The Record of Unusual Creatures

As the carrier-sized behemoth exploded high up in the air, light and fire blasted out in all directions as thousands upon thousands of debris and wreckage crashed against the ground like a violent storm. The kinetic force of the falling debris was no weaker than a salvo of cannon fire, and within a few seconds, the entire forest was overwhelmed with waves upon waves of deafening crashes and the chained explosions. Within this literal storm, no one could see or hear anything, as if they were a tiny ship trapped within a tsunami.

But Rheia’s divine barrier’s resilience before such an impact proved that the Goddess’ education was not for naught. Even as the land beyond it was crumbling, the barrier itself did not waver, even when everyone inside was scared out of their wits, but for the veteran soldiers, being scared is better than being dead.

After everything had calmed down, the scorched land was a total mess, and aside from the small patch of land covered by the divine barrier, the entire area had sunk at least by two meters. The wreckage of the Gorgon Lord was scattered all over the massive craters, and still bore extreme temperatures and were no longer discernible. That strength of that self-destruction was indeed something to behold.

Perhaps this was one of its attacking protocols.

Lily was so shocked by the explosion that her ears and tail popped out, and she quickly kept them back before Charlemagne and the rest noticed. She then turned around to look for Hao Ren, “Mr Landlord sure went all out blowing this one apart… Say… where is he? Don’t tell me he got blown away alongside…”

Vivian glared at the doggo, “Shut up, if it is him and his setting, he can die a thousand sorts of death, but never one to be blown up by someone else.”

And just as if to confirm that theory, the moment Vivian’s voice trailed off, Hao Ren’s voice came from behind, “That’s right, still Vivian knows me best…”

Vivian immediately turned around as she worriedly checked on Hao Ren who had just walked out of the teleportation beam. “Are you alright? Why did it suddenly blow up? Was this part of your plan?”

“What plan? If I really wanted to blow it up did I need to go through all that trouble? I could just get Nolan to get it over and done with.” Hao Ren said as he coughed out a puff of black smoke. While he was not caught in the blast, he still inhaled quite a bit of the fumes that were drawn in by the teleportation portal. “It’s an accident. That thing is so darn irritable that it self-destructed the moment I touched it… But that’s okay, there’s two Gorgon Lords, Rheia will leave it….”

As Hao Ren spoke he turned towards the other bug-like Gorgon Lord on the other corner of the forest, and before he could finish his sentence, the Gorgon Lord suddenly lit up as crimson flames blasted out from its inside.

“…intact….” the words just came off Hao Ren’s mouth before he leap up in shock, “Why did that one blow up as well?!”

The Gorgon Lord’s self-destruction was akin to a battleship exploding at close range, and the already wounded lands were once again scarred by the falling debris and fire, And by the time the smoke and dust had subsided, Rheia can sheepishly appeared before Hao Ren.

“I don’t know what happened,” the tiny Goddess of Creation was clearly in an awkward situation. “I had just simply slapped it around for a bit, then it literally came apart…”

So she did not actually caused the Gorgon Lord to self-destruct, rather it was a failure on her part to control her powers?

Hao Ren sighed, “Aih… forget about it. Once you go back, finish up all of the questions after chapter three of Power Control…”

Rheia had a pitiful look on her face, but she recalled something and quickly added. “But I brought something out! While I don’t know what it is for, but I feel like it is very important!”

Hao Ren was taken aback, something which Rheia’s instinct told her was important?

“What’s what? Let me see.”

“This thing… its fixed in the central control room. I didn’t know how to take it apart, so I just cut it and its surrounding frame out,” Rheia said as she opened a dimensional gate and pulled that piece of metal wreckage that were clearly ripped out by force before Hao Ren. “Have a look, is it of any use?”

It was a half meter tall metal structure, and had a rather intact hemispherical argent body, there were many cables and support frames extending out of it. While it was given a rather unceremoniously harsh handling, the core structure was still intact.

Charlemagne and Awenna had only just calmed down from the shock earlier, and after they exchanged surprised glances at each other, they looked on in horror at the metal wreckage that Rheia had just tossed out. “This… is something from the insides of a Gorgon Lord?”

“Yes, even their stomach is made out of metal.” Hao Ren said as he excitedly squatted beside the wreck. The object that Rheia had brought out was a surprise find, as the MDT’s scan immediately detected some sort of storage device and reader in the object: This was the very storage device that Hao Ren was not able to find inside the ‘manta ray’. “Let me see… it seems intact on the outside, perhaps it can still be accessed! MDT!”

