The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 291

Chapter 291: Seems Like It’s a No Go

 

Vivian’s rather direct request to visit the ruins caught Zeon Lucas by surprise. “My Lady, you are interested in the matter as well?”

“You mean the Day of Return?” Vivian raised her eyebrows. “No, not a lick of interest in that. I’m more interested in the ruins itself. I’m from that age after all. I’m a little curious about what you have managed to dig out from that old fool’s grave. Maybe I’ll see something nostalgic.”

Vivian was quite reliable when it came to handling serious business. Of course, she could not disclose the true intentions behind her interest in the ruins, but she could come up with plenty of valid reasons for Zeon Lucas to allow her access. The latter did not seem to have much objection.

“Most certainly, My Lady. You are an elder of the Blood Clan after all. The eldest among all who have lived since the time of yore until now, no one is more qualified than you to go into the ruins. In fact, we have also invited the elders from the Mythological Era like the true heiress of the Peloponnese, Hesperides and the great protector, Grandalr. However, they declined. I hope you understand that this is not a breach of etiqutte on our part.”

“Oh… Hesperides, that old witch is just waiting for you guys to clear the path before going in herself. And Grandalr… that old tree is only interested in feeding the birds nesting on his branch.” Vivian shrugged as she pointed towards Hao Ren and the rest. “What I want to say is, this group here will be following me in, but they are not Blood Clan members.”

As expected, Zeon’s expression changed the moment he heard Vivian’s request. The eagerness on his face turned into a stiff awkwardness.

“These are your friends?” Zeon looked at the group of people beside Vivian curiously. His eyes were glued on the tallest of them all, Wang Daquan a.k.a Y’zaks Goodman. “May I know what race these fine people here are?”

“What they are is not important. It’s here and there anyway.” Vivian smiled as she threw a glance at Lily, giving the latter a fright before continuing, “I’m asking if you have any objections to that. These are people I trust and they have no interest in power or the treasures there. They are like me, just in it for the fun and games.”

Zeon’s face immediately turned grim as he sat upright. “My Lady, I mean no disrespect, but the discovery of the ruins is a very important event and all rights to it belongs to the finder, meaning the Blood Clan. Even if we aren’t talking about rights of ownership, this is a very delicate time and we need to ensure that this remains a total secret before we uncover most of the valuables in the ruins. We simply cannot risk a leak and have the demon hunters on our—”

“Are you saying that my friends are of ill repute? Even Hesperides is not that presumptuous.” Vivian frowned.

Hao Ren was rather curious at the tone that Zeon had taken. His unwillingness to cooperate was rather odd to say the least. It was true that vampires were a snobbish lot, but they now had Vivian as a guarantor and his reluctance was based on rather flimsy grounds. It was not until his next sentence that Hao Ren understood his intent. “My Lady… it’s not that I suspect your intuition… but this…. is mostly due to the way you do things. It’s just very… obvious. I simply cannot allow any other person into the ruins at such a time.”

Hao Ren sighed. Vivian was an oddball vampire who made friends with everyone, aside from the demon hunters. Apparently, this trait of hers was rather well-known.

“This is a demon.” Vivian pointed awkwardly at the members of her troupe. “That’s a siren, this is a landlord… This is a husky…. The thing on the table is a fish… Say, when did Lil Pea get out?”

Hao Ren coughed drily. “She’s been out for quite a while. But she seems to be rather afraid of strangers so, she hid herself in my cuff.”

Lil Pea was frightened by the amount of strangers as she poked her head out to look around. She raised her short hands to say hi before scampering back to Hao Ren. This time around, she did not hide in the cuffs but she climbed all the way up to Hao Ren’s neck and clung onto it, probably asking for a hug. All the vampires were dumbfounded by the presence of this unknown and unheard of little creature. Nonetheless, as most of them were seasoned unusual creatures, they could still surpress their curiosity. It’s just that, when Hessiana tried to play with Lil Pea’s tail, her hand was slapped away by Vivian.

Zeon took a while to recover from the whole ruckus before he realised that Vivian was literally giving nothing away. “I can tell that’s a fish, but what do you mean by landlord and what’s a husky?”

It was the first and probably only time Lily was grateful to be a husky. At least when she was surrounded by a group of vampires, she could ruefully claim that she was another kind of creature, but alas she could not keep her identity hidden as Vivian told the truth after some thought. “Mr. Landlord is a human sorcerer. Husky is a werewolf.”

Zeon and the vampires behind him were shocked by the revelation. One of the vampires even broke protocol as he pointed towards Vivian. “Surely you jest, My Lady?!”

Vivian could only sigh. “It’s the truth. She is a reliable person.”

“This has nothing to do with reliability!” Zeon swung his hand in defiance. “How can we let these mongrels defile our property! The ruins were discovered by us! There’s no part for these mongrels in this!”

Lily’s temper flared as she heard what Zeon said. Her ears sprang up with a loud pop and she slammed the table with both hands, screaming, “So what if I’m a werewolf? We werewolves are much more honourable than you! Much braver than you! Much more united than you! We even have bigger tails! Heck, you lot don’t even have tails! You guys were just lucky enough to stumble upon the ruins! Who ever told you it was yours? And with things as they are, you are still so stubborn?! Even Hessiana’s group is much more reasonable than yours!”

