The Record of Unusual Creatures

A massive holographic projection opened up and the maddened universe engulfed in darkness and chaos behind the visual screen had finally unveiled itself to Hao Ren.

“The original Prison of the Dark Abyss was divided into three layers, and the goddess had used her powers to forcefully open up several barriers of order, and use them to form the interior, central and exterior triple layer of defense. A massive number of runic array and man-made stars were deployed within these three lines to suppress the Mad Lord.” Adier’s wind-chime voice rang across the room. “But after the containment failure, everything disintegrated and most of the barriers have been rendered by the taint of madness into primordial chaos, and the Dark Abyss had returned into its ancient chaotic state, but some things were still left behind.”

“In these areas, three are some remnants of the runic array and stars, and floats about in the universe as fragments, some of which had fallen into the crevice of the distorted dimension, but they can still be of use as a launchpad for our activities within the Dark Abyss. They are however very unstable, and basically all of the fragments are undergoing destruction and rebirth in the unit of hours, and their numbers are always falling.”

“This was one of the original monitoring nodes, and when we withdrew it was still operating, and I think it could last until the final battle. This node can provide us data support, and also relay information, and should be useful on the battlefield.”

“There is an armory in this area, and once had an army of divine automatons, but about ninety percent of the automatons had already been used during the breakout. The armory itself is very sturdy, however, and could be of use.”

Rheia then interrupted Adier’s report. “What’s the situation like with the Mad Lord.”

“The prisoner’s taint has filled up the entire Dark Abyss, and now that it has a solid core, the core should be in the deepest part of the prison. There is a massive chaotic dimension protecting the core, and it’s very difficult to get close. With the core’s command, the mindless power of madness is now regimented, and they would readily use all sorts of battlefield tactics against the Nightwatchers, that was why it was able to break out so quickly.”

“And the core had never moved before?” Rheia frowned.

“Never, it had remained there since its appearance, and the only ones moving about are the tainted minions.”

“She’s waiting for me.” Rheia sighed. “She’s very certain that I would find her myself, so she’s waiting for us to fight on her own turf where the power of madness is at its apex. But before that, she will continuously unleash the taint of madness against the material universe, so we don’t have a choice.”

“This layer of chaotic dimension is probably the biggest problem.” Hao Ren said as he stroked his chin while looking at the dimensional layout map on the projection. “That goddess of annihilation hides in an ever-changing shell, and I reckon the laws of space and time are under her full control. To pass through this sort of dimension, any normal engine or teleportation methods would not work, as the ‘law’ is in her hands.”

“There’s probably no one that has the luxury to slowly decipher the mathematical rules in a place like that,” the MDT said as it shook about in the air.

“Force entry is not impossible, as it is a matter of snatching the control rights of the laws of space and time, I’m the same level as her over here,” Rheia said as she clutched her arms. “But that will definitely do a number on my strength and energy. The goddess of annihilation would have an endless supply of power within the Dark Abyss, but for us, any energy consumed is considered lost.”

Just at that moment, Nolan’s voice rang from the comms. She had docked by the side of the control tower and had a real-time data link with the droid swarm, so she was listening in all alone. “Perhaps we can directly blow this layer of chaotic dimension to kingdom come.”

“Destroy it?” Hao Ren raised his eyebrow. “What plan do you have? I don’t think we have anything ‘rule-based weaponry’ that could snatch the control of laws from a true god.”

“My void engine,” Nolan replied. “The void engine is able to travel in the endless void outside the world barriers, and create an independent field of order, and this field of order is actually a ‘forced operation mechanism’. But the void engine itself has security fail-safe, and this fail-safe will not allow it to work within the world barrier to prevent any damage to the laws of the universe, but if we are to disable that, and overload it over at that chaotic dimension…”

“We can blow a hole up in any dimensional structure.” Hao Ren’s eyes brightened. “But can we pull that off?”

“To be honest, this is against operational safety protocols, so this setting is locked down dead, and you can’t bypass it system-wise, not even I can,” Nolan said. “But we can chuck that aside right…”

Hao Ren got a gist of what Nolan was at. “You mean…”

“If the ship is damaged by someone, then it has nothing to do with the safety protocols,” Nolan said whimsically. “I can isolate all of the control mechanism of the safety lock, then you can find a Starbreaker Crowbar…”

“The hell is a Starbreaker Crowbar?!” Hao Ren leered.

“That thunk alone will cause a dimensional collapse the distance of a few light-years wide. Calling it that is already an understatement!

