The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 791

Chapter 791: Gangrene

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

A fire suddenly rose up from the center of Domir. The fire started from the wooden houses around the open space in the center of town and it quickly spread. Flames jumped from building to building across empty spaces like a living creature and turned Domir into a sea of fire in the blink of an eye. Looking down from a higher ground, all they saw was red.

They watched in horror. The fire did not look like a natural phenomenon. The way and speed it spread was almost reminiscent of a film with lousy special effects. Nangong Wuyue was shocked. “What… what happened?”

Hao Ren squinted as he watched. Something did not add up. “Wait a second… This is a normal fire, look at the houses!” he said.

Houses burned, collapsed and turned into ashes so fast so that it was surreal. As wind blew, it swept the ashes into the sky.

Smoke like black ink rose into the sky above the town while falling black ash covered every corner of the town. Looking at this scene, Vivian could not help but mutter, “Ashes… Where the ashes come from?”

But the weird fire went faster than it came; it burned for only a few minutes and disappeared like a phantom. But it changed the town of Domir dramatically; houses were gone and what was left were charred beams and wall columns standing like an eyesore, as if they had been like that for centuries.

A thicker layer of ashes covered the earth.

“It seems this is supposedly how the town looks like,” Vivian bit her lip. “Fire might have destroyed it hundreds of years ago.”

Lily was confused. “Then the town we saw earlier was just an illusion? The power of sorcery?”

“Nope. The town still standing before the fire. It was there,” Vivian seemed to have figured out. “The space-time structure of this mysterious realm is in a mess, the timelines of many things here are at odd with each other. Remember the lights that suddenly lit up and the flames that burned out of thin air? That were the results of misaligned timeline. So there had been overlapping of time in Domir, before the fire and after the. Baptiste must have superimposed the town’s timelines. But since he had now gone into Inferno, the timeline might become normal again.”

Vivian did not explain in detail how the magical phenomenon worked, but they understood what happened. Hao Ren finally sussed out the supernatural phenomena he had experienced in Domir, including the spiritual images that Lily saw, the colour-faded objects, and the lamps that lit up automatically. He now had the answers.

Domir in different timelines were stored in the same mysterious realm. This random stack of images had created the strange ghost town landscape.

Baptiste was undoubtedly the one behind this. But why he did that? And how?

“The wizard extract the power of the souls. He already admitted to it,” Hessiana said. “I am afraid he so created the space and time structure here to better extract the power of souls, and locked the space and time here for the magic to produce a kind of cycle. That’s what I can think of.”

“A wizard could do this?” Hao Ren frowned. “It sounds like he was bending the rules.”

Hessiana shook her head. “To tell the truth, I don’t believe that a wizard could be capable of this. Bending space and time is a very difficult. People back then didn’t have this knowledge. But I have read it in some ancient books that some of the ‘Old Gods’ in Mythological Era could manipulate space and time. But wizards… It’s not that I look down on them, but most wizards are humans, their talent is simply not enough to let them gain such capability.”

Vivian also nodded in agreement. “So Baptiste couldn’t have done this too. This town is not as simple as a locked dimension. If he were capable of high level of space-time manipulation, Lily wouldn’t have defeated his magic by simply digging a hole in the ground. I believe he must have the help of some ancient artefact or person. If he could summon the ‘King of Blood’… there is no guarantee he wouldn’t summon other things.”

Lily looked at Vivian and then Hao Ren. She had her own thinking. “Is this just your speculation? You’re assuming that the space-time structure of this town must be overlapping exactly as what you said. What if you’re wrong?”

“Look at the town, and think of a better explanation,” Vivian pointed her finger at the Domir ruins under the foothill. “I have seen what time warp is. Kronos used to demonstrate it in front of me. It looked very similar to the situation here.”

Everyone kept quiet when Vivian mentioned the ancient name. After a while, Hao Ren finally broke the silence. “In any case, Baptiste must know everything. Let’s catch him.”

Vivian sighed. “Well, have the probe found the wizard?”

“Not yet. The gate was too chaotic at that time, the probe was flung to somewhere else,” Hao Ren replied. “But as long as Baptiste is still in Inferno, we will find him.”

