The Record of Unusual Creatures

Standing on a space fortress of thousands of kilometers long, Hao Ren watched as the anti-air artillery fired at the continent, which began to shake, break apart, and roll. A fragment broke away from the mainland after an explosion. He was in that breakaway piece, which started to fall toward the planet in a spinning motion. While this happened, the falling piece had to endure the continuous artillery fire and the impact force when it crashed through the planetary shield. The fragment further broke into three when it entered the atmosphere. The largest chunk, on which Hao Ren was, fell quickly toward the surface under the pull of the planetary gravity. On the monitor, the surface filled with lava and toxic pools rapidly drew closer.

What an exciting experience.

Hao Ren had run a thousand calculations and simulations beforehand, but it turned out that even with the processing power of the MDT, he could not fully anticipate what would happen during the landing. When the southern island was separated from Naqdal Continent, its trajectory was slightly off course. It did not hit the most fragile part of the Amantir shield. As a result, the impact force, which was higher than expected, became a massive challenge to the ‘landing unit.’

But Hao Ren struck it lucky; both the inertial suppressor of the landing unit and the occupants survived.

Lily’s hair had puffed up since the beginning of the fall. She screamed and grabbed her tail frantically. Nangong Wuyue knocked out her brother with her tail before the landing unit hit the shield. Rollie cried ‘Big Boss Cat, you must be having other cats outside and now be taking this opportunity to get rid of me.’

But at the very least, the three of them did not throw up.

Hao Ren was keeping calm the whole time. He even applied the mind control and conditioning techniques that he had read in the manual to ensure that someone was there to monitor the entire falling process. While the outside world was spinning around them and the inertia suppressor and the force field stabilizers were blaring their alarms, Hao Ren had to make sure that the landing unit did not receive ‘special care’ from the enemy’s artillery fire and excessive radar lock-on. So far, he had gotten to first base.

Everything around Hao Ren was shaking like hell, but he was calm knowing that it was safe.

The landing unit passed through the dark-red atmosphere of Amantir, over the net of air defense fire of the festered, and finally crashed with a spectacular fashion. The crash-landing was ‘complimented’ with an impact crater.

The space object was only a fragment of the small space island at the south of the Naqdal fortress, but it was still as large as a hill after it fell onto the surface. It silently lay in the crater on Amantir, the planet infested with the evil power of the festered. The energy released from the impact had vaporized the rocks in the surrounding with vapor still rising from the crater.

Lily and Rollie finally calmed down. The two maidens with puffed-up hair looked around in horror. It took them quite a while to smooth down their hair. “Mr. Landlord, have we landed?” Lily was the first to ask.

Rollie followed suit, albeit she was still in shock. “Big Boss Cat, I confess I stole the biscuit from your bed.”

Everyone unstrapped. Hao Ren checked the situation on the outside through the external cameras. He exhaled. “Phew! We crash-landed safely on Amantir. We are now stepping on— Err, wait. We are now upside down. The landing unit rolled too much during the crash-landing.”

“Upside down?” Nangong said curiously as she unstrapped herself. “But I do not feel it. The direction of the gravity is normal.”

“Of course, you cannot feel it. The artificial gravity in the command station is still working.” Hao Ren glanced at the instrument panels. His brows knitted together. “But this part of the system has become useless after entering the planetary gravity field. So not much protection was accorded to it. Now, it is about to stop.”

“How much time left?” Lily asked.

“Three…”

Lily was shocked. “Only three hours? Let’s get the hell out—”

“Two, one…”

“Damn you, Mr. Landlord….”

“Oh, sh*t!”

“Couldn’t you tell us earlier—”

“Meow, meow, meow?”

The artificial gravity system shut down, and everyone except two suddenly dropped like flies. Vivian, who was born to fly, had spread out her wings in the air; Nangong Wuyue had tied herself in the seat since the start of the fall and now still sitting upside down—what a blessing in disguise.

Rollie was lucky too. After all, like a cat, she landed on all four. It would have been a perfect landing had she not accidentally stepped on Lily’s tail.

A bunch of weirdoes got up from the ceiling, awkwardly. No one kicked up a fuss except Lily bemoaning the puffed-up hair of her big tail. Those who were here had worse experiences and naturally knew the priorities.

