The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren had heard of Longwind Mountains when he was scouting for Dragon Empire’s details. This was a very short mountain range, near the south of the empire bordering the Black Forest and the Broken Shores, the Broken Shores was a narrow strait that connected with the World Scar, and was a natural border of the Empire. The Longwind Mountains starts from the Broken Shores and extends a few hundred kilometers deep into the empire before plateauing, becoming part of the southern ridges.

This short mountain range was not eye-catching within the empire, but it was still rather famous as it was an obvious border of the Black Forest, and south of the range was a vast and populous area, while further north it was the endless Black Forest, and the unusual life energies of the Black Forest had allows giant trees to spread and grow until half of the north side of the mountain range, and stopped at the place called the ‘Razor’s Edge’.

The elves who were obsessed with the secrets of the Black Forest were intrigued by this, and had excavated some of the rocks on the north side of Longwind Mountain to investigate, and they soon realized that the rocks had some magical properties that could disrupt the life energies of the Black Forest, and they had carved runes into the rock and created a special type of runic bricks in the process. The bricks on the Verdant Barrier of Greenway came from that.

But that was story hundreds of years ago.

As the elves had excavated a massive about of rocks to create the runic bricks, plus the Black Forest itself was not a stable area, the Razor’s Edge had suffered two massive tectonic shifts in the past few hundred years, and that shifts caused the mountain to suffer multiple serious collapses under the weight of the Black Forest’s infestation, and was reduced into a natural hazard that was difficult for normal people to pass through. Even the elves who were accustomed to moving through mountains and woods had to tread lightly there, plus the northern side of the Longwind Mountains were directly connected to the ‘Woods of the Lost’ within the Black Forest. And without the marked pathways,it was an area that normal humans will simply get lost within, so normally people would avoid entering the forest there, and naturally there were no imperial outposts there either.

And in truth, aside from the already discovered entrance connected to the pathways, the imperial army had not bothered setting up outposts along the vast forest. As aside from the pathway within the woods, and the nearby roads, entering the forest from any other places meant death, so any outposts were unnecessary.

Hence, upon hearing what Graeme said, Hao Ren was curious, “You went over the Longwind Mountains? How did you do that? Aren’t you afraid of getting lost within the Woods of the Lost?

“For us Broken Blades, the Longwind Mountains is nothing,” Graeme smiled, “Simply climb up the mountain, and jump off the cliff facing the forest. As for getting lost within the Woods of the Lost… Don’t you know? The Broken Blades will never get lost in the Black Forest.”

As they heard that Hao Ren and his team looked at each other.

“So you mean that the Broken Blades could walk in and out of the Black Forest freely, right.” Vivian looked at Graeme in the eyes, “And that means… you are walking on the ‘forest path’ that normal people cannot see, and that path is the correct… path.”

Graeme nodded slightly and as he looked at Hao Ren and his team, his expression changed so ever slightly again, “I thought you’d know about this… as you are like me, able to enter this lost kingdom.”

Rheia blinked as she gave Graeme an intrigued look, “So you guys call this place the Lost Kingdom huh. Interesting… Seems like you are not affected by the phantoms in the Black Forest.”

Hao Ren then took over, “We are actually from an organization that is hidden away from the world and have a unique way to move around in the Black Forest, but as we were isolated from the world, we are pretty much clueless about many things of the outside world and are not even sure of the Broken Blades. In fact, we had only heard of your order from our friends here.”

As he said he pointed towards Charlemagne and Awenna.

“The Basilica of the World Tree,” Charlemagne nodded. “That’s the name of their organization. Me and my sister were fortuitously saved by them, so we are now traveling together.”

“I have never heard of that,” Graeme shook his head, “But that doesn’t matter. There are secrets in the world that we will not know, especially when the world is broken in two. Regardless, you have saved my life, and as long as it does not go against my oath, I will help you out, if you need my help.”

Of course, his help was needed. Being able to gain information from a Knight of the Broken Blade was the biggest possible help they could get, but it was not something Hao Ren could ask straight away, so he shifted the topic to what happened after Graeme had entered the forest. “Our matters aside, what happened to you and your comrades? Don’t tell me you were attacked after entering the Black Forest?”

Based on what Graeme had said, he and a few other Broken Blades had entered the Black Forest together, and that meant they had already escaped the imperial soldiers and Ebon Blades’ pursuit, but now he was alone, and heavily wounded in the ruins of the ‘lost kingdom’ and his comrades were nowhere to be found. Plus only part of the damage on his armor were caused by the black chainswords, and the other damage were clearly did not originate from a bladed weapon. And that only meant something: Graeme and his fellow knights were attacked by something else after entering the Black Forest.