“Then let’s hurry up. Inferno is not a safe place; I hope the wizard will not die before we catch him.”

It did not take long before autonomous robots finished the portal generator installation. The installation was very simple, the most important thing was to analyse the coordinate relationship between Inferno and Earth. When Hao Ren connected the MDT to the portal, the MDT suddenly reported an anomaly:

The probe had sent back the coordinates in Inferno, but the coordinate changed several times in just a few minutes.

“This is probably the so-called ‘Inferno instability’ phenomenon,” the MDT said into Hao Ren’s mind. He immediately thought of something. He carefully observed the changes in coordinate of Inferno and found a huge difference between the last and the current coordinates. “It was ‘drifting’… drifting on the edge of the universe!”

“Aren’t all alien dimensions drifting this way?” Hessiana sounded indifferently. “Alien dimension is not like a pocket hanging on the wall; it is more like a bubble floating in the water. It’s unstable…”

“More to it. Inferno are very different from other dimensions,” Hao Ren looked excitedly at the analysis results of the MDT. “The other dimensions drift only relative to the three-dimensional address of the Earth. You can imagine them as planets in our universe and a wormhole connects them to Earth. No matter how these planets move in their own galaxies, their relative positions in the universe does not change—because they are in the universe. But not Inferno, which seems to move relative to the universe. Its coordinate doesn’t drift; it’s the entire reference system that is drifting!”

Hessiana shot Hao Ren a weird glance. “Who could understand what you say?”

“Oh, you don’t need to understand,” said Hao Ren with an inexplicable excitement in his voice. “This is something we are focusing on right now.”

He shot back a glance at Vivian. His meaning was clear:

There was only one explanation to the drifting of Inferno relative to the universe. That was, it was not only the cosmic fragment from the Plane of Dreams, but this fragment did not completely integrate with the universe; it was still wandering in the crevice between the Plane of Dreams and the Surface World.

There was a name for this crevice: the Wall of Reality!

Hao Ren had found the biggest ‘gangrene’ on the wall of reality!

Chapter 792: Inferno

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Before seeing the actual data, Hao Ren had a feeling the Inferno was just a piece of debris that fell off the Plane of Dreams and became part of this universe. The special nature of this space debris was that it did not have a fixed position in the universe; it constantly drifted on the edge of the real world, and occasionally made contact with Earth. This triggered the so-called the opening of Inferno that occurred many times in Earth’s history. But, the data sent back by the probe seemed to suggest that the dimension was more complicated than previously thought. This space fragment from the Plane of Dreams did not fully enter the Surface World; it was stuck between the Surface World and the Plane of Dreams!

The data the MDT showed was still fluctuating. It showed the ever-changing relative position of the Inferno dimension. Without the necessary tools, it was impossible interpret the data. So far Hao Ren could analyse things because he was using the data link; his mind was connected to the MDT, which in turned was connected to the data network of the Xi Ling Empire. This linkage allowed inspectors to see things beyond-human perspectives. It did not enhance other human qualities and would not increase one’s IQ. Its biggest function was to let Hao Ren think outside the box beyond to understand the abstract knowledge.

So he understood what Infernal dimension was really about; it was essentially a gangrene on the Wall of Reality.

The tremor of this space debris on the Wall of Reality was probably the cause of the deterioration of the situation—at least it was one of the reasons.

But Hessiana and her sidekicks had no clue what the Wall of Reality was. They wanted to catch the wizard as quickly as possible. Hessiana pointed at the portal. “Can we use it now? Would the drift that you mentioned affect it?”

Hao Ren switched on the portal. “Don’t worry. This thing is much more advanced than what Baptiste has ever made.” He sounded very confident.

He now knew why the magic masters on Earth had been unable to find a stable Inferno gate; they failed to jump out of their cosmic worldview, and fixed portals did not work on a drifting dimension because of the incompatible coordinate system.

But his portal could do that.

He fired up the portal as it gave out a slight humming sound; a translucent warped sphere emerged over the silver platform. Hao Ren and the others stepped back slightly. When the sphere expanded large enough to allow a person to walk through, Hao Ren went in first. He said, “Let’s go and catch the wizard!”

After they crossed a layer of turbulent and warped light film, the harsh environment of Infernal dimension greeted them on the other side.

