The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 786

Chapter 786: Seigneur

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

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. Its 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’re the seigneur? Do you know what happened here?”

“If you know that I’m the seigneur, you should be humble!” Heimerwin raised his voice, trying to project his authority. However, his uneasiness quickly got 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 intimidate 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. You’re alone, but there are five of us here.”

Not to be deceived by Kassandra’s beauty, the vampire was a thug at heart. Hao Ren had already gotten used to her ever since he met her two days ago.

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

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

Everyone was speechless.

The threat worked as Heimerwin finally knew who the real boss was; he became cooperative. He curled himself in the chair, and his body language showed that he was frightened though he still spoke like 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 then you woke me. Where are my servants and butler?”

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

Vivian nodded slightly, and she knitted her brows together as she looked at Heimerwin. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I finished checking the warehouse, came back to the hall and had my meal, then I went to rest in my room,” Heimerwin said, glancing at the center of the hall and pointing his finger at 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 his head up. “This is a big, beautiful house. My servants always keep it in spotless condition. But now… Where are my servants?”

“If I’m not mistaken, they’re already dead,” Hessiana said as she fiddled with her vampire whip. “It all happened hundreds of years ago. The door is there. Go 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 and was stunned. Then he grabbed his hair and shouted hysterically, “This is a nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare!”

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

“Maybe… he’s a ghost,” Nangong Sanba said, but he was also unsure. “I’ve never seen anything like him. He emerged from the ashes. And look at his feet, there are footprints, and he has a shadow, which means he has weight and body.”

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

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

“Don’t do that. It’s not easy to find someone who can provide us with information. Don’t frighten him anymore.” Hao Ren waved his hand. “And he’s not our enemy. But as you said, wraith rituals could produce a similar creature. So did this seigneur transform himself willingly?”

Nangong Sanba looked at the dejected Heimerwin who was behind Turcan. “The problem is, he seems to know nothing about his transformation. I thought that he did this to himself for immortality. But if he doesn’t 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 an immortal. That way, no one will find out and go after him.”

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

Hessiana lifted the man’s chin with her long whip; she was running out of patience. “Don’t be a wretch. Have you forgotten that you’re 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. Everyone’s gone; they are dead. As for yourself, you’ve probably guessed it; you’re dead too. You’re now a phantom.”

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

“Some powerful black magic; that’s what I can say,” said Nangong Sanba. “We’re 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’re the only one who can talk. Do you know who cast a spell on this town?”

“Black magic?” Heimerwin repeated these words vacantly. Suddenly, he flinched as if something terrible crossed his mind. “Devil! It is the devil! I remember. There was a demon lurking here! I was bewitched. I was… Oh God, what have I done…”

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

“Scholar… Scholar!” Heimerwin flung his hand up violently. “It is him! It is him! The monster who sold my soul to hell. He deceived and blinded me. I was—”

“The wizard is probably dead,” Vivian interrupted. “a demon hunter killed him.”

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

“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 strode to the door while the rest of them immediately trailed after.

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

Soon after, there was a thick fog in their way.

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Chapter 787: Hiding Place In the Fog

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

A thick fog was in the way; it was almost as thick as a wall. Hao Ren stopped, looking to the left and the right; the wall of fog stretched out from both sides into the far distance.

The dense fog had sealed off the town, and Hao Ren found no road ahead.

“This is probably the boundary of the town,” Vivian said. She reached her hand into the thick fog; she immediately felt a strange, slippery and warm touch to her hand. “The mysterious realm has a limit. I think we have reached that limit.”

“Why stop? Hurry up, hurry up—” Heimerwin said from the side as he was about to step into the fog. “Hurry up, hurry up, the devil may get away…”

“Can’t you see the fog?” Hao Ren pointed to the fog wall in front of him. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to just go in like that.”

Heimerwin was a bit stunned. He turned around his head looking at the foggy border of the town. “Fog? What fog? Is there any better weather than this? I can see the silhouette of the old mill from here.”

Everyone was stunned. Did this ‘ghost’ not see fog had sealed off the border?

Just when Hao Ren wanted to ask again, Heimerwin already stepped into the fog. Something incredible happened.

The dense fog gave way as if it were some living creature. Road and vegetation gradually emerged as if they were born from the mist. The fog cleared out ahead as Heimerwin moved.

Hao Ren could not make of what happened. He pulled Vivian a little by her arm and said, “Everyone, let’s keep up.”

