The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 678

Chapter 678: The Pope in the Passageway

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The compact-sized Petrachelys was approaching the black battleship as it floated silently in space. It did not look as menacing as before. Now, it was more like a dying behemoth, lingering quietly in the cold darkness with occasional bursts of sparks and electric arcs on its surface. The sail-like crystal plates in its middle section had completely been stripped away as a huge breach almost tore the spacecraft apart. Surrounding the area of the breach were red-hot metals that had yet to completely cool down. Inside the hole, there were some blast doors and safety mechanisms, which were half-closed. The safety installations had tried to seal off the compartments to prevent air leakage, but the breach was just too big. Gases and debris were being sucked out from the hole like blood splattering out from one’s veins.

However, Hao Ren was not worried whether the brain monster would die from the air leakage. He had studied the monster’s physique and he knew that it could survive for a long period in a vacuum environment. The airtight environment of the black spacecraft may have served to increase its level of comfort, or it could simply be a habit of the brain monster a.k.a the giant to create such a design.

“The enemy’s energy network is in disarray. Initially observation suggests that its artillery has lost its counterattack capability. Self-destruction is ruled out.” The MDT carefully checked the data. After all, the black battleship was a pretty advanced piece of machine; if it chose to blow itself up together with its enemy, practically, the Petrachelys could do nothing about it given their close proximity right now. “I have found a way in through the breach. Below the breach is a large bay, the central bay of the spacecraft.”

“Wang, Vivian, Lily, and Uncle Wudi, follow me inside.” Hao Ren quickly chose his teammates. He did not select them at whim. Y’zaks and Vivian were fighters, good in attack and defence. Though shaky at times, Lily was a formidable fighter too when the situation called for it and would not hesitate in protecting her master—provided that she did not mess up in the first place. Nangong Wudi, the half-baked demon hunter, might not be a good fighter, but he was an experienced hunter with superb hunting skill and intuition, these qualities were especially useful in an unknown environment.

The other guys understood the importance of having the right persons for the job. No one objected to this arrangement. Rollie came up and jumped in Hao Ren’s arm. “Please come back quickly and take me home…”

She had been frightened the hell out of her lately.

Hao Ren nodded. He and his small team left the flight deck. After a short while, they had arrived on the surface of the black battleship by way of warp eject.

The breach caused by the psionic cannon fire lay horizontally in front of their eyes. It appeared small when looking from afar. When they finally came close to it, Lily found it so large so that she could throw a house straight into it. The black metal sheets surrounding the breach curled outward toward the space as air carrying metal shrapnel was still leaking from within. Lily balanced herself in the airstream as she poked her head down and looked. “There is light down there.”

“Power is still available in some parts of the spaceship,” Hao Ren checked his shield’s capacity, making sure it was at a healthy level before he plunged into the breach with a spear in his hand. “Everyone, keep up with me. But be careful not to touch anything.”

They cautiously manoeuvred around the fractured metals through the breach, and avoided the severed cables and support frames. A half-closed door appeared before them. The door mechanism had suffered damage but not completely. Something stuck somewhere as the door was still making attempt to shut itself close. Y’zaks went up and held the door in place to prevent it from shutting close suddenly as the others quickly squeezed through it.

They came into a super-wide, huge, long, and slanted passageway. It was already twisted in shape; metal plates in some places had even fallen off; miraculously, lights in the passageway were still functioning, allowing them to see clearly.

“There is a slight gravity,” Hao Ren was finding himself falling, and eventually he landed on the floor. His standing position was not a comfortable one because the gravitational field in the passageway was inclined, at least thirty degree to the floor. “The gravity generator has not completely shut down … Seeing the world in this perspective is making me dizzy. Be careful of the gravity under the feet. The system is damaged, the force and direction of gravity may change abruptly. So just watch out.”

Lily was not worried about this at all. She had never been able to react quickly enough to thing.

“Did we puncture this?” said Vivian, as she walked past a hole on the wall of the passageway and saw the situation on the other side. Old and messy cables and wires entangled with equipment. The tattered condition suggested that this place had been abandoned for a long time. “It doesn’t look like a cannon fire damage.”

After a brief examination, Hao Ren said, “Hmmm… the damage is not caused by the artillery; there is no entry hole on the opposite side. It should be already like that in the first place. Looks like the repair was not completed on the spaceship. The brain-monster might have lifted off the spaceship ahead of schedule when it realised it had lost control of the situation.”

