The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 911

Chapter 911: Hao Ren’s Secret Move

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Hao Ren’s mind was flashing with thoughts after reading the message on the door. A sense of incomprehensibility rose in him. He reached out his hand and ran across the inscription; the characters were not very neat.

They did not seem to be the ‘official inscriptions’ left by the builders of the door to decorate or warn those who were to come but someone passing by in a hurry. Since the Calamity Cloister was used by the ancients to seal the Shades of Chaos in thousands of years ago, no one unauthorized personnel would have wandered into this place. Someone, who might have witnessed what happened, left these words here.

“Kasandzor…” Vivian looked thoughtfully at the inscription. “It sounds rather familiar, but I couldn’t recall who it is. We might have been active together back then.”

“I have a terrible feeling of this door,” Hasse said, his brows knit together and he looked serious on his face. “Even when I was on the battlefield of the ancient gods, I had never felt this heavy. There seems to be irrational malice behind the door.”

“We didn’t encounter any shadows on the way in though,” Vivian said, looking at the door. “Maybe they are all behind this door.”

Hao Ren took a deep breath and then, together with Y’zaks, placed their hands on the massive stone door. “Everyone be on alert. We’re going to open the door!”

As soon as their voices trailed off, he and Y’zaks used all their might to push the door.

The door gave way right away under pressure.

The ancient stone door ground open with a panicky sound. As the sound reverberated in the space, there seemed to be some other sounds mixed in the echoes: mourning, screaming, roaring, and the taunting sound of many creatures. The fog swelled and spread into all directions when the door opened as if something had stirred it though there was no wind at the moment. As the door fully opened, a gust of horrible air rushed out from the inside.

It was as if there were millions of mourning bells ringing and hundreds of millions of souls screaming, and a mass of chaos was rolling violently in the passageway behind the door. Focusing his vision into the passageway, Hao Ren could only see darkness. The turmoil and screams were just an illusion, perhaps a result of overstretched senses. Suddenly, some indescribable negative forces hit him on his face. He felt it as if the entire shadowy maze was collapsing towards him. He almost tumbled end over end before he regained his footing and instinctively leaned against the stone door as if he was on a boat holding on to the mast in the raging sea.

“What the heck?” Hao Ren struggled to talk. “What exactly is this?”

Hasse and Y’zaks had also experienced the same shock. Magic on the senior demon hunter responded with a faint light under his windbreaker, and flames rose on the Letta rune card in his hands, forming a protective circle around him. Hasse bent over under the attack, his teeth quivering. “Be focused! Don’t get crushed by your fear!”

Y’zaks was not affected though. Perhaps because he came from the otherworld, or it was his brute strength that enabled him to face the force head-on, save for his face which now looked miserable. “I feel anger, an indiscriminate hostility. Perhaps we shouldn’t have opened the door.”

All of them except Vivian had felt the devastating force. Standing in front of the door feeling as if nothing was happening, Vivian looked at the three of them inexplicably. “Something has come out? I still can see nothing.”

She did not even feel it.

“You’re built of special materials.” Hao Ren poked fun at the bat demon despite the dire situation. “Y’zaks, try move forward,” he said.

Dark-green demonic runes started to glow on his body. Going against the raging forces, Y’zaks stepped forwards. Less than ten meters into the passageway behind the door, his face twitched, and he flinched and came back out. “I can’t! There is a mighty mind-corroding force inside; I almost fell prey to it!”

Hao Ren was shocked. A demon king like Y’zaks could only make less than ten meters before getting beaten by the strange force.

That made him wonder what was behind the door!

Whatever behind it, the situation could only become worse. Everyone was feeling so except Vivian.

Hao Ren had activated his Steel Membrane Shield, but it was ineffective for the situation. The force was non-physical, the solid shield had a little to no reaction at all. He could rely on the divinity to resist the mind-corroding force.

It was the little divinity Raven 12345 had shared with him as a talisman, but it seemed that it was not enough for this occasion.

Hasse’s expression was getting terrible. Compared to Y’zaks and Hao Ren who had some special protections, he could only rely on his magic and physical resistance. “What should I do now? Judging from the situation right now, we may not be able to reach the location of the Solar Roulette. We can’t even hold up in front of the door for ten more minutes!”

Hao Ren looked at Vivian, who was the only one unaffected. He gave up the idea of letting Vivian go to investigate the situation inside. There were too many unknowns and dangers. Vivian was only immune to the forces in the maze, but might be susceptible to other threats around the Solar Roulette.

“There must be a way…” Hao Ren bit his lips as his mind was racing, trying to think what magic weapons he still had at his disposal. The riotous forces coming out from the door had been very disruptive, he was unable to concentrate. He found his thinking ability rapidly weakened.

