The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 906

Chapter 906: Frozen Zone

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Hasse ordered some of the demon hunters to stay behind in the hall to monitor whether there were still remnants of Shades of Chaos here. Meanwhile, he led a few elite demon hunters including White Flame and Hao Ren to the resting place of the ancestors of the Ancattero family.

Under Andaherr’s guidance, they came under a big obelisk, which Wayne had mentioned earlier, the resting place of Ancattero ancestors.

The obelisk stood right in the middle of an empty square. It was three or four hundred meters tall, had a solemn and grand three-level structure. Each level was slimmer than the one below. Suspended at the top of the obelisk was a huge metal installation. There were no other buildings except the neatly arranged golden columns in the square. The columns, which were surrounded by light, had unknown uses.

It was the family resting place of the Tannaeans. Hao Ren had thought that the resting place was an eerie place, after all, it was a cemetery. As it turned out, the opposite was true. It felt warm, filled with light, and meticulously landscaped, which showed how important the Tannaeans treated their funeral.

Unlike the other otherworldlings, the Tannaeans had a relatively short life span. Though they still lived longer than humans, it was short compared to the demon hunters or vampires. It was the reason why they had a mausoleum of such scale and a very solemn funeral rite. The demon hunters, on the other hand, was not that particular when it came to how they buried their dead. Most of them died in battles in their later years, and their bodies were mostly mutilated, so their funeral was much more straightforward. Meanwhile, vampires were the race that was most obsessed with their graves and coffins, spending considerable effort than humans did in studying various kinds of sarcophagus and mausoleum only to use them for sleeping.

“They are hiding underground,” Andaherr said. She led them to the obelisk. “You’re not going to find the entrance without a guide,” she said.

Hasse looked at Andaherr in surprise. “They’re giving away the location of their secret sanctuary to a demon hunter?”

Andaherr looked gloomy. “The situation was unique a month ago. We couldn’t care less about the differences between demon hunters and otherworldlings. We needed to survive so that we could tell others what had happened,” she said.

“You meet the Ancattero family to discuss innate hostility?” Hasse asked. “What you guys did behind the back of the council of elders was incredible. I knew that Elder Amatura had bizarre thinking, but I didn’t expect him would bring so many demon hunters with him.”

“Nothing would ever be done had we told the council of elders,” Andaherr replied calmly. She was one of the strong supporters of Amatura’s theory, from which it was not difficult to know that the demon hunters, who appeared conservative and united in the eyes of the outside world, had many different schools of thought. Many of them were deviant. “Amatura was not impulsive. He had studied a lot of information and conducted thousands of tests on the blood of the demon hunters and otherworldlings. We didn’t expect that the problem was so deep-rooted.”

“So you lot paid a huge price for that,” Hasse replied quietly.

Andaherr kept silent. She came before the base of the golden obelisk. As soon as she placed her hand on the base, alien text and symbols began to appear on the surface of the base, which looked like a touch panel that the Tannaeans made. Andaherr entered a series of instructions, which the Ancattero family had given to her, on the touch panel.

The base slowly clunked open in the middle, revealing a staircase that led to the underground.

“What is the communion all about?” Hao Ren could not hold back his sense of curiosity while going down the staircase. “Is it related to the research of Amatura?”

“The communion is all about purification, a ritual using the blood of demon hunters and the otherworldlings to get rid of the innate hostility. According to the findings of Elder Amatura, the innate hostility between the various races is non-physical and hidden in the blood,” Andaherr replied. “He thought that this thing was an implant from a third party, an unstable time bomb buried in our blood, so he was determined to remove this unstable factor. His research had not made much progress in the past millennium, but recently it finally saw some progress.”

“Is it because of the sudden weakening of the innate hostility in recent months?” Vivian asked, casually.

Andaherr nodded slightly. “Yes, exactly. The weakening of the innate hostility finally provided us with enough data for Elder Amatura to complete his research and come out with the bloodline purification ritual. He decided first to let some of his men and members of the Ancattero family undergo this ritual. Many of the demon hunters were experiencing severe weakening of innate hostility, and the Ancattero family was the milder one among the different races, this created the right condition that allowed us to come together without worrying getting hostile again. We wanted the sirens as they were even gentler than the Ancattero family and the demon hunters had no hostile feelings towards them. However, they were too elusive; we couldn’t find them.”

It sounded to Hao Ren that this was the downside of a lack of communication. Had the demon hunters contacted him earlier, the situation would be very different. The two sirens in his house had been redundant for a while with Ayesha running a restaurant and Nangong Wuyue doing nothing but immersing herself with colorful tattoos.

