The Record of Unusual Creatures

There was a type of anomaly that even if it were right in front of you, you would not discover it immediately. Its unnatural nature was clear, but it was easy to miss simply because of classic problems such as the limitations of human thinking and visual distortion. It was especially so when there was a severe interference in the camera lens between the observer and the observed. It did not help, too, when the “cameraman” was a lousy flyer.

Hence the classic academic question of “why was the pigeon so big?”

Hao Ren had only examined the footage carefully and noticed the anomaly when he felt that things did not fit into the picture.

At first, he did not notice that the scale of things was out of place because the situation in the Great Pit was chaotic, and the camera’s image quality was terrible. Hao Ren only thought that those things looked small because they were far away, and the shadows appeared too big because they were close to the lens. But when a peanut-sized church spire collided with Noobie’s head, which was directly below the camera lens, he immediately realized that something was wrong.

Later, he found that debris in the wrong scale was everywhere in the Great Pit. It appeared that everything floating in the Great Pit was out of normal proportions.

Palm-sized buildings and tiny kingdoms only as large as a sandbox model may have seemed to be far away at first sight, but in reality, they were just floating around the probe, and those were their actual sizes. Some candlesticks were as massive as a skyscraper and broken wooden doors that were large enough to block the sun, but in fact, they were thousands of miles away and shockingly massive.

In the ten-minute video, all Hao Ren saw was debris with extremely odd scales floating in the other dimension. The place was dim, chaotic, and seemingly boundless. No matter which direction the camera panned, there was no observable boundary or walls except for the Great Pit entrance. When Noobie flew back up to grab the raw meat earlier, Hao Ren could see the gateway to the other dimension through the lens. It was a winding and dark passage in the crack, but there was nothing on the sides of the crevasse.

That was the underground canyon that Hao Ren and Vivian saw from above.

“The inside of the Great Pit seems to be an alien dimension.” Vivian instinctively tapped her chin while looking at the images. “It is totally different from what we expected. We thought it was a porous network of caves or tunnel system.”

“According to the scholars of L’Haronne, the entrance to the Great Pit is all over the world.” Hao Ren said. “If this is true, then is it not that the planet has only a thin layer of crust on the outside, and the interior is a distorted dimension. No, no! This is impossible. The mapping between an alien dimension and the real world is not that simple. It should be that the underside of the earth’s crust is full of entrances to the alien dimension.”

“Perhaps we can find a place on the continent and dig a shaft. If we could bore through the crust and into the Great Pit no matter where, it means that the interior of the planet is a spherical subspace entrance, and the earth’s crust is a thin layer of rock and soil covering the spherical entrance. If we can only bore into the core of the planet, it means that the entrances to the Great Pit are scattered randomly in the ground, and the geology of the planet is normal.”

Vivian’s two proposals could figure out the planetary model of this world. After spending the past years following Hao Ren traveling around different worlds and planets, Vivian was now pretty savvy in various fields, unlike yesteryears where her only concern was where to buy the cheapest mustard and where to stay for free.

But Hao Ren shook his head after hearing what Vivian said. “Good idea, but it is something that we cannot do it right now. I have some more daring conjectures about the world of L’Haronne.”

While speaking, Hao Ren looked at the frozen holographic image that showed the floating debris of different abnormal sizes. These absurd things that looked like impressionism arts and the anomalous visions of this world made him think of some crazy ideas.

But just as he was about to discuss his bold ideas with Vivian, a loud rumbling noise rang through the underground temple.

The noise sounded as if a volcano was erupting in the closed cave system. The earth-shattering, low-pitched rumbles were accompanied by the terrifying sounds of the crumbling of the rock formation. The violent temblor made people wonder if the underground world was going to give way.

“Something is wrong!””Go to the main hall!”

Hao Ren and Vivian exchanged a look and shouted in unison.

The two ran toward the main hall as fast as they could. In just a few breaths, they had arrived back at the area where their teammates were resting. At this time, the noise and tremor had woken up their teammates, and everyone was waiting in the corner of the main hall.

There, Rheia was shielding everyone with her protective spell, and outside this protective spell was a demonic barrier that glowed in green. Since Y’zaks’s role now was a warrior, it was Y’lisabet who had summoned the shield.