Hao Ren really admired Lily’s straightforwardness and guts, but he could not understand what the big deal was in having a big tail…

Shaken by Lily’s sudden outburst, some of the vampires started taking defensive postures. One of them who lacked control even bared his fangs. Seeing the situation as it was, Lily bravely stood behind Hao Ren as she pushed the latter forward. “Wanna fight?! Come on! We’ll take on all comers! Mano a mano! Just get in line! I’m not afraid of any of you! Right, Mr. Landlord? Right, Big Guy? Right, Vivian? Right, Lil Pea…”

Wuyue, who was being ranked behind Lil Pea in terms of combat ability, was rather unhappy about it. But she wisely kept quiet: She just did not fight.

Vivian found that if she continued to keep quiet, the whole meeting would go down the drain, so she stood up. “Quiet, all of you! You too, Lily! Sit! You are probably the first werewolf I’ve seen who’s so daring in the company of vampires. You’re brave, I’ll give you that. Zeon, let me ask you something, does my word count for nothing?”

The head of the Lucas Family was clearly stubborn on the matter, so much so that even Hao Ren could not understand his thought process. “This is a matter of principle. Living in the same city with werewolves is already reaching my limits, but I cannot allow them to touch the ruins. You don’t understand the situation there, My Lady. Please don’t take it that I’m being blindly stubborn. The ruins are simply too special to allow anyone else access to it. It contains the Primordial Powers unknown even in the Age of Mythology. It may very well be the Old Kingdom promised in the prophecy… That said, I cannot allow or accept a werewolf butting her head into this. Lady Vivian, your way of doing things is just too unique. It is not my place to scold an elder, but I hope you understand that these actions will not be accepted by anyone!”

“Allow me to interrupt.” Hao Ren had been quiet the entire time and by then, he could not keep his doubts to himself anymore. “Does race even matter in times like this? The demon hunters are close to wiping all unusual creatures from the surface of the planet and you are still at each other’s throats? That’s foolish.”

Y’zaks had a sh*t-eating grin on his face. “If nothing else works, I’ll give him a pep talk on the topic of world peace…”

Cold sweat immediately formed across Hao Ren’s forehead as he quickly killed Y’zaks plan at its infancy. They were there as guests, not to commit a massacre.

Upon Hao Ren’s mentioning of the demon hunters and their current situation, Zeon’s expression seemed to soften a little, but he still shook his head. “You speak truly and that is why I accepted a small group of werewolves in the city. However, that doesn’t mean that I need to sacrifice the needs of my people for them.”

Vivian faked a cough to draw everyone’s attention. “Ahem, let me remind you Zeon, that the ruins are not yours, they were never the Blood Clan’s property.”

Both Zeon and Hessiana were stunned.

“This is the Peloponnese, home of Zeus and the Olympians. Besides, the entrace to the ruins was found in the Parthenon. While the rift may not be tethered to it’s original location, it would not diverge far from its origins. I’m quite sure that it’s probably one of the Olympian temple complexes, am I right?”

Zeon had a rather perplexed look. “…You are right. But, we aren’t sure exactly which temple it is. The destruction in the ruins is very bad.”

“So… that means you have taken over someone else’s home, changed the locks, made a new pair of keys and called yourself the master of the house?” Vivian stared at Zeon intently. “And while you are pillaging said house, you self-righteously declare those who enter the house thieves? Heh, my, my. Where’s your honour, boy?

Chapter 292: The Mystery Behind the Antagonism of the Unusual Creatures

 

It was very rare for Vivian to resort to such a sardonic tone. Even when she had her scuffles with Lily, her voice rarely carried such venom. Her few words earlier were zeroed in on Zeon’s pretty face and the latter was so nonplussed that he stood there, stunned for a good while. He never thought Vivian would argue with him from that particular perspective.

It was almost as if he never imagined that Vivian, being a part of the Blood Clan would take the perspective of an outsider and chastise him for something he thought was for the immense benefit of his kind. This was almost unthinkable to most normal vampires.

Leaving the question of ownership of a thousand-year-old ruin aside, the fact is, a normal vampire would not have even questioned Zeon’s actions (while his claims were indeed dubious). Vivian was however, not your run-off-the-mill vampire. She had a very unique view when it came to matters of race. While she may at times think like a usual vampire, like hating werewolves for instance, most of the time she took the side of the outsider and discarded her identity as a vampire to determine if a course of action was right or just. She had a very unique “detached view” as a vampire, but how this point of view even occurred to her, the lady herself did not seem to know.

But her point of view had certainly put the Lucas Family in an awkward position. Even Hessiana looked at Vivian with tears almost welling up in her eyes. “Lady Vivian… It… sounds like you’re scolding me as well… I have the other half of the key…”

“That’s the reason I asked you why you even got involved in this? It’s better to just leave unknown energies alone. Who knows if that energy is radioactive.” Vivian took a glance at Hessiana, her eyes were much more gentle now. It seemed like she had recovered from that “detached view” of hers. “I admit I was rather harsh earlier, but facts are facts. The ruins does not belong to any of you. They belong to the Olympians. Of course, you can say that the sorry lot has been destroyed, so that’s that, but let me remind you, Hesperides is still on the Peloponnese. She has her reasons to not bother with the ruins. That is not something you can simply ignore.”