It was hot and stinking space like a dirty swamp of hot spring; decomposing substances covered the earth with lumpy dark earth. It was lifeless. There was no sunlight, moon nor stars. Thick clouds blocked shrouded the world. Only the weird, non-sun lighting glow from within the clouds provided some light to the land that otherwise a completely dark world. This is Inferno. It was different from what the religious story described but nonetheless it was still an inferno.

Lily could not help but cough. She had sensitive nose. “This is truly a hellish place. Let me put on the collar.”

She felt better with the life-support collar on. Her brows knit together as she looked around. “Does this hellish place support life at all?”

“Well, at least you would find something like the Infernal Fleshripper.” Vivian nodded. “I have only been there once but it was thousands of years ago. I’ve almost forgotten about the situation here. So everyone please keep your eyes open.”

Nangong Wuyue was making a hissing sound in her throat. She sensed the presence of water vapour; it was not a very difficult place to survive, but the water vapour was mixing with some unpleasant odours. The sense of hostility and corrosiveness irritated her. Hao Ren noticed it. He asked, “Hey? You okay? Why not you put the collar on?”

“It’s nothing to do with the conventional senses,” Nangong Wuyue replied. She then summoned a mist and transformed herself into siren. The tiny water sphere made up of mist began to purify the surrounding air. “I sense a force in the water; it is harmful to living things. Siren is very sensitive to water as we are water elemental creatures… Oh, it’s really uncomfortable here.”

Hao Ren looked up into the distance. There were bubbling, muddy hot springs of disgusting colours. When the huge bubbles on the surface of the hot spring popped, it spurted out a green, dirty air.

The muddy hot spring was the cradle of life on most planets, but the ones in Inferno was totally another thing.

These hot springs were the most abundant form of water in the world but it was disgusting. No wonder Nangong Wuyue felt so uncomfortable.

“Sorry, I have to transform the second time. I just can’t stand it.”

Then she collapsed into water droplets.

The water droplets hovered and condensed in the air, and finally became a gel-like soft stuff. A Slime.

Maybe it was not a Slime. It was just a form of Nangong Wuyue’s existence. But the appearance did not help it, it was translucent gel-like substance.

The slime shook and made a groaning sound. “Okay, I’ve completed my formshift.”

“Are you sure you’ve finished?” Lily looked at her, stunned. “People usually turned into something more badass. But you don’t even have a face now.”

The slime shook its body and this time, it had an upper body of a female, but still translucent. Nangong Wuyue asked, “How does it look this time?”

Lily: “…..”

“This body form could produce the greatest amount of elemental affinity. I have to compete with the native water environment of this world for control, otherwise I will evaporate.” Nangong Wuyue splashed water to explain her point. “I can also spare some energy to maintain a clean air space for you. Too many things in this space make me feel uneasy. I need to block them out.”

“This place is too big… Where are we going to find Baptiste?” Nangong Sanba looked at the endless mass of land. “I suspect this is a planet. How difficult it is to find someone in this place?”

“Let’s see how lucky we are, but I hope we have not deviated too far,” Vivian said. She raised her hands, and immediately a large swarm of bats appeared and spread out in the air behind her. “I have created these hunting bats. I have already remembered Baptiste’s smell. These little bats are able to sense him from several dozen kilometres away.”

The bat swarm was so large so that it covered almost the entire sky. This was unlike anything Vivian had done before. Hao Ren was shocked. Hessiana stared at the bats, slowly sinking into thought as she mumbled, “I was yanked out exactly the same way last time.”

Hessiana used to be one of Vivian’s tiny bat. But she had transcended. Now, she was a little emotional when she looked at her ‘siblings’ by the thousand.

The bats dispersed into the distance. Hao Ren also released all the probes from his dimensional pocket. These agile probes were known for their speed, though unlike Vivian’s hunting bats, these probes could scan a vast area in a short time and dramatically increase the chances of finding Baptiste.

Chapter 793: The Ecological Mystery of Inferno

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Finding a wizard in the vast Inferno was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Even with the army of bats that Vivian was so proud of and Hao Ren’s advanced probes, there was no guarantee they would find him. They began to discuss their next search option. Lily recalled the purpose why Baptiste wanted to go to Inferno. “He’s going to the second layer of Inferno. But where’s this second layer?”

