The Record of Unusual Creatures

Just as Hao Ren fell into deep thought, Lady Gloom’s voice jolted him back to reality.

“Self-diagnosis is complete. Initiating the spaceship’s system.”

“Phew! Finally, the prison system has been reset,” said Hao Ren as he let out a long sigh. He looked at the Lord of Lords, Loken. “So, the divine barrier and phase-hiding states within 20,000 light-years will be deactivated with the entry of pre-set instructions from Asurmen?”

“Exactly. Do you need to deactivate them now? the Lord of Lords, Loken, asked. “The whole process takes several hours. Leave it to us. You can see our last colleague, captain of Asurmen.”

“Oh? There’s a captain on this ship?” Lily came out from her stupor.

“Crap, of course, a spacecraft has a captain.” Vivian snorted as she shot Doggie a glance. Vivian also did not expect Asurmen to have a captain hidden in it until now, but rebutting whatever the Doggie said had become a habit. “Have you figured out what the Doggoblast is about?” Vivian asked and glanced at Lily with a doubtful look on her face.

“Stop interrupting, I’m thinking.” Lily waved her hand as if saying she had everything under control. Lily suddenly came to her senses and snorted, “Stop calling it Doggoblast! Show some respect, I’m the leader of a race after all! I’ve already named the move Skyshatter Roar!”

“So pretentious. That name is long enough to get yourself killed 800 times on the battlefield. Just call it Doggoblast. Am I right, Hao Ren?”

Hao Ren could care less about their bickering. “Doggoblast it is. Lady Gloom, take us to the will hub, we want to talk to the highest officer of Asurmen.”

Lady Gloom was the head of AI of the Asumen, but Hao Ren knew that she was not the highest officer of this spacecraft from the beginning. Lady Gloom and the gatekeeper’s existence was similar to Nolan; she would only take over the control of the spaceship during the absence of the captain. Meanwhile, the real captain of Asurmen had been hibernating in the core of the spacecraft. Since Lockmarton briefly broke free 10,000 years ago, Collow was divided into the old and the new worlds. Asurmen became the gateway to the ancient world. The captain fell into a long dormant period to maintain the core operation of the spacecraft and only woke up now because Asurmen was relieved from its long mission.

Hao Ren and his team were to meet the captain for the first time.

Lady Gloom brought everyone into the core cloister of Asurmen by teleportation and then walked along the cloister to the crystal chamber where the will hub was located. As always, Lady Gloom was silent. She even seemed to be indifferent toward the death of Lockmarton. But when they were about to arrive in the chamber, she glanced at Hao Ren. “Thank you, you all have saved civilization.”

“I thought you had no feelings about the earthly civilization of Collow.” Hao Ren said with a smile.

“Any civilization is valuable. Any race is also valuable. I did not use to understand this. During my years of traveling in the human world, I learned that my mission was not as simple as guarding a prison but the significance of guarding the prison.”

As soon as Lady Gloom’s voice trailed off, they had come before the entrance of the will hub. Hao Ren was surprised to see another glowing female figure at the door. “The gatekeeper? Are you alive?”

“Using the backup copy, I have completed body reconstruction,” the gatekeeper replied without any emotion in her voice, “and then memory restoration with data of Number Two. Now, I’m back at work.”

“That’s great.” Hao Ren nodded. The strange triangular entrance formed by crystals in front of him faded open. Hao Ren brought everyone to step into the special compartment called the Will Hub.

It was pyramid-shaped, just like other cabins in the spaceship. The floor and walls were formed entirely by crystals. Druse of different sizes with strange light grew in all corners. The light flowed and converged into the center of the chamber, where a large, irregularly-shaped crystal stood in silence. The crystal was almost entirely transparent, so its contents were clearly visible.

A light, like a cloud and also space filled with starlight, floated inside the crystal. When looking at the light, there seemed to be many voices whispering to you in mind, telling you about different mysterious and incomprehensible knowledge.

Hao Ren had had many imaginations of how the captain of Asurmen looked. When he heard that the captain was in hibernation and seemingly integrated with the spaceship, he tried to picture this life form. But now, he was utterly surprised. “Denizen of the Stars?”

