The Record of Unusual Creatures

Godslayer always appeared in the image of a black mountain in the spiritual world, even in that of the First Born. The black mountain and the thorny mountain stood side by side on the dark ocean with towering light beams not far away. The historic meeting of the three strange souls in the spiritual world was a weird scene.

After introducing itself, Godslayer mentioned that it could hear noises. That baffled Hao Ren. “Noises? What noises?” Hao Ren asked.

“The sounds. Can’t you hear it?” Godslayer shouted as if trying to make itself heard amid a noisy quarrel. “It’s coming from everywhere. The world is filled with thousands of roaring, non-human sounds. They’re almost drowning this place.”

Hao Ren’s heart missed a bit; he suddenly realized that probably what Godslayer heard was the source of the corruption, which was imperceptible by ordinary means. But since it was homologous with the Godslayer, its sound was captured. “Where is the sound coming from? Does it have any meaning?”

“There is no origin, no content, just random roars, and groans.” Godslayer sounded confused. “Oh, it sounds similar to my ‘echo’.”

“That must be because both of you are from the same family!” Hao Ren said aloud. “What you hear should also be something that your creator left behind!”

Hao Ren then told Godslayer about the corruption Yggdrasil was experiencing and his thoughts on it. Hearing that, Godslayer fell into deep thought.

In fact, the sword, designed as a specialized weapon without other functional values from the beginning, was not intelligent and had no complex thinking mechanism. It was born and controlled and used to kill before it was sealed. The Echo Wall, sort of its brain, did all the uncomplicated thinking for the past ten thousand years. But that did not mean that Godslayer could not be of help. It might not know what corruption was, but it knew who it was.

“If I’m not mistaken, the corruption the big guy is experiencing is not fundamentally different from what the other ordinary races have been having. It is a whisper. The demon hunters have heard it; the deicides have heard it too. They are the same thing,” Godslayer said.

The Heart of Darkness of Yggdrasil was angered. “Nonsense! I was created by my mother! I have glory in me. How can I be as depraved as those god killers?”

“The killers were also creations of the goddess of creation, and you have shown signs of being corrupted,” Godslayer said bluntly. “I am just stating the facts. What’s happening to you is essentially the same as what happened to them. It is up to you to accept it or not. But the corruption has had a different effect on you compared to the god killers. They became mad after hearing the whisper but not you. This is very strange. You seem to be immune. Instead, you have transformed and trapped it inside you. Of course, there may be another possibility: the corrupt factor in you is unique. It is not to pollute your soul but only your body.”

“The key question is: is there any way to eliminate this corruption?” Hao Ren said.

Godslayer thought for a long while. It had never thought of this question before. Its purpose of existence was to stab people, and sometimes, god. Treating wound it inflicted was not its expertise. Nevertheless, it had seen enough supernatural powers during the War of the Deicide. After a moment of pondering, Godslayer said, “Try using me to stab him.”

“Are you are kidding me?”

“I am serious,” Godslayer said matter-of-factly. “There is a saying in your culture: it takes poison to neutralize poison. So treat me as a vaccine. The corrupt force in Yggdrasil and my power have a common root. But the goddess has gnawed… Err… I mean, blessed me. So it has turned from a source of pollution into an antidote. You are not questioning the power of the goddess, are you? I don’t mean to stab him. All you need to do is cut a small opening so that my power can penetrate. He is too contaminated that corruption has spread to his limbs in the real world. Treatment is not going to be effective if it is only confined to the spiritual world.”

Hao Ren thought for a moment and entirely agreed with it.

But Yggdrasil was reluctant. “Will it work?”

“It will work,” Hao Ren replied matter-of-factly.

“Stabbing in the head doesn’t sound convincing to me.”

“Don’t worry. You are not going to die.” Weirdly, Hao Ren was confident with Godslayer. Or rather, he trusted the blessing power of Raven 12345. After all, if this did not work, there would be no way to save Yggdrasil. “I will be as gentle as possible,” Hao Ren said.

Yggdrasil had a weird feeling. “You sound like you don’t know what you’re doing. What if you kill me?”

Hao Ren smacked himself on the thigh. “Then, congratulations! Your death wish comes true.”

Speechless.

After some discussions, Yggdrasil—both the Heart of Darkness and the Voice of Light, agreed to the surgical plan. They could not say otherwise since Hao Ren had given them half a ton of sedatives earlier. After making sure everything was in place, Hao Ren disconnected himself from the mental connection.

He felt a moment of confusion and a dazzling light flashed across his eyes. When everything subsided, the first thing he knew, Lily was licking him on his face.

But the husky maiden was quickly blown away by Vivian’s Lightning Strike move.

“What the hell are you doing?” Hao Ren asked, shocked.

“What the hell are you doing, Battie?” Bouncing back on her feet, Lily yelled even louder than Hao Ren did. “I was just trying to wake Mr. Landlord up!”

“Waking him up—by licking?” Vivian glared at Lily. She then turned to Hao Ren with concerned eyes. “You are awake, Mr. Landlord! Is everything okay? You have been in there for two hours!”

“You are not going to believe what I saw,” Hao Ren said.

His mind was still a little disconnected from reality as the tremendous amount of information in his mind was causing havoc. Shaking his head vigorously for a long while, he was only able to breathe a sigh of relief and detail to everyone the things he saw in the mental connection.

What happened inside Yggdrasil was utterly unimaginable to them.

“It was lucky that we did not kill the Heart of Darkness earlier,” Galazur said, staring at the lesioned brain in horror. “It is the original consciousness of Yggdrasil.”

“If all goes well, jabbing him with the sword will solve the problem.”

While saying, Hao Ren took out the Godslayer from his dimensional pocket. In the real world, the sword appeared as a black fragment. Its shiny surface looked serene and mysterious with a hint of peculiar elegance.

But the way the sword spoke was anything but elegant. “When you stab, try to be steady. Don’t freak out. I am razor-sharp. Though Yggdrasil has super self-healing ability, if you cut its head in half, it will still die.”

Hao Ren was wielding the Godslayer in front of the Heart of Darkness, figuring out where he should stab so that it looked more professional. Beside him, Nangong Wuyue could not help herself with cold sweat trickling down her forehead. “I really don’t think this is going to work. Mr. Landlord, you could have very well killed him.”

“You have to trust my skill,” Hao Ren said, nervous but pretending to be calm. “You must trust the professionalism of this sword. Its experience in stabbing people is longer any human civilizations.”

“But last time, it did kill someone.” Nangong Wuyue mumbled as she coiled herself up.

Hao Ren was hesitating for a long while. He began to realize that no way he would look like a surgeon with a stabbing sword in hand. Making up his mind and with the help of the MDT, he found a ‘safer’ spot on the brain and pierced the sword into the brain.

He froze in that posture for three seconds.

“Looks like it doesn’t work. Maybe you should change your posture and do it again?” Lily said as she came over and poked Hao Ren’s arm.

Before the husky maiden’s voice trailed off, a strange sound was suddenly heard in the cave!

The voice sounded like a thousand screaming souls mixed with falling rocks. The walls of the cave shook as the tentacles in the walls twitched and woke up from their long dream.

But things went just as quick as they came; the shaking subsided. The tentacles gradually stiffened as the red glow in the brain dimmed. The runes in the cave died down, and the situation in the cave returned to normal.

The pulsation of the brain ganglion had stopped.

Cold sweat was trickling down Hao Ren’s back right down his feet.

“Holy moly! Have I just killed it?”