The fog seemed to be omnipresent. A few minutes into the journey, they started to lose direction of from where they came come. All they saw was fog rolling a few meters around them and visibility was poor. Lily grabbed Hao Ren’s sleeves nervously. “Mr. Landlord, will we get lost?”

“Can’t you sniff your way out?” Vivian rolled her eyes at Lily. “As a canine, you are afraid of getting lost? You wasted your talent on the spicy stick?”

Lily blinked and rubbed her nose. “Hmmm, you’re right.”

“Don’t worry,” Hao Ren comforted Lily. “I’ve left behind a beacon transmitter outside before I came in. We stick together. And, we can teleport back if something happens.”

Nangong Wuyue looked at Heimerwin who was walking in front. She then pulled her brother’s sleeve and asked, “How does a ghost do that? Even the fog is giving way!”

“Because he ‘remembers,’” Nangong Sanba replied, frowning. “Though I’m not very sure, it seems that the town is composed of two parts: the physical world is the main body of the town while the supernatural parts, such as the spirits, the ashes, Heimerwin himself, and the dense fog that locked the town up came from the ‘memory’. The whole town is a massive consciousness and the things that remain in the memory become the phenomena before us. The events are supernatural, and they are unstable.”

Hao Ren looked at Nangong Sanba, feeling puzzled. “Where did you learn all these?”

“I didn’t learn anything other things except how to deal with the world of ghosts for the past one hundred years,” Nangong Sanba said, holding his head high. “Since I could not defeat the Werewolf and Blood Clan, the only thing I could do is an exorcism. It is the first time I see such a massive spiritual field. Anyway, the basic principles are the same; material, memory, soul together form a supernatural space. That’s what we see right now.”

Hao Ren nodded. But in his mind, he was wondering how Nangong Sanba still could be so proud to admit his inferiority unashamedly.

They followed Heimerwin deeper into the fog. Hao Ren could now feel they were going uphill under his feet. Hessiana began to lose her patience. She asked the guide in front, “Hey, Heimerwin, how far do we have to go?”

Heimerwin almost jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice suddenly came from behind. He pointed to the front. “We should be there in a moment, right ahead. It’s within sight now, that black house. Ahh! It’s changed so much after I took a nap.”

The rest of them could not see the ‘house’ Heimerwin mentioned. But no one said a word. After a long while, as the road became level, they came to an open area, where the ‘hiding place’ of the witch was.

A ruined, old mansion stood alone on the open ground surrounded by dense fog, which made the mansion appeared spookier than it was. The layout of the mansion was simple; two stories, and except a stable on the outside, there was no other annex. Judging from the size of the building, it belonged to the wealthy, at least commoners of that era could not possibly afford this kind of residence.

Heimerwin flinched a little as he pointed to the entrance. “He lived here, but he would not let anyone come close.”

Hao Ren nodded. He got closer and examined the exterior of the mansion curiously. Except for the main entrance, wooden planks had blocked all the windows. But some planks had rotten so much that the curtain behind the windows was exposed. The building was sealed. No sane humans would want to stay here.

Vivian looked at Heimerwin. “Haven’t you gone inside?” she asked.

“Err… I did. Once,” Heimerwin looked visibly frightened. “Everything inside was blasphemous. Books of the heresy piled on the tables.”

“Sounds like you are quite resentful of the ‘scholar.’” Hao Ren stared at Heimerwin, observing the changes of his expression. “But according to our investigation, you had given the ‘scholar’ your unfaltering trust, as if you wanted to hire him as a consultant. And you often held discussions with him.”

Heimerwin was stunned; there was a disgusting and uneasy expression on his face. “I was bewitched at that time! It was black magic, the power of black magic! The devil had brainwashed me with spells. I couldn’t even remember what was happening during the bewitched period. But I am awake now; I can recall some of the things that happened at that time… I think you are right, the devil is dead, and the spells he cast on me is gone.”

“Maybe,” Hao Ren nodded, pretending to be agreeable. He then brought Heimerwin into the house. “You have to come with me. I need a guide.”

Heimerwin resisted at first; he seemed to be wary of the house. But when he saw the evil stares of Kassandra and Hessiana, he relented and bowed his head saying that he would cooperate.

The door creaked open when Hao Ren gave it a little push. Dust began to rain down from the beam above. He stepped back a little waiting for the dust to settle before he went inside.