The captain of Asurmen turned out to be a Denizen of the Stars, a being living in harmony with the spacecraft.

This race had been missing in the Plane of Dreams for 10,000 years. Even before its disappearance, the race was elusive, and few spotted them. It was a total surprise to see one of them here. This guy was also one of the prison wardens, and he had been participating in the goddess of creation’s plan to suppress Lockmarton since time immemorial.

Many thoughts came into Hao Ren’s mind. He used to have many conjectures about the Denizens of the Stars, the activities of this mysterious race after the death of the goddess of creation, and their excellent understanding of the goddess and her creations. But these people had always remained hidden and mysterious.

What was their relationship with the goddess of creation?

In Lockmarton’s early memory, the Denizens of the Stars were the first primordial life in the Plane of Dreams whom the goddess of creation met. At that time, this mysterious race lived in the barren “stellar grave.” But because of Lockmarton’s fragmented soul and distorted memory, the number of images that Hao Ren could see from the illusion was quite limited. It was difficult to ascertain whether those images were real because they came from the memory of a mad demigod.

Just as these thoughts came to mind, Hao Ren suddenly heard a gentle voice ringing in his mind.

“Hello, blood bearer.”

Hao Ren was startled. “Blood bearer?”

“When you first visited this ship, I already sensed it. It is on your right hand, the blood mark of the goddess,” the gentle voice said. “Her blood is present here. Destiny is something elusive.”

“I have many questions.” Hao Ren calmed himself down and said with a serious tone of voice.

“I also have many questions,” said the gentle voice. “But first I need to know one thing—where are you from?”

Hao Ren had answered this question countless times, but he was not annoyed. “I am from another universe, where another goddess rules. I thought Lady Gloom told you about all of this?”

“Oh, is that so?” The voice did not answer directly. It seemed to have some different opinions but said nothing. “You have proved yourself with your action. I think I can trust you. You may ask questions now and hope you will get your answers.”

“Did the goddess of creation send you to guard Collow? What is your relationship with her?”

“She ended the madness and darkness of the age of ignorance in the universe, started the era of order and peace, and our entire race was blessed by Her Grace,” the voice sounded emotionless. “So the Denizens of the Stars followed her and volunteered to become her jailers and sentinels in the dark. No matter how long the time has passed, our mission will never end.”

“I read the early memories of Lockmarton and saw the discovery of your people by the goddess of creation. But those memories, especially of Lockmarton’s fall, have been eroded by the power of Chaos. They are very fragmented and messy. Do you know how Lockmarton went rogue? Did he meet a primordial will of madness and darkness? We call the primordial will the Mad Lord. I’m not sure if it is the same as the madness and darkness you’ve mentioned.”

“The Mad Lord…” the voice of Asurmen paused. The name seemed to be a taboo. “I haven’t heard anyone saying this name for a long time. The name is a magical spell with power. Any race in the universe will use this name to refer to the original mad power. I’m sure what you and I are talking about the same thing. To answer your question, I must start from the beginning—the earliest state of the universe, then you will understand what happened in the past.”

It paused for a few seconds. When Hao Ren and others were ready, Asurmen’s voice continued, “At the beginning of the universe, when the goddess of creation had not yet arrived, the Mad Lord was the master of all things. Born from the first energy tide, it was blind, foolish, and irrational, but it affected the universe with its primordial instinct. Under its influence, the universe became extraordinarily chaotic and dangerous. The world at that time was perilous beyond imagination.

“Stars collapsed and were reborn irregularly. Celestial systems could collapse at any time. There was no guarantee of peace. In the gaze of the Mad Lord, everything was in the danger of destruction. Only those dead stars, cold and barren sectors were relatively safe. But still, the threat of random extinction was still there.

“The first life emerged and survived in such an environment. The Denizens of the Stars, the Entropheans, the Drossites, the Neg-E Walkers, the Shadowbeasts and all those incredible life forms that could never exist in the normal world of order appeared and survived in the energy aftermath of the Mad Lord.

“Ancient creatures like us are actually an extension of the Mad Lord.”