He instinctively looked into the other end of the passageway, seeing the smoothly black stonewall squirming, a door seemed to appear. He was shocked. His sanity was declining, the hidden paths and traps in the Calamity Cloister had begun to affect him.

Hao Ren instinctively took out his gun and a few Graviton Grenades from the dimensional pocket. He thought whether he should blow up the passageway and it would make a difference. Before he carried out the idea, a sudden burst of coolness came from his side, it wakened him a bit, and the phobia inside him gradually faded.

Vivian grabbed his wrist. “Hao Ren, something is not right. Let’s go back to the passageway outside.”

“We can’t do that. The forces are spreading,” Y’zaks said. “I’m afraid that the entire Calamity Cloister has been infested. The entrance is closed; there is no going back.”

Suddenly, Hao Ren felt something under his cloak. He immediately pulled out the MDT. “Don’t pretend to be dead, be something of help.”

“Like a machine, I could only think of one effective solution, which is to call in the artillery to shelter this place. The drawback is, the real world will be up in fire as well. South America will be devastated.”

“Damn you. It’d be better for you not to say anything.” Hao Ren yanked the MDT away. Then, something crossed his mind.

Strictly speaking, he suddenly remembered who he was, which he always so conveniently forgot.

“I’ve got an idea!” Hao Ren clapped, scaring Vivian out of her skin. “What idea?”

“I am a pope!” Hao Ren said, holding his head high before a chest before feeling a pain in the ass. “I don’t want to use this trick though…”

Vivian and Y’zaks asked in unison, “Which trick?”

Hao Ren put his hand on his chest, took a deep breath, and slowly said, “Devine Intervention. I’m going to call on the name of Raven 12345.”

It was the best he could think of at the moment, aside from letting the MDT open the entrance by force and evacuate. Considering that forced evacuation meant mission failure, he had no other options.

He wanted to use himself as a medium to direct some of the power of the Goddess against malicious forces.

---

Chapter 912: Divine Blessing

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Divine Blessing was the most common technique for the people in the system of the true God. Unlike magic that needed years of learning and practice to master, Divine Blessing did not take a Herculean effort. The caller only required a close relationship with the divine god and had faith in its power. For these two reasons, the popes serving in the name of the real god usually had the most potent divine intervention magic. They could even call upon the name of the true God to seek strength. Such was the Divine Blessing.

Hao Ren had never used Divine Blessing before—in fact, he had never used any form of magic. Though Raven 12345 had given him some instruction and introduction manuals and personally told him how to draw power in the name of the Goddess in an emergency, he had never thought about using it. His standard issue equipment was always sufficient to deal with most kinds of problems in the past. Though sounding incredible, Divine Blessing did not work as good as it sounded. It was only a supplementary weapon for inspectors and most of the time it was less practical than the psionic gun or orbital bombardment.

There was a more critical reason why Hao Ren was so reluctant to use this move; he knew that his boss was a neurotic goddess and he had witnessed it once. So he could not bear to see himself using the hilarious trick. The sheer thinking of it would give him a painfully awkward feeling.

No matter how awkward it was though, he still had to accept the fact that he was working for a neurotic goddess, and not having the luxury of hesitation in the current situation. So he put on a brave face, followed the instructions in the manual, and then established a connection deep in his mind with the divine power.

He began to call upon the name of but not Raven 12345 herself so that the divine energy carried by the title would enter this dimension.

He was doing it the first time, but everything seemed to be going well. He soon felt the power, and following the tutorial, he fixed the power in his mind and chanted the phrase, “Let’s give it a try, it’s free after all.”

He chanted the phrase like the way he usually spoke, but it reverberated in the space before a beam of light descended from the above.

The light immediately dispelled the fog from the Calamity Cloister and even completely isolated the destructive infestation. Hasse, Y’zaks, and Vivian had their jaws dropped to the ground, especially Vivian and Y’zaks who were seeing it for the first time.

Hao Ren was standing in the light, and he seemed to have turned into a crystal figure flickering from reality to illusion as if he was going to transcend out of this world. A sacred power was using Hao Ren as a medium and radiating in all directions. The power was so holy that people had even forgotten the incongruence of the anachronistic “Let’s give it a try, it’s free after all” catchphrase.

A sacred figure began to descend in the light. It was the image of Raven 12345, her concept in this universe, not her in person. She was the origin and essence of the world, so when the pope called upon the name of the goddess, her name appeared in the form of an avatar.

The goddess in the light placed her hand on Hao Ren’s shoulder and blessed him. Then she made a thumbs-up sign with light reflecting off her teeth before announcing with her divine voice, “I’ve got you covered!”

Hao Ren opened his eyes and pointed to the other three. “Boss, if you have time, please bless them too.”

