The Record of Unusual Creatures

White Flame was very interested in Lil Pea, but Hao Ren did not have time to explain to her in detail how a fish transcended via the Sacred Relic of Origin into a pure-bred, demon-hunting fish. They had not arrived at the largest spatial rift in Coldpath.

At the top of the massive temple, closest to the Netherrealm Clock Tower, there was an open half-moon platform. This platform was the place where the demonic army and the Council of Elders repeatedly clashed, leaving behind indelible traces of powerful demonic and magic energies. Now the demon hunters had set up traps to capture and destroy the spirit-like, distorted energy beings wandering around the platform. Hao Ren saw a vast, purpled-colored rift on the platform. This was the strange phenomenon White Flame had said.

“It does not look like ordinary spatial rift.”

Hao Ren landed on the platform. He made sure that it was safe before going near the rift. At about 30 m long and 5 m wide in some places, the rift looked as if it had been cut open by a sharp blade. It also had fine cracks around it. A purple light was glowing inside the breach. Sometimes it looked illusory and sometimes real. The glow also prevented them from peering inside it. Hao Ren took his elven sword and reached into the rift; it went through the light curtain but did not enter a so-called different dimension. He bent down, looked, and found that the tip of the sword emerged from the other side.

It seemed that the so-called spatial rift was just a light effect.

“It is just a light?” Lily crouched down and looked at the sword that stuck out on the other side. “It goes nowhere.”

“No, look closely,” White Flame pointed at the tip of the sword. “The sword has become shorter, and it’s bent. This shows that there is something inside this purple rift. There should be a dimension warp inside, which is at an angle of inclination to the real world.”

Hao Ren looked carefully; it was indeed the case. Using the short sword of Aerymian Elf, which was about 50 cm long, he thrust the entire sword into the purple fissure, and the sword emerged from the other side but was measured at only 40 cm long. A section of the sword was clearly inside another dimension.

Lily rolled her eyes. “Nothing is simpler than that: just throw a small probe into it. If you are afraid of losing it, tie it with a rope. As long as the camera is smaller than the dimension inside, you would be able to see it,” she said.

Despite looking dumb and naive most of the time, the husky did have some clever ideas sometimes.

“I have tried it,” White Flame shook her head. “Any attempt to peer inside would cause the rift to shift position, and the shifting was instantaneous. The rift was originally located at the square below, but when investigators threw a few cameras into it, it moved over here. We were worried that if we continued to do this, the rift would shift to a more random location, so we decided to stop the experiment.”

“It can run away?” Hao Ren said in amazement. “In that case, it doesn’t sound like a spatial rift.”

“What else if not a spatial rift?” Vivian asked curiously.

“It has many strange characteristics. For example, it has been continuously releasing a small amount of radiation. It is not affected by any external energy. Its size will change with time, expanding 10% every two hours but will shrink again in two hours. It seems to me that these characteristics are not very important, and there is no way to explain the phenomenon,” White Flame said.

Hao Ren nodded slightly. He took out the MDT to inspect the strange rift. He asked, “How did this thing appear? Any eye-witnesses? What are the remarkable phenomena before and after its appearance?”

“It just appeared suddenly without warning,” White Flame replied. “Two demon hunters witnessed its appearance, but other than that, nothing else. So far there are dozens of such rifts around the Netherrealm Clock Tower. Their shapes are different. Apart from the sudden appearance, they have not caused any problems. These things are like shadows floating in the air,” she said.

Hao Ren’s mouth twitched. “Honestly, you should’ve informed me earlier about this strange thing. You know that I’ve been investigating these things, don’t you?”

White Flame spread out her hands. “It would’ve looked strange if this thing happened in the outside world. But in Coldpath, it’s kind of a norm. Anomalies in these ancient ruins are common, especially when it concerns time and space. We’ve gotten used to it,” she said.

White Flame smiled awkwardly and continued. “With the shutdown of the nodes since the war and the residue of magic energy on the battlefield, the tearing of space and time could easily occur. So even my teacher did not take it very seriously.”

Hao Ren was startled. He then let out a sigh. “You guys are having a laid-back life and a declining sense of danger,” he said.

These people had seen enough that they had become inured to the strange phenomena. Living in the unknown dimension of Coldpath for generations, the demon hunters saw the appearance of weird things like spatial rift was just another ‘normal’ abnormal phenomenon.

The MDT flew around the spatial rift several times. It suddenly came up to White Flame and said, “Tell me the position of all other rifts. I would like to check them one by one.”

Hao Ren and White Flame said in unison, “What have you found?”

“This is indeed a spatial rift, but it wasn’t naturally formed,” the MDT said quickly. “It has very complicated encryption. I need to figure out how the other rifts work before I can crack the encryption algorithm.”

Hao Ren was stunned. “Encryption? Do you mean that this thing is artificial?”

Without waiting for the MDT to answer, he suddenly realized what it meant: the goddess of creation could have intentionally left these fissures behind.

At first, he had the same thinking as of White Flame: the previous battle had destroyed the balance of Coldpath’s energy nodes and the influence of the demonic power had destabilized the dimension and led to the appearance of these distorted rifts. But this new finding by the MDT pointed to a new conjecture: perhaps these rifts had existed for a long time but been hidden by some mechanism. Maybe the previous war had triggered its pre-set program and caused them to resurface.

The thoughts just flashed across his mind before he calmed down. He turned to look at White Flame. “You’re saying that there are dozens of such rifts?”

“It’s a conservative estimate,” White Flame replied quickly. “We found dozens of rifts. But there are still some seriously damaged temples that have not been cleaned up. Those places where the concentration of magic energy is too high are still inaccessible. I’m afraid that there are more rifts in those places,” she said.

Hao Ren nodded and yanked open the dimensional pocket. A large group of shiny autonomous robots waved their tentacles and flew out, waiting for Hao Ren’s instruction.

“Checking them one by one is too slow. MDT, I now place these autonomous robots under your command. Send them to check on the rifts in other places. White Flame, would you please ask your men to bring the autonomous robots to the other rifts you’ve found?”

No one objected to Hao Ren’s arrangement. White Flame raised his hand and fired a signal flare over the temple. Soon after, dozens of elite demon hunters in black suits appeared silently on the platform.

“Each of you, bring one of these… umm… mechanical tentacles to the distorted rift,” White Flame said, ordering the senior investigators. “Rockham and Donna, gather the special team in the twin temple towers and check the area that has been cleaned up yesterday. If I’m not mistaken, the concentration of magic energy there should have declined. Send someone to see if there are rifts in that area. If you found one, report back immediately. Also…”

White Flame had quickly issued all the instructions. Though not as sophisticated as her teacher, she showed good organizational skill and aura. In time, she would become an excellent demon hunter who might even surpass Hasse.

However, Hao Ren had an opinion. “These are not mechanical tentacles, they are called autonomous robots,” he said.

White Flame was dumbstruck.