Lily summoned her Flamejoy and used it as a torch, which shocked Heimerwin. Turcan poked Heimerwin with the hilt of his sword as if saying “shut up and keep walking.”

The inside of the house was messy as tables and wooden shelves were lying around. But they were delighted to see items and books of black magic piled on the tables and shelves. The wizard had indeed been here.

“Looks like the fog hasn’t come into the house,” Lily said. She sniffled to examine the furnishings. Earlier, Lily had sneezed several times while outside; the fog irritated her nose. She felt much better inside. “It is weird; there are no ashes in here.”

There was dust but not the black ash. It seemed that the weird ash existed only in the town.

Everyone searched through the materials and books. Noticing no one was looking, Heimerwin sniffled and sat down carefully in a corner like a statue.

Hao Ren saw a big book that sat open on the big table in the middle of the house. The first words on the page attracted his attention:

“The opposite side of the door, the secret knowledge of the distorted kingdom.”

---

Chapter 788: Trap

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

At the end of the Medieval Period, the supernatural forces on this planet made a return for the last time in history. While the influence of demon hunters and the Church grew, the otherworldlings and wizards struggled to survive. However, friction began to emerge between the Church and the demon hunters. This gave some breathing space to the small families and Vajrayana who were good at concealment. According to Vivian’s recollections, the period between the tenth and fifteenth century AD was the re-distribution of influence in the dark world. During that period, the aftermath of the Mythological Era had completely subsided. The more powerful otherworldlings, including the Ancient Ones, had died or gone into hiding. After the decline of the otherworldlings, the Church and the demon hunters began to compete for a new world order with the Church representing the humans. Although the demon hunters were theoretically more human, they were still a different race, so conflicts were inevitable.

But this history did not matter, Hao Ren’s mind was just taking a detour when he saw the lost town. Black magic erasing the town must have been a major incident back then. The battle between the demon hunters and the church obviously had given Baptiste—the wizard whom Hao Ren was looking for—a chance of success. He had not only exiled the town with magic but also studied witchcraft under the nose of the commoners. This house was full of traces of his magic experiments.

Magic books were scattered on one end of the long table. They all had a creepy texture and looked disturbing, and mostly made of black goatskin or special paper dipped in oil and written in ink made of blood. The content was difficult to understand and full of abstract and weird illustrations. Hao Ren would not have understood them without Vivian’s help.

The first magic book he saw was hand-written, mainly about various spatial phenomena and secret summoning rituals. Baptiste was not the author, obviously. The pages of the heavy book emanated a disgusting smell. Its dark-red cover depicted a warped door and a peering eye in the middle. There was a ‘D.R.’ inscription on the title page. Possibly left behind by the author. Baptiste must have read the book quite frequently judging from the many notes and memo entries on the pages. Besides, his handwriting was unexpectedly neat and beautiful. Hao Ren read the annotations, and he immediately knew what the wizard was most concerned about: the way to open the gate to Inferno, and the secret of harnessing souls to keep the dimensional passage stable.

He found the most frequently read part of the book, where the pages had worn and blackened considerably. This was a seven-page chapter, where the author of the magic book detailed the history of the gate to Inferno and his theory of opening it. But Baptiste had left behind even more notes than what the author had written on the page edges, and this attracted Hao Ren’s attention.

“…The records of the Inferno gate of the ancient times are not so reliable. The rulers of the world in that era were the gods of the old days; they did not allow others to inherit too much knowledge. This part of the content should be ignored.

“The discussion of the ‘seven obsidian rituals’ by Orben Moore is not consistent with this record, and the oil that makes obsidian magic may be more critical than the obsidian itself. According to my own experiments, Master Orben Moore’s point of view is more credible. Information about the test is in…

“It is a unique insight. The nature of the Inferno gate is very different from other dimensional gates; the same is true for the method of accessing Inferno. Strictly speaking, our goal is not to ‘open a gate’, but to pull Inferno into collision with another dimension to create a crack. So the portal structure is not the test basis; it is the summoning ritual…

The most important thing after connecting the two dimensions is to ensure the stability of the passage and to identify signs of the collapse of the passage. At least I have to set aside time to go to the second layer of Inferno and consider how to rebuild the return path to the main material world from the other end of the gate once the Inferno gate collapses prematurely. The formula of Master Fradkov is not accurate enough, that is why the grass at his grave is half a meter tall. Maybe I should re-assess the data…”

Hao Ren mumbled to himself as he read the complicated records. “I feel like reading a scientific write-up. Was he a wizard or an astrophysicist?”