Vivian’s eyes affixed on the ritual, which was indescribable in every way. When she noticed Raven 12345 was casting eyes on her, she waved her hands and stepped back. “Oh, wait a second, I will not—”

She was too late; the image of Raven 12345 had split in three and come before her, Y’zaks and Hasse. The divine splits, whose face looked just as compassionate, blessed them. Thumbs up and flash in the teeth, the three splits said to three of them respectively, “I’ve got you covered too!”

After all the blessings, Hao Ren could not keep ritual running anymore. The white light slowly faded away and soon everything was back to the dark atmosphere. Unlike just now, they were now surrounded by a faint glow that was powerful enough to dispel all shadows and negative forces. The destructive forces coming out from the door was no longer affecting them.

Hao Ren exhaled and raised his thumb. “Yeah!” he said with a poker face.

Vivian felt a chill running down her spine. “Could you please stop doing that? It reminds me of what happened just now,” she said.

Hasse’s jaw was still on the ground. It took him a long while before he came to his senses and asked, “What the hell was it just now?”

Looking awkward, Hao Ren said, “Will you believe it if I told you it was divine intervention?”

“Huh?”

“So don’t ask me about the details.” Hao Ren sighed. “Now everyone has already received the blessing of the divine power. The things behind the door shouldn’t be able to affect us.”

Y’zaks looked at his hands; a divine glow was shrouding him. He laughed, self-deprecatingly. “Oh… I’ve never thought that a demon could receive this kind of blessing. Or should I say, this is truly the power of the true Goddess, who doesn’t make chalk of one and cheese of the other, demon included.”

Hao Ren shrugged, turned and walked deeper into the passageway.

The four of them moved along the dark passageway with their shields on. The negative forces were still lingering around them but stopped by their shields. Hasse could not wrap his brain around of what Hao Ren had done just now. He had witnessed the power of this incredible shield; he respected it but could not make head or tail of one thing. “Are the words on the shield necessary?” Hasse asked.

Hao Ren looked at him with a blank expression. There was a line of text scrolling around the divine shield like an electronic message board. That text was not runes but a heavenly phrase: I’ve got you covered too.

Hao Ren pointed to himself, and there was a line of words ‘I’ve got you covered’ floating around him too.

“I have it too. So stop bitching about it, what’s most important is the shield.”

Hasse felt like he was standing in front of a new world, hesitating for a long time and did not dare to open the door. So he shut up, which was a wise move that at least saved his perception of the world.

Probably, barely.

It was why Hao Ren had never been willing to use Divine Blessing of Raven 12345. The power of the true goddess was unquestionable, but he could not say the same for her neuropathic brain and the manifest weirdness of her style. Hao Ren could not imagine how embarrassed the real fanatic followers of Raven 12345 were when doing missionary works in the field. Their Bible must be full of “don’t f*cking freak out” (God’s courage), “f*ck you” (divine interference), “I’m the f*cking best” (praise), “you don’t f*cking run” (the prohibitions), which were bordering profanity.

The shield shrouding him now was known as ‘I-F*cking-Cover-You Shield’ in Raven 12345 Bible. Some people called it the ‘Goddess’ protection,’ but it did not work because it was deemed a nickname.

With this in mind, the pope, Hao Ren, could only sigh repeatedly. He walked in the passageway with a great sense of physical and mental exhaustion after the Divine Blessing.

He was suddenly interrupted by a golden light coming from the front.

He had come to the end of the passageway. After crossing the murky darkness, the place opened up in front of them.

The place was completely different from the dark rock passageway behind them. For a while, Hao Ren even thought that it was an illusion from the power of Raven 12345. It was a glorious place, and a hundred meters in length on each side of the square hall, filled with various mysterious and colorful decorative murals and reliefs that looked like they were newly put up just a while ago. Huge columns supported the dome on the roof, and the structure of this place resembled that of a church. Apart from that, there was an altar made of crystal in the center, where something was floating above it.

That was what they were looking for, the glorious Solar Roulette.

Hao Ren’s eyes affixed on the Solar Roulette, wide-eyed.

The Solar Roulette looked precisely the same as the Gilded Disc that the Goddess of Creation made.

No, they did not just look the same, they were mainly the same thing.

The Solar Roulette was about ten meters in diameter, had a hole in the center, and engraved with mysterious runes. It had the same features as the Gilded Disc that Hao Ren found on the planet Solenne. Without a doubt, this was the divine artifact left behind by the Goddess of Creation.

However, the Solar Roulette appeared to be very strange.

---

Chapter 913: The Solution

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

No one could have thought that at the end of the dark and gloomy passageway had such a magnificent altar nor did Hao Ren expect he would find the divine artifact of the Goddess of Creation here. The Solar Roulette was the Gilded Disc, which was a vital component of the Creation Engine.