“Where have you two been?” Lily had already heard their footsteps before they even arrived back in the main hall. “Going out to tryst in the middle of the night?”

“Watch your mouth!” It was not the first time that Lily had said something so rancid to agitate her. No matter how many times Vivian had heard it, she could not help but get furious. “Hao Ren and I were just checking out the Great Pit!”

Rheia was maintaining the protective spell when she heard what Vivian said. She was shocked by what the two mercenaries had done; they must be very sick that they had to go to study the Great Pit in the middle of the night. But considering the situation at hand, her tone of voice change. “Did the loud noise and temblor come from the Great Pit?”

“No, nothing has happened in the Great Pit,” Hao Ren said quickly. “The noise seems to have come from a distance above. I think something has happened on the surface—”

Before he could finish, Nolan suddenly spoke into his mind. “Boss! How is your situation there? Are you guys all right?”

Had Nolan seen something from the air?

Hao Ren raised his hand to motion everyone to wait while he replied Nolan in his mind. “There were loud rumbles and tremor down here. But the underground temple seems to have no risk of collapse. What have you seen from above?”

“Massive cracking of the earth. A huge rift of hundreds of kilometers long suddenly cracked open on the plains. One of the branches has spread into the black forest where you are, and there are fires and smoke spurting out from the fissures.” Nolan reported what she saw. “The situation in Longwind Peak does not look good either as landslides and subsidence have occurred in the mountains. But this is not the worst.”

Nolan paused as if she was giving time for Hao Ren to digest the news. “The probes that I have sent out earlier have also observed the same geological disaster in other parts of L’Haronne at the same time. At least 16 cracks of equal size have appeared in different parts of the continent, and the scene in the other fissures are exactly the same as here. Other than this, there are more cracks of a smaller size. Wait a minute, something is coming out from the crack.”

Two seconds later, Nolan’s tone of voice turned grim. “Thousands of humanoid creatures burning in flames are coming out of the cracks. Scanning results do not match any of the known life forms. Boss, this world is not looking good.”

“We are coming up! Nolan, track the movements of the monsters,” Hao Ren said quickly.

Rheia noticed Hao Ren’s facial expression, which changed every second and got more and more grave. She instinctively knew that this mercenary might have mastered some information about the current situations. Rheia had no idea how Hao Ren did that, but she still asked, “What happened?”

“Let us first get out of here.” Hao Ren motioned them to follow him to the shaft exit. “Rheia, take care of yourself. Rollie, stop running around.”

The cat maiden was full of curiosity, and the situation on the surface was unknown, so Hao Ren had to remind Rollie.

“I am not stupid.” The cat maiden protested before following Hao Ren closely from behind. She was using her action to prove one thing: she was always an unshakable member of the cat-dog-fish team.

Once on the surface, the power of the disaster was visible to everyone.

The main earth cracks did not happen here, but smaller fissure branching out from a large fissure had spread to the vicinity of the Black Forest. The flame erupted from the fissure had ignited some of the vegetation at the edge of the forest. Hao Ren could see that fire rising at the edge of the forest was illuminating a third of the night sky. He could already smell the burning fume of the trees from afar.

A forest fire was only a matter of time.

The earthquake had never stopped all this while, and the strange rumbles could still be heard coming from afar. The noise might have weakened considerably, but apparently, the disaster was still spreading.

“What exactly is happening?” Looking at this sudden geological upheaval, Rheia, the devil-may-care mage, was wide-eyed. She saw a light beam had risen in the middle of Longwind Peak; it was the warning signal from the sentinel mages in the Magic Net Watch Tower. Usually, the sentinel mages would only give out this warning signal when facing a kingdom-wide disaster. Now, Rheia could not help but only get nervous.

“It is a large-scale natural disaster. It could also be a supernatural disaster. Whatever it is, L’Haronne is in great trouble,” Hao Ren said quickly. “We better return to White Maple Leaf City immediately.”

Before Hao Ren finish, Nolan reported in again. “Boss, bad news! The monsters from the cracks are flocking towards the cities on the plains!”