The Record of Unusual Creatures

The Black Forest.

Sky-scraping trees blotted out the sun as thick vines and growths formed layers of walls. The life cycle in this land was like an enclosed energy field as it cut off everything from the outside world. Once they had stepped into this mysterious woods, everyone felt like they had stepped into another world altogether.

And this was not them feeling things.

“Fog?” As the vehicles slowed down and entered a stable drive that Lily dared to look back. What she saw was only a mysterious thick fog, and this thick fog was all around the woods like a thick, viscous gray liquid as the fog slowly drifted about between the trees. The silhouette of the Verdant Barrier was no longer visible, and you need to remember that that barrier was visible even kilometers away.

But there was nothing aside from a very ominous mist behind them.

“Weird… the imperials are not pursuing us…” Charlemagne realized something was off after calming down. “This is not right, they would not have let up that easily…”

Vivian looked at the prince, “Regardless, we can be sure who was after your lives.”

“The Knights of the Ebon Blade answers directly to the emperor, so aside from him, no one can command them.” Hao Ren took over, “And seeing their ‘kill everyone and everything’ look earlier, they were clearly aware of your identities, and were under orders to kill you two. Who of you actually offended that emperor?”

“I don’t know,” Charlemagne was direct in his reply. “Frankly speaking, ever since we came to Dragon everything had already went beyond my expectations and control. Everything happening in this country had no precedence… I’m totally out of my depth in the information department now.”

Hao Ren pursed his lips as he looked at the other two caravans. The third caravan had changed form again and now the folded walls have yet to reform, and turned into a carriage with a ring of barricades on it. This allowed him to freely view his surroundings and he noticed the personal guards on the other two caravans were safe and the shields were working normally.

Once they realized that the caravan had a powerful shield on it the guards quickly hid themselves inside the shield, aside from the only one person who had poked his body out at the start of the battle was grazed by a spear thrust, all were safe and sound.

“I never thought that this carriage actually had such a powerful magical shield.” Awenna exclaimed in surprise, “Seems like all of you from the ‘Basilica of the World Tree’ have some really impressive skills with you.”

“We have always been hard on technology,” Hao Ren shrugged, “Now the key question is what do you plan to do to next? The Ebon Blades are after you, and the one who had given the order is surely that Dragon Soul Emperor Berentine, so the imperial city is definitely out of bounds. Are you still continuing your ‘secret emissary’ mission?”

In Hao Ren’s eyes, the developments so far meant that the Dragon Empire and the Kingdom of Izzo had broken all diplomatic relations. Regardless of what reason the Dragon Soul Emperor had to lay his hands on Charlemagne and his sister, trying to kill the royal family of a neighboring country meant war, and under this situation, the ‘secret emissary’ mission was pretty much meaningless.”

However, Awenna shook her head after a moment of silence. “No, we still need to complete our mission.”

“Hah?” Even Rheia, who was engrossed in her studies could not help but open her eyes this time around. “You’re joking, right? That Dragon Emperor is after your lives and you are still going to the imperial city to meet him?!”

“No, we will look for Princess Constance,” Awenna said with a serious tone. “We will head north past the imperial city, into the northern six provinces…”

Hao Ren was just about to open his mouth before Charlemagne spoke first, “Our apologies, our mission is very important. Of course, we do not have any right to ask you to come along with us. Us siblings have already been under much of your care throughout this journey and we really cannot ask for more, once we are out of the Black Forest we will go our own…”

“Wait a minute, I’m not even done talking,” Hao Ren immediately interrupted, “You are looking for the princess of the north right? No problem. It’s the same for us either way, so lets us all go north.”

This time it was Charlemagne’s turn to get stunned as he looked at Hao Ren, “Can… you do that? Weren’t you on a mission from the Basilica to look for the emperor in the imperial city?”

“Not really, what we need to do does not necessarily have to be with that Berentine, nor it is a priority to look for him.” Hao Ren smiled, “And sides, now I am actually really curious about Princess Constance, no lesser than the Dragon Soul Emperor himself… perhaps she could answer many of my questions.”

“Plus,” Vivian, with a deadpan voice added on the side, “With your strength and now exposed identity, you think you can make it to the northern six provinces in one piece without us?”

A flash of awkwardness appeared on Charlemagne’s face but he still nodded without a word, “Then… we will be in your care.”

“We are just cooperating,” Hao Ren guffawed before training his sights on the massive armored ‘corpse’ in the middle of the carriage. “Since there are no pursuers, let’s get down to understanding this Ebon Blade guy…”

As the topic went towards that direction, both Charlemagne and Awenna showed signs of fear and apprehension, the former was still collected but the former had already leap two steps backward, as she tried to pull some distance between her and the clearly dead ‘corpse’.