The Gilded Disc on the altar depended on the mysterious magic force to float and rotate slowly in the air. The floor from the edge of the altar to the end of the hall was laid with beautiful and intricate patterns and reliefs, which depicted the scenes of the ancient times, including the images of Tannaeans and some old gods such as the Greek and Egyptian gods. The hall was built with a white jade and gold-like material inlaid. The luxurious surface had a brilliant glow to it, and the runes and golden patterns were pulsing like breathing with reach rotation of the Gilded Disc. Undoubtedly, there was some system running here.

The bright and splendid space almost had people forgetting the dark shadowy passageway, but the powerful negative energy that came out of the Gilded Disc was reminding the intruder of the danger of this place. Yes, it was negative energy. Despite there was a splendid suppression measure in place, the air was still filled with the same destructive atmosphere just like in the passageway. With just a glance, Hao Ren had noticed something was wrong with the Gilded Disc. Something had tainted it. A dirty dark substance was dripping down from the lower part of the disc into a groove at the bottom of the altar, and spreading through the Letta rune and magic circuit into all directions.

The black substance flowed down the altar and eroded the reliefs and runes in the hall, bit by bit. The pollutants seemed to be struggling with an opposing force but having the upper hand. The altar hall was filled with a fierce and turbulent atmosphere with two opposing forces clashing violently, which was invisible by the naked eye. Everyone could sense it except Vivian.

“What is this stuff?” Looking at the sewage-like substance that continually dripped from the disc onto the rune circle below, Hasse the veteran demon hunter had got goosebumps. “Is this material or something else?”

Hao Ren looked down at his arm, Raven 12345’s Motherf*cker Shield was still intact. This protective spell of the will of the true goddess was protecting them from the negative atmosphere. He was relieved. Plucking up his courage, he went up to the altar at the center of the hall.

“Be careful!” Vivian immediately warned him from behind.

Hao Ren took note and waved his hand. Stopping at half a meter in front of the altar, he took out the MDT and connected his mind to it. “Scan the energy flow of the disc.”

The MDT emitted a beam of blue light over the Gilded Disc, a visual from another perspective that came to his vision. He saw the Gilded Disc was shining like the sun, but there were obvious energy clashes on the lower part of the disc. Numerous tentacle-like tiny lines grew out of the sewage-like substance and crept onto the energy system of the Gilded Disc. The pollutants, which were incompatible with the disc, clung on the disc and competed with the energy system.

Perhaps both forces had tangled together for too long a time, they had almost fused and looked like a bunch of entangled roots at first glance.

“The black stuff is a foreign substance that taints the disc,” Hao Ren said of his discovery. “Maybe it has mutated over time; we had no way to know what it was originally.”

Hasse observed the runes and circles around the altar. Though those were magic alien to the demon hunters, as a senior demon hunter, Hasse had learned a thing or two about all the magic and mysteries of the world. “There’s a Letta magic, as well as some variants of the Egyptian gods. The entire hall is a three-dimensional magic circle that constantly purifies the black substance flowing out of the disc,” he said.

Vivian asked casually, “Does it work?”

“If it worked, the corruption wouldn’t be so bad,” Hasse said, pointing to the fluid on the altar. “The moment this substance overflew from the altar, the magic in the hall had failed. Now the runes are just barely maintaining themselves. The parts that cannot be purified flow out of the door and become the kind of destructive atmosphere we had felt before.”

“At the same time, it should have also turned into the Shades of Chaos,” Y’zaks said, scratching his jaw. “It seems that the Shades of Chaos and the atmosphere of destruction are only sub-variants. The thing flown down from the disc is the original pollutant.”

Hao Ren got to his feet, moving farther away from the altar. He looked at Vivian. “Can you sense the atmosphere leaking from the disc now?” he asked.

Vivian frowned and then shook her head apologetically. “I still feel nothing,” she said.

“What the hell is going on?” Hasse vaguely felt that Hao Ren might know something. “Why can’t she feel it?”

“Because she and the disc have a long historical connection,” Hao Ren said, but he could not reveal too much. “The key now is how to get rid of the black stuff.”

Y’zaks and Hasse stared spontaneously at Vivian; she could be the key to solving all the problems. At least she had demonstrated her immunity to the atmosphere of the Gilded Disc. Perhaps the ancient gods were only able to contain the shadows with the help of this ability of Vivian.

“What do you say if I touch it?” Vivian suggested. She was a bit shaky as all eyes were on her. “I can’t feel the danger of this thing, except that it looks disgusting.”

Hasse was stunned, his eyes swept back and forth between Hao Ren and Vivian. “Wait a second. Is this your plan?”

“We plan to think on our feet,” Hao Ren said, spreading his hand. “We were not able to foresee the situation; it was complicated inside here. But I’d not agree with Vivian’s plan. It’s too dangerous. It’s better for me to perform another Divine Blessing—”

Before Hao Ren finished, the MDT came out and poured cold water on his suggestion. “You’d better not. The power of the true Goddess is not funny. This space is not a real universe but an artificial dimension. It can’t stand a second Divine Blessing.”