Vivian scratched her chin and said, “No wonder the Petrachelys could take it down so easily. You know, this battleship was powerful enough to wipe all lives in Io.”

Hao Ren pursed his lips. “Whatever, as long as we incapacitated it.”

“The brain-monster should have sensed our presence—if it is still alive,” Y’zaks reminded. “Don’t remove the protective crystal.”

They checked the status of their protective crystals before proceeding cautiously. The size of this spacecraft was surprisingly massive. If they wandered aimlessly, they would not be able to find the brain monster in time. However, with the help of the Petrachelys to provide navigation feed, the exploration team was able to know where they should be going. Now that the system of the spacecraft was down and that brain-monster might have been badly injured too, nothing would stop them from catching the brain monster.

After a while of walking, Nangong Wudi stopped suddenly. His eyes shimmered. In the special vision of the demon hunter, he saw a faint shadow floating ahead in the passageway. The imaginary shadow looked like a man in a robe.

“What happened?” asked Hao Ren as he had noticed the reaction of Nangong Wudi.

“There is a soul out there, but it’s weak, only demon hunter can see it,” said Nangong Wudi, reaching his hand into his pocket and took out a few rune cards. “Take them. The rune can enhance your vision and see the soul.”

Y’zaks did not take it. “I don’t need it. I can see souls. It’s my area of ​​expertise.”

Hao Ren took the rune card and now he could see a figure standing in the passageway. He looked at the translucent shadow in horror before he finally recognised the plain robe and hair of the figure. “Pope? You’re still here?”

This soul in the black battleship was none other than the Pope, who had prevented a global EMP catastrophe and died a martyr a while ago!

However, the pope who was now a soul looked different from when he was alive. He now looked even older and seriously stooped. The effect of aging was obvious despite being a soul now. When the pope saw Hao Ren and his entourage, he sluggishly froze for a while as if his ethereal body form had affected his thinking somewhat, but at last he recalled who these people were. Hao Ren heard an old voice spoke into his mind, “You are able to come this far… I’ve underestimated you alien people.”

“How did you get here, Pope?” asked Lily simple-mindedly. “Aren’t you dead?”

“Dead? Oh, oh, in fact I’m,” the Pope nodded slowly. “I can hear the goddess is calling me… Looks like I don’t have much time here. This is an incredible place, vast and wonderful… so many truths and secrets in the world. It’s a pity that I don’t have time to study these things… But I think the Goddess will enlighten me…”

The Pope slowly fading away. Hao Ren quickly seized the last moment by asking, “We are here to catch that monster. Do you know what’s going on here?”

“It is in front, right behind that door,” the pope lifted his fingers, which had become almost transparent, pointing to the end of the passageway. “But don’t call him a monster. We mortals owe it to him. We owe it to the goddess. I think I don’t deserve to beg for his forgiveness, but you … you aliens may be able to talk with him.”

“Owe it to him?” Hao Ren froze. But just when he was to ask more questions, the pope had completely gone, leaving only his last words echoing in the mind. “The goddess is calling me… goodbye foreigners…”

Chapter 679: The Giant on the Throne

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

No one knew how to react as the Pope slowly vanished into the air until Lily muttered, “What did the old man mean by that?”

Vivian shook her head. “I don’t know… but I know our target’s right ahead.”

The door at the end of the passageway was vaguely visible. They quickly approached it and noticed that the door was magnificently huge. It was also different from the other doors on the spacecraft: its gloomy black surface was etched with a weird pattern, and it was lined with two columns, which looked purely decorative on the sides. Something special had to be behind the door. Nangong Wudi squinted his eyes, carefully scanning their surroundings with his demon hunter vision. Everything appeared calm.

“Clear.” The old demon hunter nodded to Hao Ren.

Hao Ren stepped forward and placed his hand on the door. He was expecting the door was locked. Just when he was contemplating whether to use explosive, the door just opened itself as if it was touch sensitive.

Everyone kept their guards up and cautiously walked through the door. They felt their steps heavier as they stepped inside while their breathing was returning to normal. Hao Ren glanced over his shoulder and saw a light film on the door behind them. “The gravity and artificial atmosphere seem to be working normally here.”