“Did the Shades of Chaos appear after you finished the ritual?” Hasse asked.

Andaherr paused for a moment and then nodded. “The ritual was going on smoothly initially, with the demon hunters and members of the Ancattero family getting free from the influence of the innate hostility. The situation, however, began to get out of hand. The innate hostility quickly disappeared from those who weren’t near the ritual. Elder Amatura and Patriarch Vogus were no exception. At first, I thought that this was the powerful effect of the ritual, but soon Elder Amatura realized that it was not the effect of the blood-purification ritual, but of something else—we probably had triggered something. Elder Marduk tried to end the ritual abruptly, but it was too late; the Shades of Chaos had appeared under the feet of everyone and caught us by surprise.”

At the end of the staircase was a lift. Andaherr led everyone onto the elevator before she pressed a button and the elevator descended. Then she continued to tell what happened a month ago. “The first ones who lost their minds were Abaddon and Chloanne, who had stabbed Elder Marduk. The situation began to spiral from there. The demon hunters and the Ancattero family began to kill each other. At last, Elder Amatura barely kept himself conscious and led Patriarch Vogus and me to run. We were the only ones who had not been possessed by the Shades of Chaos.”

The lift came to a halt at the bottom. Hao Ren saw a thick metal gate in front of him, and walls on both sides of the metal gate were inlaid with large panes of glass windows. Behind the glass windows were some gray shadows, which appeared neatly arranged.

“During the evacuation, the Shades of Chaos was coming from all directions and escaping to the outside. People were killing each other in the streets. The situation was getting out of hand. Patriarch Vogus had done his best to gather those who were still unaffected and brought them to the sanctuary. In the sanctuary, we began to think about how we could prevent from being possessed by the Shades of Chaos.”

Hao Ren came before the huge glass windows. He tried to look into the window and felt a chilly air permeating the glass to the outside. On the other side of the window, there were rows of transparent containers. White mist was floating inside between the containers. Judging from the ice flakes on the containers, Hao Ren deduced that the temperate inside must be extremely low.

“The Shades of Chaos would not attack those who have no rational mind,” Andaherr said as she pointed at the gate. “The power of the Mind Shackle has its limit, so we used this room. Vogus said that it was a hibernation facility. I hope I’d operated it correctly at the time.”

Hao Ren looked up at the alloy gate and saw a line of text on the lintel:

Hibernation Freezer No. 4.

---

Chapter 907: Survived

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

The sanctuary that Andaherr said turned out to be a hibernation chamber. He had been hearing the demon hunter talking about a magic realm, but what he saw now was a sci-fi-like, high-tech facility. He was a little surprised. But what surprised him, even more, was the name of the facility: Hibernation Freezer. It reminded him of the hibernation on a spacecraft.

Hao Ren was wondering if this underground facility was a part of a spaceship.

Lily peered through the window glass, her tail wagging in the air. “Whoa… look at that high-tech stuff.”

Andaherr came before the metal door and clumsily fiddled on the control panel on the side of the door. “Why didn’t you go in with them?” Hao Ren asked.

“This facility has been dormant for too long. According to Vogus, some equipment in the core had been shut down due to mechanical failure, and they did not manage to restart them in time. Without that equipment, which was the controller, they could only manually closed the door from the outside,” Andaherr explained. She was not very familiar with Tannaean technology though she had learned a thing or two about technologies on Earth. “Someone had to stay back. That’d got to be me.”

“Why you?” Vivian asked, looking at Andaherr suspiciously. “I do not doubt anything but just feeling that it made no sense.”

Vivian’s doubt was understandable especially when Andaherr was an elder of the demon hunters. It did not matter whether Andaherr volunteered it and how much the Ancattero family trusted her, the job should not be on her shoulder. It was even more puzzling when Andaherr had no clue how to operate the facility as they could see how she bungled now. It would only be more appropriate for the technician of the Ancattero family to do the job, Vivian so thought.

Andaherr sighed. “Because I could cast myself the Mind Shackle spell. At that time, the Shades of Chaos had almost overrun the realm and many people, including me, were affected. We fought the shadows back with our will, and we finally got to the sanctuary. We didn’t know how long we could hold on. We had to make sure that the one person who stayed behind wouldn’t lose his mind and screw up, such as cutting off the power supply to the life support system, before the door shut. I was the best candidate for the job.”