Hao Ren had to abandon his idea, which he thought was simple and handy, and was struggling to come out with an alternative.

At this time, Vivian suddenly mumbled, “Must we seal it with the old method? How about thinking about something else?”

“Something else?” A thought came to his mind. Hao Ren looked around, and he had a plan. “I don’t know if it works if I put the Gilded Disc in the safe.”

“And then put it in your dimensional pocket?” Vivian was shocked by Hao Ren’s suggestion. “Really? Putting a bomb in your pocket? With the timer running some more?”

“That’s exactly why I have to keep it inside the safe,” Hao Ren said. He poked the MDT. “Please check what kind of safe could isolate the disc’s contaminant.”

Without nonsense, the MDT flew up to the side of the Gilded Disc and began to scan it carefully. At the same time, it used several energy fields to test the black contaminant that flew out of the disc. Hao Ren watched the MDT working, still wary that the pollutant was too potent, and he might not be able to contain it even with his inspector standard issue equipment.

As it turned out, the MDT came out with a piece of bad news. “Scan is completed. The existing storage containers are not guaranteed to work. The subject is divine; the contaminant also possesses the same level of strength, we need the security conditions at the CARS to safely contain it,” the MDT reported.

Hao Ren was stunned. “Well, I couldn’t bring the entire research station here, could I?”

“This thing is highly polluting and uncontrollable,” The MDT said helplessly. “Not to mention that it has a divinity, which is simply a malicious will of the great universe.”

“Can we simply suppress its divinity temporarily?” Y’zaks suggested. “Do you have any other highly divine stuff with you? The goddess must have given you a lot of things, I reckon.”

Hao Ren immediately rummaged in his dimensional pocket. First, he found his precious apple box, but it was not very useful. He looked for something else: a noodle plastic bowl he took from Raven 12345; a pair of disposable chopsticks that came with the plastic bowl; two bricks, which Lily had forgotten that she stole from the garden in the goddess’ mansion and Hao Ren’s custody; a pen, which Hao Ren had even forgotten when he got this, but this pen did possess the power of Raven 12345, of which the most divine part was the bite marks on the cap.

Hao Ren looked at the stuff he took out, baffled. “Do all these even help?”

“Though these things are divine artifacts, I wonder if you were a scavenger before becoming an inspector.” The MDT was nothing but amazed. “But these things are not suitable.”

Hao Ren thought for a while; if he were to hang those plastic bowls, disposable chopsticks, pen, bricks and the like on the Gilded Disc and it worked, it would be too painfully embarrassed and awkward.

He had been painfully embarrassed enough for the past two weeks carrying the ‘Motherf***ker Divine Shield’ with him.

When it looked like all hope was lost, the last item coming out of the dimensional pocket was surprisingly useful.

It was none other than the thing that opened him to the life of living on the edge: the labor contract!

---

Chapter 914: The Root of Everything

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Right from the start when Hao Ren began to rummage in his dimensional pocket and take out loads of funny stuff, Hasse had been staring at him, unable to make head or tail about what he was doing nor talking. Now, he could not help but ask: “Are you affected by the roulette?”

He thought that Hao Ren had succumbed to pressure and lost his mind.

Hao Ren finally found a few pieces of paper, which were the labor contract he signed with the Goddess. While lamenting that time flew, he was stunned a little hearing Hasse speaking. “What?”

“Are you going to use these things to sealing the Solar Roulette?” Hasse pointed to the papers in Hao Ren’s hands.

“Never try, never know,” Hao Ren said and nodded matter-of-factly, but he knew it would work. It was not the first time he was using the divine contract to get difficult things done. The stuff that the Goddess gave him always worked like a charm despite them sounding and looking weird.

While Hasse was hesitating whether he should knock Hao Ren out before the Solar Roulette deranged him, Hao Ren already went up to the altar with his labor contract in his hands. Standing beneath the ten-meter Gilded Disc, Hao Ren felt like he would be crushed like a bug at any time if the thing fell. When he held the papers near the disc, the incredible happened.

The disc emitted an incredible sound, as if a sigh, and also the grinding sound of metals that reverberated throughout the hall. When listening carefully, it was as ethereal as an illusion. The Gilded Disc ground to halt slowly and the patterns on it stopped pulsating. All these things went into torpor before the supreme divinity.

The liquid black substance beneath the Gilded Disc faded as the divine contract approached and quickly moved away as if fearing of authority.

Hao Ren was delighted. “It works!”

Hasse looked like an idiot. “What the hell is this?”