Hao Ren looked into the distance. No matter which direction he looked at, he could only see a desolate land. There was no sign of ‘stratification.’ When he first heard about the second layer of Inferno, he thought it was structurally like a tower, but now it seemed that he was wrong.

“Underground,” Vivian gently tapped the ground with her toes. “There is another layer a dozen kilometers beneath our feet. It is a vast space, almost like another world.”

Lily was wide-mouthed for a long while before she said, “Underground again? It seems like we always go underground lately.”

Hessiana looked at Hao Ren suspiciously. “What do you mean underground? What do you usually do with Vivian?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to sell her to Shanxi coal miner as a slave,” Hao Ren said, waving his hand. “Not even the Saudi Crown Prince could stand her jinx. And by the way, is the second layer of Inferno a cave?”

“No.” Vivian shook her head. She looked troubled as if she was at a loss. “I just heard some rumors. It is said that the area beneath is as big as the surface world. It is so incredibly big that it is not a cave. No one had ever gone to the deeper part of Inferno. An exploration team had detected the second layer of Inferno using magic telepathy. But I can’t tell what it is like.”

“Baptiste knows it. Otherwise, he will not be so obsessed with it,” Nangong Wuyue said in a snoring sound of water. “Do you know where is the entrance ?”

“I am letting the bats look for it. It is said to be surrounded by a huge hole surrounded by a crater. I think it should be very eye-catching. It would be great if we can find Baptiste when we find the entrance.”

Meanwhile, Nangong Sanba was looking around cautiously. “I heard there are monsters here? Rumour has it that the monsters crawl the land, but I could see nothing here.”

“Is it not good to not seeing a monster?” Vivian arced her mouth. “There are indeed many monsters in Inferno, but not in all places. Occasionally, we will encounter a ‘quiet’ place like this. Now, we are just plain lucky. I hope Baptiste is equally fortunate that he doesn’t die before we get to him.”

Vivian then looked at Hao Ren and said, “Can you increase the range of the probes? It is not that I can come to Inferno every day; I want to get to know more about this place. I was curious about it last time, but unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance.”

Hao Ren nodded. He instructed the MDT to let the probes to conduct a broader search.

Armed with the latest information, he issued a set of new search criteria to the probes. Besides searching for Baptiste, the probes would also look for large voids and crater on the surface. They had enlarged the search area, and the holographic map displayed on the MDT was continually updating. The probes and Vivian’s bats were searching separately to cover more area.

Meanwhile, he ordered some probes to get a bird’s-eye view from above so that he could see how big this world was.

The MDT showed the footage as the probes streaming back the visual. The probes had entered the thick and dense atmosphere at high altitude. Large, dirty clouds were looming low with frequent lightning. This lightning was not natural lightning but a result of a kind of chemical reaction. It oscillated at breakneck speed on the surface and inside the cloud, turning the cloud into a weird illuminant and resonating with the other clouds on the surroundings.

This visual was like a tour into the stomach of a massive monster of clouds whose organs and flesh were shimmering with light.

Hao Ren deliberately let the probes slow down so that he could observe the cloud more clearly in the hope that he might find out the answer to the mystery of the ecological environment of Inferno. The magical visual attracted their eyeballs as they all gathered and watched. Poking her head at the visual, Lily suddenly said, “Are these lights illuminating the entire Inferno?”

“I supposed. But we can’t see the sun from the surface; the thick clouds are blocking out any light from above. So, yeah, the clouds are illuminating the world.” Hao Ren nodded slightly. “And this is dimensional debris; it is hard to say whether there are stars outside.”

Nangong Wuyue asked curiously, “Where does the electric light in the clouds come from?”

Hao Ren poked the MDT who then replied listlessly, “Don’t poke me. I have done the analysis. It’s the microbes.”

“Microorganisms?” Hao Ren looked a little surprised.