Andaherr had left out many details, but one could guess why she made such a decision at that time. When possessed by the Shades of Chaos, thoughts, and loyalty were meaningless, the only person with the strongest mind would survive and whether that person was a demon hunter or an otherworldling was irrelevant. They had decided to choose Andaherr, who was still fully awake, to complete the job. After shutting the door to the hibernation chamber, Andaherr would cast herself the Mind Shackle spell to prevent the Shades of Chaos from possessing her, and if worse comes to worst, she could self-terminate anytime.

Andaherr fumbled with the control panel for a while before finally figuring out the way to open the door. As the heavy alloy door slid open slowly to both sides with a clonk, a gust of freezing air rushed out from the inside.

Lily felt the cold air hitting her on the face was refreshing. Perhaps she was thinking of her hometown.

They stepped into the hibernation chamber. Hao Ren and Vivian quickly went up to one of the nearest freezers, which was slender, oval in shape, with metal on the base and a transparent crystal and metal frame on the upper part forming an egg-shell-like structure. A cold mist was flowing out from the bottom of the freezer and spread out to the surroundings and under their feet.

Each freezer housed a Tannaean, eyes closed, and immersed in a jelly-like solution. They all looked like they were sleeping.

“The freezer is leaking.” Hao Ren looked at the white, chilly mist under their feet, brows knitting together. To the layman, the low temperature in the hibernation chamber was normal because it was consistent with the ‘atmosphere,’ but Hao Ren thought otherwise; it was a system failure. The oval containers were the freezer. These freezers had to maintain a low enough temperature to keep the Tannaeans inside alive. Keeping the temperate low outside the freezers was a waste of energy, it was not part of the design. There was only one reason for the existence of cold air in the room: system malfunction.

“The cooling pipes are too old; they’re leaking,” the MDT said. It had found the source of the leakage. There were refrigerant liquids and jelly-like substances leaking out from the bases of the freezers. “Start the wake-up procedure immediately!” the MDT said.

Andaherr was already at it. Standing at the console at the end of the room, she pulled the level to initiate the freezer shut-down procedure. But thick ice was covering the surface of the console. Lily had to thaw the control panel first with her Flamejoy. The internal of the control panel was not affected though. Soon, the freezers opened as airlock valves released the pressure.

A hologram popped up on each of the freezer showing the current state of the system. Almost every hologram was flashing its alarm; life signals in many of the fridges were weak.

Vivian immediately lunged forwards, getting the Tannaeans slowly on the floor. Some were slipping out and falling. She called out to other demon hunters, “Hurry up, help them!”

The demon hunters could not care less about racial difference now. They quickly went up to help the Tannaeans. There were a few hundred Ancattero family members in the freezers when the freezers opened, they slid and fell out all at the same time. It was chaotic. Hao Ren and Vivian held a Tannaean out of the fridge. A strange jelly-like substance covered the Tannaean, and his body was cold. However, Vivian found the Tannaean still had pulses. “This one is still alive!”

Hao Ren looked up; there were just not enough hands. He reached into his dimensional pocket and took out his secret weapon. “All right, people, keep calm. We have some little helping hands here!”

A few curious demon hunters came up to see what Hao Ren was up to. Space cracks began to appear around Hao Ren before hordes of mechanical tentacles emerged from the inside. The silver metallic monsters were making a series of weird sounds and started picking up the frozen Tannaeans on the floor. At first glance, it was as if there was a squid lair in the room and Hao Ren was the lair itself.

The demon hunters almost jumped out of their skins. If not for Hao Ren had given them a heads-up, they would have drawn their weapon by now. “What are these things?” Andaherr asked in amazement.

“It’s called technology!” the MDT hovered in the air and issued instructions to the tentacles using a blue light beam. “Lift them to the outside, where it’s airier than the inside. Treat those I’ve marked first. Is anyone good at Fire Magic? We need you. White Flame, stop looking at others, I mean you! Any others who are good at giving out heat?”

Y’zaks and Y’lisabet each carried a huge lava ball and walked to the outside. Hao Ren quickly stopped them. “Wait a second! Y’zaks, your lava ball isn’t suitable for this!”

Happily, Lily held up her Flamejoy. “What about mine?”

Hao Ren looked at the sharp claws in her hands and the zealousness on her face. “Maybe next time,” he said.

Lily glared at him. “You don’t trust my claws, do you?” she asked.

“I just don’t trust your brain.”

Lily’s claws could not help it when the frozen Tannaeans needed more delicate handling. Other than barbecuing, Hao Ren would not let Lily roast anything else.

