The Record of Unusual Creatures

They surrounded the man who claimed to be the seigneur. Shrinking his neck into his collar, the man sat on a broken piece of chair, which color had long faded. The man looked scared. He grabbed his clothes tightly as his eyes darted between Hao Ren and Vivian. “Who are you?” he asked back.

“We come from the outside, but that’s none of your business.” Vivian folded her arms across her chest in an intimidating way. “You are the seigneur? Do you know what happened here?”

“IF you know I’m the seigneur, you should be humble!” Heimerwin raised his voice trying to project his authority, but quickly uneasiness had gotten the better of him. “I don’t know. I know nothing! Leave! You’re not welcome here!”

The man was trying to say that he was the seigneur and did not like the intruders. Despite his confusion and uneasiness, he was still trying to intimidating them with his aristocratic authority. Of course, Hao Ren did not buy it. When Heimerwin got too emotionally unstable, Kassandra put her hand on his shoulder, bent down gracefully and said, “Please calm down ya, you’re alone but there are five of us here.”

Not to be deceived by Kassandra’s beauty, the vampire was actually a thug in heart. Hao Ren already got used to her ever since they met two days ago.

Heimerwin was stunned. He did not know what to make of it; probably no one had ever talked to him like that. But after a while, the seigneur came to his senses and said, “You lot are robbers?”

Kassandra remained elegant. She smiled and softly explained, “We are not robbers, but if you don’t cooperate, I will kill you.”

Everyone: “…..”

The threat worked as Heimerwin finally knew who the real boss was; he became more cooperative now. He curled himself in the chair. His body language showed that he was frightened though he still spoke like a proud nobility. As Hao Ren and Vivian interrogated him, he kept repeating his story. “I don’t know… I don’t know what happened here, I was sleeping on the upper floor and there you woke me. Where are my servants and butler?”

“I think his memory is messed up,” Hao Ren said quietly to Vivian when he noticed Heimerwin’s state of mind. “He doesn’t even know the town has gone. Is his memory still stuck in the past?”

Vivian nodded slightly and her brows knit together as she looked at Heimerwin. “What is the last thing you remember?”

“I finished checking the warehouse, came back to the hall and had my meal, and then went to rest in my room,” Heimerwin said, glancing to the centre of the hall, his finger pointing to the ash-covered oak table. “I was eating at that table. Why has it become so dusty?”

“Wasn’t it like that before you ‘slept’?”

“Of course not,” Heimerwin said, holding her head up. “This is a beautiful big house. My servants always kept it in spotless condition. But now… Where are my servants?”

“If I’m not mistaken, they are already dead,” Hessiana said as she fiddled with her vampire whip. “It all happened hundreds of years ago. There’s the door, you can go out and check it out yourself.”

Heimerwin looked at Hessiana in confusion before Turcan and Kassandra dragged him to the doorway. The man saw the scene outside, stunned. Then he grabbed his hair and shouted hysterically. “Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare!”

They looked at him from faraway. Nangong Wuyue poked her brother with the tip of her tail. “Sanba, what do you think have happened to him?”

“Probably… he is a ghost,” Nangong Sanba said, but he was also unsure. “I have never seen this model. It emerged from the ashes. And look at his feet, there are footprints and shadow, which means he has weight and body.”

Hessiana smiled as she looked at the only demon hunter at the scene. She said in a ridiculing voice. “Expert, can you tell us what happens?”

“Perhaps the ashes in this mysterious realm had constructed his body under some kind of magic. Some wraith rituals could also produce similar results. But unless I could conduct a series of detailed tests on this soul, I can’t tell how.”

“Don’t do that. It’s not easy to find someone who could provide us information. Don’t frighten him anymore.” Hao Ren waved his hand. “And he is not our enemy. But like you said, wraith ritual could produce a similar creature… so this seigneur transformed himself willingly?”

Nangong Sanba looked at the dejected Heimerwin who was behind Turcan. “The problem is that he seems to know nothing about his transformation. I thought that he did this to himself for immortality. But if he does not know it, then this transformation doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe he lied,” Lily pursed her lips. “Maybe he turned the inhabitants of the entire town into sacrifices before he transformed himself into immortality. That way, no one would find out and go after him.”

Turcan helped Heimerwin staggered back into the chair. Hermerwin was still grabbing his own hair and muttering to himself. “Oh God… what happened… what this curse is all about?”

Hessiana lifted up the man’s chin with her long whip; she was running out of patience. “Don’t be a wretch, remember you are still a nobleman? Calm down. As you’ve already seen, the town was destroyed at least a few hundred years ago, believe it or not. All people are gone; they are dead. As for yourself… tsk, you probably have guessed it, you are dead too. You’re now a wraith.”

Heimerwin had not shown much reaction; probably he was suffering from psychological trauma. He stared blankly at Hessiana, and took a long time before he asked, “Why?”

“Some powerful black magic; that’s what I can say,” said Nangong Sanba. “We are exorcists from hundreds of years in the future, like the priests and spirit hunters of your time. We found this exiled town, and now you are the only one who can talk. Do you know who cast the spell on this town?”

“Black magic?” Heimerwin repeated the words vacantly. Suddenly, he flinched as if he had thought of something terrible. “Devil! It is the devil! I remembered. There was a demon lurking here! I was bewitched. I was… Oh god, what have I done…”

The frightened man turned hysterical again and curled his body deeper into the chair, as if the devil he mentioned was coming in from the door. Hessiana noticed the anomaly and knocked his forehead with her whip, stamping a dark-red rune of blood spell on it. “Calm down! Is the devil you mentioned a wizard? He disguised himself as a scholar, lurking around you?”

“Scholar… scholar!” Heimerwin flung his hand up violently. “It is him, it is him! The monster that sold the soul to hell, he deceived me, I was blinded, I was…”

“The wizard probably was dead,” Vivian interrupted. “It is said that he was killed by a demon hunter.”

Heimerwin was surprised. A sense of comfort seemed to flash across his eyes. Hessiana took this opportunity posing more questions, “Do you know where the wizard hid? His dark magic lab, and the magic books, do you know where?”

“Yeah, I know!” Heimerwin bounced up from his chair. “He didn’t live here. The guy was a lone wolf. He lived in the old house behind the town. It’s not far from here. I can take you there, I can take you there!”

Heimerwin swung his arms and then strode to the door while the rest of them immediately followed him from behind.

They followed Heimerwin down the path behind the big house towards the edge of the town.

Then, a thick fog was in their way.