Vivian recomposed herself and a faint sadness appeared across her face. “Let me also remind all of you about another thing… To all of you young ones (she emphasised the “young ones” very heavily), the destroyed Olympian Family is a distant past, but to me, I can still hear their laughter and I even remember the time I was here in their gardens as a guest. The meaning of the ruins will differ between you and me. However, I hope that you understand this—I don’t wish to see the relics of my old friends used as tools and stepping stones for your selfish endeavours.”

Zeon demurred for a moment before he asked, “My Lady… If I may… what does Zeus look like?”

Vivian’s expression changed almost immediately from nostalgic to stunned. She stammered for a while before she said, “The faces and voices of those hadst hath passed art still hither; how can one allow thee to claim this house as thou own? I will enter the ruins and my friends are following me!”

Hao Ren slammed his head on the table: Vivian’s indignation earlier was nothing but drama. He almost believed that the lady had cured her amnesia. Zeon’s innocent question had her going to the extent of using Shakespearean English for dramatic effect!

Zeon Lucas, having witnessed this ancient oddball being so adamant on the matter, and also recalling the non-stop rumour mill about her (mainly about her attitude and way of doing things), had undergone multiple changes of expression in a span of a few moments. Clearly, he was shaken. He was first shaken when Lily reminded him about the precarious situation the unusual creatures were in and again when Vivian roasted him for being presumptuos on the ownership of the ruins. Both ladies had done a good job in rattling him. After demurring for a moment, he slowly rose and left the table. “I need to discuss this thoroughly with the rest. But, I will let you know. I have my stand on this, so I cannot simply discard that because you are an elder.”

Vivian motioned her hand for Zeon to go ahead. “It would be a disappointment if you did not have your own stand on this. You’d be worse than your brother.”

Zeon bowed and left with his followers into a quiet room to discuss the matter. Hao Ren took the chance to pop the question that he had held in for the entire day. “Why is this so complicated? Can’t he… just open the door? Why do we need to even get to this stage?”

“Now you understand how a ‘standard’ Blood Clan member thinks.” Vivian smiled bitterly as she shook her head. “You may find that his stubborness is almost hilarious, but a few thousand years no, hundreds of years ago even, this was considered the right frame of thinking. Even humans once adopted this sort of tribalistic thinking. A city would declare war on another just because one of the traded slaves was an unmarked heathen. A village would be decimated to the last inch because someone brought in a statue that was deemed heretical. All of this has happened before and who knows who actually came up which such dogmas. But since I was around, I’ve seen fools like this who cannot think outside of their tribal circle. The individual you saw was already considered a progressive vampire. At the very least, he didn’t attack when he heard of Lily’s lineage. He even allowed werewolves to live in the city.”

“And there are some vampires living in hideouts under the control of werewolves,” Hessiana added. “The situation calls for it… Those who are dead set in their old ways are sure to perish. Those who wish to live must change. Of course, talk is easy. Actually doing it is hard. We have been at each other’s throats since time memorial though and a lot of supernaturals simply don’t just hate each other, they outright butcher each other. As you can see, asking them to get around singing Kumbaya won’t be easy.”

Seeing that the people were on this topic, Y’zaks popped a curious question. “How did the vampires and werewolves started fighting? What about the other races? There has to be a start, a cause. Vivian said she can’t remember. What about you?”

“Ugh… that’s beyond me,” Hessiana said as she twirled her hair. “A lot of this animosity seems to be very natural… inborn, if you will… Don’t tell anyone that I said this but, I have a guess. The bad blood between unusual creatures isn’t all that simple as it looks. There’s definitely something more sinister…”

“Huh?” Hao Ren tilted his head.

“I hate werewolves by nature even though I have yet to even fight with one. I’ve also never received any formal indoctrination and education from the Blood Clan yet, I still hate werewolves. If I knew anyone was a werewolf, I would almost get pissed off automatically.” Hessiana looked at Lily sightly embarassed. “I don’t mean anything by it, but after finding out that you were a werewolf, I almost lost it. It was Lady Vivian who forcibly held me back. I’m fine now of course.”

Lily scratched her head innocently. “Why? Did I do anything wrong?”

Hao Ren felt like he had caught on to something. “Wait a minute. Let’s say we take a vampire and a werewolf from their clans, then raise them in an enviroment where they have no contact with other unusual creatures. On top of that, they will be educated in Science and Marxism since young. But based on your guess, when the two meet they’ll still be fight? There’s no real reason to this. It’s almost by instinct that they cannot stand to hear the name of the other?”

“The purer the bloodline, the worse it gets.” Hessiana nodded. “I’ve heard that the most ancient of vampires and werewolves don’t even need to know the race of the other. They can simply sense the blood in the other individual. Simply catching a glance of the other was enough for them to go berserk and fight to the death.”

Hessiana sighed as she finished. “So… that being said, the purest of blood have pretty much killed each other clean. Hence, we have no witness to that. Of course, Lady Vivian is an exception to the above; she always has been.”

Hao Ren frowned hard at the news and felt that things were indeed not as simple as they seemed. Lily however, appeared to have seen through it and she leapt up in a moment of eureka. “Is the problem like… in the DNA?”