“Weird ecosystem,” the MDT said, opening a small set of visuals next to it that showed a simulated planet Inferno. As there were no real scan images of the planet, the simulation was just an assumption. But the simulation did look convincing; there was a diagram showing the cross-section of the upper atmosphere to the surface. “The thick clouds cover the planet, so dense that it was as if bed covered with a quilt. The clouds contained microbes, at least as many as a hundred types of them. They feed on the organic dust brought up from the lower atmosphere. And, they give out heat and light. Strictly speaking, this is no longer a ‘cloud,’ but a massive, living pan-biological tissue. Due to the unique structure of the cloud, I see it as a loose, peculiar multi-cellular organism although the microbes appear to be independent single-cell individuals. The world is a big, big place. Anything can happen.”

Everyone was stunned except Hessiana and her sidekicks who appeared like listening to double Dutch. Lily could not help but look up at the clouds in the sky. “It looks a supermassive soft creature wraps around a planet.”

Hearing what Lily said, Hao Ren glanced at Nangong Wuyue. Nangong Wuyue immediately shook her body and snorted. “Why are you looking at me? I am Mollusca, not a creature… No, I mean I am a creature, not Mollusca. Oh, wait! I am Mollusca, but I’m not that big.”

Hao Ren scratched his head. “Speaking of Mollusca, I can’t help but think of Slime. Can’t you study what you ultimate talent is and form shift into something other than a Slime?”

Nangong Wuyue held her arms and said, “I did. I’m also a mantis shrimp. Three meters long!”

Hao Ren: “…..”

Lily was right. A massive organism wrapped the Planet Inferno inside. The cloud was a spheroidal creature that provided light and heat to the world. However, compared to this incredible phenomenon, Hao Ren was more concerned about one other thing. “What is outside the clouds?” he asked.

The MDT commanded the probes to speed up. Soon the probe had reached an altitude above the clouds. As they could see from the visual, the probe had passed through an incredibly smooth, silk-like milky white plane before it shot into the vast darkness.

The probe slowed down and started to capture images of a sea of white plane, which was as smooth as snow. If not that they already knew, they would have thought that it was a snowfield.

Lily was almost in a stupor. “…so beautiful!”

Vivian shot her a sideways look. “Feeling like putting some collar on the neck and go for a sprint?”

Without thinking, Lily replied, “Yes!”

She had the gene of her ancestors.

The probe turned the lens back in the direction from where it came. It captured a leak spot on the smooth, white ‘purdah,’ where there were fog and white, fiber-like tissue spewed out. But the place was closed a few seconds later.

“Unbelievable… this is biological,” Hao Ren said. His jaw almost dropped to the ground. “How did it evolve into this?”

“It prevents the planet from losing its mass,” the MDT replied. “The probe had just penetrated a solid colloidal structure, which the microbes in the clouds have probably condensed for thousands of years. The outermost layer of the planet is a pure white world. If you walk in the atmosphere, you should feel like walking on marshmallows.”

Nangong Wuyue let out a sigh. “I have never imagined this hellish place could be so beautiful from space.”

Chapter 794: The Gate to the Deep

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

The probe was still climbing. It was now above the clouds of planet Inferno, leaving the atmosphere and entering the vacuum. The probe sent back the images of the planet from space, and it looked terrific.

The planet’s surface was nearly smooth, like a polished snowball without lines and wrinkles. Meanwhile, clouds covered and provided light to the planet. It looked like a pearl floating in space.

But no one could imagine how ugly the planet’s surface below the thick clouds was.

The probe continued to fly towards outer space, looking for stars. The MDT lost contact with the probe after the probe crossed some sort of spatial boundary.

“We lost it.” The MDT turned off the tracking screen, which was only filled with static noise. “I’m afraid it has crossed the dimensional boundary. If the probe is still intact, it’ll return from the void.”

“As expected, there are no stars,” Hao Ren muttered. “This planet is the only object in the space debris.”

Hessiana completely lost the plot. She wondered why a wizard-hunting mission had seemingly turned into something else. She scratched her head and stared at Hao Ren with a puzzled look. “What are you discussing about? What stars are you talking about?”

“Earth gets its energy from the sun. The sun is the existence of all things.” Hao Ren pointed at the bottom of the cloud shimmering with light. “Without light from the star, the planet will be dead and desolate beyond imagination. Though this world is also barren, it has an ecosystem and is relatively warm. But the hot springs alone could not keep the planet warm. I have reliable information shows that this planet has been in existence without sunlight for ten thousand years. So what is keeping the ecosystem going?”

