The Record of Unusual Creatures

The Crapple Research Station was not a pure research facility since its establishment. In fact, Hao Ren first defined the place as a ‘prison’. It was initially set up to lock up the two frantic First Borns dug up from Holletta. Although the focus of the space station had shifted more to scientific research and planetary surveillance, its function as a prison was still working.

Space station zone A was adjacent to vessel No.1. Inside it was a series of compartments with heavy security. These compartments could block any energy shock below divine power and weaken the resistance of any creatures in it. The AI and the sentry guns installed in the corridor of the quarantine zone were working round the clock, making it impossible for prisoners to escape.

This place was designed to hold the most dangerous creatures in the universe since the beginning, and today, Hao Ren had finally activated one of the cages.

The prisoner captured on Solenne was put into a cage by an autonomous robot. After confirming that all security devices had been activated, Hao Ren then remotely removed a large number of restraining devices from the prisoner. The prisoner fell to the ground, and he slowly woke up after the last chain left his body.

The prisoner awoke from a long sleep and was immediately surprised to find himself trapped in a strange place. He saw that he was surrounded by a hexagonal prism surrounded by a pale blue light wall. Above the prismatic cage was an endless light, while the bottom was a solid crystal ground. Looking further, he saw more than ten neatly-arranged cages. The crystal walls all around the place blocked him from looking further. The prisoner froze for a moment but soon realized that he had been caught.

Hao Ren was standing outside the cell, waiting for the prisoner to wake up. When he saw the prisoner was looking around, he coughed to draw the prisoner’s attention. “Ahem… We’re here.”

The prisoner turned his head and immediately showed his anger and hostility. He pounced on the seemingly fragile pale blue light wall, yelled angrily, “Let…”

“You want me to let you out, and then I say no, and you will get very angry,” Hao Ren interrupted.

The prisoner choked, and then raised his finger to Hao Ren and yelled, “You…”

Again, without waiting for the prisoner to finish his words, Hao Ren interrupted and said, “Then you’re going to say how dare I do this to you.”

The prisoner’s face was reddened with anger. “I…”

“Then you’re going to say, in what name will you punish me or judge me?”

“You…”

“And then you’ll say I humiliate you or insult the dignity of a warrior or something, but I don’t mean it.”

“Y-y-you…” The prisoner pointed at Hao Ren’s face. Probably this was the first time in his life communicating with someone like this so he was a little confused. And now, Hao Ren could only say, “I can’t guess this time.”

The prisoner finally got a chance to speak. “Can’t you let me speak first?” he shouted angrily.

Hao Ren did not need much negotiation skills to provoke a person. Even Y’zaks looked at Hao Ren with admiration and said, “I have a bunch of demon wardens who are good at interrogation and you can do better than them.”

“I didn’t really say much, I just guessed that’s all he wanted to say after he woke up,” said Hao Ren.

“Ha!” Y’zaks laughed and ignored Hao Ren then turned to the prisoner and asked, “What’s your name?”

The prisoner felt that he had been greatly insulted, so he did not feel like answering the question.

This was what Y’zaks expected, so he was not annoyed. “Do you know where you are?”

The prisoner gave Hao Ren and Y’zaks a defiant look and continued to remain silent.

Hao Ren walked to the light prism with a smile on his face, stopped at less than a meter away and asked, “Do you know why you’re brought here?”

The prisoner noticed where Hao Ren was standing. His eyes flickered towards it, and then suddenly pounced on Hao Ren and shouted, “The Promised Land…”

Hao Ren was purposely standing at this distance. He silently watched the prisoner rushed to him bravely, wanted to blow himself up, and then he asked slowly, “So, how’s it?”

After the prisoner shouting ‘The Promised Land’, he closed his eyes and waited for the explosion, but nothing happened. When he heard Hao Ren speaking, he opened his eyes in bewilderment and found himself still alive and well.

Lily came up and asked curiously, “Eh, why do you guys have to yell ‘The Promised Land is coming’ every time you’re going to explode? Is this your standard slogan?”

It turned out that the best way to crush a person’s confidence and grace was to hurt him when he felt best. It was a great humiliation for a warrior to be captured alive on the battlefield, and now, Hao Ren and Lily were making fun of him in the most glorious and heroic moment of his life, even a strong man could not take stand it. The prisoner’s fingers were trembling. He thought he had been greatly humiliated by a group of ‘mortals’, ‘low-lifes’, which made him even angrier.

“Thinking about suicide after being captured is not a smart move,” said Hao Ren. He did not mean to provoke the prisoner, he was just telling the truth. “This prison will block all your power, so you won’t be able to explode and kill yourself. And there’s surveillance here, so you’re not going to kill yourself in any other way. And don’t think about starting a hunger strike, because…”

Hao Ren pointed at the top of the cage, and some strange machines and pipes emerged from the light. “We can stun you, and then pump the food directly into your stomach with the pump gun. We’ve talked about all the ways to stop you from committing suicide, and have prepared seventy or eighty emergency rescue plans. So you’ll be held here until you are willing to cooperate.”

However, the only response Hao Ren got was the prisoner’s long silence and fury all over him. Lily saw it and said, “Oh, by the way, now the only way to kill yourself seems to be killing yourself with anger.”

It immediately reminded Hao Ren. “Oh yeah, it’s a loophole. Data terminal, play him some light music. Don’t annoy him to death.”

“Are you serious?” asked data terminal.

“Yes.”

The data terminal found it very funny, and then let the prison system start playing some light music.

Hao Ren asked the prisoner a few questions, and of course, he was now refusing to cooperate, so they soon left this place. After leaving the quarantine, Y’zaks looked back at the crystal gate, which was slowly closing and asked, “Do you think he’ll answer our questions?”

“Of course not,” Hao Ren said and shrugged, “I’ve got the surveillance system to start recording his mental traits, maybe then we can start directly from his mental world. All the arrangements now are made to weaken the vigilance of his mind.”

Hao Ren did not expect to use conventional means to get any information from the prisoner from the start. As a race that dared to kill the gods, they should have a strong will to endure any physical pain and keep any secret under extreme conditions. Although they might experience fear and panic (such as when being watched by the gods), neither fear nor panic could pry their mouths open. Even the demon could not extract any secret from them. Therefore, Hao Ren had already decided on other approaches. He would lock up the rebel for a while, slowly analyzing his mental characteristics, his mind, and his weaknesses. Anyway, it was a slow work.

And he had the patience.