Vivian held a dark glass bottle in her hand. She overheard the Hao Ren’s mumble and chimed in. “Wizards are knowledgeable persons. They are real polymaths to the commoners.”

Hao Ren put the book back to its original position. “Baptiste seemed to have been working on opening the gate to Inferno a long time ago as all the information he left behind was related to dimensional magic. But there is no mention of why he summoned the King of Blood, nor did he mention what happened to this town of Domir. What are you looking at? Something good in the bottle?”

“Sulphuric spring water, the specialty of Infernal dimension though only half a bottle is left,” Vivian handed the small bottle to Hao Ren. “Remember also the Infernal Fleshripper specimen that Hessiana found? Baptiste must have successfully opened the Infernal Gate once. But his second attempt seemed to have failed. Probably the window was too short; he only managed to bring out some materials from the first level of Inferno. Obviously, he hasn’t reached his goal.”

At this time, Nangong Sanba was holding a thick book in his hand. He came up and picked up where Vivian left off. “You’re right. He did open the gate once, but he wasn’t happy with the result. The purpose of him summoning the King of Blood must be that he needed the power of the ancient ones to help stabilize the gate.”

Hao Ren pointed to the thick book in Nangong Sanba’s hand. “What is it? A diary?”

“Nope. It’s a record of magic experiments. It mentions the successful opening of the door to Inferno. The Infernal Gate only stayed open for less than an hour; he almost died. Other than the experimental record, there are also many words of curse and complaint. According to the book, the reason for the early closure of the Infernal Gate was that the energy was insufficient, the surrounding environment was not stable, and the constant rejection from the real world had led to the collapse of the gate. He mentioned the need for enhancing his magic and his intentions of seeking help from the ancient otherworldlings… I guess these were the reasons he summoned the King of Blood.”

“He wanted to use the power of evil-spirit Vivian to open Infernal Gate?” Hao Ren blinked. “But the key questions are how did he know about the ritual, and where did the red-haired evil spirit come from.”

“The book doesn’t tell,” Nangong Sanba said, shrugging. “This place is messy. Probably we need to more time to sort it out.”

Hao Ren nodded. He then asked Vivian, curious. “What was inside the second level of Inferno that Baptiste was so adamant to go there?”

“No one knows.” Vivian shook her head. “It is already difficult enough to move around in the first level of Inferno, let alone the deeper level. And, the connection between Inferno and the Earth is too unstable; the window is too short for a round trip to the second level. So no one really knows what’s inside.”

Hao Ren rubbed his nose. “I really can’t fathom what’s so attractive about that place… By the way, I smell something weird.”

“A burning smell,” Lily sniffled and lifted her head out from the pile of debris. “I smell it too!”

The others also raised their heads, as they had also smelled a rich odor in the air. It was not just a burning smell but also mixed with stench and a strange sourness. Hao Ren looked up and his nose was searching for the source of the smell. But he suddenly found that the fog had come into the house through the gaps in the windows and the cracks in the door. The fog was squirming and filling the interior as if it was something alive. Things had become very strange.

“Smell like some kind of magic oil…” Nangong Sanba mumbled. “Something’s not right.”

Hessiana quickly looked at Heimerwin who had brought them to this place. The man sat stiffly on the chair, still like a stone. She stepped forward and poked his shoulder with the handle of her long whip. “Hey…”

Before her voice trailed off, Heimerwin collapsed into a pile of black ash.

A shrill sound came from outside the house.

Hao Ren shouted, “Something’s wrong. Let’s get out of here!”

Chapter 789: The Infernal Gate

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

The unforeseen event did not throw them off guard. They immediately clenched their weapons and wielded their spells. They then ran out of the house, only to see a strange sight greeting them outside.

A huge, translucent barrier was shrouding the house. It was an energy shield-like cover with magic runes on it. Fog was gathering above, spinning and compressing into a fluid-like substance and forming an energy barrier. The barrier was blocking their way out in all directions. Lily immediately drew her Frostfire Claws about to dig her way out. Nangong Sanba stopped her. “Don’t do that! Let’s first figure out what this thing is.”

“We are trapped,” Hessiana’s face did not look good. “It’s a trap!”