Even that could not be easily proved, Hao Ren felt. If they wanted to delve deeper into this, they would probably need dig out whatever records available to find out what happened when and after the unusual creatures crossed over into Earth.

There was no such antagonism between the non-human races in The Plane of Dreams after all.

At the same time, Zeon appeared before them and cut the discussion short.

“I will open the gate to the ruins.” The patriach of the Lucas Family still kept to that over-the-top, stiff and formal speech. “This is because Lady Vivian has given us her guarantee. She is an elder that is recognised by the Blood Clan this, she has the right to interfere in any family’s business. My decision is stemmed from this understanding.”

Hao Ren almost sniggered. Even in admitting defeat, he had set up a very convenient excuse to save face. This old-fashioned vampire seemed almost cute all of a sudden.

“Very well, then we shall dither no longer. I wish to visit the ruins now.” Vivian nodded.

Zeon turned towards his followers as he awkwardly gave the order to his subordinates. “…Prepare the sacred relics. Everything will need to be ready before noon for the ritual.”

Chapter 293: The Parthenon

 

Zeon Lucas eventually chose to compromise. In fact, his compromise was widely expected: for an old Blood Clan member who scrupulously abided by ancient etiquette, it was difficult for outsiders to understand the weight of his position and his seniority in the clan hierarchy. And even if he did not give face to other elders, there was no way to ignore Vivian, the special elder.

Influenced by the subtle pressure from the senior elder, who had witnessed all the events of the Mythological Era, Hesperides, who could make the situation more complicated if she intervened, and Hessiana’s family who had significant influence in the current precarious situation, Zeon Lucas finally made a smart decision. To relax the restrictions of the stubborn creed did not necessarily lead to much loss of interest. It would have been unwise to offend a lot of people for the sake of face.

The entrance to the ruins was located at the Parthenon, but they could not go there directly through the actual city of Athens. The demon hunters kept a close eye on the buildings, which had bee preserved from ancient times. They were just waiting for the reckless and ancient unusual creatures to appear. There was another safer route to the entrance: via the Parthenon in the shadow of Athens.

This shadow city was a masterpiece by the Blood Clan and the Shadeling’s Master of Shadows. These shadow casters, who were also in power thousands of years ago, twisted the space there in a special way, copying half of the real Athens and dragging it into the city’s shadow, creating this bizarre replica. One by one, many of its areas corresponded to the real Athens, not only in shape and structure, but even in their coordinates. Just like parallel spaces, the shadow of Athens hung over the landmark of the true Athens. It existed around ordinary people but they were simply unaware of its existence.

Therefore, there was also a Parthenon in the shadow of Athens. In fact, its absolute coordinates showed that it was in the same spot as the Parthenon in the real world. As long as some clever alterations were made, they could go straight from the sanctuary to the ruins and avoid being discovered by the demon hunters.

Zeon Lucas ordered his servants to take out the sacred device that opened the gate of the Parthenon from his family’s treasure house. Although he was reluctant to do so, he had to be courteous. He came to “open the door” for Vivian himself.

The Parthenon, which was located in the center of the ancient Acropolis of Athens sat at the highest point of the city, overlooking the city for more than 2,400 years. This great, towering building sat on a limestone hill and could be seen from a distance. Hao Ren and his group of people, together with Hessiana and Lucas as well as their respective attendants rushed to the place where the Parthenon was situated. It happened to be “midday” in the shadow of Athens.

There was no day and night in the chaotic shadow city, where the residents relied on clocks to determine their schedules. Now that it was midday, the power of shadows in the real world was suppressed to the limit. Therefore, opening the gate in the Fortress of Shadows at this time could prevent air from leaking into the real Athens; the sun would eliminate this slight inconspicuous undulation. Although this effect was negligible, the word “caution” was carved into the bones of every single individual in the city. This was how they survived for so many years.

When they were on the platform of the hill, the first one to get excited was the mercenary, Becky, who had been quite low-key since she followed them into the shadow of Athens. She had almost been forgotten by the others.

The girl looked at the rectangular temple in front of her, happily jumping up and down as she said, “Ah! This looks like the ancient architecture I saw in my grandfather’s book!”

When Hao Ren heard this, his heart thumped and he asked, “Your grandfather’s ancient books?”

Becky nodded vigorously and explained, “Yes, have I mentioned it before? My grandfather was actually a scholar, specialising in ancient history, ancient civilisations and so on. He had a lot of old books and one of them revealed that there was a civiliation of a clan called the Gluk Highlanders. Their houses looked like this: built with stone, decorated with a pile of pillars and sculptures everywhere. It was a nation that was particularly fond of sculpting, but pure-blood Gluk Highlanders seem to have gone extinct and now, there are only a few mixed-race offspring left. Some minorities in the west of Holletta are said to be their offspring.”

“What are you talking about?” Hessiana looked at Becky strangely. Unable to adapt to the environment in the shadow city and unable to understand much about the unusual creatures in the human world, Becky had kept quiet most of the time while she was in the strange place. However, when she finally started to speak, nobody understood what she was talking about. Hessiana looked at Becky with puzzled eyes and asked, “Holletta? The Gluk Highlanders? Are these from the Mythological Era?”

“Err… pretty much.” Vivian hurriedly eased the situation and said, “You know the human wizards. They love strange and eccentric stuff. And they have a different way of calling ancient things. Don’t bother with the details.”

