The Record of Unusual Creatures

The journey and experiment that Hao Ren had carefully planned finally ended successfully. After staying on Io for two days, the otherworldlings boarded the spaceship and began their return journey. Everyone had gone through eight days of an unbelievable experience. They became more farsighted and were unable to hide their stirred emotions. Everyone began to look for someone to talk to onboard the Petrachelys. There was still disaffection between the different races, but in this particular situation, the otherworldlings on the spaceship had let down their guard and hostility for the time being. They needed to talk to someone about their feelings and emotions, hence they could care less who their listener was. It could be between werewolf and vampire, or demon hunter and otherworldling.

Before returning to the Gate of the Universe, the Petrachelys first returned to Holletta to pick up Lorissa and several volunteers, the purebred Ancients whom Ophra had gathered from all over the kingdom. As the marshal was a well-respected figure among her own people, many people had answered her call. She selected five of the purest Ancients for Hao Ren’s project.

However, Marshal Ophra was not able to follow Hao Ren. She was the chief army commander of the kingdom and was too busy to go on the incredible journey that she had been looking forward to.

After the experimental volunteers were onboard, Hao Ren asked Lorissa, “What’s your expectation for your next journey?”

“I have no expectations.” Lorissa’s curious eyes darted around. “I did not have emotion since birth. I was designed to follow instructions to cooperate in various experiments. Everything of me was arranged, and I was used to it. I am not sure what to expect. I just hope that the Goddess Raven whom you have mentioned will be more easygoing. After all, my life will be on her hands soon.”

“She is not as bad as you think.” Hao Ren could not help but laugh. “She is definitely easy to talk with. Even if you shout at her, she would not necessarily thunder-strike you. You can expect to see many things in the surface world. Compared to the destruction in the Plane of Dreams, the surface world is a lively place.”

Lorissa laughed silently. “Well, then I look forward to it from now on.”

Soon, the supernatural creatures from the Earth had returned to where they first set off: the Kuiper space station in the Solar System. The otherworldlings, after ten days of traveling in an alien universe, returned to their respective families through a temporary portal.

They had many stories to tell their own people, realizations, and knowledge to share with the wise men of their tribes, and more ancient artifacts to show. The Runic dwarfs had brought back their ancestral language recorded on a scroll. Zeon Lucas brought manuscripts that contained the myths of the Blood Clan. The Ebben brothers had brought back the tablet from the sacred mountain of the werewolves. The representatives of the Ancattero family brought back some wall fragments of the golden city of Alamanda. Katreina brought back 20 gigabytes of photos. Hessiana brought six pounds of skewered meat and over twenty pounds of local specialties. Hao Ren was amazed; he did not know that the little bat was a food lover. She must have acquired this sequala after living in hunger for many years with Vivian.

Hao Ren was not concerned about what the otherworldlings did back home. After making sure everyone had safely passed through the portal, he took the volunteers to see Raven 12345. There was a total of ten volunteers. Other than the perfect specimen Lorissa and five purebred Ancients from the Plane of Dreams, there were four thoroughbred demon hunters including White Flame and Hassel. These volunteers represented all the required samples: the specimens that had mutated after crossing the Wall of Reality, being influenced by the Sin of the Divine Blood and the world; those pure specimens that had never passed through the Wall of Reality but remained in the Plane of Dreams; and the perfect sample of the initial products of the divine cells, of the intermediate state between mortal and divine life, and that retained all traces of artificial transformation. The samples was beyond expectation. Hao Ren started to think that he should deserve a three-time increase of year-end bonus this time. Otherwise, Raven 12345 should be ashamed of herself.

As the teleporting light gradually dissipated, Hao Ren and the ten volunteers emerged in front of the gorgeous mansion of his goddess. The fact that the villa was still intact, the garden had not gone up in flame, there were no explosion craters in the small square, and the fountain was spurting regular water instead of lightning bolts were the reasons to celebrate. Hao Ren’s worries were unfounded. He had prepared for the worst and knew what to explain in case Raven 12345 blew up her mansion. After all, it was not his first time seeing such incidents.

Hao Ren quietly breathed a sigh of relief. He turned around and said with her back facing the mansion, “Welcome to the source of truth in this universe. This is where the goddess lives—”

Before Hao Ren could finish, a sudden violent tremor under his feet interrupted him. Almost immediately, a loud explosion came from behind him, and the mansion came down with a loud bang spectacularly.

Hao Ren froze, his smile became stiff. White Flame, who stood facing him, pointed at the mansion. “Hao Ren, the source of truth is blown up.”

“What the heck?” Hao Ren turned his head stiffly. The beautiful manor that stood there a while ago had become a ruin. There was only blue arcane energy and dust in the air. The last pillar of the house slowly came down in front of him. The sight was so Terminator, so Hollywood, and so Raven 12345.

Hao Ren wanted to swear.

“How could this be!” Hao Ren ran toward the ruin that was still shrouded in smoke and lightning. “My goddess, you did it again?”

Suddenly, light rose from the ruin. Hao Ren instinctively halted. A hologram of Raven 12345 appeared in the light. She looked tidy, except for her messy hairstyle. The scene behind her was a vast vortex filled with red light, bloody clouds, and lightning, like an eye of the storm. It was huge with a chaotic void in the surroundings. It was apparent that the goddess was not in this dimension. But the explosion of the mansion surely had something to do with the vortex behind Raven 12345.

Hao Ren still thought that it was the neurotic goddess who blew up her own house. But seeing the huge energy vortex and the pulsating runes and lines around the energy vortex behind her, he choked back his words and was wide-eyed. “Boss, what are you doing this time? You have just blown up the divine realm.”

“Nah, just a little crisis prevention project,” Raven 12345 said. A powerful red light spurted out of the vortex and instantly formed an extreme complex runic circle in the void. It was apparent that the massive energy structure was still being perfected. “Please don’t be bothered, it was just a little accidental energy leak. I have gotten used to blowing up my house anyway.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

Is such a destruction a “small” energy leak? And what is the “little crisis prevention project” all about? Does the goddess have nothing better to do? Hao Ren thought to himself.

“Ahem, ahem, let’s not delve into the details first.” Raven 12345 looked a little embarrassed and quickly steered away from the conversation. “Oh, you have brought the volunteers. Which one of you is Lorrisa?”

“Here she is,” Hao Ren quickly dragged the stunned elven queen out to the front. The elven queen was not the only one stunned, everyone at the scene was shocked. “She is the one I have mentioned in the report.”

“Is she the clone of the Holletta’s mage empress?” Raven 12345 asked as she carefully glanced at Lorissa. At that brief moment, Lorissa felt a powerful will, which she could not explain, swept over her. The will was so powerful that Lorissa felt that every molecule of her hair and body cells was laid bare in the open; that the spirit and soul that she was always proud of became useless as if they had disappeared. It was not until the gaze of the goddess shifted away from her that she began to regain her sense of existence.

But the almighty gaze was just from the image in the hologram.

Lorissa’s nerves tensed up. She realized that she was facing a real god—at least an existence that she could never understand or resist. She looked nervously at the image of Raven 12345, whose voice reverberated in everyone’s head when she spoke.

“Gee, you have the same hair color as mine.”

Lorissa was bewildered.