Hao Ren was stunned for a moment. He then rummaged through his dimensional pocket trying to find something useful. But before he could find anything, something began to appear outside the translucent barrier. The fog rolled up as a whirlwind of black smoke formed. The black smoke was pulling even more black smoke from the surroundings and quickly forming a human figure. It was Heimerwin, the seigneur who had crumbled into a pile of ashes in the house just a while ago.

However, this man now looked very different from the timid Heimerwin. He was standing straight with a strange sceptre in his hand, his expression cold as he stood outside the barrier as if he was examining his subjects of experiment. “Do you know how long I have waited?”

Nangong Sanba raised his crossbow and aimed it straight at him. “Heimerwin, what do you mean?”

“Just collecting the necessary power for my gate,” this Heimerwin said with a blank expression. At the same time, he pointed to the magic barrier. “My advice to you is don’t try to do stupid thing. It contains the hundreds of years of my power. Its power is enough to trap any ancient god of Mythological Era in an instant. You have no way to escape; the most sensible thing to do is calm down and wait for your power to be sucked out. It won’t be very painful if you do not resist.”

As the voice of ‘Heimerwin’ trailed off, the magic barrier above them began to make a buzzing sound, and the white runes flowed in a complicated pattern; it was beginning to extract all the power of the souls inside the barrier. Hao Ren began to notice the weeds under his feet turned into ashes rapidly. Even the big house behind them was squeaking loudly. Nangong Sanba and Kassandra were the first to feel dizzy and power draining from their bodies.

Hessiana finally came to her senses. She held up her whip and pointed straight at ‘Heimerwin’. “You are not a seigneur! You are Baptiste!”

The man outside the barrier nodded in a blank expression. “What took you so long? Was it so hard to guess, vampire girl?”

Hao Ren suddenly began to put two and two together. They were fooled right from the beginning!

The man before him was not a ghost of the seigneur. He was actually Baptiste, the witch they were looking for. He cast a necromantic spell and transformed himself into ashes, half-human half-ghost monster. He had completely erased the magic erosion mark left behind on the body of a wizard. Everything he said before was a lie. His ultimate purpose was to lure them to this abandoned house on the high ground.

He had set up a black magic circle that could extract the power of the living!

Hao Ren began to realise the timidity, awkwardness, neurotic and hysterical reactions of Heimerwin earlier were a disguise. The wizard wanted to divert their attention. He pretended to be a bumpkin nobility so that no one would be suspicious of him and asking him too many questions!

“I have been waiting for a long time!” Baptiste seemed to believe that the people inside the barrier were no more than sitting ducks. He began to talk to himself while waiting for this magic circle to draw their powers. “I left so many clues behind just for people like you. Aha, it’s hard to get experimental material with magic power. The strength I could extract from a hundred commoners is not as great as that a magician could provide. Today I have more than one! I have been preparing for this for so long, I’ve been preparing for this so long! And, now I am finally going to get the last bit of magic that I’ve been so lacking… I can finally go deeper into Inferno!”

Baptiste seemed to have immersed himself in some kind of frantic imagination. Living alone in this ghostly place for hundreds of years had turned him mad. He spoke to himself and waved his weird sceptre in his hand, his expression was switching forth and back from deadpan to crazy. Amid all these, Hao Ren saw something emerged in the thick fog just a few metres away from him.

The silky fog was flowing in the air as water in the river. It turned into a huge vortex under the influence of magic as red light emerged within and gradually formed a huge sphere. The sphere was like a huge eyeball of a few metres in radius, embedded on the surface of the earth. Inside the smoky sphere, a twisted landscape was looming.

It was Infernal Gate. Baptiste had actually found the connection between the infernal dimension and the Earth, everything happened just as planned; as enough magic power was gathered, the Infernal Gate began to emerge in the heart of the magic vortex!

It seemed long-winded, but it all actually happened in a very short time. Hessiana immediately launched her attack on the magic barrier. She raised her long whip, which was shrouded by an intense icy wind and electric arcs. She whipped it on the magic barrier with a thunderous sound, but the barrier stood still without a scratch. Turcan and Kassandra also unleashed their attacks on the magic barrier, but still, it did not move an inch.

But Baptiste’s sceptre flashed a few times when the barrier was attacked. He glanced at Hessiana indifferently. “Resistance is futile. You’re only wasting your strength.”