“Right, right, my life as a coolie…” the MDT grumbled as it flew over the metal wreckage, and established a temporary datalink with the latter. “Well, no choice I guess, I’m just that high-tech… Eh, this thing is quite interesting, let me see…”

Seeing the MDT analyzing the wreckage in the scorched battlefield, Awenna looked nervously towards the gloomy forest in the distance, “Are… are we doing that on the battlefield itself? Shouldn’t we look for somewhere hidden…”

“Doesn’t matter. After the Gorgon Lord’s death, all splits are practically useless, plus the battle earlier had chased away all nearby monsters, so this place will be safer than anywhere else.” Graeme’s voice came from the side as he looked curiously at the wreckage and the MDT above it, “What… is that?”

“You mean the brick, or the wreckage beneath it?” Hao Ren raised an eyebrow, “That brick is my personal equipment, but don’t you go calling it a brick, it has quite a temper. That wreckage is pried out directly from the insides of the Gorgon Lord.”

“An organ… from the insides of the Gorgon Lord?” Graeme had a bewildered expression. “I… have never seen anything like this before.”

Hao Ren too found that a little strange, “You lot have been fighting the Gorgonian Demons for so long now, and you had never managed to get a sample wreckage?”

“Most of the wandering demons are middle to low class units, and the Lord class demons will normally never leave their lair, and every time a Lord class demon invades, it will be a bloody battle.” Graeme frowned, “Even if we managed to take it down, it will self-destruct into oblivion, and the remaining wreckage are burnt beyond the point of recognition, so even in this long war, the samples that we had managed to get were very little. And today we have two Gorgon Lords fallen here, and that itself is an outlandish tale.”

“Seems to me these Gorgonian Demons are actually ancient weapons that had gone out of control, and the Basilica of the World Tree specialize in dealing with these sort of ‘legacy objects’.” Hao Ren shook his head, “But it’s difficult to explain to you now… MDT, any results?”

“Bloody hell, you even called me a brick just now. Can a brick help you do so many things!” The MDT went into a tirade as it flew into the air, and projected a series of corrupted data and broke images that cannot be deciphered, “Most of the data is corrupted, and the data storage gone, controller dead, program corrupted, so that’s why the Gorgons’ actions were so illogical. But after clearing out most of the scrap codes, I did manage to find something useful.”

Hao Ren’s eyes brightened, “What thing?”

“From the time of the log, this was probably the last external communication these Gorgons had received after going berserk.” the MDT said as it displayed the messages:

“…. is totally annihilated. The enemy is closing in on Star Fortress Teerk, the fortress will self-destruct at XXX… after that, you are the last soldiers standing.”

“… Glory to Emperor Tiamat, long live our people.”

It was only two pieces of incomplete, last words-like messages, and that caused Hao Ren to frown, “Just that?”

“Just that, better than nothing though,” Vivian quipped, “At least we know that the Gorgonian Demons are weapons from an ancient army that had gone out of control, and now we know that they once had an ‘Emperor Tiamat’.”

Hao Ren pursed his lips, and he looked at Charlemagne and Awenna without much hope. “I suppose both of you don’t know what this Emperor Tiamat actually means…”

But what surprised Hao Ren was Awenna’s reaction. “Ugh, actually… I had indeed heard of this name before…”

Hao Ren had not expected to gain any useful information from the latter, and was surprised. “…OH? You’ve heard of it before?”

“Yes, in the Royal Archives back in Izzo, there was an ancient elven tome of prophecy that was passed on generations to generations, it’s called ‘The Records of Origins’. It mentioned that the world had been destroyed 12 times before, and had undergone 12 rebirths, and the cause of the twelve cycles of destruction was an ancient among ancients, progenitor among progenitors, a tyrant named Tiamat. He had a mountain-like body, and his blood was made of molten bronze and lead. He was a being of fury since birth, and was destroyed by his own ferocity. With the last of his fury he had cursed the world with the12 most vicious of curses, and every curse will cause the world to be destroyed once…”

“Twelve times?” Hao Ren’s eyes were practically spinning as he heard Awenna’s explanation. “The book had written that?”

“Yes… Yes.” Awenna was shocked and her voice quivered. “The Records of Origins did put it like that, but while it is in the Royal Archives, but it is categorized as an ‘absurdity’, a work stemming from the primordial religion of the elven empire of yore, and it was seen as a book of ramblings and was not recognized by the scholars.”

“Is that so…” Hao Ren, of course, did not believe the last few sentences Awenna had said, but from that words, he could tell that even if there are records of the world’s ancient past like the Records of Origins in this world, they are probably all corrupted by time and legends, warping into nothing but outlandish stories where truth cannot be separated from fiction, and thus he did not have the interest to pursue the matter for now.