“Until now I still have no idea how did you kill this knight in a flash,” Charlemagne said, looking perplexed. “I have seen your other fighting styles, while your magic is bizarre, there was a rhythm and pattern to it, but this knight…”

“I did not even harm him,” Rheia slightly opened her eyes and she said in a lazy tone, “I just destroyed his sword, and he had been like that ever since.”

Charlemagne was stunned.

The battle scene earlier now replayed in Hao Ren’s mind: The Ebon Blade knight and two imperial soldiers had boarded the carriage to inspect the passengers, and suddenly came ten other knights with an overwhelming killing intent, and when the fighting broke out, Rheia quickly focused and the knight’s and the soldiers weapons aimed at her had disintegrated under a divine pressure, and while the soldiers were then taken out by Vivian and Lily, the Ebon Blade knight…

He did not receive any attack, and he just fell on his own, right after the chainsword turned to dust.

Lily, as the ever curious husky joined Hao Ren by the side of the corpse as she looked at the unharmed yet inert body. She started poking the corpse as she went, “Mr Landlord, Mr Landlord, could it be possible that we had wrecked his SSR gear so badly that he popped a vein and died?”

Hao Ren looked at the werehusky, “This forest may be a little hot, but surely your brain has not even that fried yet right?”

A menacing growl then started rumbling in Lily’s throat, “Grrr…wooooooo….”

Hao Ren simply ignored her and placed his hand on the side of the helmet as he tried to find a way to unfastened the armor. “Let me see how he look like… say this bloody thing is pretty tight-fitting, they surely need to open it up to eat right…”

As he grumbled he found the latch between the helmet and the visor and a clank later the black steel visor sprang open and a tiny slit appeared between the helmet and the visor.

Hao Ren then pulled out the visor.

And the face under the visor had everyone aghast.

Even Lily could not help but murmur, “I don’t think I want to have dinner tonight…”

The face underneath the visor was not a face a human was supposed to have. It was a completely mutated, overlapped and twisted face as all his facial features and muscle had melted away like wax into a terrifying visage and had cooled upon the collapsed face. The eyes were literally two sunken cavities, and there was a faint red light in it, while his mouth had already dissolved into a tiny slit. Seeing that Hao Ren was very sure of one thing: This group of Ebon Blade knights was probably not consuming food normally, at least not like how normal humans do…

Not only they did not eat, but they were also stopping everyone else from eating with that face of theirs.

Alright, it was not like they did it on purpose, it was Hao Ren who had taken the visor off.

“This is an Ebon Blade knight?!” Vivian tried to suppress her squeamishness and while the face was indeed hideous, this was not the first time she had encountered such an ugly face in the past ten thousand years so she quickly recovered. “Is this the product of biological re-engineering? Or a magic re-engineering? Are all elite warriors of the empire such freaks?”

“How can this be… it shouldn’t be…” Awenna frowned, and even if her face was pale, she still forcibly suppress her squeamishness and even started looking on inquisitively at the cause of the deformation of the knight’s face. “I had seen other Ebon Blade knights before, and their real looks too… they were no different from normal people…”

Hao Ren was puzzled, “The knights you had seen before were like normal humans?”

“Yes, the knights were but a special unit that’s all. They are at the core still human.” Awenna nodded. “They cannot be cooped up in the armor for every, and they will need to show their face somehow or another.”

Lily then rubbed her chin, “We probably ran into the ugliest one then…”

“Tell me if you actually believed what you just said,” Hao Ren rolled his eyes, “Regardless that is not a normal shape alright? No one that mutated could be commanding and fighting battles that well, even their eyes are nothing but a cavity!”

At that moment the MDT floated onto Hao Ren’s shoulder, “Compared to the mutation on the surface, this… biological being’s insides are even more terrifying.”

Awenna and Charlemagne curiously looked at the floating MDT. They were intrigued y this thingamajig for a long while now. A self-moving, and shockingly intelligent ‘magic doll’. This sort of skill was unheard of in the entirety of L’Haronne, even the elven smiths and rune mages would talk about such a thing but now there was a real example before them, how can they not be intrigued?

But now was not the time to inquire what sort of advanced tech the Basilica of the World Tree had, and the siblings quickly turned their attention to the MDT’s scanning report.

The MDT stopped before the Ebon Blade knight’s chest and ran a detailed scan for a while. It then had a clear answer, “This bugger is actually half-machine, and the other half could barely even qualify as biological.”