The Record of Unusual Creatures

The scene of the abandoned aristocrat’s house, a musty collapsed hallway, the whisper from the depths of the earth, and the strange, chilly wind were all present to form a perfect backdrop for the ghost. Although Hao Ren found it out of whack, walking along the corridor that could give way at any time sent a chill up his spine.

What was even creepier was that when everyone had stepped into the old mansion, the surroundings quietly changed.

When Hao Ren finally noticed it, the sky outside had darkened.

The hallway was dim. As Hao Ren looked through the holes in the walls of the corridor, the clear sky of the sunny day had turned overcast as dark clouds had gathered and the skylight was no brighter than that of the dusk.

A cold wind came from nowhere had Lily’s hair rising. She instantly form-shifted into a werewolf, wielding her Frostfire Claws and scanning her surroundings. “Mr. Landlord, I think things have gotten stranger. Is the ghost planning to ambush us?”

“She still doesn’t willing to come out,” Vivian said as she frowned. “She knows this trick won’t work on us, but she is still stubbornly hiding in the dark. I have no idea what the ghost plans to do.”

The sky continued to darken as the thick clouds had completely blocked off the sunlight. Ghostly shadows were moving in the forest outside the old mansion while the faint voice from the depths of the earth said again, “I have no intention of hurting you or setting you a trap. But you’ve already overstepped the boundary; it’s too late to turn back. Good luck.”

The voice of the ghost went dead after that and never came back again.

“It seems that this changing weather is not the doing of the ghost,” Hesperides said as she looked at the sky. “The triggering of a certain secret realm must have caused this atmospherical changes. It seems that we have fallen into another mysterious realm.”

“I hate this. The supernatural remnants from the past are all troublesome.” Hao Ren’s eyebrows pulled together. “How about we clean this mess up once and for all by blowing this place up?”

“Mr. Landlord, your ‘explosive’ tendency has become more dangerous now than before. Is it that you have seen the goddess too often and been infected?”

Scratching his hair in embarrassment, Hao Ren turned to walk straight deeper into the old mansion.

Once again, after confirming that the building structure was safe, Hao Ren released another autonomous robot to check out the second floor, which might collapse at any time. He then brought others to explore on the first floor.

The MDT floated in front of the group, using its scanning beam to check every passageway and room along the way, and digitally restoring the interior of the mansion with its high-speed processor. Times had destroyed the original appearance of the building, but as long as the MDT had the photo frame, it would be able to restore 80% of its original condition, and then project and overlay the 3-D image onto the ruins. As the group moved forward, they would be able to see the original 3-dimensional layout of the mansion within 200 meters of them.

There were once two rows of portraits hanging on both sides of the hallway. They were men and women, dressed in aristocratic costumes, thought to be the patriarchs or family members. Precious velvet carpets, which were destroyed in the fire, had once covered the floor in the hallway. At the corner of the hallway, there used to be a table filled with silverware, which were not magic items used in rituals.

Hao Ren slowed down and carefully observed if there were any possible clues. Suddenly, a patch of red had caught his eyes.

“Stop. Scan this spot.”

He halted at the end of the corridor, pointing to a vague red mark in the corner. The edge of the red patch looked jagged—a result of pixelation caused by an imprecise image rendering by the MDT. Hao Ren ordered the MDT to render the spot again. As the hologram in the surroundings faded away, the red patch on the scorched wall instantly became sharper than before.

“Hi-res rendering is in progress. Rendering completed. The red patch consists of blood.”

It was a line of text, written with blood in a hurry.

“It is coming out! It is coming out. It is coming out.”

It was a line of repetitive phrase, of which handwriting was shaky as if the author was in extreme fear.

“It is coming out?” Hao Ren repeatedly read out the phrase. “What does it mean?”

“Perhaps it means the thing trapped in the village,” Hesperides said. “Did we not theorize it before? The village is like a cage, which probably is keeping some dangerous force inside.”

“Unfortunately, the ghost has gone silent,” Hao Ren said while shaking his head. “MDT, can you find the position of the ghost?”

The MDT sounded helpless. “She is everywhere, and probably symbiotic with this land. I have detected the oscillation of her energy, but there is no source. Since she is not talking now, unless you detonate a dimensional implosive; otherwise, there is no way to force her to come out.”

Hao Ren thought for a moment. But he had refused the temptation of this attractive-sounding proposal.

Lily suddenly raised her head, stared straight in a direction, and sniffed.

“What did you find?” Vivian glanced at her.

“Bone!” Lily’s eyes brightened up as she looked at the corner of the wall. She then scurried over and started to rummage in a pile of rubble.

Before everyone knew it, Lily had dug a charred skeleton out from the rubble.

The husky maiden, looking at her fruit of labor, pouted, “Damn it! The cake isn’t worth the candle.”

“I can’t believe it; it has not completely decayed yet?” Vivian looked at the skeleton, the appearance of which was utterly unrecognizable. But her concern was different from that of the husky. “This could be the owner of the house or the family members of the aristocrat of 200 years ago.”

Hao Ren frowned as he squatted beside the skeleton. He did not have much expectation, but he still hoped to find something. To his surprise, something was pinned under the skeleton; it was a booklet, which two-thirds of it was fired-damaged.

He carefully pulled out the booklet. The first thought that crossed his mind was of the material of the book; it looked suspicious. The booklet survived the fire, and then two centuries of a humid and warm environment in the forest!

Upon examining the material of the booklet, Vivian quickly realized that it was not of an ordinary paper. After applying a little spell, she knew that the pamphlet was made of enchanted black goatskin.

“Ahh, the real magic book,” Vivian exclaimed, feeling the scorched pages of the booklet with her fingers. “Other than the fire, it still survived the weather and the environment. The process of making this thing is strange. I don’t remember which school of wizardry used this process to treat black goatskin.”

“It seems that the aristocratic family has some substance,” Hesperides whispered. “How much can you restore?”

The booklet was burnt beyond recognition, only one-third of it remained, and half of the remaining content was incomplete pictures and symbols that had lost their meaning. Despite that, the MDT had done its best to restore some of the text. As it turned out, the booklet was something that looked like a journal.

Writing a diary with a precious magic book had Hao Ren scratching his head in confusion. Was the owner of this mansion a family of ordinary humans? He asked himself.

The booklet started with a record of when the family first moved to this place.

“After a long journey, we finally got to this place. Trying to cover our trail to avoid getting traced by the church is difficult. But we have made the decision; there is no turning back.

“It is a place where magical energy is active. Maybe the artifact is gradually changing the environment here.

“I have found him. He is now known as Fernan, living a reclusive life in a small village in the forest. After meeting Hercules, I found that he is in terrible shape as the backlash of the power has… He is struggling at the boundary; no wonder he has sent us a letter seeking help…”

The first content of the journal was intermittent, but it contained a piece of essential information. After reading all this, everyone looked at each other. Vivian broke the silence. “Pierre’s findings have gotten it all wrong.”

“This family seemed to know the true identity of Hercules from the very beginning!” Hesperides could not believe what she read. “They came for Hercules!”

“And it sounds like Hercules was the one summoned them,” Lily said, blinking her eyes.

Hao Ren pointed to a sentence in the restored text. “This sentence bothers me; someone seemed to be still tracking the family, who said they wanted to evade the ‘church.’”

“There are many churches on earth, but in the world of magic, there is only one that could strike fear in the heart of all otherwordlings.” Vivian exhaled. “The demon-hunter organization. They are indeed related to this case.”

“But White Flame has never mentioned this in her report.” Hao Ren frowned.

“Well, let’s read the rest of the journal.”