Hessiana then no longer delved into the question. Hao Ren glanced at Becky and wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead. He wondered if he had the opportunity to tell this overly excited lady more general knowledge on the unusual creatures on Earth, she could probably stay on Earth longer…

Shortly after, Hao Ren could resist from observing the famous temple on the hill. He had only seen pictures of this prestigious, ancient building from the internet. This was his first time looking at the real thing. The Parthenon seemed a little eerie under the murky sky and the sacred colours of the building faded in the dim surrounding as if a ghost town had crept over the hills against the dark sky. In addition to the atmosphere, Hao Ren felt that the Parthenon in the shadow of Athens seemed to be quite different from the pictures he saw on the internet: the building in front of him looked intact and the details were kept in excellent condition. He hardly recognised it at first sight.

“The shadow of Athens hasn’t experienced many disturbances; the temple is almost fully intact,” Hesperides said. She heard that they were going to the ruins and decided to follow them. She looked at the property, which belonged to her family, appearing a bit emotional and said, “It’s just slightly worn with time.”

“Won’t you go in?” Vivian asked and looked at Hesperides. “Maybe you can be a tour guide or something—there could be something familiar inside.”

“I’m afraid to see those things, so I’m not going in there,” Hesperides said and smiled. “Sometimes, I’d rather go to the temple at the scenic area, where I have to pay for the ticket than come here to see this almost well-preserved temple of Athena. The former lets me know that those gods aren’t coming back but the latter always reminds me of the time when they were still alive.”

Vivian understood. She nodded and said, “In that case, I’ll tell you what I see inside.”

“Okay.” Hesperides nodded and tapped on the lace strap with ornate jewels across her forehead as she said, “I need to go back to guard the entrance, I don’t really trust Herbert. And this place gives me a headache.”

“Your wound hasn’t healed yet?” Vivian saw it and asked.

Hesperides pulled up a corner of the lace strap slightly. Hao Ren was surprised to find that there was a deep wound, gleaming with a silvery-white shimmer. The wound was more than an inch wide. “After 200 years, less than a millimetre has healed since the last time, or they might not even be any change at all. I guess it’s not gonna heal.”

After she finished her sentence, Hesperides gave them a free and easy smile. She then glowed and disappeared before them. Nangong Wuyue asked curiously, “Her wound is…”

“She was wounded by a demon hunter thousands of years ago,” Vivian explained and sighed. “She was left with a hole in her head, but she survived. Unfortunately, this wound may not heal for a lifetime. The hole in her brain is incurable.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

At this time, Hessiana and Zeon had completed the preparations for opening the entrance to the ruins. Hessiana came to Vivian, holding a ivory slate shaped like a half moon and said, “Lady Vivian, get ready to go in. We’re going to open the door!”

They hurried into the temple and found that a strange ritual had been performed at the scene: on the open ground inside the temple entrance lay a square, marble altar with suspicious dark red pigments depicting the complex triple runes around the altar. The Blood Clan wizards, whom Zeon and Hessiana brought were standing in a circle outside the triple runes. Their bodies were filled with a dark red mist, supplying energy for the entrance ritual. As a faint layer of glow gradually appeared on the altar, Hessiana as well as Zeon put their slates on the altar and assembled them into a full moon. Immediately, everyone felt a change in the atmosphere around them.

The pent-up, gloomy atmosphere of the shadowy Athens seemed to fade away and an exhilarating force poured in from all directions.

Hessiana looked at the glowing altar as she happily showed off to Vivian. “At the very beginning, I was the first to discover a strange energy overflowing occasionally in this spot. However, I don’t know why the entrance is in such a strange place—it overlaps with the entrance of the Parthenon.”

Hao Ren suddenly stepped forward and asked, “Ummm, can I look at those two slates?”

Before Hessiana could say anything, Zeon had already stood warily before the altar and asked, “What do you want to do? The slates are a vital key!”

Hao Ren waved his hand and said, “Don’t be nervous, I just want to have a look. I’m a wizard, so I’m interested in magic. You can guard it from the side, I won’t touch it, okay?”

Vivian did not know what Hao Ren wanted to do, but she still helped him and said, “He just wants to have a look at it, what’s the big deal? Are you still worried that we might rob the stone?”

Zeon looked at Hao Ren inexplicably. In the end, he reluctantly agreed. Hao Ren immediately went to the center of the altar and pretended to observe the operation of the altar. He even took out a magnifying glass, pretending to observe the altar closely, but at the same time, he was communicating telephatically with his MDT. “Did you record it?” he asked.

“The whole changing process is clear. This is a very simple space permutation,” the MDT replied. “Go to the left and try to be in the middle of the ritual. That way, my measurements will be more accurate.”

This was how the two of them pretended to observe the altar and at the same time, openly recorded the entire process of energy flow required to open the entrance.

Zeon was standing by the side. He looked at Hao Ren impatiently and asked, “Done?”

Hao Ren got the MDT to wrap things up. Pretending to look professional, he nodded and said, “Yes, soon… Let me see, well, the pattern of this marble is good. These two semicircle slates… Gee, this arc, this detail, it’s pretty round…”

Zeon blinked and asked, “Are you studying magic?”

