaning "steep-sided hills." In simpler terms, they are land-based mounds resembling tomb-like forms. These structures looked like cold, eerie graves.

Withered trees stood tall, surrounded by heaps of dry grass and cracked green stone walls.

The weathered stones were far heavier than expected.

Snake-like creatures appeared, their naked forms covered in a blue-gray hue, measuring approximately four meters long, yet unnaturally emaciated. Their elongated hands and vertically-slitted pupils stared ghostly into the distance.

These beings had lived and procreated in this place for untold ages.

It wasn't just the Lanpeng people—humans were equally bewildered by these bizarre sights. If they couldn't find a way out, they too might someday lose their minds like the Snake-men, devolving into a race eternally "bred" in captivity.

This was truly a terrifying precipice between life and death.

Perhaps a fate worse than death itself was generations living a life that was worse than dying.

Then came stranger events. As the Snake-man City fully restored itself, the shadow of the [Ghost] vanished without a trace, yet the overwhelming sense of danger lingered over the city, refusing to dissipate.

Humans and the Lanpeng Civilization both launched their floating satellites.

The Pangu Continent's atmosphere is far too dense; sending satellites into space isn't realistically feasible.

Thus, relying on the Pandora Anti-gravity System, the satellites were suspended at an altitude of 100,000 meters for long-distance reconnaissance.

Surprisingly, this method proved effective for most areas, though regions with strong Idealist Interference remained difficult to observe.

One by one, the snake-like creatures straightened their bodies, focusing their ghostly stares on the palace. Their mouths began to crack open, revealing eerie grins in unison.

These strange beings scavenge for food when hungry, drink water when thirsty, but their spiritual intelligence had disappeared entirely, leaving them with only the primitive intelligence of animals.

"Prince Lu, what should we do next? Do we need to form a joint exploration team? Sitting idly like this is pointless," Prince Jin Bote of the Lanpeng Civilization sent a remote communication.

"We can already confirm that unmanned exploration tools cannot be used in the Snake-man City. Human effort will be the only option for exploration," Lu Yuan replied.

"For now, maintain silence—don't rush." Lu Yuan stared at the satellite images. Not spotting the shadow of [Ghost] itself, he considered it, at least, a stroke of minor luck.

"The joint exploration team will need elite members… Do you have any special Divine Skill candidates?"

…

(PS: Midnight at 12 there will be a Monthly Ticket lottery—last few hours, requesting those monthly tickets!)