With the help of the autonomous robots, the rescue work went smoothly. The frozen Tannaeans had been transferred to the outside. Hasse had set up an enchanted barrier at the doorway to prevent the freezing air from leaking out to the outside. Although the hibernation freezer system had malfunctioned, the safety mechanism of these oval containers seemed to be working, as all Tannaeans were still alive.

The hall outside the hibernation chamber was filled with frozen Tannaeans. The demon hunters, Wayne, and Hao Ren were working together, helping each other. Vivian saw the scene and could not help but mumble, “Are you guys not friends now?”

Suddenly, Andaherr called out not far away, “Vogus is here! He is still alive!”

---

Chapter 908: The Roulette That Brings Destruction

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

The Ancattero family patriarch, Vogus, was still alive. He was very weak, but he survived the freezing temperature and had only mild suffocation. Andaherr immediately transferred him to a warmer place: at the side of Hesperides.

Hesperides was standing in the center of the hall, emanating a healing and spirit-lifting warmth, which was preferable than the intense sacred flame of the demon hunters and the tempestuous magic flame. The Tannaeans began to recover under the heat radiating from the nymph of the evening. It seemed that other than the weirdoes in Hao Ren’s house, the otherworldlings in the wild and the demon hunters could also make the best use of their abilities.

Hao Ren, Hasse, and others came up to the patriarch Vogus. The light-gold skinned Tannaean slowly opened his eyes. He looked around, still appearing a little confused. “I.. who are you guys?”

“Vogus,” Andaherr held the hand of the senior patriarch. “Listen to me. It’s over. They’re the search and rescue team members.”

“I’m Hasse, elder demon hunter. This is Hao Ren, the head of a sanctuary for the otherworldlings in Asia.” Hasse nodded to Vogus, never had he thought that he would be able to speak to an otherworldling patriarch like this. “How do you feel now?”

“I’m fine,” Vogus said, struggling to get up. Water was dripping down his clothes from heavy condensation, and he coughed a few times, spitting out the life-supporting substance. He then noticed his compatriots receiving treatment nearby. “Is everyone else okay?”

Hasse and Hao Ren explained the situation to the patriarch and told him that it had been a month since the incident happened, and these few hundred people were the only survivors in the Ancattero territory. Vogus was surprisingly calm after hearing this as if this was something expected. Perhaps Tannaeans had a different way of expressing their emotions, Hao Ren and Hasse could not notice any sign of grief or sadness on his face.

Vivian came up from behind and bent down slightly before Vogus. “I’m Vivian, Vivian Ancestor. I don’t know if your family has a record about me.”

Vogus finally showed some animation that the earthlings could understand on his pale-gold face; he looked like he was surprised. The way he was staring at Vivian was as if she was a living fossil out of the mythical story. “Vivian? You were with our ancestors…”

“Great! At least you lot still remember history,” Vivian said before letting out a sigh. “I lost my memory and contact with my family. I was worried that I’d not be able to find someone who could tell me what had happened in the past.”

Hao Ren had tons of questions to ask Vogus. He first let the patriarch rest for a while. Until the patriarch finally recovered his strength, Hao Ren and Hasse began to ask Vogus questions. Questions regarding Amatura and the demon hunters, Vogus’ reply was similar to what Andaherr had known. Hao Ren was most concerned about the innate hostility and the Shades of Chaos though.

“What exactly did you seal?” Hao Ren asked. He was obsessed with the Shades of Chaos. “Are they creatures, a phenomenon, or a curse?”

Vogus leaned on a pillar, and his voice was soft. “They’re none of what you said but something indescribable, abstract, and a concept. They’re the dark side, anger, and hatred of god. They’re like a curse, but more abstract than a curse, something mortal could not understand with their earthly wisdom.”

Hao Ren was stunned by the answer. It reminded him about what the spirit detective, Pierre, had said: the Shade of Chaos was the representation of the dark side of the ancient gods—Zeus and Odin families, for example, the result of the gradual materialization of hatred in battles. This theory had come from the mouth of a spirit detective, which was why Hao Ren had a great reservation from the beginning. But little did he expect the Ancattero family that guarded the seal also had a similar thought.

Were those things the representations of the dark side of the otherworldlings, the original sin in the hearts of the supernatural races?

If this were indeed the case, it would only become more mysterious.

Hao Ren could not read the expression on Vogus’ face, but Vogus was very familiar with the emotions of the earthlings. He had noticed Hao Ren’s changes of expression and knew what was in his mind, but could only shake his head. “I know you’re confused, but all I know was passed down from my ancestors. I’m merely quoting what they told me. The Shades of Chaos is something indescribable from the beginning, and even our ancestors had difficulty explaining this to future generations. That’s why this ambiguous metaphor has been passed down from generation to generation.”

