Wyatt wasn’t ready for that answer. For a moment he couldn’t find words.
Miller, on the other hand, looked almost exhilarated. He paced back and forth, tail swaying, energy crackling off him in the way only a fanatic can manage.
“Thank you, iron man, for telling me about humans,” Miller said. “Miller has one more target for revenge. Sss—.”
“Why?” Wyatt asked. “Aren’t you trying to restore Lansen’s ecology? The humans are trying to do that too. They even preserved huge stores of seeds.”
“Miller doesn’t need their seeds,” Miller said. “Miller has seeds. Miller has everything.”
Wyatt tried again. “Humans have realized their mistakes. After this disaster, they’ll cherish—”
“Humans must all die!” Miller roared, cutting him off.
He pointed up at the brightest star in the sky.
“Miller told iron man before: Miller will restore this world to what it was before humans came.
That means: no humans.”
Wyatt said, carefully, “Humans created you.”
Miller froze. “What did iron man say?!”
“I said humans created you,” Wyatt repeated.
“Lie!” Miller snapped. “A lie humans invented. Miller was created by the true god.”
“Then where is your true god?” Wyatt asked.
“The true god is everywhere!”
Wyatt paused. “…The iron man doesn’t understand.”
A short silence.
Then Miller turned. “Come.”
He started toward the square pyramid, and Wyatt followed.
“What is that?” Wyatt asked as they walked.
“A temple Miller built.”
“A temple?”
They reached the base.
Up close, Wyatt measured it: a pyramid with sides about 320 meters long and a height of roughly 160 meters.
It was built from huge rectangular blocks, stacked into a crude stepped slope.
But the size wasn’t what caught Wyatt’s attention.
From a distance it had looked gray and dusty, but in the windblown sand it sometimes threw off flashes of blinding light.
Now, standing beside it, Wyatt finally saw why.
Every single block was diamond.
Even the smallest one was more than six meters long and three meters high.
The whole exterior was caked in thick sand, which was why it had looked like ordinary stone from afar.
“This can’t be…” Wyatt murmured.
This world was always in a sandstorm, Miller explained. Ordinary stone wouldn’t last.
These diamonds were ugly and difficult to cut, but they had one virtue: they were hard, and they didn’t erode easily.
“Not much use for anything else,” Miller said. “But fine for a temple.”
Near the entrance, a heap of glowing minerals had been piled like offerings.
They were Leijing—an energy-rich ore.
And the inertial energy core the Spear Squids had delivered was sitting among them.
Miller glanced at it as he passed.
“Is it for Miller?” he asked. “Thank you. But Miller doesn’t really need it anymore.”
The entrance was narrow—only wide enough for one person.
So was the fifty-meter corridor beyond it, a tight diamond-lined throat.
Then the passage opened suddenly into a single vast chamber.
The hall was a perfect square, about 200 meters on a side.
In profile it formed a trapezoid: at its highest point the ceiling rose nearly 100 meters, while the lowest edge still stood around 20 meters tall.
The pyramid’s interior seemed to contain only this one space.
In the center stood a bizarre pillar that ran from floor to ceiling.
On the other three walls—everything except the entrance—were three massive slabs carved with reliefs.
Aside from the central pillar and the three murals, the entire interior was diamond.
Light from outside fractured and ricocheted through the crystal, filling the chamber with a hazy, almost sacred glow.
“Where is your god?” Wyatt asked, turning in a slow circle.
Miller pointed at the pillar.
It was a double helix, two spirals wrapped together, connected by countless small crossbars.
Wyatt felt he’d seen it before.
He searched his memory, then remembered: books he’d glimpsed in the Elder’s illusion.
“That’s… DNA,” Wyatt said before he could stop himself.
“That’s what vile humans call it,” Miller said with contempt.
“This is a gift from god. No matter how small a creature is, it must contain this Pillar of Creation.
Without it, there is no life. Is that not a miracle?”
Wyatt managed, “Uh…”
“If you master its secrets,” Miller said, “you can become the successor of god.”
Miller gestured to the rightmost relief.
Wyatt walked over.
At the top was a half-man, half-lizard figure—Miller himself—taking up nearly half the carving.
The lizardman held a blade in one hand and cut open his other wrist.
Drops of blood fell.
Those drops became living things.
From top to bottom, the species climbed upward: single-celled organisms, mollusks, arthropods, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals—an upside-down tree of evolution.
The creatures grew larger as the carving descended: worms and insects, then spiny mice, bat-dragons, saber-toothed crocodiles, bears, elephants, polar whales…
It was abstract, but the identifying traits were unmistakable.
Wyatt finally understood: Miller truly believed he was a god.
He moved to the middle mural.
From right to left it showed multiple meteors in a planet’s sky, then towering waves, then a mechanical fortress drowning under floodwater.
Wyatt didn’t need it explained. This was Miller “creating the ocean.”
Then came a battle scene: Miller leading a horde of monsters.
Wyatt recognized Luofu, flying dragons, beetles, and lizardmen.
Opposite them were neat, angular silhouettes—robots, fighters, warships.
At the far left, the robots and fighters were broken and incomplete, scattered like debris at the base of the carving—an omen of machine defeat.
The center showed a map of Lansen: trees on land, birds in the sky, fish in the sea.
Miller’s victory, carved in stone.
And then Wyatt looked at the final mural.
Compared to the first two, it was almost minimalist.
In the center was a large circle etched with radiating lines. Nearby, a smaller circle orbited it.
After a moment, Wyatt realized it was the sun and Lansen.
Beyond that was a ring of tiny dots—the Ring itself.
But pressed tightly against the outside of the Ring was another, much larger circle, enclosing everything.
A few stars were sprinkled outside it, almost casually.
Wyatt couldn’t make sense of it. He had to ask.
“What does that big circle mean?”
“That’s the Circle of the Hidden Domain,” Miller said.
“Circle of the Hidden Domain?”
“Yes. After Miller destroys the false gods, Miller will make a great bubble. It will wrap the entire star system.
Then the Lansen System will be invisible in the universe.
From space, no one will see it anymore. Ssssss!”
Wyatt stared. “Why… why would you do that?”
“Iron man is not smart,” Miller said, flicking his forked tongue.
The universe was full of robber races like humans, Miller explained.
If the system vanished, no one would find it. History wouldn’t repeat.
They could evolve freely—until they were strong enough to become the raiders instead.
Wyatt felt cold. “Miller can really do that?”
“Easily.”
Wyatt wanted to dismiss it as madness… but he couldn’t forget the Veilspider’s bubble.
Miller waved a hand as if bored.
“Explaining to iron man is useless,” he said.
“Iron man only needs to know: Miller is a god.
An omnipotent god. Ssssss!”
He tipped his head back and laughed, tongue flicking, as if the sky itself belonged to him.