The poor senior demon hunter tried to rationalize what he saw. He guessed that the few sheets of paper in Hao Ren’s hands were probably filled with some mysterious runes, or that Hao Ren was casting powerful magic with the papers. As a traditional demon hunter, he would instinctively filter anything had to do with gods out of his mind.

Vivian patted Hasse on his shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you that you should just treat him as a robot cat, and don’t try to rationalize?”

The divine contract had produced an unexpected effect. Seeing that he was able to suppress the black substance on the Gilded Disc and there was a sign of dissipation, he realized that he might be able to do a better job—not just sealing up the Gilded Disc but also cleansing it entirely if the divine power of the contract was strong enough.

He affixed the few pages of the contract on the parts of the Gilded Disc where black shadow corruption was most severe. Unable to find glue, he used his saliva as adhesive.

Hasse had given up thinking entirely and just watched quietly. In this ancient secret realm, on this ancient and mysterious altar, Hao Ren was clinging to the altar and sticking the papers onto the world’s oldest divine artifact using his saliva. The most incredible thing was that it did work in taming the powerful and dangerous object. Hasse felt that it was time for him to retire; the world was changing too fast, and he thought he could not keep up anymore. Perhaps he could work as a janitor at headquarter after retirement, but he did not know if he could still recover from his shattered worldview.

On the other hand, Hao Ren saw his trick worked. On the contract papers with the name of the Raven 12345 on, a soft white light was purifying the tainted Gilded Disc. The shadows dissipated in the air like a puff of smoke; they were not being suppressed or sealed but eliminated.

“I should have thought of this early.” Hao Ren looked at the results with satisfaction.

“You are full of surprises,” Y’zaks said, blinking.

Hao Ren let out a subtle smile, taking that a compliment. At this time, the shadows on the Gilded Disc had almost completely dissipated. Hao Ren glanced at the part that had just finished purification and found something suspicious.

After the black substance disappeared, it left behind some light marks, which were not the previous contaminant, but dark-red stains, some sprinkled liquid that had dried up.

Vivian noticed Hao Ren’s startled expression on his face. “What happened?” she asked.

“I don’t know what it is, the surface of the disc is a bit dirty,” Hao Ren said casually. He could not help himself but reach out to touch them. “It looks like—”

*Boom!*

A loud bang suddenly arose. Hao Ren felt a sense of wooziness as if he was thrown from space to the ground, slamming down in a whirlpool. After struggling to recover his senses, he opened his eyes and found himself falling in a foreign place.

“Ouch! It hurts.” Hao Ren got to his feet. He found himself standing in magnificent ruins. It was a palace. Massive pillars and incredible majestic sculptures were falling around him. The hall covered with red spar was being torn apart by a violent quake. Above him was a colorful crystal dome that had been punctured with a huge hole. Through the hole, he saw fire in the sky and sulfur rain pouring down together with the burning pieces into the world like rainstorms, and there were loud explosions in every direction.

“Vivian?” Hao Ren called out to his teammates. “MDT?”

His voice vanished in this chaos, and no one answered him. His shared mind connection with the MDT had also gone silent.

“Y’zaks?” Hao Ren massaged his forehead and staggered over to a place that looked a little level. “Hasse?” he continued to call them out.

Suddenly the palace wall in front of him came down with a boom. When the dust settled, his jaw dropped.

There was a red ocean before him. A vast expanse of flame was burning on the sea, and he was standing on a mysterious palace that floated on the water. Right now, the palace was collapsing and sinking into the ocean.

Towers and megaliths fell apart from the palace, dropped into the red ocean. Hao Ren stunned to realize where he was.

It was the moment where the Goddess of Creation fell. He was on the Star of Creation.

Something seemed to be calling him. He felt an urge. He did not know where he was going, but he just followed his instinct, turned around and ran deeper into the palace.

He went through numerous burning doors and weaved passed many bodies of guardian giants. He also saw the treacherous sons in armors, some of them were still fighting the guardian giants in this part of the palace which had not collapsed. Hao Ren did not stop. He ran as fast as he could through the field of chaos as if a voice was hurrying him.

Those guardian giants and treacherous sons seemed to have not noticed Hao Ren was there. They were occupied in killing each other and did not stop the intruder.

Hao Ren went through the last door that was about to collapse.

He saw the scene that had changed the fate of countless souls 10,000 years ago.

A huge Gilded Disc stood at the end of a long hall. In front of the Gilded Disc, there was a female figure, her face unrecognizable and seemed to be shrouded in a layer of eternal mist, but she was the most prominent existence in this space. When Hao Ren saw the woman, all the flames and destruction around him were gone. He quickly realized that the woman was none other than the Goddess of Creation.

A warrior wearing a gold-red armor stood silently opposite the Goddess of Creation.

They seemed to be talking, or they could be in a silent confrontation. Hao Ren felt that he had a problem with his eyesight, his vision was becoming blurry, and everything around him seemed to be shaking.