“All right, let’s not talk about the Shades of Chaos, we should just treat them as the evils of this world,” Vivian said, waving her hand impatiently. “What is the relationship between that thing and the innate hostility, and why the shadows emerged after the sense of hostility disappeared?” she asked.

Vogus forced a smile. “Frankly, I don’t know. If I knew, things wouldn’t have turned out this way. My memory has stood still since a month ago, do you know that? In my mind, the Shades of Chaos has just got out of the seal a few hours ago. So what I could tell you is the teachings that I inherited from my forefathers,” he said.

Vivian was not happy with the answer. Then Vogus told her about his conjecture, “If you insist on hearing an answer, maybe the Shade of Chaos is just another expression of the innate hostility between the various races.”

“The Shade of Chaos is the innate hostility?” Hao Ren quickly got the meaning behind Vogus’ words. “You mean the shadows are the extract of the innate hostility in the blood of the otherworldlings?”

“I quote what our ancestor had said,” Vogus said with a low voice. “‘We are the cursed ones exiling in this world, a lasting curse is forever on our heads.’ This curse means the sense of hostility, so this hostility has been unbreakable from the beginning. I have had unnecessary fantasies, and I didn’t know that trying to lift the curse would cause things to end up so terribly. The Shades of Chaos could be the sentinels that monitor the curse. When the innate hostility disappeared, the Shades of Chaos immediately broke the seal, came out and possessed us so that the killing cycle would continue indefinitely.”

Hao Ren knew that there were some elements of personal opinion in Vogus’ words. He did not take it in its entirety, but it was still worthy of attention.

The Shade of Chaos was the innate hostility, and the two complemented and resonated with each other. When the innate hostility disappeared, the Shades of Chaos appeared and possessed the races, and triggered the innate hostility in them again. This mechanism was like a self-repairing virus in the blood.

This theory explained what they had experienced in this exotic realm.

“Though it was very mysterious, your ancestors and I had successfully captured and sealed them,” Vivian said, looking at Vogus with her arms crossed. “I remember we had sealed the shadows in the Solar Roulette. Where is the roulette now? Let’s check it out.”

Compared with other, Vivian had a disdainful attitude towards the Shade of chaos, probably because she had sealed the thing once and confidence in herself. However, she seemed to forget her skills and talents at that time.

“The Solar Roulette…” Vogus’ voice appeared a little serious. “You helped my ancestors control the divine artifact, of course, you can see it. But do you still know what it is?” Vogus asked.

“I heard Andaherr said that you guys did not make the Solar Roulette but were just the custodians,” Vivian said, nodding her head lightly. “The roulette is older than your family. It is truly a divine artifact.”

“It came from an unknown place, something that was created by a great existence that we couldn’t understand,” Vogus’ voice sounded in fear. “Yes, it’s a divine artifact, but it’s nothing to do with sacredness. It brings disaster, is the original container of the Shades of Chaos, and may even be the root of the innate hostility. We have exhausted all our strength and barely kept it stable for the past thousands of years. The roulette is full of destructive energy and madness from the inside out. It was already so when the seal was intact, and I couldn’t imagine it since the seal is broken now.”

---

Chapter 909: The Calamity Cloister

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: Yuan Tong

 

Ten thousand years ago in ancient times, even the most heritage-obsessed races that had well-preserved literature and history had difficulty remembering the most ancient history, let alone that it was something indescribable and as abstract as a natural phenomenon. Vogus could only piece together the images of Shade of Chaos and Solar Roulette, which were shrouded in mystery, based on the ambiguous words of his ancestors.

“Our ancestors found the Solar Roulette from an ancient lava crater 6,000 to 7,000 years ago,” Vogus said, telling everything he knew to Hao Ren. “It was said that the roulette was buried thousands of meters underground by the plutonic rocks when the magma cooled. Despite the depth, light still emanated from the depths of the earth at each full moon night, illuminating the entire sky. My ancestors sound the roulette by tracing this light. The roulette is deadly mesmerizing. So in the first few hundred years, people had always regarded it as a divine artifact that brought infinite energy, but over time, the roulette began to show its terrible nature.

“Something called the Shade of Chaos came out of the roulette. It wasn’t many at first, and it was easy to deal with, but soon they became more powerful and drastically increased in number as if it were endless of them leaking out from the Solar Roulette.