“Err, the magic of the Blood Clan is very profound, I totally don’t understand.” Hao Ren kept the magnifying glass, raised his head and walked to the depths of the temple without any guilty conscience. He then proceeded to say, “Okay, start the next stage of our academic research. Let’s go to the ruins—”

Hessiana called him back loudly, “You’re going in the opposite direction! You have to exit the entrance door of the temple to get to the ruins!”

Chapter 294: The Vibes that Vivian Hate

 

Hao Ren turned his head awkwardly and found that the entrance to the different dimension was already open—it was right behind him. This unlucky entrance was actually stuck in such a place, which almost overlapped with the main entrance of the real Parthenon. The direction of entry was simply the opposite…

In fact, earlier on, Hessiana had mentioned that the entrance to ruins overlapped with the entrance of the temple but, Hao Ren was not paying attention.

“So, this is the entrance?” Lily was the first one to jump towards the entrance and observe it curiously. The entrance was a twisted, translucent film of light; it had no fixed shape, like a projection of water floating in the air. It had a width of about three or four metres with a height that corresponded with the temple’s beam. They could see a vague view of the different dimension from the light film. There seemed to be a different view of mountains and rivers on the other side. Lily curiously went to the back of the light film and found that there was nothing behind it—even the film itself had disappeared and she could see the people directly behind the light film.

Vivian threw a small bat into the light, nodded at Hao Ren and said, “Well, it’s a stable dimension and it looks very spacious.”

“Let’s go!” Hao Ren rolled up his sleeves and took the lead, walking into the light film, which did not really look reliable. Lily did the same and jumped into the light, followed by Vivian, Nangong Wuyue and Becky. Y’zaks stood at the back of the team and allowed Hessiana as well as Zeon Lucas to go first. “You go first, I’ll be the last one to go in. What about the altar outside…”

“These people will take care of it,” Hessiana said and pointed to several mages, who were maintaining the ritual as well as a circle of master guards, who were standing around them. “They’re the best fighters in the Blood Clan. They’ll take good care of the situation here.”

Zeon Lucas smiled and glanced at Y’zaks without saying anything. He then lifted his leg and walked towards the layer of translucent light film.

At the other side of the light, Hao Ren was staring blankly at the incredible scenery before him.

He stood at the top of a towering hill and beneath him lay a stretch of open ground with broken slabstones. He did not expect to see a clear and bright sky as well as a sea of clouds in this strange space. It was totally different from the chaotic and dim space he had imagined in his head. He saw layers of clouds surging in front of his eyes, which were almost as high as the mountaintop. It felt as if he would fall into the sky if he took only a few steps forward. In this endless sea of clouds, Hao Ren could see huge rocks floating in the air—the rocks seemed to be broken pieces of the mountain, with different sizes and shapes floating amid the clouds like there was no gravity. Something even more amazing was floating farther in the sky: it was an ancient Greek building—smilar to a temple with a white as well as stately colour and form; it was much larger than the Parthenon. The building was already not intact and one could clearly see the jagged stubble on one of its side. This was because, half of the structure had been abruptly torn away from the complex. Meanwhile, the rest of the building floated in the sky above the sea of clouds as weightless as any other mountain fragment. It was slightly tilted and a small part of it was hidden by the clouds.

The boundless sea of clouds, the broken rocks floating in the sky, and a sky palace slanted in the clouds, this was the scene that Hao Ren saw; shocking, and very challenging to the original cognition of the world.

But there was no much impact on him, his cognition of the world was already so twisted anyway.

“That’s the energy zone?” Nangong Wuyue looked up at the sky and found colourful ribbons of light floating in the more distant clear, blue sky. These light streams were breezing throughout the entire sky, like a river of light constantly flowing and twisting. She could feel the disturbing power of the light: powerful, but distorted, seemingly completely uncontrollable.

Becky looked up at the sky curiously as well. She came from the Plane of Dreams, but she also felt strange to the bizarre scene in the sky. “What is that? The people in your world… in this place have even developed techniques of colouring the clouds? How free are the people here?”

“There is absolutely no such thing in the Plane of Dreams…” Hao Ren muttered while looked up at the sky. The MDT was testing the energy readings around and at the same time kept warning in Hao Ren’s head, “Warning, mixed-type radiation exceeding the standard, harmful to humans, but harmless to you all, warning, mixed radiation exceeding the standard, harmful to humans, but harmless to you all…”

Hao Ren took the MDT out, shook it vigorously and scolded it, “Then, why are you sounding the alarm for? Can you just stay quiet?”

“Oh, I just wanted to show a sense of existence. I’ve been quiet this whole time and I thought maybe you guys had already forgotten about me…”

Zeon and Hessiana also jumped in through the light film the moment Hao Ren kept the MDT. Zeon looked at Lily with a weird expression on his face as she ran around crazily. Hessiana looked at Vivian with pride and said, “Lady Vivian, how is it? Is this place powerful? Do you feel the primitive energy around you? If the energy could be turned into magic power then we no longer have to worry about demon hunters!”

Vivian frowned and said, “Not… Not this kind of energy… These things are dangerous, it’s better not to touch them!”

“What does it mean?” Zeon’s attention suddenly shifted away from Lily, and he looked at Vivian with a startled face.