In his shaking vision, he saw the warrior held a long sword in his hand. The sword was dark and inlaid with bits of light, like pieces of the universe.

The warrior thrust the sword at the Goddess of Creature.

Hao Ren felt that his consciousness was on the verge of dissipation, but he still used all his strength and lunged forward. He reached to grab his weapon but found that the dimensional pocket did not respond. So he caught anything that he could; he did not know what it was. It could be a stone or a piece of metal, which was extremely hot. Or it could be something else. He used all his might to throw the burning debris at the warrior in gold-red armor. “You f**king stop!” he shouted.

The burning piece of debris dissipated in the air like a phantom, and the dark sword of the warrior had pierced through the body of the Goddess of Creation.

The goddess seemed not to have any ability to fight off the attack. She staggered a bit, slowly leaned against the Gilded Disc and fell while looking in the direction of Hao Ren.

Hao Ren had realized that he only saw an illusion, an image of 10,000 years ago, but he was still convinced that the Goddess of Creation was staring at him. That gaze spanned across space and time, even across reality and illusion. At the moment the Goddess of Creation was murdered 10,000 years ago, she stared at the direction as if she knew someone was coming in the fantasy.

The gaze of the goddess was giving him goosebumps. Then he heard a faint voice coming into his ears. “Forgive.”

The goddess finally fell, and at that moment when the deicide happened, the divine came.

The body of the warrior, the god-killer, disappeared into a beam of light in an instant. Then, many light columns rose in other parts of the palace, and the treacherous sons were turned into light particles before they had a chance to react.

The longest ten-meter distance in his life finally ended. He was too late and had not managed to see the face of the god-killer and the Goddess of Creation. He came under the Gilded Disc and found the bodies of the killer and the goddesses were gone. Everything was gone, leaving behind only red marks on the Gilded Disc.

The blood of the goddess was splattered on it. It was the most significant evidence of the crime in the universe.

The blood slowly dripped, bit by bit, slowly turning dark. The place began to quake, and there were many sorrowful roars of the guardians in the air. Hao Ren closed his eyes. He felt that the Star of Creation was slowly falling apart under his feet and heading down the path a supernova phenomenon that would light up the entire universe.

The extinction had begun.

Chapter 915: The Truth of the Curse

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Standing in the middle of the illusion, and though with his eyes closed, he could still clearly ‘see’ everything was falling apart. The palace of the Goddess was collapsing and slowly sinking into the red ocean. The torrential rain of sulfur and flames fell from the clouds onto the world, and the sea of the Star of Creation was up in flame. The fire had a kind of energy that mortals would not understand. All sin and glory would end in this flame.

The inner layer of the Star of Creation seemed to have begun to collapse, and there was some unprecedented powerful force building up deep in the planet. Amid the continuous explosions, Hao Ren opened his eyes again. The last scene he saw was that the Gilded Disc tainted with the Goddess’ blood violently shook as if it would fall off the crack in the palace. He subconsciously reached out and tried to grab something, but had only managed to touch the edge of the Gilded Disc and watched it fall.

His hand was stained with the Goddess’ blood, which was as hot as magma.

It was a sudden boom again, and vertigo caused Hao Ren to lose his intuition. He was losing track of know how long he had been floating in the chaos, and how many indescribable things he had gone through before he finally regained his footing.

He subconsciously exhaled, as if squeezing out all the air in the lungs. His senses came back online as he could feel the temperature, airflow, light, and the surrounding sound again. He opened his eyes and found himself standing on the altar. His finger blenched, getting off the dark-red marks on the Gilded Disc as if there was an electric shock. It was the subconscious reaction of the body, as a large amount of mental noise was drowning his subjective consciousness, he could barely think.

He shook his head, the large face of the Gilded Disc was glistening with light in his field of vision, and there was still black spots at the bottom edge of the disc. The last scene he saw in the previous illusion and the scene before him overlapped. He realized that he finally knew the truth.

“Buddy?” The voice of the MDT awakened him from the stupor. “Why are you zoning out?”

Hao Ren was stunned and saw that the last piece of divine contract paper had been stuck on the edge of the disc. The black things were quickly disappearing. He smacked himself on the head. “How long have I spaced out?”

“How long? A second,” the MDT replied, confused by Hao Ren’s response. “Of course there has been a lot going on in your eyes in that one second.”

There was an indescribable feeling of exhaustion. Hao Ren did not doubt what the MDT had said but was a little surprised that all he had experienced happened in just one second in reality, and this short moment had drained him as if what he experienced in the illusion had impacted him physically. Realizing something was not right with Hao Ren, Vivian and Y’zaks quickly came over to check on him. Vivian held Hao Ren, who was a little bit light-headed. “How are you?”

