The Record of Unusual Creatures

Lily hunched a little and looked into the corridor, her sharp ears sticking up and turning in all directions. She was on full alert and had been warning them for a few seconds. Even though the enemy had yet to appear, she was still growling.

“Watch out!” Hao Ren drew out his lance, trying to find the enemy who could hit from every corner. Then, his eyes fell on the decorative ancient statues.

A question suddenly arose: why were all the statues still intact when the whole city had been destroyed by wind, sand and time? Not one of the most weather-beaten statues outside the temple had collapsed!

Almost as soon as his doubt became a warning, he heard the wind blow overhead. He moved aside at once, turning his lance in the direction of the wind!

There was a sense of tingling in his hands, and the sound of stones being rent apart by heat and force came from behind him. After Hao Ren landed, he turned around and saw a colossus with a lion’s head step down from the niche in the wall!

“These statues are coming to life!” Y’lisabet sat on Y’zaks’ shoulder, screaming loudly, then swung a green Demonic Flare the size of a wheel at the statue. “And all the statues outside are coming to life!”

A clatter of crumbling stone came from all directions. One by one, the weird guardian statues of humans and animals in the corridor came back to life. Thousands of years of dust had fallen from their rocky bodies, creating clouds of dust in the corridors, and the sound of the statues’ heavy feet shaking the ground as they descended from the platform. Soon, the entire corridor was completely blocked by the living statues. They paused for a moment, then strode this way.

Looking at all kinds of weapons in their hands, Hao Ren knew that these stone statues were not here to discuss socialist spiritual civilization.

The first stone statue attacking them was smashed by Y’lisabet’s huge fireball, flying sideways for more than ten meters away and smashing through a wall in the temple, but seconds later it was struggling to crawl out of a pile of rubble. One of its arms had been severed by Hao Ren’s plasma lance. The whole right half of its body was riddled with cracks after hitting by the Demonic Flare. Pieces of yellowish stone clattered down from the statue, revealing the dark, metallic body. All kinds of runes and lines gleamed across the dark, metallic body.

“What is that? Obsidian?” Y’lisabet was taken aback by the statue’s tenacity. It was the first time she had seen a ‘rock’ that her Demonic Flare could not break at such close range.

“It’s something with a metallic component. Obsidian isn’t that hard.” The data terminal, which had scanned some of the fragments in a flash, said hurriedly, “Look out, more statues are coming to life! The stone guards outside the temple are also moving. We are in danger of being trapped!”

Hao Ren dodged the blade of one stone statue and cut off the right leg of the other statue with the plasma lance. Then he pointed to the direction of the exit and yelled, “Get out of here first!”

Everyone there, except Rollie, were experienced combatants. Even Lorrisa, a year and a half old, had a great deal of practical combating memory inherited from the mage-emperor. Therefore, they could clearly judge that once the exits were all blocked by these heavy statues, they would be in a terrible passive position. Therefore, before Hao Ren finished talking, they had started to rush towards the direction of the exit. Hao Ren looked back in the direction of the murals and asked, “Data terminal, have these murals been scanned and saved?”

“Of course!” shouted the data terminal as it whizzed past him.

A data terminal ran even faster than him!

Everything happened in a flash. The statue, whose leg Hao Ren had severed with the plasma lance, had only just staggered back as the crowd raced toward the exit. Due to its heavy weight and perhaps limited intelligence, the statue struggled for a long time after losing a leg but was still unable to get up. However, as the intruders were about to run down the paved path, the statue’s eyes suddenly glowed red and then raising its arms toward the retreating intruders.

After a loud bang, the arm of the statue burst and split open in the middle. Its huge rocky fist, like a rocket, was propelled down the paved path by a white light, so fast that the air around it twisted.

Instinctively aware of the danger behind her, Lily turned sharply around, cracking the stone floor beneath her feet. And now the stone fist was flying close to her eyes.

Lily raised her hand to smash it without thinking.

They heard a loud bang. The carved stone fist splintered in the earth-shattering explosion. The shock waves spread out and even created a visible cloud of air in the air. Lily punched the rock and then ran away without looking at it, leaving the explosion far behind, shaking her arm and screamed, “Awooo it hurts…”

More and more statues appeared in front.