“I don’t care about the sun,” Hessiana pursed her lips. “I don’t like that stuff.”

“That’s why I’m not discussing the high-tech topic with you.” Hao Ren sighed. “Unlike Vivian, you are narrow-minded. Whether you like it or not, the sun is a source of energy for a planet. But planet Inferno is generating its energy in another way…or maybe it is consuming its energy.”

“Is it not the cloud providing light and heat?” Lily looked up at the sky. “And the clouds seem to trap heat.”

“It’s not enough,” said the MDT. “The thick clouds and the light and heat it generates could only slow down the loss of heat. It is not a source of energy; it is only transforming energy. I have run the calculation; the clouds could never maintain the activity or temperature of Inferno today. So there must be something else on this planet that keeps the ecosystem alive without energy from the sun.”

Lily was wide-mouthed. Since she had the highest academic qualifications, she naturally grabbed the point. “So where does the energy come from?”

Hao Ren could think of many theories, but he carefully set them all aside. “I don’t know. Maybe we have to wait until we finished exploring the entire planet before we conclude. Anyway, this place is very amazing. A planet in the crack of the Wall of Reality that has an ecosystem but no sunlight been around for ten thousand years. The universe is just too mysterious.”

Vivian suddenly interrupted him. “Planet expert, can you stop your scientific lecture and start concentrating on the findings that my bats have brought? They have found a possible entrance to the second level of Inferno.”

Hao Ren immediately tucked the MDT. “Where?”

Vivian raised her finger and pointed to a direction. “There. Two thousand kilometers from here. Please let the MDT go and set the coordinate before teleporting us over. It would be faster this way. My bats will provide a navigation guide over there. It’s easy to find.”

The MDT said, “Please pay attention to–” Hao Ren grabbed the MDT and aimed straight at the direction where Vivian was pointing. Before the MDT could finish, with the swing of his arm, Hao Ren had yanked it out. “Go!”

The MDT faded into a blue light and disappeared before their eyes. Hessiana was rooted to the spot, looking at Hao Ren as if he were some monster. “I wouldn’t have thrown such an expensive tablet computer away if I were you!”

Hao Ren pursed her mouth and said, “You will when your tablet computer talks back at you.”

Hessiana: “?”

Soon, they arrived outside the crater—the so-called entrance to the second level of Inferno.

They climbed up the steep mountain wall and were awed at what lay before them.

It was a nearly circular crater, with an unbelievable uniformity in its natural geological formation. The radius of the cavity reached tens of kilometers. In the interior of the hole, the slope was gentle. There were neat, radial, weird lines on the ground as if someone had carefully carved them into the landscape. At the center of the crater was the so-called Inferno entrance. The frighteningly large circular hole constantly spurted out air and dust that formed a small cyclone.

They came near to the hole. It was a vertical cave. It was dark inside and seemed to lead straight to hell. It would make one shivering in fear by just standing on the edge of it.

Lily’s legs felt like jelly. She grabbed Hao Ren’s pant and squatted. “Do… do we have to jump into it?”

“Who told you we have to jump?” Hao Ren gave her a sideways glance. “We’ll fly.”

“Does it make any difference?”

The MDT reported, “I have detected a large feed wave at the bottom. It is a super-large underground space. Please take safety precautions.”

Hessiana stared at the deep cave. Even though she was a winged creature, she did not feel like going down there.

“It’s a shame; Nolan is on vacation at Kuiper Station. Otherwise, I could bring the spacecraft.” Hao Ren shook his head. Suddenly something crossed his mind. “Ahh, I think I have an alternative!”

Hao Ren brought out his North Stars.

Hessiana’s face turned to green. “I know I’m as educated as others but driving the North Stars straight down the crater? Is this your safety measure? You must be kidding me.”

“Believe it or not, this thing is not any slower than you, and it is better than you. Don’t look down on it; it could fit everyone in.” Hao Ren shrugged and took out the MDT, pressed it as if it was a remote to unlock the car. The car did unlock with a double deep sound. “Of course, you can choose to fly if you trust your wings. I would have one less person to worry about.”