“I had an illusion,” Hao Ren said, smiling and walking down from the altar. Vivian’s hand was cold, but it made him feel a little more alert. “And I’ve figured out what the innate hostility is all about.”

His eyes landed on his hand, and he was surprised. There was a strange red mark on his right-hand palm, as if a burn or something, very obvious. He clenched and felt a vague burning sensation spread from the mark, which reminded him that it was not an illusion.

Vivian had also noticed the strange mark on his hand. “What is this?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Hao Ren replied. He had a thought, but it was just too strange and completely defying the law of reality. “I had contacted the blood of the Goddess of Creation, but… but that was in the illusion,” he said.

“The Goddess of Creation?” Vivian and Y’zaks said in unison.

At this time Hasse came up. The senior demon hunter had no idea what the Goddess of Creation and the deicidal war were, but he could feel the negative force on the Solar Roulette was gradually dissipating. “Is things done?”

Vivian and Y’zaks stared at Hao Ren, who sighed and rubbed his forehead, thinking about how to tell the things that he had learned from the illusion. “I have unlocked the secret of the innate hostility.”

They were on edge, could not wait to hear the truth. Hao Ren, however, first looked at Hasse. “You may not understand what I’m going to say, but please wait until I have finished, and then I will explain it to you,” he said.

Hasse had already noticed that Hao Ren and his entourage must have known some secrets from the beginning, and this secret was something that he could never get his hand on even if he had lived for thousands of years. He nodded and suppressed his curiosity. “Well, I’m glad that you let me listen on the side.”

Hao Ren nodded lightly, pointing his finger at the dark marks on the edge of the Gilded Disc. “Those are the blood of the Goddess of Creation.”

E everyone was as quiet as a mouse. It was only a few seconds later that Y’zaks broke the silence. “You mean this thing?”

“At the time she was at the scene, the Goddess stood in this position, leaning against the Gilded Disc…” gesturing to explain what he saw, “…the deicide was wearing a gold-red armor, standing near the runes over there, and then stabbing the Goddess with a black sword that looked like the fragment of the universe. The Goddess’ blood splattered on the Gilded Disc, just like what you can see now.”

Hao Ren had not only seen things in the illusion but also had some knowledge that appeared in his head. He did not pay attention to it at that time, but when he woke up, he found the additional memories in his mind. He had put together these memories and what they saw and finally restored the truth.

“…the blood of the Goddess is the evidence of the great sin of deicide, so the Gilded Disc itself is an evidence of the crime. When the Wall of Reality collapsed, a large number of alien races were flung into this universe, along with this Gilded Disc and the sins that the disc carried. The innate hostility is not a curse nor a mind-interfering spell, but a sin of deicide.”

The Goddess’ blood was sacred, but after the deicide, the blood had been filled with the anger of the vast universe and the sin of the treacherous sons. Though Hao Ren had no idea how the transformation process happened, the result was obvious: the sacred blood had turned into a pollutant, triggering the hostile killing of the otherworldlings in the surface world.

The polluting power carried by the Gilded Disc had been leaking since the beginning. As early as 10,000 years ago, when the earliest alien races except Vivian came to Earth, the Gilded Disc had fallen on the earth at the same time. It first tainted the crack on the Wall of Reality, then all the creatures that passed through the crack. It then slept deep in the depths of the earth for thousands of years, until the Ancattero family dug it out of the magma crater. The Shades of Chaos that emerged from the Gilded Disc was indeed another manifestation of the innate hostility, but they were nothing but just spills.

The real source was the Goddess’ blood on the disc.

“If I’m not mistaken, the amnesia of the otherworldlings is also caused by tainted blood of the Goddess,” Hao Ren speculated. “Different races have a different level of resistance to the corruption though. The sirens are not a creation of the Goddess, so they are mostly unaffected, and their peaceful nature remains. Due to the special physique and the high mental strength of the Ancattero family members, they are moderates among the otherworldlings. Werewolves, vampires, and demon hunters came from the same planet and were subject to the same level of corruption, so they became the most hostile races to each other and the protagonists of the otherworldling war on the planet. I guess that some races have been affected more seriously, and if they are overly sensitive to the Goddess’ blood, they may even turn into monsters, ultimately losing the original characteristics of the intelligent beings.”

“The Scorpions of Tartarus,” Vivian said suddenly. “Zeus once threw a group of three-tailed scorpions into the prison of Tartarus. He said that those strange things are strange, they live like beasts, but they have a lot of delicate decorations and mechanics on their carapace, and there are fragments of generators and vehicles in their nests, but they don’t seem to know how to use them at all.”

“That should be the race that had been completely tainted by the Goddess’ blood. Most of these races did not survive the early melee period of the Mythological era,” Hao Ren said, shaking his head and sighing. “What goes around comes around.”