“This place is huge,” Lily looked up and around in awe. “I’m already dizzy by just looking at it.”

Behind the door was an unusually vast rectangular hall. Doubtless, things that the giants built were huge, but this place was just at another level. They almost felt that they had come to the open air. There were humanoid sculptures on both sides of the long hall, all more than 20 metres tall and obviously sculptures of the giants that were supplemented with a certain artistic exaggeration. Between the giant sculptures, dark-red patterned curtains were hanging from the ceiling to the floor. Right above on the ceiling, a series of lamps formed into various abstract patterns that somehow reminded Hao Ren of the icons of the Disciples of Glory.

The decoration and atmosphere of this place was somewhat beyond expectation. It did not look like a cabin of a spacecraft. It was more like a sacred place of some secret religion. Vivian was in shock. She sighed. “It seems the giants are very artistic… Never have I expected them to be able to build such a place before turning into brain-monsters.”

However, rather than the sculptures and decorations, something else had caught Hao Ren’s eyes. He saw a huge black seat in front of the long hall. A giant was sitting on the seat with back on them. He did not know whether the giant was dead or alive. He could not help but relate the scene to a fairy tale: A group of humans strayed into the castle of the giants; everything around looked so massive and there was a giant sitting on the throne.

While he was in thought, the giant on the ‘throne’ suddenly moved. It slowly got to its feet.

Everyone was surprised. They were all alarmed as the giant slowly walked towards its uninvited guests. Standing at ten metres tall, the giant had glowing dark-red skin, draped in a tattered uniform of indeterminate material. It used a weird long staff to support itself standing as it looked at the uninvited guests, eyes full of hatred. Although not expressed on its face, anger was spreading in his eyes.

“Then let’s just die.” The giant had just uttered these words, its voice like thunder. It raised his long staff pointing at Hao Ren and his entourage. A giant plasma arc was hitting Hao Ren’s shield and was deflected but almost hitting those around him. Everyone dodged frantically with retaliating manoeuvres. Lily was screaming as she jumped left and right. “I thought it was just a brain? Now it comes with a body!”

“How would I have known?” Hao Ren was just as confused. Wielding his spear to deflect the electric arc onto the ground, he shouted to the giant, “Rightly speaking, this is the brain monster we are looking for… Let’s stop fighting; we can talk it through, shall we?”

He knew this thing could talk. Although it was not very friendly, it seemed to be more communicable than those mute brain-monsters. He had an important reason to do so; he had found that the crystal shield did not work on this giant like how it worked on the brain-monsters. The crystal could directly incapacitate the brain-monsters, but was only effective in preventing the mind attack from the giant. It had no effect on the giant itself. That was rather unexpected. So Hao Ren could only take it as it comes.

Their counterattacks had only stricken the mental shield of the giant. In fact, they did not want the giant dead. The giant also seemed to be aware of this fact as it uttered angrily. “What do you want of me? To humiliate me?”

“I just wanted to talk to you!” said Hao Ren, jumping left and right to avoid the electric arc attacks. “We came from other universe. We are clueless about the situation here! We just want to know why you are so adamant to destroy the world… you really don’t want to stop, do you?”

“I won’t negotiate,” the giant stomped the stuff on the ground while waving the other hand in the air. Its mighty mind power instantly created a lightning storm in the air and then struck at them. “I would rather die than compromise with the treacherous childen.”

Hao Ren gritted his teeth and turned to look at the others. “We have no choice but to take him down—alive!”

A strong plasma arcs slammed down on the ground and spurred a lightning storm. They swiftly dodged the lightning and lunged at the giant.

Lily wielding her Frostfire Claws like a vicious dog sprung ten metres up in the air before striking at the giant head-on. She hit the mental shield. Her long white hair fluttered in the air. But she ignored the burning sensation the mental shield was causing and kept attacking the seemingly weak barrier with her Frostfire Claws, hoping that brute force attack would overwhelm the mind shield. At the same time, Vivian was summoning her bats to strike the giant, also hoping to overwhelm the enemy by burying it alive in ice and lightning. While Y’zaks and Nangong Wudi quickly were joining the barrage of attacks with fist and bolts, Hao Ren took his spear and filled up the last gap in the encirclement.

