The Record of Unusual Creatures

The burning humanoids were converging from all directions and smoking footprints lay in the wake of their path. The temperature was rising rapidly, and the plants around them were visibly drying up and wilting.

This was the first time Hao Ren had seen these “unknown life forms” with his own eyes upon getting Nolan’s report of the monsters.

Their size was not much different than a normal human’s. They had obvious limbs. Aside from the burning flame, the insides of the monsters were empty, as though an invisible person was being draped by a fiery cape. But based on the MDT’s scans, there was nothing inside them.

“An empty humanoid vessel, eh…” Hao Ren pondered as he saw the monsters. It seemed like their appearance had validated one of his bold predictions. Rheia, who was by his side, nervously gripped her iron staff. “What monsters are these?!”

The great scholar cum mage cum battle master, Rheia swore to the heavens. She had never seen these monsters from her piles of tomes!

“Monsters suddenly appearing from the deep… Most likely, they are looking to destroy the world,” Hao Ren replied swiftly. “The ones we are facing are just ragtag stragglers. More of them have already gone to besiege White Maple Leaf city.”

“How do you know?” Rheia gave Hao Ren a shocked glance, but the charging monstrous conflagrations put rest to any questions and details that she wanted to ask. “Waahh!! They’re coming!”

*Boom!!*

Following a loud blast, Y’lisabet lobbed a basin-sized fireball out and the fireball exploded in mid-air, three of the charging monsters were caught by the blast and were torn asunder, turning into ashes drifting away with the wind.

While the monsters were a walking torch, there were no such thing as ‘creatures of fire were immune to fire damage’.

But frankly speaking, even if they were immune to fire it would not have been of much use. The little loli devil’s fireballs were never meant to kill her foes with just extreme temperature. There was a fel core within those fireballs, and the moment it makes contact at least sixty percent of the damage was physical…

Hao Ren pulled out Grungnir and his plasma blade and turned the charging monsters into mincemeat as he yelled. “Don’t just stand there! Kill those bastards!”

The group was in a fighting retreat, and while the scary flame monsters were fatal to normal humans, against an experienced combat team like Hao Ren’s, plus Ms. Rheia who could kill a cow with a punch, they were not too difficult to fight against. But the burning forest was not a place one should be staying any longer, and they broke through the cordon at the first opportunity and made their away to the flatland outside the forest.

And the flatland was totally ruined.

The ground had suddenly cracked, and a terrifying hundred-odd-kilometer rift had appeared out of nowhere while smaller cracks spread out like a web and rent the entire flatland into pieces. On the broken flatland before Hao Ren, the once verdant growths had been turned into ash by the raging flames, and the roaming flames replaced the once lively animals on the flatland Blazing flames were gushing out of the cracks on the ground, and reminded everyone of Inferno and its eternal blaze.

Y’zaks too was reminded of his homeworld, but as he saw Rheia’s pale face, he refrained from smiling.

There were not only cracks and wildfire across the flatland, but there were also the flaming humanoid monsters, and compared to the ragtag bunch in the Black Forest, the number of roaming monsters on the flatland was much higher.

Hao Ren and the rest quickly attracted the monsters’ attention. With a voiceless roar, the flaming monsters charged in from all directions.

While Rheia had all sorts of questions in her mind, she was not the type to dwell on details, especially in this situation. The little mage threw all questions in her mind aside as she held her staff as she prepared to face the foes before her.

But just before she could activate her ‘charge + leaping slash’ combo, Hao Ren stopped her. “There’ll be no end if we fight on. We’ll charge right out.”

Rheia was stunned and wondered how would they be able to break out of this area filled with rifts and monsters before noticing that Hao Ren was looking at that werewolf warrior called Lily.

“What’s wrong?” Lily was befuddled by Hao Ren’s gaze and failed to understand him before looking at her tail. “Something on my tail?”

“Eat spicy sticks!” Hao Ren and Vivian yelled in unison.

Lily was confounded for a moment before realizing that giant alloy X1024 sword in her hand was just a mere decoration, and remembered the Metal Garuru armor that she had gotten before she left. The werehusky broke into a wide smile before tearing apart a pack of spicy sticks from her pocket and stuff them into her mouth. “Watch me!”

As Lily was busy stuffing her face full of Spicy Sticks, Nangong Sanba could not help but come to Hao Ren’s side. “Mr. Landlord, is it okay to let Lily transform? If the werewolves in this world do not…”

“First, we don’t have to bother about details in this type of disaster, and next…” Hao Ren looked on as an aura formed around Lily, and his lips curled. “If I’m not wrong, we do not need to worry about the ‘setting’ of this world much longer.”