“The Shade of Chaos had caused an enormous problem. My ancestors tried to destroy the Solar Roulette to annihilate it from the root. It turned out that the roulette was indestructible, not even the fusion explosion could leave a dent on the surface of the Solar Roulette. Then they tried to re-bury it into the crater, but the shadows had found a way to escape as rock and soil couldn’t contain them underground.

“There was no more information about what happened after that, but you should have already known the story: under the threat of the Shade of Chaos, a few of the strongest families had joined the effort and found the oldest and most powerful Blood Clan in the world, the Countess Vivian Ancestor. It wasn’t known how they did it, but these ancients had successfully reversed the process of the Solar Roulette and captured the shadows in the artifact of disaster.”

When Vogus finished, Hao Ren asked, “I have a question: Was there an innate hostility between the various races before the appearance the Shade of Chaos?”

“There was.” The one spoken was not Vogus but Hasse. “I’m sure that the innate hostility has existed since the beginning, at least 10,000 ago and it has been recorded in history,” Hasse said.

Vogus knew what was in Hao Ren’s mind. “The Shade of Chaos and the Solar Roulette did not appear until the innate hostility had been around for thousands of years, but it was only discovered as it was buried underground from the beginning. No one knows when it first appeared,” he said.

“Where is that thing now?” Y’zaks asked.

“In the deeper part of this dimension. We have built another layer of dimension in here and used a massive shadowy maze called the Calamity Cloister to seal the Solar Roulette. It has been there for thousands of years,” Vogus said.

Lily could not help but become curious at this time. “Since you lot have known that the thing is so dangerous, why are you still guarding it? Those not in the know are thinking that it a treasure but in fact, it is a source of calamity,” she said.

Vogus laughed; at least this expression was very close to the human smile. “Because we were the one dug it out of the ground, so the Ancattero family voluntarily bore the responsibility of guarding it, even if it would bring death to the whole family one day. We take responsibility for what we have done.”

“Where is the entrance to the maze?” Vivian asked quietly. “We are going in.”

“I could gain access to the maze with my family emblem; the entrance is a portal,” Vogus said. He took a deep breath and got to his feet slowly. “But you have to think carefully. That place is the lair of the Shades of Chaos. It is a hundred times more dangerous inside than the outside. After the seal was broken, the monitoring equipment in the Calamity Cloister has been offline. We couldn’t receive any signal from there. Once you enter, you are on your own and can only return to the outside world through the altar where the Solar Roulette is located,” Vogus warned.

“Isn’t it bad enough now?” Vivian smiled. “Give it to me. Though my strength has declined, I have accumulated a lot of experience in dealing with ‘difficulties.’”

While saying, Vivian glanced at Hao Ren; what she was saying was that, while following Hao Ren around, she had learned a lot in dealing with all kinds of difficult situations. Hasse and White Flame, however, thought that Hao Ren was the trouble in the eyes of the Countess and so their imagination ran wild.

Vogus did not delve into this. He silently took out a pale-gold device that looked like a pocket watch. It was the key to unlock the door to the Calamity Cloister. Before activating the door, he reminded Vivian, “The fewer people go in, the better.”

Vivian’s brows knit together. “Why?” she asked.

“Those who are mentally weak could fall under the influence of the Shades of Chaos and Solar Roulette and become killer machines. The number is useless. It is best to let the strongest go in, so there is room for maneuver even if things go wrong. Who are you going to send?” Vogus asked.

Vivian looked at Hao Ren. “What do you think?”

Hao Ren already had the most suitable men for the task in mind. “Y’zaks, Hasse; you two go with Vivian and me. Any problem? I think we’re the most suitable ones.”

He did not choose them randomly. Among the four, Vivian, who had a connection with the Solar Roulette, must be in the team. Y’zaks and Hasse were the strongest and vital battle force.

As for himself, Hao Ren felt that though his combat strength was not as high as Y’zaks’, he knew he had the greatest backup force—the divinity of Raven 12345. This divinity would guarantee him free from the attack of the devils. Since the Solar Roulette was such an evil thing, then his position as the ‘Pope’ should be the Shades of Chaos’ natural enemy.

Of course, Y’zaks and Vivian had no object to the arrangement. Hasse accepted the job after some mental wrestling. The other demon hunters, however, seemed to have differing views, but since their leader had agreed, they remained silent.

Lily grabbed Hao Ren’s sleeve and shook it. Hao Ren looked at the husky, feeling her concern for himself. But He knew that Lily was not suitable for the task. “Stay back here. You don’t want to mess with those things,” he said.