Graeme hesitated a little bit upon hearing the question, but he still answered, “We had ran into the Gorgonian Demons.”

“The Gorgonian Demons?” Charlemagne was taken aback, “Here, in the Black Forest?”

“Yes, while it is difficult to comprehend, but it is true,” Graeme sighed softly, “We had planned to go through the forest’s heart up north, but when we were nearing the north of the forest we were attacked by the Gorgonian Demons, and it was a Lord class Gorgon, my comrades and I were caught unaware and by the end of the fight only I managed to escape alive, but the moment I got here I lost my consciousness, and by the time I woke up… I met you people.”

Hao Ren and the rest looked at each other as Lily asked Awenna who was by her side, “What is… that Gorgonian Demon thing?”

“You don’t know that?” Awenna blinked in surprise but still went ahead with the explanation, “In the north of this world, there is a dimensional rift right across the World’s Scar, and we call the area behind the rift the Gorgon Abyss. The Gorgon Abyss is a scorched wasteland, and there are many ruined and twisted giant rocks here, and the Gorgonian Demons live in that wasteland. They have bodies made out of metal and rock, covered in lightning and fire, even the weakest of the Gorgonian Demons could easily match hundreds of normal soldiers.”

“And while the Gorgon Abyss is open, only a few Demons will enter this world directly through it, this is a rare consolation,” Charlemagne continued, “That aside, while the abyss is directly across the World Scar, it is not right in the center, and most of it is within the Empire’s borders, while only a small part is extended into the White City Federation on the eastern hemisphere. The Kingdom of Izzo had built many ‘sentry fortresses’ to monitor and defend against the occasional incursions, while on the empire’s side…”

Graeme took over before Charlemagne could complete his sentence, “That is the series of fortresses built by the Army of the North, and the Knights of the Broken Blade under the leadership of Princess Constance too helped with the defense. And in fact, the last challenge to be a Knight of the Broken Blade is to kill a low level Gorgonian Demon barehanded, and only after passing this test, we officially graduate from a knight-in-training and gain the right to go around the country and perform missions.”

Hao Ren nodded, and at the same time compared the information from the probes. The probes had indeed detected an unstable dimensional rift north of L’Haronne, but as this planet was once enveloped by divine power and recreated, there were many unstable dimensional rifts and unique energy blast points, and so he never paid much attention to that, and never expected that the dimensional distortion north of the planet was such a special place.

But upon mentioning the north of the empire, he suddenly remembered something, “Wait up, Graeme you said that the empire’s Army of the North is in charge of guarding the Gorgon Abyss? And that means the six northern provinces right? Now they had gone south with Princess Constance’s rebellion, what about the fortresses?”

Lily too realized something was of, “Could it be that because no one was guarding the northern fortresses that the Gorgonian Demons had escaped and made their way to the Black Forest?”

Hao Ren nodded as he listened to what Lily had to say, and thought to himself if that was the case, the Princess had pretty much thrown everyone under the bus with her rebellion. The Army of the North was meant to guard the Gorgon Abyss, and now they had followed the princess ‘uprising army’ down south against the imperial army and the Knights of the Ebon Blade, what of the monsters that escaped from the abyss? They were allowed to run amok just like that?

No… the princess would not do something that foolish.

And just as expected, Graeme immediately shook his head, “Her highness would not be so fatalistic, and she had already considered the issues with the defense of the northern fortresses before even moving the army south. Based on what I know, she had used a special measure to temporarily stabilize the abyss, and it will last for at least two years…”

“She could stabilize the Gorgon Abyss?” Charlemagne’s expression was exactly like when one heard an outlandish tale, but seeing how open the Broken Blade knight was, he had to trust him. “Alright, even if it is real, the Gorgonian Demons appearing in the Black Forest… is not a good sign.”

Even Graeme was concerned, as his brows furrowed repeatedly, “That’s why I need to quickly go back north, and understand what is going one, but there is a Lord class Gorgon in the north of the forest, and we do not know if there are any other Demons lurking in the forest, this is…”

“Then come along with us,” Hao Ren interrupted Graeme with a smile, “You can lead us on your original path, and I would like to see what a Gorgonian Demon actually looks like.”

Graeme was shocked as he stared at Hao Ren, “What? You know that there’s a Demon there and you still want to ‘see’ it?”

“It can’t be helped,” Vivian sighed, “We are heading north too.”