The Record of Unusual Creatures

Raven 12345’s voice suddenly rang in Hao Ren’s head, but it was not much of a surprise. He knew that the neurotic goddess would contact him sooner or later. Despite being unpredictable and troublesome, Raven 12345’s power was genuinely real, and she would be able to fix the communication disruption very quickly.

Hao Ren just did not expect it to be so quick.

“It is me, I am here,” Hao Ren replied quickly in the spiritual connection.

Before Hao Ren’s voice trailed off, Raven 12345 said, “Do you know that something has happened?”

Hao Ren was startled and said with a forced smile, “Of course. I am right on the scene. The whole world is in a mess, except for my house. There are living fossils from various eras roaming around. I couldn’t contact you just now. But what’s more worrying is that Vivian has gone missing. Do you know what is going on?”

“Vivian is missing? So it has happened,” Raven 12345 said, but her voice sounded ambiguous. She then quickly continued, “I need you to come over immediately. I have something important to tell you. All of you must come. Staying at the ‘distorted point’ is pointless now. Remember, everyone. Anyone who breathes, including that one in the mouse hole.”

Before Hao Ren could ask what “distorted point” was, Raven 12345 had hung up. It was out of her character. The neurotic goddess was used to be talking nonsense non-stop. Things must have gotten on her nerves that she acted so weirdly.

“Buddy, the passage to the divine realm reopens now,” the MDT said as it hovered over. “It is an alternative link.”

“Thing must be worse than we could imagine,” Hao Ren looked at the others and said. “Let’s go to the divine realm.”

After emerging from the portal, the first sight that Hao Ren saw was the blue bungalows under the thunder and lightning-filled sky. This divine realm was used to be calm with clear weather. But now thick clouds were rolling in the air. Wind blasting through the square in front of the mansion blew the jets of water off the fountain. Over the blue mansion, lightning cut crazy zig-zags into the black clouds, followed by the deafening rumble of the thunder in the air.

The plants in the flower beds on both sides of the mansion had withered. The wind rolled up the dried leaves and then scattered them on the square.

“Holy moly!” Hao Ren looked at the scene, stunned. “It happens over here too?”

A loud flapping sound suddenly came from the sky. Hao Ren looked up in surprise. A mighty golden dragon burrowing down from the clouds, circling in the air for a couple of times before landing next to the fountain. The golden dragon shrank rapidly and transformed into a tall blonde.

“Galazur?” Hao Ren came up to the blonde. “What are you doing here?”

Because of the unique nature of the work, the inspectors usually worked independently. Their meeting was traditionally carried out ‘online’ in the spiritual connection, not at the divine realm. Raven 12345 would summon the inspectors separately whenever she wanted to see them. The inspectors would not go to the heavenly realm by themselves for no reason, just because the goddess had a loose screw and might assign them to some messy business. For this reason, Hao Ren rarely saw his other colleagues in this big mansion. The only few times when they bumped into each other here, they only exchanged some pleasantries and left. This time, the goddess summoning Galazur and him here must have something to do with what was happening on Earth now.

“I have been here for a while,” Galazur said. She greeted the others with a few nods. “The situation is complicated. I just helped to check the stability of the boundary. How is the situation on Earth?”

“Space and time are messed up,” Hao Ren replied with a shrug. “I still have no idea what happens. Even my connection with the outside world was interrupted. I can’t believe it—what else can interfere with our spiritual connection?”

“It is not interference. It was the sovereign hub’s security protocol that actively cut off the imperial data network with Earth,” Galazur said. “It is not easy to compromise the imperial data network.”

“What exactly is going on?” Hao Ren asked with a frown.

Galazur gently exhaled and said with a low voice, “There was a burst of divine energy on Earth that affected the goddess’ monitoring of the planet. This triggered the security protocol of the sovereign hub to kick in. I heard that the authority of our goddess has been interrupted temporarily.”

It seemed that the female dragon liked to gossip.

Hao Ren listened with bated breath. “Then should I go in to see her at this time? Is she in a good mood now?”

Galazur thought for a moment and said, “I guess the goddess is all right. She sang while grinding her knife when I met her just now.”

