The Record of Unusual Creatures

Silence ensued when Vivian’s name was mentioned. The first one who bounced up from the chair was Lily, who had always been at loggerheads with Vivian. “Are you kidding me? How is Vivian a Malevolence?”

“I did not believe it at first myself. It did not even cross my mind,” Raven 12345 said as she spread out her hands. “That is why things have gone so wrong now.”

Hao Ren’s heart was racing. He felt like he had anticipated this outcome but just barely. When the goddess broke the news and confirmed his suspicion, he felt an indescribable feeling.

It was hard to believe in reality, but Hao Ren still got to his feet and said, “Vivian is a Malevolence? She looks completely different from the other Malevolences, and she’s not as destructive as them.”

“Are you sure that she hasn’t been deranged and destructive before?” Raven 12345 looked at Hao Ren. “She has been and will be every few hundred years. The only difference is that she stays sane longer. Vivian is generally harmless, but there is no question that she is a Malevolence.”

Hao Ren knew that Raven 12345 was right. The encounter with Ertos, the Malevolence that stayed awake for centuries had shaken his understanding of the Malevolence. At this time, he only wanted to clear his mind. “Every Malevolence has a negative attribute. What is Vivian’s negative attribute?”

Raven 12345 turned and looked out the window with her hands at her back. “Poverty.”

“Boss, you must be kidding me. We are serious here.”

“I kid you not. It is the poverty,” Raven 12345 turned around. Her face looked serious. “Had I f*cking realized it earlier, things would not have deteriorated like this.”

Hao Ren looked at the goddess and unsure what to say. After a long while, he spoke. “Really?”

“Really,” Raven 12345 said matter-of-factly.

“A Malevolence that represents poverty. No wonder Vivian has been harmless for all these years.” Nangong Sanba said. “But I still feel it incredible. She looks so normal and so different from the Malevolence. She can suppress other Malevolences that split from her body. She should still be rightly the divine avatar that the goddess of creation has created.”

Raven 12345 shook her head. “What you said are true, but that does not mean she is not a Malevolence. She is the ‘superior one’ among all the Malevolences. This superiority gives her those unique attributes.”

“If Vivian is the primary Malevolence, where is the real body of the ‘divine avatar’? Hao Ren interrupted.

Raven 12345 smiled as if she had anticipated this question. “It is still Vivian.”

Pissed, Hao Ren was seriously considering whether to duke it out with the neurotic goddess. But then he gritted his teeth and said, “Can you tell everything at once?”

“Things are too complicated, people would lose interest if I tell everything at one go,” Raven 12345 said. She then snapped her fingers, a large velvet seat appeared behind her. Raven 12345 leaned back on the seat and began to explain in detail. “As I have said, my direction of research is generally correct. What is off is in the details. It is the details that lead to today’s state of affairs. At first, I thought that the divine avatar was polluted. After arriving at this world, the divine avatar began to divide continually to ‘detoxify.’ The split was the Malevolence, and the noumenon was Vivian. But the actual situation is more complicated than that. The divine avatar could not actually ‘detoxify’ itself. Let me rephrase: the contamination is not a foreign but a part of the divine avatar itself. The reason for this is still unclear at this moment, but it is what it is. So, there is no ‘pure version’ of the divine avatar. Right from the beginning, Vivian was not the incarnation of the goddess of creation and a Malevolence. She forever possesses the will of the goddess and the tendency to decay.”

Raven 12345 paused for a while, giving everyone time to digest what she had said. The goddess then continued. “You should have realized by now that the Malevolences are all mad. Even if Vivian has remained sane, there is a violent cycle every hundred years. This means the contamination of the divine avatar is far worse than previously thought. She tends to be decaying. The power of the goddess and the decay has not reached a balance. Instead, the decay forces have completely overwhelmed the power of the goddess.”

“Why is that so?” Hao Ren asked in shock. “No matter how weak the goddess of creation was, her avatar should not have deteriorated into such state. Even if the Mad Lord is a source of the contamination, it should have overpowered the goddess’ power. All the more so when the deicidal war happened, the Mad Lord was still incarcerated in prison. From where did the decaying power come?”

“I guess that it is because of the division,” Raven 12345 replied. She seemed to have expected the question with an answer. “In the beginning, the power disparity on the divine avatar was not that severe. But later, the division gave the decaying power the upper hand. The power of the goddess of creation is biased towards order and extremely powerful when the avatar is complete in itself. The contamination and decay are biased towards chaos, and diffusion and division are their territories. The division has weakened one while strengthened the other. So the existence of the Malevolence and Vivian who goes haywire occasionally.”

Raven 13245 sighed and then continued. “Splitting is an inevitable outcome when two opposite forces are together. In my opinion, the goddess of creation still lacked the necessary ability to handle such advanced creation. The divine avatar she has created has a huge flaw and is destined to fail.”

Hao Ren interrupted Raven 12345 again. “I have now understood. Can you now tell me what the heck is going on, and how can I get Vivian back? Where is she?”

While speaking, Hao Ren looked at Raven 12345 suspiciously. “Are you hiding her? After all, you have a hobby to collect the Malevolence. Listen, I am not against you to say that Vivian is a Malevolence since I cannot change the fact. But let us be reasonable. Vivian has done little bad things. She even tried to avoid to be near any human settlements when she went mad.”

“I have not said anything yet, why are you so worked up?” Raven 12345 said, rolling her eyes and shooting Hao Ren a glare. “Am I a heartless goddess in your eyes?”

“Do you know how hard it takes to resist the urge to nod?”

“I have a straightforward but crude way to solve the problem once and for all,” Raven 12345 said. There was not the slightest sense of embarrassment on her face. “I can reboot the space and time in this region. But if I do so, Vivian is not going to come back. As a real goddess, I am not going to do that. So here is the alternative.”

“The alternatives?”

“You go and find her back,” Raven 12345 said with her arms crossed. “Let me be honest with you. Vivian has not gone anywhere else. She is on Earth, around every one of you.”

Y’zaks seemed to have guessed it. “You mean…”

“She is the fragmented images of space and time, the root cause of the replacement of the real world,” Raven 12345 said. “Did you not want to know what the space-time mess-up is all about? It is very simple. When Vivian found those Malevolences, the resonance between them got stronger. But that was okay, the restraint I have put in place was still able to hold it in. But Vivian met the most special Malevolence of all time—you guessed it right, it was the divine fragments of Ertos that you mentioned in your report.

“When the divine Malevolence came into contact with Vivian, it began to resonate with the rest of them and let Vivian pass the last tipping point. The resonance became complete, and the Malevolences as a whole had acquired an important weapon—the divine power. It could now take advantage of the situation. After tens of thousands of years, the original divine avatar has decayed so much that it could no longer control itself. With all the conditions being ripe, Vivian woke up.

“Her waking up meant that the real world fell into a dream, which is the phenomenon of messed-up space and time that you see now.”

“What should I do then?” Hao Ren asked with a frown. “As you say, she has turned into fragments of space and time. Where should I find her?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got you covered. It may not be originally used for this purpose, but it comes in handy at times like this to send you to the deepest point of space and time. We need to be prepared before we go. Let me first bring you to the door so that you can see it and be mentally prepared.”