All the guards were awoken. The sleeping statues were clearly guardians of the ancient temple. Hao Ren and his party’s intrusion seriously angered the loyal guards and even the stone statues outside the temple came down from the platform and walked with heavy steps towards the pyramid. In fact, it wasn’t just the temple’s guards who woke up.

All the temples of the lost city rumbled. Countless colossus emerged from the crumbling and weathered ancient buildings, gathered in the streets like an army striding from a mythical scroll, and began to surround the pyramid temple in an orderly manner.

In the tunnel inside the pyramid temple, Lorrisa had once again turned into the “Sacred Flame” she was when she first appeared on the base. A burning silver-white flame was flying in the air, constantly gathering, dispersing, sprinting, and exerting the powerful destructive force of the flame in various ways.

Although the stone guards had strong shells and no obvious fatal weaknesses, they were obviously some kind of magic-like structure, which naturally had cracks that could be invaded. With the continuous movement, the yellowish shell of each stone statue had been broken and fallen one after another, revealing the real body inside. On the body covering with runes, they could see joints and openings that appeared to be cooling vents. Lorrisa’s Sacred Flame crept through these tiny crevices and disintegrated the statues from within.

The results were remarkable, but they also seemed to be physically and mentally taxing.

The upper half of the Sacred Flame turned into Lorrisa and approached Hao Ren. She caught her breath and said, “These strange statues have a very solid core, in a slightly lower position in the middle of the chest. Apart from the inner core, destroying anywhere is hard to stop them completely. And the inner core is so resistant to heat that I have had a lot of trouble melting it with my Sacred Flame.”

“It’s easy to handle as long as you know where the core is!”

Y’zaks yelled, and then sprang forward a few paces and then pounced on a black colossus with a wolf’s head. The colossus had already raised its iron staff when Y’zaks pounced, but it was still one step slower. Y’zaks had now struck the statue hard in the chest. The force of the impact nearly caused the colossus to lurch to the ground.

One blow sent splinters flying over the statue’s chest. Sparks and hissing noises burst out of the colossus, and a faint light appeared in front of Y’zaks as the ‘slab’ on the surface were smashed by a blow.

Y’zaks raised his fist, and the second punch went right through the protective shell of the colossus’ chest.

Then he yanked something shiny and brassy, like a mechanical ball, out of the colossus.

The colossus shook violently, then fell slowly to one side. Y’zaks, keeping his foot on the statue’s chest, fell to the ground with it while throwing the mechanical ball to Hao Ren. “Landlord! Catch it!”

Hao Ren caught the ‘core’ the size of a basketball and felt the heat as soon as he touched it. If it weren’t for the physical strengthening, probably the temperature of the core alone would have been high enough to cook his hands.

The core was made of metal. Though it had a brassy sheen, it was certainly not copper, considering that it could last a while in the heat of the Sacred Flame. It had a hollow structure on the surface, through which numerous delicate mechanical gears and chains could be seen operating inside. The noise of mechanical operation was constantly coming from it, just like a living iron and steel organ was wriggling, giving them an extremely strange feeling.

At the moment, the exit of the temple was already in front of them, but the light coming from the exit was blocked by huge moving figures.

The data terminal made two quick turns around the mechanical ball in Hao Ren’s hand, quickly completed the analysis of it, and then said quickly, “It feels magnetic field!”

“It fears strong magnetic field!” Hao Ren explained.

Vivian immediately summoned the overwhelming number of bats. The bats quickly formed two swirling clusters in the air, and a powerful electric current began to flow through them.

“Oersted told me,” Vivian said, opening her hands, and the bright lightning storm surged behind her, “electricity creates magnetism!”

Hao Ren looked up at the electromagnetic storm about to take shape over the paved path, and then at the Magnetic Concussion Bombs he had just taken out.

He felt like he did not need any Magnetic Concussion Bombs now.

He needed a Faraday cage.

Vivian’s lightning storm would probably kill them all!