The Record of Unusual Creatures

“To tell you the truth, I’m a little surprised that she managed to come up with this wild idea of eating her splits.” Raven 12345 peered at Vivian and sounded as if she was in awe. “But, don’t worry, split bodies are just that—split bodies; they aren’t as stable as the noumenon, and they’ll lose their self-awareness after some time. The fragmented soul will not interfere with Vivian’s mind. Of course, a little extra memory may have a short-term impact on her life.”

Vivian nodded immediately. “A bit. I was having this dream about my life for the first few days on the planet Inferno. It was the memory of ten thousand years ago. Sometimes, when I woke up, I had to beat my brains out trying to figure whether I should cook or go out there maintaining the world peace.”

Hao Ren tensed up. “What about now?”

“I’m fine now.” Vivian shook her head. “The confusion lasted only a few days.”

Hao Ren let out a sigh of relief, and then scratched his jaw staring at Vivian’s splits with a thoughtful expression. He knew that these were irrational evil spirits and madder than the ‘ancestor of evil spirits’ in the planet Inferno. If released, they would bite indiscriminately, just like the red-haired Vivian from the magic book. Hao Ren wondered why Raven 12345 was keeping the evil spirits here.

“You don’t collect these splits for fun, do you?” Hao Ren slid a glance at Raven 12345. “Are they of any uses? ​​Or you are planning to put them together and make a chimera-version of Vivian?”

Vivian forced a smile. “Now I feel incredible of myself.”

“I have been studying what these splits mean,” Raven 12345 said, pointing at the crystal containers. “Though I still couldn’t figure out what kind of existence these guys are, by categorizing their power I’ve found that each split represents a negative attribute. You can take a look at them; each of them has a tag.”

Hao Ren came up to the crystal containers and took a walk around curiously. Sure enough, he saw a tag in front of every crystal container and word every tag. He read it from left to right, “Rage. **. Fear. Rot. Plague. I suppose the empty one is the first evil spirit that we killed last time? She represents ‘death’?”

“Yup.” Raven 12345 crossed his hands over her chest. “Rage and fear are usually negative mental forces; rot and plague could cause great damage to living things. ** is a fascinating ability. I didn’t find any obvious manifestation when I tested it, and I thought it was a harmless individual at first, but soon I found that she could drain your energy by dozens or even hundreds of times when you use your power. It doesn’t affect me though it could be fatal to others. Then there is ‘death’ with which you are familiar. Vivian, you should have already mastered this skill though not as powerful as the original.”

“These negative forces came from me?” Vivian was wide-eyed. “I don’t remember that I have had these powers. I didn’t have so many evil skills even when I was at my peak.”

Raven 12345 made a snap and said, “Let’s change your way of thinking. Once these negative energies emerge in your body, some protection mechanisms will start and discard these negative energies as ‘splits.’ The root cause of your split may be due to an unstable soul, which could produce some impurities, and these impurities eventually form the evil spirits. Whoa! What a perfect chain theory.”

“Continuously generating negative forces, and then rejecting these negative forces as splits. I feel weird that it happens to me.” Vivian stuck out her tongue. “That being said, my every split represents an attribute? Then what is my attribute?”

Hao Ren and Raven 12345 said in unison, “Probably ‘poor.'”

Vivian could not help rolling her eyes.

“This is not important,” Hao Ren hemmed and steered away from the topic. He then looked at Raven. “The problem is that even if your theory is correct, you still can’t explain where the negative forces of Vivian come on. She couldn’t possibly produce them out of thin air. How could a sunshine vampire divide so many eerie splits out of herself?”

Hao Ren seemed to have mentioned the key unwittingly. Raven 12345 was silent after for a while before she said, “The answer may lie deep within her, in the deepest part of all her memories, when she first came to the surface world, or even earlier than that, before her first split, there should be the root of her negative forces. But external forces are difficult to intervene. I have designed several programs, but none are safe.”

Hao Ren always thought that Raven 12345 was omnipotent, but hearing what she said, he was curious. “Unsafe? Why?”

“Because I couldn’t determine the attribute of the ‘root.’ Vivian’s soul is akin to a complicated black box; you don’t know what’s in there before you activate it. If the ‘core’ that produces negative forces is out of control, can you imagine the consequences?” Raven 12345 pouted at the crystal containers. “She may become one of them, or devoid of rationality and constantly releasing the evil spirits.”

In the all-year-round spring weather of the heaven, Hao Ren felt a chill suddenly ran up his spine. Vivian also felt the same, but she was calmer than Hao Ren was. “At least now it seems fine,” she said.

“You have been through this for ten thousand years, isn’t it?” Raven 12345 let out a subtle smile, which was having a magical effect at letting Vivian and Hao Ren feel at ease. “Since the evil spirits that you split up are all negative, it means that you must have some ‘detox’ mechanism in your body. This mechanism could ensure your safety. Before you split the next time, I can find you a safe solution. Don’t underestimate my research ability. It’s just that sometimes it’s not time yet, not that I have no ideas.”

Hao Ren and Vivian breathed a sigh of relief. The mood swings had them catching their breath. Then something came to Hao Ren’s mind. “Is the lifeblood I collected from the planet Inferno still here?”

After killing the evil spirit from the magic book, it became the pool of dead lifeblood, and Hao Ren gave the thing to Raven 12345 as a sample. When the super-giant Vivian of Inferno died and turned into a pile of blood-colored crystals, the evil spirit in the center of the seal was completely absorbed without leaving a trace. Wondering what specimen he should collect, he merely took back some crystal stones that came off the demon-god Vivian and the lifeblood near the giant organ. He had handed the specimens to Raven 12345 a few days ago, but he did not see the crystal container that corresponded to the demon-god Vivian.

“Those specimens are just ordinary blood,” Raven 12345 shook his head. “The primary split in Inferno appeared to be special; she left no residue of herself behind. She must be either purely a spiritual body, or a complete hybrid body of the First Born and her that formed in the span of ten thousand years. Anyway, I already have more than twenty specimens here, having one less if of no difference.”

“Where did you collect all these splits from?” Hao Ren asked curiously. “When you first parachuted into your position in this universe, Vivian should already have split for several times. Did you go and pick them out one by one?”

“Yup, from all over the world.” Raven 12345 rolled her eyes. “It took me a while and some elbow grease, as many of them were sealed in some far corners of the world. There was once I found the wrong grave and dug up Vivian who was soundly asleep in the grave. I was like oh gosh and quickly buried her back. Of course, Vivian, you had no idea; I was cautious.”

Raven 12345 was not always as serious as she was today. But at last, it turned out that her seriousness was short-lived when the conversation quickly turned comical. Cold sweat started to trickle down their forehead, and the expression on Vivian’s face was like a kaleidoscope.