The Record of Unusual Creatures

Chapter 605: Divining Intentions

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

In the world created by the monster, it was doomsday and the earth and sky was coming apart.

Beneath Hao Ren's feet was a piece of land soaked in blood. Fissures started forming as under the violent quakes as poisonous steam broke through the surface. A endless storm blew as lightning and brimstone scorched the earth. A series of horrifying howl rang across the place and the sheer force alone could drive a man insane. After the storm subsided, the rain of brimstone became a full fledge storm as massive blocks of flaming rocks smashed against the ground, causing it to rupture in a burst of lava. Just as the spewing lava formed into a giant molten wolf. Hao Ren found himself in a desolate planet that was being torn part as countless of comets smashed against the land around him.

Various doomsday scenes played around him, and it changed wildly without any rhythm, almost as if the scenes were drawn from human's impression of what an apocalypse would look like. Each and every scene was bone chilling at their own right, and within the visions of doom countless of bizzare and horrifying scenes played out: like giant flaming corpse ravaging the land. This was almost like the depiction of hell in some religious stories, but the difference is that the depiction of hell was too scare people away from sinning, while this was clearly a defensive mechanism against an intruder.

Hao Ren stood before a soon to erupt volcano and before him was a wave of scorching toxic steam and brimstone. Truth be told, it was rather scary but his mental resistance had been bolstered by the psychic screen and his experience so far had prepared him to at least not fall apart under such an onslaught. He looked up to the sky and roared at the invisible person pulling this stunt. "Aren't you bored by now? If you really want me to stay away, in the future then answer my questions!"

A mocking roar came in reply from the skies as the volcano burst into life. The burning volcanic ashes then turned into a rain of piercing blades.

"You should be well aware now that your powers are weakened by the crystals. Your illusions won't hurt me, and my resistance is even higher than yours." Hao Ren said as he sat cross-legged on the ground, letting the blades sink into him. "It's the reverse now, its now my psyche is invading yours. Your attempts at a stand off will just bore both of us. I cannot peer into your conciousness, but can you at least talk to me? I believe you are able of understanding human language and psyche."

Another thunderous roar came from the depths of the earth as rainfall replaced the volcanic smog and completely blocked out Hao Ren's vision.

It was the same as the last few attempts when Hao Ren tried to forcibly connect with the brain, all his attempts were thwarted by the falling rain as the monster would not respond to him any further. All the visions of catastrophe and the howls of terror had ceased, and in their place, an endless rain that kept pouring and pouring, until Hao Ren gave up.

But Hao Ren still wanted to give it a try. He knew that the monster would never relinquish its hostility towards him, and had never carried hope that the monster would actually 'sit down and talk'. He only wanted the monster to show its true face, even just a word, even if just a curse, he could use it to track the monster's mental activity. Yet the monster seems to be vary of this and had yet to raise to the bait.

Hao Ren sat in the middle of the rain, and looked like he was talking to himself. "You know, I've seen many many races and species, some even more curious than you, I've seen a living, breathing, thinking Mimosa plant. You're nothing special, just simply throwing visions of death is not enough to make you special. You are no different than a slug in my eyes, just a slug with some secrets...."

The rain kept on pouring.

"Why are you so hostile to the other races? Let me rephrase that, why bring death and destruction where ever you go? Your kin had messed about with the peole of Holetta, you had brought chaos to the Sirens, you even sought to sow discord amongst the supernaturals on earth... What are you trying to achieve?"

The rain still poured, but it had gradually turned rain, almost like it was raining blood.

"What are you to a First Born? Oh, you may not call them that, but you know what I mean. I'm pretty sure that you and the First Borns are not the same type of creatures. But there's a niggling thought within me that you two are interrelated. Both of you work the same way.... and harbours the same hatred to all things living. Are you distant relatives?"

The rain had now turned into a fullfledge bloodstorm, and the vicious roars thundered again.

Hao Ren was surprised, and elated that he somehow had managed to elicit a reaction from the monster.

"Ah, seems like you're pretty sensitive about this topic. Maybe we can go further." Hao Ren raised his hand to collect some of the rain water. It was as red as blood, with some suspiciously similar stickiness to it. "This reminds me of the lifeblood. The Disciples of Glory believed that the lifeblood is the Goddess' own blood and with it they are made whole. Despite them not having seen the Goddess before, yet they spoke her words with conviction. So lets talk about the Goddess of Creation? The one had gave life...."

Before he could finish however, another thunderous crack shattered the skies as Hao Ren felt an uncontrollable rage and hostility was coming from all directions towards him. The ravenous energies had perhaps collided the defensive crystal's suppression effects, as Hao Ren felt his mental state being shaken. Within the violent explosions, he could make out a violent roar, "....Treacherous child... you DARE speak of Mother?"

The land then came apart.

Great chasms formed in the hundreds as the entire land buckled, as if the plain was build with a layer of thin rocks above the abyss. Now the entire surface was collapsing inwards as everything was swallowed by the swirling void.

A overwhelming sense of falling descended upon Hao Ren as he felt his conciousness was just about to leave the place. Just before he fully woke, he looked down and saw a faint glow in the abyss.

There were nothing in the light, but it was warm.

Hao Ren opened his eyes abruptly as he stood in the laboratory. Before him was the floating brain within the sealing container. The latter has floating there without any movement, but there is still an undiguised, unbridled hatred coming from the monster.

"It kicked me out again." Hao Ren took a deep breath, "This is the fourth time."

"Seems like you managed to stay connected for a few seconds longer." Wuyue gave Hao Ren a curious look. "Any luck?"

Hao Ren scratched his head. "Just a sentence, and an unknown light. The moment I spoke about the Goddess the monster was instantly enraged and destroyed the virtual world it had created. It seems to call the Goddess 'Mother', and it called me a treacherous child... I think it may have mistaken me for the Second Born in the Plane of Dreams."

"Treacherous child? So was this about the Second Born's betrayal of the Goddess?" Wuyue's tailed swung about. "Didn't we cleared that up? Holetta's apocalypse was caused by the First Born, and had nothing to do with the experiments of the Mage-Emperors no?"

Hao Ren frowned as he ran through his thought before something struck him. "May be the Second Born are not just limited to Holetta!"

"Uh.... aside from that?" Wuyue too scratched her head. "What about the light?"

"Beats me. It seems like it is in the conciousness of the monster but it was not making it easy to discern what it is. I only felt a very warm and peaceful aura from it... Maybe it's some ancient memory, before the Goddess' fall... Ugh.... I have no idea."

Hao Ren and Wuyue continued to talk about the scenes that appeared in the monster's mind before setting a transcriber to record all of the images. Hao Ren hoped he could catch something that he had missed by going through the images again. But all of it were merely visions of doom, and nothing particular stood out.

Seems like the monster's outer conciousness does not contain that much secrets.

Hao Ren could only sigh as he reviewed the pictures again "The real body is really much stronger than its clones and its defenses against memory reading is really high. Looks like we still have a long way to go before..."

As Hao Ren was just about to finish, the MDT spoke. "The last warp jump is in two minutes. We will arrive in Io soon."

"Lets get back to the bridge." Hao Ren shook his head. "We'll leave the brain monster for later."