The Record of Unusual Creatures

This was the doggie’s furious charge. It was a trailblazing charge, an explosive charge with a side order of a singed tail–Lily’s tail had been lit up by one of the monster’s fireballs, and thankfully, her armor came equipped with a health monitor and an extinguisher unit. Or else, she would be sulking until next month.

All in all, it was a reckless charge.

A fully armed and armored Siegebreaker Lilymon rampaged across the burning flatland. Nothing could stand in her way as the CIWS on her back and shoulder armor sprayed lasers and plasma like it was nothing towards the roaming monsters. They blew a path of ruin in the sea of monsters, while those seemingly expanding rifts were nothing but a slightly wider ditch in the eyes of the speeding Lily who easily leaped past them. The group had taken two days to get from White Maple Leaf City to the Black Forest, but now, it would probably only take a few hours to get back at the rate that they were going.

This was a normal thing, as everyone was taking in the experience when they left. They rode on a horse with breaks in between, and they even followed the “normal human” pattern of hard riding towards their destination. However, at the moment, the return trip was to reinforce the battle. Lily, in her beast mode, was capable of breaking the speed of sound, and she took the shortest, straightest path between her and White Maple Leaf City as she charged headlong. Anything in between, be it mountains, forest or whatnot were simply blown apart by missile salvos without as much as a pause. It was almost ten times faster than when they came?

Hao Ren had considered that since the MDT’s teleportation could not be used, he would just get Nolan to pick them up, and at most, if Rheia were to start asking questions, he would just call himself a photo enthusiast from Alpha Centauri (this was one of the “special agent tricks” the work guidebook had mentioned, but it did not seem all that reliable). Seeing how fast Lily was going, he wondered that even if Nolan were to pick them up, they would not be any faster…

Of course, this was not only the reason he chose to get Lily to ferry the team across the flatland There was a reason why Hao Ren chose to charge through the ruined lands where the monster’s roam: He wanted to make sense of what the hell was going on with this sudden disaster.

Taking the ship back was obviously easy, yet the flatland were now teeming with monsters, and not making close contact with them was not possible.

Nangong Wuyue was trying to calm the agitated Rheia. “Sit tight and relax. Lily is very powerful in this form. We don’t have to worry about the monsters.”

Clearly the little mage concern was not that, she was flailing about on her seat and could not stay quiet. “I’m not worried about the monsters! I meant you guys! Where did you pull this from?! I heard before that werewolves can transform, but I never heard that a werewolf would pack such firepower after transforming!!”

It seemed like the werewolves could transform into giant wolves here, but none came equipped with a high-tech armor aside from Lily.

Nangong Sanba smiled, as he acted all mysteriously, “You’re not the only one who had dug out treasures from ancient ruins.”

“…I knew you guys were up to something!” Rheia immediately glared at Nangong Sanba, “Downtrodden adventurers looking for a job to cover expenses… You’ve had your eyes on me since the beginning, right? That’s because you’re looking for ancient ruins too, and that’s why you were looking for the greatest and the smartest scholar of ancient civilizations… and, ah, you’re planning to steal my inheritance too!”

“Wow, pipe down your imagination a little…” Nangong Sanba held his head, “Been playing the hero for so long now, how I wished I was playing the loser… I just said a sentence and here you are thinking about everything!”

Hao Ren ignored the raucous situation at the back seat and only looked down at the holographic projection before him.

The projection device was installed underneath the passenger seat, and the original idea was to be able to play DOTA while traveling on the doggie… but he had to say, he and the MDT were in a manic state while designing the armor, and most of the systems there were pretty much pointless.

Yet these pointless systems were coming in handy this time around.

The holographic display was showing many things, among them the analysis data of the flaming monsters, the energy fluctuation graph of the surroundings, and most importantly the earth layer analysis report. Lily’s chest armor had an integrated all-purpose detection radar, and the radar had collected the readings of the geological components of the land, and the rifts that Lily had leap across and the hidden structure hidden deep within the rift. These were all clearly visible in the scans.

“Notice anything?” Vivian noticed Hao Ren was focused on the geological scan report and asked.

“These rifts,” Hao Ren pointed at the projection. “These should not have existed. We had Nolan ran a rough scan of the geological structure of the area, and while not too detailed, we can confirm that there are no energy deposits underneath this area that is enough to cause such a rift. And there are also no inherent weak tectonic belts that could cause the lithosphere to crack apart. Yet here they are, and monsters are pouring out of them… All of this appeared out of thin air.”

“Impossible scientifically, perhaps magically?” Vivian did not put too much thought into this. “What if someone had used powerful magic to summon this? While such a powerful character should not exist in L’Haronne, it is still a possibility.”