As he finished, Lily was consumed by a vortex and everyone quickly retreated as they deployed all sorts of defense. And yet, within the storm of dust, a striking howl of “Hot hot hot hot hot hot!” was heard.

Aside from Rheia, everyone had a stunned look on their face: This was not the first time they had seen her transform, but every time she did so, there would be her trademark “Awooo”. This was the first time they had heard something they understood, and the content was that.

Vivian could not help but look at Hao Ren, the latter was slapping his forehead. “Doggocomms… Not surprised if she was shouting that every time she transformed.”

Everyone then realized that this was even worse than a magical girl transformation. It was embarrassing all the same but the latter at least had pretty girls…

Yet Rheia did not have the time to be aghast of anything, she could only stare blankly at the martial silhouette within the vortex: a five-meter-tall husky clad in advanced armor, armed to her teeth and tail…

The charging monsters were slowed by the torrent of violent wind when Lily transformed, and now that her transformation was complete, the seemingly fearless monster immediately roared and charged in with a berserk rage.

And like many warriors at the vanguard, they would all die during the charge.

Lily gave a mighty swing of her head as an integrated combat visor made out of four lenses formed and covered her face. Through the Doggocomms, came her extremely confident voice, “Titan Armor activate! Apocalypse Assault Platform deployed, target lock-on. Laser weapons… Eh eh eh, why did they fire before I was done talking!”

The werehusky was half-way through her chuunibyou speech before the high-powered laser platform had completed all activation and IFF identification. Immediately after that, the combat AI kicked into action and the destructive laser beams raked through the charging enemies.

It could not be helped, this was a high-reaction weapons platform, and the time from activation to going hot was just that short. Before Lily could even give the command to attack the weapons were already firing, and her chuunibyou speech could at least last through two salvos…

Besides, with the monsters’ speed, they would have already reached her by the time she was done rambling…

Lily was pissed at her heroic entrance being ruined while Hao Ren kicked her… paws while withholding his laughter (it could not be helped, the five-meter-tall werehusky was just too big. He would need to jump really high to even kick her knee). “Stop being a goddamn chuunibyou and get us to White Maple Leaf City!”

As he said that he pulled out a remote control from his Dimensional Pocket and gave it a press. An audible “beep beep” came from the armor, and as he pressed again, the back armor deployed as the cockpit and passenger side protective plates rose up.

Hao Ren grabbed the confused Rheia as he climbed up the back of the werehusky. Lily shook her head as she grumbled, “Mr. Landlord, frankly speaking, this is very weird…”

“I’ll stew six kilos worth of pork ribs for you when we get back.”

“OKAY! Sit tight! I’m going naught to hundred in half-a-second!”

As Lily declared, and she hunched backward into a pouncing position and… launched her entire self like a released bolt. A few flaming monsters stood in her way and before the CIWS (close-in weapon system) could even react she had trampled them into embers and dust.

The normal flame monsters were not Lily’s match under this form. Forget that powerful weapons system on her back, even the fireballs the monsters were launching at here would not be able to break the weakest part of her armor.

One on one that is.

Across the flatland, there were many gaping rifts and many scorching flames were belching from them, and with the flames comes the burning humanoid husks. Where ever the flames spread to, they would be there. And that meant one time.

Their numbers were overwhelming!

After some heroics, Lily crashed into the area where the monsters were concentrated, and was plastered by a hundred thousand fireballs launched by the monsters. Even Lily, clad within an advanced set of armor could not help but yelp in dismay: Her unreliable side was going to go online.

“Activate Spearhead mode. Use the navigation radar to guide you.” Hao Ren said as he gave instructions to the werehusky on how to operate this complex set of combat armor. “This will allow you to avoid the areas where the monsters are concentrated.”

Lily used her CIWS cannons to take out the approaching monsters as she followed Hao Ren’s instructions and activated the navigation system. But after running for a distance she yelped again. “Mr. Landlord! Why do the monsters seem to know where I’m going?!”

Hao Ren was befuddled for a moment before taking a look down and saw lights flickering on Lily’s shoulder. “Turn off the indicator lights!” He yelled.

“Why was that even there in the first place!” Lily said as she clumsily changed the system settings (in her mind). The next second, the radar screen wipers activated…

Hao Ren could not see what was happening with the radar screen and shouted back to answer Lily’s question. “That’s because you bloody stepped on me six times when you were trying out the armor! Too dangerous to let you go around without one!”

Rheia’s expression was totally blank by now, and she sat in stupor in her seat as she mumbled, “So.. can anyone tell me what the hell is going on?”

Regardless, the rampaging werehusky tore headlong a blazing path through the burning land and monsters as White Maple Leaf City appeared before them.