The giant roared furiously as it was under siege. It waved its arms trying to fend off the ‘little’ enemies as if they were annoying mosquitoes. However, the skilful little enemies began to overwhelm the giant. The giant had suffered injury from the explosion earlier; its combat strength was weakening rapidly.

Suddenly, a memory of the Mythical Era flashed across Vivian’s mind; a group of humans surrounded and killed a pure thunder-giant.

She shook the thought away. The giant had finally exhausted all its strength. Its mind-powered shield came down. Everyone took a few steps back as the dozen-metre-tall body began to fall to the ground. However, the giant suddenly planted its stuff on the ground to prevent itself from falling; it was still struggling to balance itself. Looks like it would rather die than fall in front of these people in shame.

“Would it blow itself up without warning?” Hao Ren took a deep breath, mumbling worriedly.

As soon as his voice trailed off, he noticed a bright electric glow on the body of the giant. The strong energy field began to distort and heat up the surrounding air.

At that crucial moment, Y’zaks acted. He struck out a large number of demonic runes from under his feet to suppress the last attempt of attack from the giant.

All eyes fell on Hao Ren who as waving his hand haplessly. “Don’t look at me like that… at least I did warn you guys…”

No one was giving a shit to him. Hao Ren hemmed a couple time, feeling like a fool. He then turned to look at the giant. “Well, well, shall we talk nicely now?”

Chapter 680: Truths

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The giant looked at Hao Ren in anger, not appearing to be very cooperative.

However, Hao Ren still felt that he was making great progress because this time, he had accidentally caught a giant who had yet to turn into a brain monster. This giant was obviously easier to talk to than the other brain monsters. Probably due to the fact that the unmutated giant still possessed some of its sanity. Compared to his previous attempts to talk to the mute brain monsters, this giant was shouting at him.

Considering all things, a shouting match was still an achievement.

Lily could not help but step up to the giant and say, “Hey, super big guy! We want to ask you a few questions!”

Demonic runes were restraining the giant and it did not even have the ability to self-destruct. However, it was being b*tchy. “Just let me die, or shut up.”

Lily was jumping around trying to dodge saliva that was spurting out of the giant’s mouth (generally, other novels do not mention details like this). She yelled, “Don’t do it, we’re not going to hurt you! We just want to know about the situation here…”

Vivian buried her face in her hands, turned away and said, “After smashing up its spaceship, this doesn’t sound very convincing.”

Hao Ren knitted his brows together as he glanced at the giant. Suddenly, he waved his hand and said, “Never mind. Bring it to the Crapple Research Station. We won’t make the same mistake again.”

With the experience of the last brain monster’s “jailbreak”, Hao Ren knew that this creature of incredibly strong mind power was very difficult to contain. Their intangible mind power was especially handy in exploiting security flaws. Although the giant had lost all of its strength and was unable to escape, out of caution, Hao Ren still decided to send it over to CARS. At least there, no souls could ever escape no matter how powerful they were.

The Petrachelys and the black spacecraft were now in Holletta’s orbit, while CARS was on the other side of Holletta. The distance between the two was very close, so it did not take much effort to transfer the giant to its new cage. A group of autonomous robots pushed the giant, which was retained by the demonic chain into a cylindrical container that was reinforced with layers of crystal and energy barriers. The container was a dedicated vessel to collect all kinds of dangerous creatures. Not only could it block mind powers, but it was also very strong structurally—at least, no mortal race in that universe could break through its barrier.

The container was massive. A dozen-meter-tall creature looked like a human inside a typical room. The giant looked at the crystal structure and advanced instruments around it. Its eyes finally exuded a little sense of curiosity, perplexed at the existence of such an advanced race that was capable of building such things in the universe. It became angry again. “You treacherous child! Did you steal the power of your mother? How was this cage made?”

“Tell me how I can make you understand?” Hao Ren spread out his hand haplessly as he stood outside the container facing the giant. “I’ve come from another universe. I know nothing about this world. But knowing that you and a bunch of tentacle-monsters were ravaging this world, I’m curious to know why. I don’t care what your reasons are. What you did is a serious violation of the laws of the Empire. Of course, if you’re cooperative, I can appeal for more leniency.”

The giant cracked up upon hearing what Hao Ren said. It sat cross-legged on the floor, and with a mocking expression on its face, it leaned over and looked at the “little human” in front of him. “From another universe? Are you saying that you have nothing to do with those traitors? Ick—”

The giant spat and turned to stare at Hao Ren. “I can smell the stench of them on you even behind this layer of crystal.”