“Besides, wrecking the void engine this way… will you be okay?” Hao Ren waved dismissively as he asked the question that concerned him the most. “I remember the void engine is connected with the largest number of energy tubes to the power core and is definitely linked to all propulsion units…”

“I can temporarily cut off the energy supply to the other engine parts while you are at it, and with that even if the void engine is wrecked I can still fly, and when you guys start fighting I can still move about, but any warp jump or void travel is definitely gone, the warp generator is just too close to the void engine, and will not survive the wrecking.”

Hao Ren sighed. “So it’s a one-way trip huh…”

“Yes, it’s a one-way trip.”

With both warp and void travel disabled, that means the Petrachelys will not be able to leave the battlefield, and if things go south, the normal sub-light speed engine and light speed thrusters would not be sufficient to escape the Dark Abyss, so… this is indeed a one-way trip.”

“Then, I should start on the contingency plan as well,” Hao Ren suddenly said as he held his hand up to stop Lily who was about to speak. “It’s not to demoralize us, but we should be prepared no? Just like the Ark of Yggdrasil that Rheia had sent to Earth back then, we should also prepare ‘arks’ for the worst-case scenario.”

As he spoke, he changed the projection on the deck, and on it was the World Gate on Collow, and a great number of dimensional accelerators and warp rails spread across the universe.

“Those are…” Rheia asked as she looked at them.

“This is our line of retreat,” Hao Ren said. “This is originally the transportation system built by the droid swarm during their expansion across the Plane of Dream. I have modified two of the backbone networks and installed a large accelerator on them, and through them, anyone can reach the World Gate at Collow within 24 hours from any point in the Plane of Dream, and outside this World Gate, is a safe and stable surface world.”

“So you’re actually setting this up when you were messing about with the construction schedule of the droids a few days back?” Vivian gasped in surprise before frowning. “But can this actually move everyone out?”

“Not possible.” Hao Ren shook his head straight away. “Even when 99% of the life within the Plane of Dreams have been wiped out, considering the accelerator’s passage limit and the restrictions of the World Gate, it’s impossible to ship everyone out. The satellite clusters above the worlds can only move about a tenth of the ecosystem samples based on their ‘Ark Protocols’. So this is the final plan, and if things actually reach that point… we don’t have any other choice.”

Lily’s ears and tail slowly perked up. “But if so much information were to suddenly cross the Wall of Reality, won’t the two universes…”

“So there’s another level of arrangement back on the surface world,” Hao Ren said. “Raven 12345 is standing by, and just as the Wall of Reality starts to collapse and before the clashing of laws affect the Surface World, she’ll destroy the entire Plane of Dreams in a split second. That way, the brunt of the collapse of the Wall of Reality will be born by the remains of the Plane of Dreams, and the ‘refugees’ moved to the Scarred Nebula will then be settled there. They will only be allowed to leave there once the ‘compatibility processing’ has been completed. So, with this, the damage will be minimized.”

Rheia then sighed. “…It sure is a rather unpleasant plan.”

She then looked up with a smile. “But it’s not like the plan I came up with years ago was anywhere pleasant.”

“So we need to go all out to prevent things from reaching that stage,” Hao Ren said. “I will upload the details of the plan of retreat to the public data vault, and all of you can go have a look. We can discuss it if there are any problems. Aside from that, anything else to add?”

No one seemed to have anything to add for now so Hao Ren signaled the end of the meeting and everyone could go back to rest. The droid swarm would need to do minor adjustments to the bastion based on today’s results, and the Nightwatchers too need to undergo maintenance and inspection to avoid any infected ones being left out.

Vivian stayed behind.

“I didn’t know that you arranged something like this.” She looked at Hao Ren in the eye. “And that the last part of the plan… is to destroy the entire Plane of Dreams.”

“This was planned by Raven 12345 and me, and based on what she said, this is the last lecture that one must master to be an official inspector.” Hao Ren looked back at Vivian in the eyes. “At times, you need to make cruel decisions.”

Vivian gently pinched him. “So you went about doing it all by yourself, and not telling even me?”

Hao Ren pretended to hiss in pain, before stroking Vivian’s hair. “Don’t worry, the reason of us here, is to prevent that cruel decision from ever being deployed, no?”

Vivian rolled her eyes as she swatted his hand away from messing up her hair, and a short pondering later, she hugged him. “Both of us will come back alive, right?”

Hao Ren smiled as he held Vivian tightly. “Of course, and to even stop certain weird flags from popping up, I have not proposed to you until today, how can we not win?”

“Be serious!”