Vivian patted on Hessiana’s shoulder. “Trust me. He is almost like Doraemon; he had tonnes of weird but useful gadget in his pocket.”

Then Vivian climbed into the car followed closely by the Nangong siblings, leaving Hessiana and her two sidekicks in a dilemma. Their reluctance was understandable though. Most gadgets that Hao Ren took out from his dimensional pockets in the past all looked high-tech, but this little North Stars was simply not confidence inspiring.

It is as if you bump into a white-bearded old man who descends from heavens, gives you an energy-charged sword and tells you that he wants to recruit you and bring you to the heavens because you are talented. What would your reaction? You would bow at him and worship him like God. But what if he is an old man falling out of the sky and landing face down, who later yanks out a magic wand and asks you to follow him to save the world. What would your response?

So Turcan looked at Hessiana, face like a dead man. “Master, do we want to climb into that junk and drive down that pit? That junk doesn’t look very reliable though.”

Hessiana’s face deadpan. Just when she was about to say something before she reluctantly climbed into that car, she heard something. Something was approaching rapidly.

Kassandra and Turcan had also heard it. They looked at the direction of the sound and saw a group of shadows appearing on the edge of the crater. A myriad of gnarled mutant creatures!

Vivian described this biota as ‘ridiculously gnarled monsters.’ Hao Ren thought that he would be lucky enough to miss these ugly monsters, but his optimism came too early.

Chapter 795: Gnarled Biota

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

It looks like their movement near the crater had caught the attention of the biota here. Perhaps the crater itself was a habitat of a particular creature. Hao Ren got the shock of his life when he saw the gnarled creatures emerging and moving towards the hole.

The gnarled creatures came from the far side of the mountain wall; almost all of them had different physical characteristics. They had asymmetrical limbs and covered with strange organs and hair. Some of the monsters had no apparent physical features; they were just like a mass of meat that rolled on the ground.

Lily was scared out of her wit. “What… what are those things?”

“They are the most common things in Inferno. As I said, they are weird monsters,” Vivian said quickly. “No one has ever classified them. They have almost no fixed physiological characteristics. Hessiana, if you still don’t get in the car, we will leave you here!”

Hessiana was rooted to the spot. She had never seen anything like that in all her life a patriarch of a Blood Clan family. She quickly jumped into the car with her two sidekicks and shut the door. “Go!”

Once Hao Ren activated the car’s levitation function, the North Stars had quietly lifted off while the gnarled monsters came within a hundred meters of it. The bizarre, illogical pieces of meat that seemed to have been born from nightmare were jumping on the ground, growling as they tried to catch the ‘invaders.’ Their ugly faces (some even without faces) were so close that Lily instinctively pulled her head away from the window: what she was looking at was a hideous creature in the world, and it was less than five meters from her. The creatures had several large tumors, and each of them had a bloody mouth full of sharp teeth. It was as disgusting as it could get.

“‘Infernal creature is a malicious stack, a freak that grows in the nightmare, a mold that grows out of the waste that the creator accidentally discarded after creating the world.’ Such is how an elder of the demon hunter who once explored Inferno described. It’s just so damn close to the truth.” Vivian sat in the front passenger seat, peering down at the monsters below. “You know, those Infernal Fleshrippers living in the deep of the hot springs are the most beautiful creatures in this world. At least they have a proper shape.”

Nangong Wuyue’s face turned blue (she is blue anyway). “I believe you, but please don’t say it, I’m going to throw up.”

Lily looked at her, feeling strange. “Could slime throw up?”

“It’s called water recirculation.”

Hearing the two bickering, Hao Ren knew he need not worry about them; the Infernal monsters had not caused severe psychological damage in them.

But it was strange that none of the creatures could fly despite their variety. As the North Stars flew toward the vertical cave, the monsters could only growl and roar in anger on the ground. They were visibly afraid of the deep, dark cave. Even the smoke and airflow that came out from the cave would frighten them. Monsters that ran too close to the cave became very frightened. They immediately retreated. But a few unlucky ones were pushed by those running behind them and fell into the cave. They screamed in fear as they dropped straight into the bottomless darkness.