It was the collective wisdom that made this bold and crazy plan a success. Compared to the possible incoming attack of the Mad Lord minions, this little setback was nothing.

“We must first confirm out landing location,” Vivian gracefully descended from the air and helped Hao Ren with his messy clothes and hair. “Firstly, check if we are in the target area, and then confirm whether the landing unit is alright; we need to contact Salaman.”

The MDT was connected to the different subsystems of the landing unit since the beginning. So, it had an overall idea of the situation. “We suffered some impact during the fall. The inertia suppressor and the force field stabilizer have saved the core area, but the peripheral equipment is mostly damaged. Half of the radar system and the sensors are broken, but the main radar and antenna still work as they have independent shields. The output of the energy reactor is somewhat unstable; so, I have cut power to half of the redundant system. The computer system works as normal, and the shield is just fine.”

“That is already very good,” Hao Ren nodded, “much better than the worst-case scenario. What about the drop zone?”

“Thank goddess, we landed within the target range. The landing unit made an emergency change of trajectory when we ejected the two bait targets. Now, we are only two kilometers away from the ideal landing spot. We have not found any large-scale defense facility of the festered nearby, but there is small-scale chaotic energy detected. It must be the patrol forces. Some of them are moving closer to us but not fast. They will take at least three hours to get here.”

“It looks like we have successfully fooled them just as planned,” Y’zaks said with a sly smile.

He patted hard on Hao Ren’s shoulder. “I cannot believe that your crazy idea has indeed worked.”

Y’zaks was pretty heavy-handed; Hao Ren’s mouth twitched from the pain, but he was too flattered to protest. “Well, I know what I was doing.”

It was a whimsical, simple and crude plan, but it worked in evading the detection of the Amantir forces by crawling under the nose of the enemy.

Open attack or disguise techniques would not be possible because Amantir’s security system would detect and destroy all non-festered targets. But what if it was the ‘wreck’ that the festered shot down?

Apparently, the festered would not be suspicious.

Staging a wave of attacks with coordinated and interlocking paces, the intelligence that Salaman provided had enabled them to attack at the right spot at the right time. They wrapped up the attack with the Naqdal taking the hit of the so-called Fury of Amantir firepower so that they could drop a fragment of the fortress onto the base camp of the festered army.

The southern island of Naqdal was designed to break away in the explosion. The explosives buried in the connecting bridge had simulated the explosion caused by artillery fire. Everything was staged.

The so-called landing unit had a protective force field that protected the core—most importantly, the occupants—during the fall in the Amantir atmosphere. It also had several layers of barrier that shielded the core energy reactor from being detected. Otherwise, even the fool would know that something was wrong if the commander of the festered army discovered the broken fragment had regulated and robust energy.

Now, the landing plan had come to the final stage, and everything was still going smoothly according to the script.

The MDT fiddled around. After a while, it had set up a secret communication channel. This special channel encrypted using Xi Ling’s technology would let the crew in the landing unit and Salaman contact each other discreetly.

Hao Ren had sent a message. “The Best Actor has landed on Amantir, in the hilly area 20 kilometers south of the great fissure, and we are ready to leave the ship.”

“Roget that.” Salaman’s voice was somewhat distorted in the communicator. “Be safe. We will begin to retreat as planned.”

Hanging up the communication, Hao Ren looked at the scene above the sky displayed on the monitor.

Above the dark-red clouds, the flashes from the battle were subsiding, and the vaguely visible silver-white and black swarms of battleships were slowly retreating. It was the last part of the ‘script’ in which the Naqdal fortress received a ‘devastating blow,’ and the Guardian Legion and the drone group ‘fled.’

Their retreating was to give Hao Ren and his team the best cover.

“Let’s get out of here.” Hao Ren motioned with his hand. “The monsters will be here soon.”

The landing unit might have evaded the suspicion of the enemy by disguising itself as a wreck, but the festered would surely send someone to check out the wreckage. After all, a massive chunk of space debris had punctured the planetary shield and hit the surface.

So, before leaving, Hao Ren had to do something to the landing unit.