“Haven’t you let other senior elders see the situation here?” Vivian stared at Zeon and asked.

Zeon opened his mouth, a little hesitated and said, “Err… We did invite Grandalr and Hesperides, but they were not interested in it. We have yet to invite other people… we just discovered the relic, I want to wait until we ascertain the structure of this place and then…”

“This is not the Mythological Era…” Vivian looked around, raised her finger and pointed at the most striking hall in the distance. “Well, it indeed belonged to the Olympians, but there’s something wrong with the atmosphere here, and the raw energy in the air is not a product of the Mythological Era, they are arcane energy that is more primitive and uncontrollable… I feel uncomfortable, some… a certain trait of these energies makes me sick, and it’s no good messing with them.”

Hessiana and Zeon were shocked at the same time. “You said this is not the power of the Mythological Era?”

Vivian said firmly, “No, even at the peak of the Mythological Era, there was no such energy in the air, and the environment didn’t look like this at that time.”

The greatest expectation of the unusual creatures regarding the Day of Return was to find the source of power in the Mythological Era and restored their power. Therefore, Hessiana and Zeon were overjoyed after they discovered the energy that filled the space. They almost thought it was one of the ‘remnants of the ancient kingdom’ that collapsed and sealed off at the end of the Mythological Era, but now they were disappointed after they heard Vivian’s judgment. Zeon began to ponder silently, and Hessiana asked with a little hope, “Well, there’s energy everywhere, right? Although this is not the form of energy in the Mythological Era… it looks very powerful! It’s definitely good to make use of it, and probably this could be as strong as the real primitive power.”

“The power of the unknown source is never a good thing!” For some reason, Vivian looked more and more furious and her tone became very mean as if she was scolding Hessiana. “You’ll get killed for touching it sooner or later! No more studying of the things here… You’re absolutely not allowed to extract any energy from here and infuse it into your body!”

Hessiana was shocked by Vivian’s sudden rebuke. Hao Ren patted Vivian on the shoulder and said, “Umm, calm down, please. You’re scaring her.”

Vivian paused for a few seconds and then slowly went back to her usual gentle expression and explained, “Oh… Oh… You’re right, I was too harsh. But Hessiana, it’s for your own good. I feel the energy here is very dangerous… Although I can’t remember when I encountered it, it must have been a bad one. Maybe… Forget it, I can’t remember.”

Then Zeon suddenly asked, “Lady Vivian, have you calmed down? Are we going to continue to look around the relic?”

Vivian seemed to be a little confused. She blinked a few times and nodded as though she had just awakened from a dream. She cast an inquiring look at Hao Ren because at that moment, Hao Ren was the nearest to her. After Hao Ren confirmed that Vivian was fine, he nodded and said, “Let’s continue. I want to look around here—you can rest assured, I promise I won’t touch ‘your’ things. I’ll just look at them.”

Chapter 295: The Temple High in the Clouds

 

The relic was actually an unusually vast world rather than a closed place, which they had initially speculated. Nangong Wuyue looked at the endless sea of clouds and lofty sky as her curiosity soared. “Have you explored the borders of this place? Does it even have a border?”

“We haven’t but, there must be a border here,” Hessiana shook her head and said. “The farther the sea of clouds, the thicker they get. There’s a very strange, thick fog within the clouds and flying in this thick fog is very exhausting. I guess that’s supposed be the barrier of this dimension. In addition, you’ll encounter another thick fog going halfway down along the mountain peak. If you forcibly go through the thick fog, you’ll see a cliff. I didn’t dare to jump down…”

It seemed that there was a border in this dimension, but the environment near the border became so bizarre that even the powerful vampires could not get close to it. Hao Ren decided to go and explore the most eye-catching temple in the clouds. However, before he did so, he looked at Vivian worriedly and asked, “Are you okay?”

Vivian had been behaving a little strange since just now. The special energy that filled the place seemed to have an impact on her. It made the usually calm and cool Vivian look agitated and impatient from time to time. However, she did not know what was going on either. When Hao Ren asked her with much concern, she could only shake her head and said, “I’m fine. I just need to control my emotions.”

Nangong Wuyue looked at Vivian inexplicably and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I just instinctively hate the atmosphere here, must be something that I’ve long forgotten.” Vivian smacked herself on the forehead and looked distressed as she continued to explain, “I can’t remember where I’ve encountered a similar situation like this, but I’m sure something bad must have happened…” Then she smiled at Hao Ren and said, “Don’t worry, I’ve been in similar situations before; I was inexplicably allergic to certain things and it took me quite a long time to remember some grudge from thousands of years ago. You know how I’m always forgetful. I’ll go back and think about it. I’ll tell you when I come up with something.”

Looking at Vivian’s stable expression, Hao Ren was relieved. Pointing to the temple high in the clouds, he asked, “Let’s go over there first. Are we going to fly there?”

When Vivian heard this, she immediately spread her wings, ready to hold on to Hao Ren and fly with him. The moment Hao Ren he got ready to hold on to Vivian, a thought suddenly crossed his mind. He turned to see Hessiana and found her looking at him ferociously. She bared her long, sharp teeth and hissed to threaten him. Hao Ren broke out in cold sweat right away. He was convinced that if he hugged Vivian in front of this girl, she would cut him evenly into 700 pieces, sprinkle him with cumin and marinate him for two months with soy sauce as well as vinegar. Then, she would eat 100 grams of his meat every day, which she would accompany with by Type B blood… Honestly, it was not easy to imagine such details in a flash. Obviously, this came from his experience as a college student, when he spent all of his money and ended up eating pickles for half a month.