Wagging her tail, Lily said, “No, I just want to remind you to take some photos back so that I could know how it looks like at the inside.”

Hao Ren’s face was like “Really?”

He should have known that he should not waste his feelings with this dumbo.

Vivian ignored the husky maiden. She nodded to Vogus. “Open the door,” she said.

After everyone took a step back, Vogus placed the pocket watch-like device on the ground. It came open with a tingling sound.

The device split into four parts and slowly floated into the air. Light beams connected the pocket-watch pieces, and they expanded into a rectangle like a picture frame. As the four pieces were finally in their positions, the space within the structure changed with ripples gradually filling the space and eventually forming into a door.

Hao Ren could see through the door, which had dark and long passage filled with thick fog behind it. The passage was made of materials different from that of the gold buildings of the Ancattero family. They were dark like obsidian.

“Once go beyond the door, you all will be completely isolated from the outside world,” Vogus reminded for the last time. “To prevent more Shades of Chaos from escaping, I will close the door behind you. When you reach the Solar Roulette, I will be able to receive your coordinate signals again. And if you still can’t solve the problem there—”

“I got it.” Hasse interrupted Vogus. “If we fail, Andaherr and Hesperides will have to call for more capable reinforcements. Before that, you should never open the door.”

“How are we going to find the location of the Solar Roulette?” Vivian asked.

“The shadowy maze is only effective in keeping the Shades of Chaos in, but it does not affect people with normal mental conditions. You won’t see any other ways except a winding passageway. You need to follow the passageway,” Vogus explained.

Vivian sighed. “Understood.”

“I wish you lot all the best,” Vogus said, motioning them to proceed.

Hao Ren propped up his Steel Membrane Shield and took the lead to step into the portal.

As soon as he entered, he immediately felt the existence of the source of the calamity!

Chapter 910: The Shadowy Maze

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

At the moment he crossed the portal, Hao Ren felt that everything changed dramatically. Not only was he coming to a strange place, but there was also even an illusion that he had suddenly fallen into an alien world. Hao Ren felt that his senses were drifting off. He had a weird feeling of the surroundings, gravity, and temperature. He was in the Calamity Cloister, but it felt like it was another world although it was only a part of the territory of the Ancattero family. The dimension was alien.

A chill suddenly ran up his spine.

Hao Ren shivered. He thought he was being attacked, but he soon discovered that it was just a chill, and this chill was not real. It was a vast, indescribable force peeping at him. The hostility and pressure of this force had given him the illusion of falling into an ice cave.

“It’s a goddamn place,” Hao Ren mumbled to himself as he tried to calm himself from the uneasy feeling. He looked around and saw that he was standing in a passageway. He could not see the end of the passageway, which had a tall and sloping roof with grooves ragged fabric hanging down from the above. The fabric was swinging in the air even though there was no wind. The entire passageway was made up of huge black stones, void of any decoration and bright colors. All he saw was a whole piece of depressive darkness as if colors had been erased from this space.

The passageway was not wholly dark though as there was faint light that came from nowhere defused in the air. Hao Ren could see the surroundings. He had noticed that fog filled the passageway. The nature of this fog was similar to the mist that he saw when he first entered the mysterious realm of Ancattero.

He heard footsteps behind him. Y’zaks and others had crossed the portal into this space. Just like Hao Ren, Hasse had also sensed the unusual atmosphere here. He held a crossbow in one hand and a rune card in another, his voice grave. “Do you feel it?”

Y’zaks replied with a bassy voice, “Well, a powerful force is holding up here, and is peeping at us. I couldn’t tell its position as it is like everywhere. I’m afraid that it’s the mother of all Shades of Chaos if they have a mother.”

Vivian was the last came in. Her brows pulled together, and she felt it inexplicable when she heard the conversation. “A powerful force? Where? I can’t feel it.”

“You can’t feel it?” Hao Ren glanced at Vivian with amazement. “I feel it, and goosebumps are all over me.”

“I just feel that the atmosphere here is terrible,” Vivian said, tilting her neck uncomfortably. ‘It’s not just the dark surroundings, but the feeling of something lurking around in all directions in the background. Apart from that, nothing else.”

Hao Ren and Y’zaks exchanged a look. Both of them could feel that there was something that was powerful. Though indescribable, the feeling of being stared at by that thing was unmistakable real as it sent a chill down their spines. It was weird that Vivian had not been able to sense it.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Vivian said, knowing that Hao Ren would not lie. Her face turned serious. “It seems that my perceptibility has become slightly different from yours. There are only two possibilities for this: this space is unique where different people will have sensed things differently, or the problem lies with me.”