“Do you know who you are talking to? If I told you who I am you will pee in your pant!” Hessiana lashed out, and then looked to Hao Ren. “Aren’t you always resourceful? Please come out with something!”

Hao Ren reached into his dimensional pocket again looking for a bomb. But before he could took anything out, Lily already went up before the barrier.

The husky first scratched the barrier with her claws. After knowing that her claws were not going to defeat the barrier, she did the unexpected.

She sprawled on the ground and dug…

The boring ability of the maiden was well known to many. She could dig up a hole barehanded and bury herself in it the blink of an eye, not to mention she had two claws now. As she dug, earth and rocks were thrown up backward like a fountain behind her. And, she had bored through a hole under the barrier in just a few seconds.

Yes, that was how she got out.

Meanwhile, Baptiste was still holding his sceptre in his hand like Statue of Liberty. It was not that he did not notice Lily, even if he had, he would be still rooted to the spot like now. Any normal person would react the same way as he did when they first saw the husky. The evil wizard watched as Lily got out from the hole. He could not stop her because he was never prepared for this.

Lily sashayed up to Baptiste, grabbed the sceptre from his hand, and said, “Your magic barrier didn’t reach into the ground, idiot.”

Batiste was stunned. “I have never seen one that could bore hole…”

Lily pursed her lips and broke the sceptre in half. The magic barrier immediately dimmed before disappeared completely. Hessiana surged in anger as she strutted towards Baptiste. At this moment, the unexpected happened.

Baptiste let out a creepy sound and lunged towards the Infernal Gate!

Chapter 790: Fire

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

It caught them by surprise when the wizard lunged towards the Infernal Gate. As the gate was not fully opened yet, the violent magical energy was swirling like a storm at the gate entrance. Anyone in his right mind would not have jumped into it. In a split second, Lily leaped to stop Baptiste. She was fast as lightning, and almost got a hold of Baptiste with her hand in his way. Baptiste, who was about to reach the gate, raised his hand and tried to push hers away. However, Lily’s claw was a sharp weapon and it ended up severing his hand. But because of his body’s momentum, Baptiste was unstoppable. He fell into the warped, crimson vortex.

The rest of them could only watch as the wizard disappeared in the violent magical energy. The vortex kept shredding and reorganizing Baptiste’s body as black smoke and ashes sprang from the gate. Baptiste’s frenzied laughter came out from the vortex. “I’ve succeeded! I’ve succeeded! No one—”

His voice disappeared in a gust of wind. The magic circle that sucked power from them crumbled as various magic facilities on the scene had stopped working. Infernal Gate lost its energy supply and dimmed. When the gate collapsed, it produced a whirlwind so strong that no one could come near to it. Hao Ren took out a silver gadget from his dimensional pocket and yanked it into the heart of the vortex. The tiny gadget flashed in a dark-red storm before it disappeared with the vortex.

The gate to Inferno was finally gone.

The whirlwind had subsided as if it had never been there. The spot where the Infernal Gate had once opened became a huge, deep crater where stinking black smoke was billowing out and mixing with the fog in the surroundings. The fog that used to flow like liquid began to dissipate slowly. Obviously, the flowing fog was just the result of magic control.

Everything had happened too fast, and only after Baptiste and the Infernal Gate disappeared, Hessiana burst out and swore, “Shit! He got away! That bastard got away!”

Lily bent over and picked up Baptiste’s arm on the ground. Her prey had escaped and the arm was the only ‘trophy’ left on the scene. She took the ghastly stuff, came back up to Hao Ren and handed it to him muddle headedly.

Hao Ren could not believe what Lily was doing. “Why do I want this?”

“Dissect it…” Lily said casually. But before her voice trailed off, the arm suddenly turned into black ashes in her hand and blown away by the wind.

Lily shook her head and said in a regretful voice, “Now, it’s gone.”

Nangong Wuyue looked at Hao Ren helplessly. “What should we do now?”

“Of course, we can’t let him get away just like that!” Hao Ren gritted his teeth, pulled out the MDT and switched on the tracking monitor. “I’ve thrown in a probe and I guess it has gone through the gate smoothly. But the dimensional turbulence had prevented it from tracking Baptiste. Anyway, it has arrived in an alien dimension. Vivian, could you tell if this is Inferno?”