Becoming a target of scorn had Hao Ren baffled. He turned to look at Lily and Vivian next to him. “To be honest, you’re not wrong to say that these two individuals beside me are in some way related to the people in the Plane of Dreams, but I’m an Earthling through-and-through…”

The giant said nothing as if it was too lazy to entertain its “enemy”. As kind-hearted as Hao Ren was, facing such a mulish guy was really upsetting. But he could not do anything about it except stare back at the giant in the cage. He thought about how he should deal with the guy? Torture? The giant would definitely not budge. Threats? He had nothing in hand to coerce it. Reason? Hao Ren did not even believe he was capable of that. The only time he knew things would unfold exactly as he said was when he swore and became a mouthpiece…

“To tell you the truth, I think you better cooperate with me.” Hao Ren persuaded it with one last-ditch effort. “You may feel that you are strong-willed and firm in belief, but the guy who is a lot more powerful than you are has been caught by us. Its fate is worse than yours—it’s been thrown into a jar and become a research sample. You can see it for yourself if you don’t believe what I say.”

While saying, Hao Ren activated the holographic projection device next to the container. The images of the First Borns in Container 1 and 2 immediately popped up. The two giant tentacles were immersed in a thin medium solution. It seemed that nothing had changed since they were first incarcerated here. The only things that were obviously different were the additional complicated test instruments and reinforced restraints on the tentacles and some tissue nodes: as the creatures always convulsed in sleep, Hao Ren was worried that they would damage the test instruments in the container.

“How can you treat our siblings like this?” The giant was finally moved. It looked even more irritated now. “You’re treacherous! They are your siblings!”

“I can’t help it. They wanted to destroy the world,” Hao Ren sighed. “As the survival of the world was at stake, I couldn’t just watch them wipe off the entire ecosystem.”

Y’zaks hugged his arms. He looked on before he took two steps forward and said to the prisoner in the cage, “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn, but we’ll make you speak today. If necessary, I will consider interrogating your soul directly. It’s your freedom to remain silent, but I will have ways to make you talk. Don’t test my patience. Now I can see that the strength of your soul is just as good as any mortal.”

The giant seemed beginning to notice Y’zaks. It looked down at him, said with a surprised voice. “Hmmm, you’re a strange creature, one that I’ve never seen before.”

Hao Ren was a bit puzzled. He looked at Y’zaks. “What does it mean?”

Y’zaks had not fully grasped what it meant. He looked around at the others, pointed to his nose, and asked the giant, “Am I not the same with them?”

The giant snorted. “Yet another ignorant one.”

“That’s very cocky,” said Y’zaks, laughing. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to study what was wrong between you and me. Now tell us: what the explosion of the new red star aka the star of the goddess of creation was all about? What about the loss of control of the First Borns? What happened to you guys?”

The giant suddenly staggered to its feet when it heard the word “goddess of creation”. It pressed against the inner wall of the crystal container and asked, “These are what you want to know?”

“We want to know the truth,” Hao Ren looked into the giant’s eyes, calmly. “Believe it or not, we really don’t know anything about it, and we’re not in cohort with the Second Borns like you have mentioned. This universe has a problem, a very serious problem. A true goddess who created all things was killed, and now I must investigate what had happened back then, if possible, I would also want to trace the murderer down. Probably you think the smell on our bodies is similar to the treacherous children. But we are not together.”

The giant stared deadly at Hao Ren. Suddenly it giggled. “Oh, I believe you know nothing about that. But I don’t think that you are not descendants of the treacherous children. Of all of you…”

The giant looked around before its eyes landed on Y’zaks. “…only he is clean.”

Then he glanced at Vivian once again, albeit bizarrely. “And this one… I can’t really tell.”

Lily was as clueless as a tub of crap on a rainy day. “What are you talking about? You mean you can see where their ancestors came from?”

“Of course I can,” said the giant. “Because we used to help our mother copy every detail of intelligent species before she was murdered by the treacherous children.”

“Did the mortals really collude with them and murder the true goddess?” Hao Ren realized he was finally peering into the truth. He was excited. “Who did it?”

“Everyone other than the ancient ones.” The giant gritted its teeth. “All intelligent creatures!”