“You can walk on the clouds, just be careful not to fall down,” Hessiana stood quietly between Vivian and Hao Ren. She pointed to the sea of clouds and said, “Do you see those glowing paths? They were probably made by the ancient Olympians. They blend with the clouds, but they’re actually paths. Watch your step, no one knows what will happen if you fall down.”

Hao Ren noticed that there were indeed some shiny paths in the sea of clouds. Those paths blended into the clouds around them, sending out a faint glow. They were connected to the temple in the distance and there were many crossroads leading to other directions, which most likely led to other temples. But now, there was only one way to go. Vivian then retracted her wings. Looked at the flashing paths, she pondered for a long time until finally, she clapped her hands and said, “Oh, yes, Zeus did build these trails in the clouds. Their houses were built in heaven and they were connected to each other by these paths in the clouds. Ah, so high-profile. Every day someone fell down and even Zeus himself fell down five or six times before. Every time he landed in a human village, he’d say, ‘I’ve come down to inspect the world’ after crawling out of the pit…”

“…Why the hell did they build this thing? And why didn’t they add a railing?” Hao Ren asked.

“It looked good this way. Also, if they fell down, they could fly up again anyway, so who cared? Actually, most of them were able to respond fast when they fell down and fly back, except Zeus. He was old and was always absent-minded when walking,” Vivian was revealing the unknown secrets of Olympians without fear. “Not just the Olympians, in Northern Europe and Egypt, those unusual creatures who lived among humans and pretended to be gods were also having the same problem. They liked to build their houses in all kinds of weird shapes just to make them look nice and cool. This allowed humans to think that they’re very powerful even though they didn’t quite understand the house. In reality, they were just showing off. After thousands of years of awe from humans, their mentality became so out of balance that they felt sorry for themselves if they didn’t live in the sky. Too bad, they all died in the end. They were actually quite funny.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

They nervously set foot on the path of clouds towards the far-away temple of the sky. Once Hao Ren stepped on the shimmering clouds, he was relieved: they could really stand on it. Although there was a layer of light on the path, it actually felt like they were standing on the ground. After he walked for a short distance, he could not stand it and turned to look at Lily. He then said, “Would you please stop pulling on my clothes? It’s hard for me to walk…”

Lily was right behind Hao Ren, following his footsteps and pulling on his clothes. In order to keep her balance, she even exposed her tail—everyone already knew about her werewolf identity, so she was not worried that Zeon or Hessiana would pounce on her to bite her. Hao Ren looked at the girl’s tail, which was trembling a lot and asked curiously, “Are you afraid of heights? You shouldn’t be, you used to be brave enough to hold on to the plane to steal a ride…”

The hair on Lily’s tail stood up. “I’m not afraid of heights… but, I don’t feel safe to step on this thing. There was this place where a glass bridge was built and someone fell off that bridge—it was me! I didn’t notice that a piece of glass was missing…”

Nangong Wuyue asked with surprised, “Where did such an accident happen? Why have I never heard of it?”

Lily then responded with a mournful face, “…That bridge was not complete yet and I sneaked in. But I ended up stepping on the spot where glass was missing and I fell. Under the bridge, someone was paving the road… I fell directly into the cement mixer. I was almost covered by cement and paved into the road. Thanks to my quick reflexes, I jumped out of it in a jiffy without being noticed, or else you could’ve seen me in the news a few years ago. It gave me a phobia from that day onwards. It’s really insecure to walk on such a transparent thing.”

Hao Ren sighed and said, “Alright, you can continue to grab on my clothes.”

The husky’s life in the past was so rich and colorful.

Vivian was walking beside Hao Ren, looking carefully at the scenery of the place and searching for information about it from her unreliable memory. She found that the sky temple in the distance was vaguely familiar, but she could not remember which old friend it belonged to. The mountain behind her was reminiscent of Mount Olympus—the mountain here referrred to “another” Mount Olympus. It was not the same as the real Mount Olympus that existed on Earth.

“There were many wonders created by magic in the Mythological Age; most of them were related to unusual visions,” Vivian disclosed some ancient knowledge to them as they walked. “Some were made for security, to prevent a place from being broken into; some were made to obtain peace and quiet; while some gods made them because they were addicted to games and felt that they had to build some sort of divine world. Anyway, whatever the reason, they built a lot of homes that drifted around the boundaries of the real world, which was a bit like the Shadowy Divide, but less guarded. The ‘Mount Olympus’ that Zeus lived in was such a place, where one part of it floated over the Mount Olympus of the real world and the other part stood in another dimension. After the Mythological Era collapsed, most of these dwellings cracked and turned into ruin, but now it looks like some have actually survived. This place here looks like somewhere near the peak of Mount Olympus… but the scenery’s somewhat distorted and changed. Probably, some kind of distortion happened after the collapse and of course, it could also be my memory problem.”

In the company of Vivian’s continuous explaining along the way, they finally arrived at the foot of the temple in the clouds.