Vivian did not elaborate on the latter, because she knew that there had been so many strange things that she could not explain happening to her. She, however, suspected that the problem might have something to do with her successful sealing of the Shades of Chaos thousands of years ago. The shadow of the seal is related to: If the strange atmosphere in this space did not affect her, she might have the opportunity to recapture and re-seal the shadows.

There was only one way forward. Vogus was right; the shadowy maze was used to trap those irrational things, people with a normal state of mind would not see the branching-paths and traps in the maze. Focusing their mind, Y’zaks and Hao Ren took the lead and strode further into the endless passageway.

The fog and dim light began to prevent them from seeing clearly but not Hao Ren. He was not usual in that he had supervision. Despite the poor visibility, they dared not use any light. Light would create shadow, the shadow would attract the Shades of Chaos, and that would only become more dangerous.

The uniqueness of the Shade of Chaos was that they did not merely lurk in the darkness, but in the gray zone where light and shadow overlapped. So the dimness in the passageway was safer instead. When there was no light, there would be no shadows.

It was probably one of the sealing mechanism of the shadowy maze.

The Calamity Cloister was long and winding with alternate straight paths and corners. Due to the poor visibility, Hao Ren could only roughly tell that he was moving in a maze judging from the twists and turns through which he was traveling. He began to imagine the countless branching-paths and hidden openings along the smooth walls that he had passed. He could not see them only because he was sober.

Perhaps he needed to be possessed by the Shades of Chaos to see the hidden paths, he thought.

He quickly shook this dangerous thought off his mind.

The strange space felt so depressed that it had caused him to have strange thoughts.

Y’zaks was walking beside Hao Ren. Running his hand across the black stones on the wall, he said, “This space is completely heterogenized. These stones were originally stone, but now they feel greasy like some creature although the underlying material has not changed. Nothing is covering the surface; it is the realm that changes and distorts the nature of these stones.”

“How long have we been going” Hasse suddenly asked.

Hao Ren took the MDT out of his pocket and checked the time. “Almost two hours. This goddamn place is vast!”

The MDT scrambled to dial down its brightness. “Damn it! You should have given me a heads-up before taking me out,” the MDT snapped.

Hasse was startled. Pointing at the MDT, he asked, “You bring this with you? Didn’t you say there were only four of us?”

“I think it shouldn’t be a problem,” Hao Ren said, scratching his hair. “The Shade of Chaos does not affect it though it is bitchy like a human. We don’t have to see it as a human; it’s just an AI,” he said.

The MDT knocked on Hao Ren’s head. “You’re the one non-human!”

Hao Ren grabbed the MDT in his hand. “Are you a human?”

“I’m not a human.”

“Then why are you complaining?”

“Oops!”

Hasse looked on with his jaw dropping on the ground.

“So my advice to you: stop being curious at the strange gadgets that Hao Ren carries,” Vivian said, looking at Hasse. “You can treat it as a robot cat, and acknowledge that it is an amazing gadget but don’t delve into its rationality.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

Anyway, despite the hoo-ha, the appearance of the MDT had somewhat calmed the depressive atmosphere. Hao Ren tucked the metal brick back into his pocket and then glanced into the long passageway. He could still feel the menacing force lurking around but was unable to gauge how close he was from the source of that force.

The place felt like an infinite dimension.

But this seemingly endless passageway had an ending point. After hours of exploration in the passageway, Hao Ren began to notice changes in the surroundings. The path started to open up, and there were fewer corners in the passageway. It seemed like they were closer to the heart of the maze.

Suddenly, a door appeared ahead. They could feel from here that there was some depression, chaos, horror, and forces of hatred and hostility that came from behind the door. They instinctively exchanged a look before running towards the door.

“Hey, there are some words here!” Completely unaffected by the atmosphere and unlike the others who had tensed up, Vivian enthusiastically examined the stone door and found some words engraved on the lower part of the door. Unexpectedly, those texts were not Tannaean but ancient Letta text.

“An eternal curse is upon us. We who exiled from the otherworld carry sins with us. We are destined to fall into an endless violent quagmire, controlled by a hatred without root and reason. Behind this door is the source of all sins and curses, but no one could dispel it or appease it, because the perpetrators and victims of this sin are dead, no one can forgive anything.”

The author of the passage is a stranger named Kasandzor, the awakened.