The Record of Unusual Creatures

The testing of the long-range cognition array continued until nightfall.

The dark blue sky gradually fell on the earth while stars coming out of darkness watched the world below with cold sparkling eyes. On the wild planet without light pollution, the stars filled its sky, forming a river of stars from east to west, dividing its atmosphere into two distinct halves.

It was not the Milky Way with which the Earthlings were familiar, but it was equally beautiful and magnificent.

The moon was in the shadow of the home planet with a thin arc of it visible next to the starry belt as the base complex and rifts were hidden in the darkness. The same happened to the Zenith. But just because it had artificial lightings, the space station was still faintly visible just next to the crescent moon, suspended in the sky like a dim eyeball.

Hao Ren knew that the Executors there were having the busiest moment in their life although he could not observe them from here with his naked eyes. They were reorganizing their social structure, repairing the space station damaged by the EMP, and cleaning up the mess after the disappearance of the fortress from the moon. There was also information about the survival of the planet the humans had left behind in the Bibliotheca that they needed to study while watching the changes on the home planet.

A little stretching Zorm made would translate into a clearly visible geological movement from space. It was a hard-to-miss phenomenon for the Executors. There were hundreds of eyes in space monitoring the planet at any moment.

Hao Ren stood on a tower in the outpost with the MDT floating beside his head reporting the latest progress. “N-6 sent a message, asking what the tentacle suddenly coming out of the surface was all about. The test has hit a raw nerve.”

“Tell them exactly what happened. We have talked to them about the function of the long-range cognition array earlier. Now that Zorm has taken over the planet, it means that the Executors can now prepare to move back to the home planet,” Hao Ren replied. “Sooner or later, they have to accept the fact that the planet devourer has become a harmless First Born, and they have to live in peace with Zorm. By the way, are the Executors worried, not panic?”

The MDT paused and then replied subtly, “Supposedly, they should be in a panic now, but when N-6 and the others looked down from space, they saw a huge cartoonist smile. I guess they were finding it funny instead of worried.”

“Really? It does have this effect?” Hao Ren was flabbergasted.

Before the MDT could reply, Hao Ren heard Zorm’s voice coming from the communicator. “So, my emoji pack is still helpful!”

Hao Ren buried her face in his hand helplessly. “I cannot say much since you do not care about your image. But then again, what have you been doing since the beginning? It is late at night, why have you not rested?”

While speaking, he looked into the distance. The day test was over, and everyone had returned to the rest area in the base. But Zorm apparently had no intention of stopping. At the end of the plains in the distance, the tentacle that protruded from the surface had changed shape. Most parts of it had retracted in the ground, leaving nearly one-third of it still hanging outside. Fluorescent lights as if a group of fireflies hovered on the tentacle. It was so bright that it almost drowned out the starlight in the sky.

Under the illumination of the fluorescent light, Hao Ren saw large patches of vegetation sprouting around the tentacle. The lush forest grew and covered the scorched battlefield so rapidly that it completely defied common sense. In the middle of this forest, the protruding tentacle was also growing as its tip quickly forked with large leaves and vines hanging down. The dancing lights between the veins and the glows in the forest below formed a sight that looked extremely harmonious and beautiful.

The tentacle was gradually transformed into a towering tree reaching into the clouds.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Zorm sounded excited. “It is the new style I have developed! Does it look particularly beautiful? I found that the ecosystems in many parts of this planet are severely damaged, and there are too many holes to cover. So, I plan to get the planet a new theme.”

“It feels like the world tree coming straight out of fantasy novels,” the MDT commented. “Zorm, don’t tell me you are going to create some people with pointed ears, long legs and leaves as clothes on this planet. This planet has a registered intelligent race, mind you.”

“It sounds very cool but please don’t do it.” Hao Ren interrupted without waiting for Zorm to answer. “This place is already strange enough. I cannot imagine how it would look like when the Executors move into the forests that Zorm had grown.”