While saying, Hao Ren zoomed in on the image the probe was streaming. It was a desolate world where disgusting, decomposing substances covered the black earth, and hot springs dotted the surface with muddy liquid surging inside. The polluting gases ejected from these hot springs had dyed the world into chaos. The probe was moving around, so the images constantly changed, but no matter where it went, the scenery was all the same, unpleasant.

Vivian used to take a peek at the first level of Inferno out of curiosity though she had never explored the deeper level. So she immediately recognized the scenery. “Yes, this is the place. Can you send us in?”

“It’s easy to go in by teleporting, but Inferno is an unstable dimension, it’s best to open a gate to ensure we can get back out safely.” Hao Ren nodded. “Now we have the coordinates on both sides of the gate and the necessary instrument in my dimensional pocket, just give time, I will open up the gate.”

By now, Hessiana finally took a proper look at Hao Ren. “What a surprise! You’re pretty capable at the critical moment.”

“He is capable all this while,” Vivian looked at her, “it’s just that you’ve prejudice.”

Hao Ren had taken out a portal and a few autonomous robots from his dimensional pocket. This silver-colored portal was two meters in radius complete with some auxiliary components, which was similar to the portal in the basement of his home, but just a little larger. It was an equipment inspector commonly used to go deep into the desolate spaces of the universe, and deal with the abnormal spatial phenomena. This kind of portal could help him explore unknown spaces while doubling as an emergency passage for small-scale evacuation and material transfer.

Hao Ren had never expected to use it to hunt down ‘fugitive.’

Turcan and Kassandra looked at the strange equipment that Hao Ren pulled out of thin air. This man really surprised them though they knew his team members were a bunch of oddballs. The two curious vampires did not say anything as their two ancestors, Vivian and Hessiana were watching.

With two years as inspector under his belt, Hao Ren was more mature now. He did not shy away from letting others see his high-tech equipment; after all, it was just some alien technology, no big deal.

The short-lived Infernal Gate had formed an energy focus point. It would save him a lot of time if he could use the energy focus point to reactivate a new dimensional door though it was collapsing. He commanded the autonomous robots installing the equipment in the crater that Baptiste left behind. With the efficiency of the mechanical squids, it seemed they could open the gate in no time.

“Frankly, for all the years I spent in the battlefields, this is the first time I’ve seen the boring tactic in the battlefield,” said Vivian. She looked at Lily, who was standing on her toes in a daze. “What was she thinking at that time?”

“It doesn’t matter what she was thinking, it works, anyway,” Hao Ren said. “I figured there is no tactics in this world having more elements of surprise than this. And, only she could do it because no one could dig as quickly as she does.”

Lily’s ears flickered. She turned her head around. “Are you saying bad things about me?”

Hao Ren and Vivian replied in unison. “All good things.”

Nangong Sanba stood on a large boulder on the edge of the high ground looking into the direction of the town. He could still vaguely see the route they had traveled in even though the dense fog was blocking his line of sight. But soon, the situation took a sudden change. “Look, the fog seems to disperse!”

True to what he said, the dense fog enveloping the ghost town was dissipating little by little. They could already see the scenery in the far distance, though the sun had not yet appeared. As time went by, the fog had lessened by a large amount and the silhouette of the town began to appear albeit faintly.

“Looks like the fog was also Baptiste’s trick. Either his departure caused the fog to dissipate, or the scepter that Lily snapped was the prop that controlled the enchantment,” Vivian said as she looked into the direction of the town. “It seems that the scope of the mysterious realm is bigger than we initially expected. Just look at the layer of ‘dark borders’ in the distance; that should be the real boundary. The town is only one-third of the space while the wilderness outside forms the rest.”

Hessiana looked surprised. “Who is Baptiste? He could create such a vast alien dimension singlehandedly and keep it in existence for hundreds of years?”

“Looks like he could erase any city in the world if he wanted to. It’s hard to imagine he learned this ability the normal way.” Vivian shook her head and continued. “But his only purpose was to go to Inferno? What a waste of talent! What is so good about Inferno?”

Hao Ren could not care less about Baptiste’s ambition. He asked the MDT to check the surrounding spatial parameters, making sure that the place would not collapse so soon. Then he gazed at the town of Domir in the distance. It was at least an authentic medieval town with an extraordinary sight though looking a little gloomy.

Then he saw a fire rose up in the center of the town.

“Look! Over there!” Lily shouted. “The town is on fire!”