After obtaining the Gnosis, Xiu Yuan did not head straight to Celestia. Instead, he ran toward Khaenri'ah.
He knew that Khaenri'ah had not been destroyed solely because its technology was too advanced.
Another part of the reason was that Khaenri'ah had researched something it should never have touched.
The Abyss.
Khaenri'ah was like a larger version of the Great Serpent.
The Great Serpent had lost the Archon War, leaving him with little prospect beyond death. But that did not mean he had been doomed to die. He could have swallowed his pride, abandoned his dignity, and lived within his own little territory. After all, Zebu had not insisted on wiping him out.
Likewise, Khaenri'ah's technological progress had gone too far, but that did not mean its destruction was inevitable. If its people destroyed their overly advanced technology and retained only a portion of it, they could still survive in this world.
The reason the Great Serpent had been doomed to die was that he had read the forbidden book, "Before Sun and Moon."
And the reason Khaenri'ah was destined for destruction was that its people had recklessly courted death by researching the power of the [Abyss].
But regardless, the ordinary civilians living in Khaenri'ah should not have had to suffer such an inexplicable disaster.
They were just ordinary people living in Khaenri'ah. They knew nothing about the Abyss and understood nothing about alchemy. They were simply going about their lives there.
After a considerable journey, Xiu Yuan finally reached the underground kingdom of Khaenri'ah.
Its prosperity far exceeded anything Xiu Yuan had imagined. Robots were everywhere on the streets-or, to put it more elegantly, alchemical life-forms.
Their resemblance to humans was almost 99.9 percent. They looked exactly like real people and did not trigger the uncanny valley effect at all.