The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren froze for a second before he realized that he was lying on Lily’s lap, and felt a little startled. In his mind, the husky was never associated with a gentlewoman. Based on her usual state of behavior, Lily should already be aiming at his head with a brick.

“What happened to me?” Hao Ren shoved Lily’s tail away and sat up. “What is the situation in the sky?”

“Mr. Landlord, you were in a coma!” Lily looked at him and wagged her tail happily. She did not know why she was happy. She was always happy. “The giant was shattered, and monsters began to come out from the giant’s body. When Battie saw the situation was getting out of control, she brought out all she got and summoned the moon. Hi, Battie, you are finally back!” said Lily.

Hao Ren turned his head and saw Vivian emerging from a swarm of bats. The vampire maiden looked at the husky with her arms akimbo. “What are you doing, Doggie? Did I not tell you to let Hao Ren take a rest?”

“But Mr. Landlord has woken up!” Lily wagged her tail with a smug look. “I have said it; a girl’s knee is the most comfortable pillow. When coupled with a girl’s tail, the level of comfort would increase by a factor of two.”

Feeling embarrassed, Hao Ren hemmed and said, “Normal girl doesn’t have a tail.”

Vivian went up and shoved Lily to aside, and then looked at Hao Ren with concern. “How do you feel now? What happened just now? Hercules died, but you were still in a deep mental connection. The MDT said that your mind was headed in an unknown direction.”

Hao Ren remembered the fantasy he had just experienced.

The scene in the illusion was still vividly fresh in his mind. He could not have forgotten the blurry and twisted space and the border. But what did that illusion mean? He tried to remember what he saw, but all he could think of was a static field of stars. The cold and silent stars seemed to have many secrets in them, but they did not reveal anything.

“I must have entered an illusion, but it’s a shame that I have not been able to understand what that chimera meant.” Hao Ren frowned and shook his head. He then looked at Vivian, and the red moon behind her. “How about you? Did summoning the crimson moon drain your energy? What happened here?”

“As Doggie said,” Vivian said with an assuring smile. “No worries. I am just a little exhausted, but mentally, I have never felt better. I don’t know how, but the sequelae after summoning the crimson moon have gone. In the past, I would have to fight with my runaway mind, and the moonlight was so much more dangerous.”

By now, the crimson moon had passed its peak brightness and was slowly disappearing. It had shrunk by more than half, and the moonlight was white. Under this lunar glow, Vivian seemed to be wearing a light gown and exude a sense of holiness. Startled a bit, Hao Ren shook his head and exhaled. “It’s good to know you’re okay. I will explain the illusion when we are home. But now let us go back to the tower, and then we shall figure out how to get back out to the real world. Vivian, don’t you need some rest?”

“I just consumed my magic power, but physically, I could be stronger than an average person.” Vivian waved her hand. “Let’s go.”

On the hills in the desert, the mansion was still almost as good as new, but the magic tower behind it had become unrecognizable.

Cracks covered the tower’s surface like a cobweb. It was as if the tower would collapse into pieces at any moment. The magic metal structure of the tower had signs of melting, and the color of the Letta runes embedded in the masonry had faded away, turning into ordinary carving without any magic power.

“Master Mohabben is no longer here,” Hathaway said with a soft voice as she looked up at the tower.

“Huh? Where is he going?” Lily asked, still clueless about what had happened.

Hao Ren grabbed the husky by her mouth and dragged her to the rear. He then looked up at the magic tower that had lost its function. “I will pray for him. But first, how should we get out?”

All eyes were on the noobie. The little Malevolence was still in the bottle, unusually quiet. But even so, no one dared to let it out. God knows if the mad little one was cooling down for her next round of roughhouse.

It seemed that their entry into this dimension was somehow related to the noobie. But the noobie, clueless of what happened, had noticed the stares and flinched. The noobie threw both hands in the air and screamed perfunctorily. “Wow! Ghsss—”

“She looks like as if she has run out of battery,” Vivian said, shaking the bottle a bit. “Probably she is hungry for real now.”

“Don’t worry; it’s not difficult to get out. All you have to do is go back to the last spot before you came in, and leave the rest to me.”

They returned to the mansion, in the same corridor where they entered into this dimension. As Hathaway chanted quietly the spell that would reverse the space and time, a light suddenly flashed.

Hao Ren woke up from a brief moment of dizziness and found himself surrounded by building debris and rubble. The shadows of the forest were swaying not far away, and the breeze left the leaves fluttering.

He looked up through a large hole in the wall and saw the tower behind the main building. But as soon as got a glimpse of the tower, the mansion suddenly shook for a moment.

Cracks quickly spread on the tower with silver-white flame rose from the fissures. In just a few moments, the tower turned into ashes in a puff, as if it had never existed before.

There was a slight warp in the air ahead, a blurred figure appeared. Hathaway had entered the real world. She looked around and sighed. “Ahh, it’s been two centuries. I have not seen this place for two centuries.”

In the days of watching the cage, she could not leave the parallel universe. Even though she knew that the vast changes in the outside world and could perceive what happened in the real world, but she had never seen the place where she once lived had become. Now, after a long time, she was here and emotional.

“We are leaving,” Hao Ren said, looking at Hathaway. “What’s your plan?”

“My plan?” Hathaway froze for a while. “I don’t know. Do you think a ghost could have a plan? I am already dead. The world of the living has nothing to do with me. Most of the enjoyment in the world is meaningless. So I will probably stay here for a while, perhaps in remembrance of my old friends, and then wander around, or leave this world for good. I have completed my mission and had no more regrets.”

“Let’s go to Coldpath,” Vivian interjected.

“Coldpath?” Hathaway was a little surprised and then shook her head. “I’m afraid they won’t accept me. I was a defector, and I’m dead now. There is no such precedent among the demon hunters in Coldpath.”

“We said it before; times have changed,” Hao Ren said. “The demon hunters are not as stubborn as they used to be. Youngbloods have replaced the former elders and sages; they will accept you. Now that the war between the demon hunters and the otherworldlings has just ended, Coldpath needs a workforce.”

Vivian interjected. “That’s right. You can go with us. We will take you to Coldpath. Those guys would accept you when they see you are with us. What’s more, the information you bring back could help them fill blank pages concerning Olympus.”

“That’s right. We have a pretty big influence there! I tell you what; I am your first emperor!”

No one stopped Lily this time.

But Hathaway had no idea about what Lily was talking. She just thought for a moment before nodding. “All right. It seems that it is only proper for me to accept your kindness.”

Before leaving this place, there was still some unfinished business, which they had to complete. They headed back to the village in the forest.

Hathaway, in her ghost body, could go invisible. She cloaked in her invisible body and followed behind Vivian.

As expected, the forest village had undergone enormous changes along with the changes in the parallel universe.

It seemed that the frozen space and time of more than two hundred years had fast-forwarded itself; the village had completed its decay in just a few hours. The old wooden houses had disappeared, and the sprawling forest had reclaimed the border of the village. Vines and weeds were everywhere, shrubs almost wholly covered all traces of human settlement, with only bit and pieces of rotting wood and exposed gravel trails in between the vegetation.

The phenomenon of space-time distortion here had disappeared.

Tracing the signal of the communication device he left behind here, Hao Ren had found Pierre, who was hiding behind a giant tree. With him were the Wang Brothers and Catherine.

The four of them were the only ones remaining.