“I’m not done yet,” Hao Ren shook his head with a smile. “I had turned up Lily radar’s strength up continuously to scan the deeper structure within the rift, until maximum output. Guess what I found in the process?”

Vivian gave Hao Ren a dissatisfied roll of the eye, “Can’t you just spit it out?”

Hao Ren grinned, “Every time I turn up the radar’s strength by a bit, the scanning area will increase, and there will be minute changes in the area previously scanned…”

“Ah?” Vivian could not process the thought for a moment, and by the time she caught Hao Ren’s point her eyes widened. “You mean to say that as the radar had detected more objects now, and there are changes to the previously detected objects? Doesn’t this mean…”

Hao Ren stopped Vivian immediately. He still remembered the rifts appearing just as he was about to come to a conclusion. “Don’t say it out. I still have something I need you to help me with.”

Vivian blinked with a blank expression, and after listening what Hao Ren had whispered into her ears her eyes widened. “Are you sure you want to do this? You are running a big risk here…”

“The Umbral Realm is a dangerous place, but it has a very unique trait that makes it safer than other locales in the Plane of Dreams.” Hao Ren said with confidence. “That’s because this place is not within the Plane of Dreams’ world barrier. Strictly speaking, it is a fragment hanging outside the barrier. That means whatever we do, it will not affect the Plane of Dreams.”

Vivian pondered for a bit before nodding. “I see… I understand now. But when you…”

“After we confirm one last thing when we get back.”

That was the end of their short exchange, and at that very moment, the great walls of White Maple Leaf City were on the horizon.

The city had just not too long ago stood gloriously as the ‘First City of the Flatland’ beneath the shadow of Longwind Peak, but now it was a war zone. Even when the monsters had only attacked for about half a day, it was enough to dye the entire city is smoke and soot.

The imposing white walls of the city were not yet breached, but there were pockmarks and scars left behind by the bombardment. The flatland outside the city had totally fallen under the control of the monsters as countless of the flaming monstrosities charged headlong towards the walls, leaving behind a trail of scorched earth. Before them were the magical barriers erected by the human defenders. Before the monsters had arrived, the mages on sentry duty had detected the rifts on the plains and had managed to get the garrison to deploy the barrier, saving countless lives within the city.

The monsters surged forward again and again, and time and time they were beaten back by the magic bolts, arrows, and rocks thrown from the top of the walls. When a monster had managed to break through the defense, they would self-destruct on the solid walls, using their most powerful attacks to damage the barrier. The barrier covering the wall could absorb most of the punishment directed at it, but this was not a total defense, part of the explosions that pierced through the barrier smashed directly against the rocks. These were the source of the blackened pockmarks on the city walls.

Worse still, White Maple Leaf City did not have a moat, and that allowed the monsters to attack the city from all directions, leaving the defending army to plug the gaps wherever needed.

This was the scene Hao Ren and the rest saw when they arrived.

Thankfully, the locals could still hold on, this was not only due to their sturdy walls and magical barriers, it was also thanks to the supporting droids and combat drones making it in time to provide aerial support.

The city guards did not know where these odd silver things came from, but they knew that these things were helping them to defend against the tide of monsters on the plains. In this situation of life and death, even the most chronic OCD sufferers would not be bothered with the identity of these mysterious outsiders. Questions and investigations can be done later, but before that, they would need to make sure they live past today.

Just as they were starting to accept the fact that a bunch of flying objects was helping them. The city guards were once again thrown into a furor as they saw a charging full-armored wolf (doggie) from the plains. The beast had just drawn too much attention.

With roaring cannons and blasting lasers, as the massive beast ran, a few kilometers around here were immediately turned into a death zone (and that radius could be larger but Lily had not unlocked the nuclear warhead safety). The L’Harroneans knew that powerful werewolves could transform into large beasts, and the “beast” coming from afar looked about 30% wolf, especially her eyes and tails, yet…

Werewolves did not have a doomsday weapon system strapped to their back when their transform!

“Hold fire, hold fire!” The commander on the wall roared with all his might, “Do not attack the giant wolf!”

“Sir! I think the question is whether if it will attack us or not!”

“Shut your gob!”

Within this short exchange, the guards noticed the giant wolf had crossed the vast battlefield as the bizarre weapons on her back wiped out every monster around her, it even shot out a massive light beam from its mouth as it looked back, annihilating at least half of her pursuers as it ran. Following that she rolled and tossed about, using her claws, chin, nose, and head as she entered a final breaking sequence, and finally came to a halt just before her head was going to crash against the wall.

Thank the gods that she had tried all sorts of methods to slow down before she slammed into the wall, or else the city wall which the monsters had only managed to scratch after a good part of the day would have a gaping hole torn into it by a silly blunder.