“Aah?” Hao Ren broke out in cold sweat.

“Hah, relax, don’t be stressed,” Galazur said with a cheerful smile and patted on Hao Ren’s shoulder. “Go ahead, things have more to do with you than anyone else. You should have guessed it by now what the burst of divine power is all about.”

Hao Ren wiped the cold sweat off his forehead before bringing his tenants toward the thunder-shrouded big mansion.

In the gorgeous office of the goddess, Raven 12345 was focusing on a crystal doodad. “Is Vivian missing?” the goddess said without waiting for Hao Ren to open his mouth. Her eyes were filled with arcane energy and a sense of seriousness.

“Yup, I have not seen her since this morning,” Hao Ren said as he helped himself into a chair. “What the hell is going on?”

Raven 12345 did not answer his question. The goddess threw the crystal dingus on the table, stood up and came to the window. “As expected, it is the key link I missed,” she said, seemingly mumbled to herself.

“Boss, can you cut the cackle and tell me what is going on?” Hao Ren said. It was rare to see the female neurotic behaving this way.

“You know that Vivian has been splitting various types of Malevolence, don’t you?” Raven 12345 looked back at him. “So in a sense, Vivian is incomplete.”

Hao Ren nodded. It reminded him of what Lily had said before.

It was about the whole and the splits, and Vivian and the Malevolence.

“She suddenly became ‘complete’ last night,” Raven 12345 said faintly. “For a brief moment, the goddess of creation appeared on Earth.”

Hao Ren was stunned.

“Of course, it was not the goddess herself, but rather a fake. Otherwise, the impact would have been much bigger,” Raven 12345 said. The neurotic goddess was in no mood to mock the reaction of Hao Ren and the others. “This impact caused Vivian to spill the ‘stored’ history over from her memory, polluting the real world with the data. The world ends up with messed-up space and time as you can see now. The history of different eras overlapped one another and replaced the space and time.”

“Hold on, I am a bit confused here. Let me think for a while,” Hao Ren said, quickly realizing that he needed to ‘recalibrate’ his mind to understand what the goddess was saying. “History has overflowed and replaced the real world; I can understand this. But how come Vivian ‘broke out’ suddenly?”

Raven 12345 paused for a few seconds before slowly saying, “It is the resonance of the Malevolence. Do you know?”

“The resonance of the Malevolence?” It was something unknown to Hao Ren in the past. “What do you mean?” Hao Ren asked.

“You should know that I have been collecting the Malevolence of Vivian,” Raven 12345 explained. “I have discovered a long ago that these Malevolences are ‘dead’ physically, but their remnants are still emitting signals and resonating continually with each other. In other words, you can’t eliminate a Malevolence. They tend to be more complete at a higher level.”

Raven 12345 paused again. She looked at Hao Ren and continued. “Then I got your investigative findings, and my research was almost complete. I began to wonder about the nature of the Malevolence. I call Vivian the divine avatar, created by the Goddess of Creation and put in this world. It seems that this divine avatar has been contaminated since birth. This contamination from the negative force in the Plane of Dreams is the cause of the continual division of Vivian which triggered by the conflict between the remnant power of the Goddess of Creation and the negative forces. Those Malevolences are the expelled negative energy. The resonance happens because the Malevolences are trying to regroup into the complete body of a divine avatar.”

“And then what?” Hao Ren could not wait but ask.

“I was thinking of ways to interfere with the resonance, dispel their negative energy and retain the divine power. This way, I may be able to purify the Malevolence and figure out the true intention of the goddess of creation in creating the divine avatar. In general, my research is correct, and every Malevolence has a tendency to regroup. But I could not completely stop the resonance between them.”

“You couldn’t stop them even with your power?” Hao Ren was struck dumb.

“Brute strength is not enough to solve all problems, especially technical problems,” Raven 12345 said with a shrug. “I found a blind spot in my research. I overlooked one of the most important Malevolences, which is the root cause of the resonance between the Malevolences. She is right under my nose, but I never realized it.”

An incredibly daring thought popped into Hao Ren’s mind. His lips were dry. “You mean that Malevolence is—”

“It is Vivian,” Raven 12345 said quietly. “Vivian Ancestor.”