The MDT ran a little simulation. “It is nothing more than a bunch of AI robots living on the world tree in the elf’s style. They would study Druidism while developing technology to build up the planet, and the strange former dominator in the ground would wave its tentacle as it observes and gets funny. Yeah, it is going to be a beautiful sight.”

As the person who contributed to all of this, Hao Ren could only bury his face in his hand. “I cannot believe that if it comes to this.”

But in any case, Zorm looked really happy.

Zorm had an optimistic and cheerful personality, and he never complained about anything. But losing his body was one of the biggest regrets of this First Born. The Zormese was reborn through the lifeblood, and the ecosphere of Tannagost flourished. But as the gardener of life himself, Zorm found that he could only exist in the form of bits and bytes in a supercomputer and float in the cold and lifeless space, which was not a particularly happy ending anyway.

Now, he finally got a new body, which despite the severe damage and was tens of billions of light-years away and he had to rely on a set of antennas and transcoders to control this body, he was happy with it.

So, Hao Ren did not want to interfere with Zorm’s play on this planet. He trusted this kind-hearted and loyal son of the Goddess of Creation would handle everything fine and dandy just as he did in Tannagost. In time, he would return peace and prosperity to the war-ravaged planet.

Never mind that Zorm was making the planet look weird.

Zorm’s rapid-growing world tree had reached to the height of the clouds. It was still a skeleton with few branches and leaves, but in the eyes of the mortals, it was already a spectacular skyscraper. Hao Ren saw a circle of halo spreading out from the tip of the tree. It seemed to have formed a protective field around the forest. Just then, Zom’s voice came through the communicator again. “Aah!”

“What’s wrong?” Hao Ren asked casually.

“I have no idea what it is. I have heard voices coming from the deep universe since I grew the branches,” Zorm sounded confused. “And it is getting clearer and clearer.”

“You can hear that? What does it say?”

Zorm was silent for a moment as if he was trying to analyze the sound from space. Hao Ren noticed that all the branches and leaves on the world tree in the distance were fluttering slightly, just like antennas adjusting their direction. A moment later, the strange mimicking voice of Zorm came through the communicator.

“Turn off all spectrums! Turn off all spectrums! Whoever you are, just shut down all spectrums!”

“Where this full-spectrum communication channel comes from? That is freaking annoying! It cannot even block it!”

“God knows from where it comes! Anyone who can contact it, please ask it to shut up!”

“We are doomed! We are going to die. We do not even have a gun that works. If it catches up with us….”

“We are going to die! We are going to die…”

Hao Ren was dumbstruck. “What the heck is that?”

“I have no idea. That is what the conversations mean in translation,” said Zorm helplessly. “And these signals did not just appear. I already heard something when I projected my consciousness onto this planet.”

Hao Ren and the MDT exchanged a look—well, the MDT did not have a ‘look’ in the human sense, but it was Hao Ren who glanced at the PDA, looking confused. “Strangely, I have goddamn feeling that these signals have something to do with us.”

The MDT shook and said, “Maybe it was just broadcast that some civilization had accidentally sent into space thousands of years ago. This kind of thing is common.”

That being said, Hao Ren still felt that something was wrong. Under the influence of his demigod intuition, he looked around thoughtfully.

Suddenly, he saw a particularly bright star in the starry sky moving slowly.

It was the crystal resonant antenna in orbit.

Hao Ren’s heart missed a beat. “I think I know what happened.”

“Aah?” The MDT turned its head around—although it did not have a head, technically. “You do?”

Hao Ren did not answer. He instead talked into the communicator. “Zorm, can you trace the source of those sounds?”

“Holy moly!” Hao Ren’s voice that sounded suddenly stunned Zorm. But he quickly came to his senses. “It is difficult, but not impossible. My senses here are a little muted, but over at your side, it is better. I can sense the source of the voices is not too far from here.”

“Quickly trace the source before it goes silent. Can you make contact with the source?”

“That will be difficult. After all, I am just a tree.”

Where on earth has there been a tree like you?

“Okay, I got it.” Hao Ren waved his hand. “I will find Nolan and see if she can connect you to the resonant antenna.”