The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren initially thought that spiritual detective like Pierre who walked on the edge of the magic field would not provide any good intelligence, so he did not care what he said. After all, a spiritual detective was only akin to scavenger of the mysterious world. All they could obtain was just the shallow knowledge that the otherworldlings disdained. Even the demon hunters had little interest in this group of people who lived between humans and otherworldlings. However, Hao Ren had overlooked something: many things had escaped the hunting of the demon hunters after the ‘collapse of the myth.’ The final movement of those things happened to be in the hands of the human beings who had been taken lightly by everyone else.

It was just that the number of these heritages was scarce and scattered, and no one could care less during the decline of the mystical doctrine.

Their understanding of the otherworldlings was not enough, and their explanation of the ‘collapse of the myth’ was merely the imagination of the weird and incomprehensible mystics. However, the Solar Roulette was probably real because he had mentioned the keyword, the Shade of Divine Wrath, which reminded them of the mysterious shadows that had caused so many conflicts.

“What is the Solar Roulette?” Vivian asked, curious of the term.

Pierre found a roll of crumpled scroll from his bag and carefully spread it on the table in the dim light. “This scroll is very precious. I found it in a crypt in Egypt, where it almost cost my life. I believe that this thing depicts the Solar Roulette.”

Hao Ren and Vivian came up to take a closer. The scroll was black and yellow, had a parchment-lined texture and burnt Mark’s on the edges. The old scroll depicted a beautiful disc-shaped object filled with a mysterious pattern of circles, a circular hole or groove in the center, and radiating lines representing sunlight. Hao Ren had noticed that there were two ancient Egyptian figures– a man and a woman–at the corner of the disc as if they were there as a reference. If the reference was correct, then the disc should be ten meters high.

Next to the disc patterns were words written in ancient Egyptian text, but because of the burn, some text was missing and barely readable. Some words were legible though, such as “The light of the sun… God and the beast… suppression and punishment.”

It sounded like some weird, incomprehensible and ancient chants.

“See? It’s beautiful. The artistic skill was simply impossible during the time of the scroll’s creation. The Egyptians at that time did not possess such a painting technique, and they did not have this kind of writing material.” Pierre pointed at the details on the scroll, face flushed. “However, this is indeed ancient Egyptian writing, so the person who drew this image must be the awakened who had acquired mysterious knowledge, probably similar to the ancient detectives of the spiritual world. Besides, you can see the surface of the disc had traces of golden color pigment. After careful examination, I found that it used to contain gold. It is characteristic of ancient Egyptian paintings; they often apply color to the images they produce faithfully. The more important things were, the more diligently they did it. So we can judge the race and habitat areas of the people according to the skin color of the people on the Egyptian murals. That was how I found the clue of the colorful clothes of Joseph. Anyway, it’s not important here.”

“Golden pigment? It is indeed not the technique that Egyptians used on the scrolls of that era.” Vivian was more interested in this topic. “So the material of this disc might be gold?”

“Such a massive gold creation, and so beautiful, and more importantly, it is also associated with the words ‘sun’ and ‘god’; this is undoubtedly the Solar Roulette,” Pierre said, nodding hard. “Humans of that era couldn’t possibly have imagined such a thing, let alone make. Only Tara was capable of producing this artifact. As far as I know, the Solar Roulette is a huge golden device, the symbols on it represent the highly mysterious secrets magic, which the Tara people used to suppress the Shade of Divine Wrath.”

Hao Ren interrupted him. “What is the Shade of Divine Wrath according to what you know?”

“There is a legend in the spiritual detective’s world that the gods ruled the earth in ancient times. The gods, such as Odin and Zeus that have become mythological stories now indeed existed in the past. These gods were mighty, but not invincible. Because of their arrogance, disaster befell them, which was the Shade of Divine Wrath. The Shade of Divine Wrath was the dark side of the god, an unstoppable shadowy power that fell from the deep universe. On the earth, the spiritual defenses of the ancient gods were torn open, and various melees were triggered. When the problem deteriorated, the gods gathered to request the ‘Tara’ family, who was also from the deep dark space, to create a divine artifact–the Solar Roulette. The Solar Roulette is a sun-casting so that it could counter the dark forces of the Shade of Divine Wrath. The most powerful warriors of the gods joined hands in a fierce battle in the clouds above the west of Mount Olympus, driving the Shade of Divine Wrath to the Solar Roulette before sealing them in the roulette finally. But this battle ended up in disgrace.”

“In disgrace?” Hao Ren asked. “What happened?”

“The Solar Roulette was so powerful that the gods started to covet its power. They tried to use the seal as an excuse to try to get their hands on the Solar Roulette. After the end of the Shade of Divine Wrath battle, they fell into another war that was driven by greed.”

Vivian pouted. “How could that possibly happen when I was there?”

Pierre was flabbergasted. “Huh?”

“Ignore her,” Hao Ren said, trying to divert Pierre’s attention. “Continue your story and treat us as ordinary people. I want to know the various legends in your spiritual detective circles.”

Pierre continued talking, but whenever he thought of Hao Ren and Vivian were the very characters of the mythical stories, a strong sense of incongruity came to mind. He tried to suppress the feeling though. “Legend has it that the gods were embroiled in yet another war, but there was no winner in this war; a powerful force suddenly broke out of the Solar Roulette, severely injuring all the warring parties. Only then, they realized that no one could control the power of the roulette. Only Tara, the ‘gods’ from the deep dark space were the most powerful. Tara became the custodian of the Solar Roulette and placed the roulette in their Golden Manor. If I’m not mistaken, the roulette should be right our feet.”

As Pierre wrapped up his story, Hao Ren began to sort out the information in his head.

The myths and legends circulating in human circles were often distorted, but Pierre’s story partially matched with Vivian’s memory and Hesperides’ description. The ‘Tara’ in the story was undoubtedly the Ancattero family who lost contact with the outside world not long ago. The family had never been active in the Mythological era, but it turned out that they were mighty but low profile. As for the Shade of Divine Wrath, it was the Shade of Chaos. Spiritual detectives believed that Tara came from the deep dark space of the universe. It was probably a rumor. Perhaps the Tara people knew that they came from an alien planet in another world, but somehow this was twisted to become the deep dark space.

At present, the most significant difference between the ‘spiritual detective version’ and the ‘otherworldling family version’ of the story was the addition of the Solar Roulette.

The Solar Roulette seemed to be the key to sealing the Shade of Chaos.

“Do you remember that you have ever made something similar?” Hao Ren looked at Vivian and said, “or have seen something similar?”

“I couldn’t recall any,” Vivian replied, shaking her head. “But we did seal the Shade of Chaos in something; the Shade if Chaos was invisible, it must be sealed into something tangible to he controllable.”

“Even Hesperides and Wayne don’t know about this roulette. Fortunately, we met this spirit detective. Otherwise, we might have missed the most critical thing when we enter the Ancattero territory.” Hao Ren sighed, “But do you think it is appropriate for this spirit detective to continue his activities?”

Vivian shook her head: “His enthusiasm for pursuing knowledge is admirable, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to let him join the mission, after all, he has a heart condition… Who is it?”

Suddenly, something caught Vivian’s eyes. She looked at the corner of the room and shouted quietly as ice shards suddenly emerged in the air in the surroundings. Before her voice trailed off, something popped out in the corner of the room.

It was a white flame rising from the floor and forming into a human form gradually. A white-haired girl came out of the fire and greeted Vivian and Hao Ren, “Long time no see.”

Hao Ren was shocked. “What Flame?”

“It’s White Flame!”