Meanwhile, the car was flying steadily towards the cave as everyone on board watched what happened outside. Before long, the car was descending.

“That was exciting,” Turcan patted on the chest. “But I’m not coming back for the second time. It is a lot scarier than when the demon hunters attacked the sanctuary not long ago. At least demon hunters are not that ugly.”

Kassandra nodded, agreeing with what Turcan said. She then looked around the cabin and began to marvel. “This is true, man! It is huge inside here. I think it can fit even more people!”

Hessiana could not help but glance at Hao Ren. She had to admit that though she wanted to play hardball with him initially, it seemed that things had gone beyond her control and her life was now in the hand of this ‘untrustworthy’ man. She could not help it; this guy had too many weird gadgets at his disposal.

Hao Ren let the car descend in autopilot mode while he gazed at the darkness outside and fell into deep thought.

Those gnarled monsters, the illogical mass of meat, the bodies that born out of chaos and the frenzied movement seemed a little familiar to him. But he could not remember what it was.

At this time, a cooling touch swept up his arm. Nangong Wuyue was touching him with her hand; she was in water form. “Mr. Landlord, don’t you think the monsters look like the Dinobeasts in the Gnarled Grove and flesh beasts that came out when the First Born woke up?”

It struck Hao Ren like thunder. It all became clear to him now. He remembered where he had seen such creatures!

“They look like those flesh-and-blood beasts, at least regarding their illogical limbs,” Hao Ren said. But then he was also confused. “The monsters here are more exotic. The Dinobeasts in the Gnarled Grove were uniform in shape, but the monsters here are just random. I don’t even think they are even creatures.”

Vivian suddenly interrupted. “The mutation on this planet is more thorough.”

“Dinobeast is the Third Born.” Hao Ren’s brows knit together. He knew that most of the things that came from the Plane of Dreams had something to do with the First Born. However, the last thing he hoped for was how things transpired now. “They are purely killing creatures that were temporarily created from the lifeblood to destroy the ecosystem after the First Born wakes up. The emergence of these creatures means that the ecosystem rebooting process has started…”

“But we didn’t see lifeblood here, nor did we see the remnant of any civilizations. There are only microbes in the clouds and monsters on the surface. It is clear that the planet has finished ‘rebooting’ its ecosystem,” The MDT reminded. “According to what we know, the Third Born is a short-living race, and could only survive by feeding on lifeblood. After the ecosystem rebooting, the lifeblood would dry up, and the Third Born would quickly die.”

Hao Ren looked up. The entrance to the cave had become a nail-sized bright spot. He could not see the monsters above now. “But those monsters are still alive… because the ecosystem has not completed its reboot. Or do you think the First Born of this planet had miscalculated while it executed the plan?”

Hessiana listened to the conversation, but she was as clueless as a tub of crap on a rainy day as to what they were discussing about. But she did not even bother to ask now. But not Turcan. “Master, what are they talking about?” he asked.

“Are you asking me? Who should I ask then?” Hessiana rolled her eyes. She was in a bad mood. “Ma’am Vivian doesn’t want to talk to me anymore.”

Hao Ren heard Hessiana. He wanted to explain to her, but he changed his mind. He nudged Vivian’s arm and gave her a look.

Vivian was a little reluctant. But still, she turned around and forced a smile as she said to Hessiana. “I didn’t mean to keep you in the dark. When the dust settles, we will discuss it and see how much I can tell you. And don’t worry; I’m not doing something bad.”

Hao Ren let out a sigh. Being a landlord meant that sometimes he had to play the role as mediator too.

The car was still steadily descending into the seemingly bottomless cave. It was pitch-dark here. Hao Ren switched on the radar system, and the radar image appeared on the windows simulating the environment outside. The MDT then reported the situation. “The cave wall is smooth but looks like it’s not humanmade. There are regular ascending and descending airflows like breathing. The airflow switches direction every three minutes and twenty-six seconds. There is still no trace of Baptiste though. Some probes have found other Infernal entrances; they will join us at the bottom.”

Hao Ren nodded and asked casually, “How long does it take to reach the bottom?”

As soon as his voice trailed off, a ray of light suddenly shone from directly below.

“Oh, looks like we have reached the bottom.”