The Record of Unusual Creatures

The goddess may have looked untrustworthy, but she was well prepared. When Raven 12345 mentioned the “door”, Hao Ren knew that the event was under the neurotic goddess’ control from the beginning.

Of course, there were still little accidents here and there. Otherwise, Raven 12345 would not have whined about her year-end bonus while she led the way to the “door.” Speaking of which, where is the year-end bonus for this year? Hao Ren wondered.

Hao Ren followed Raven 12345, and his mind was filled with various thoughts. They crossed the central hallway, passed through the withered courtyard behind the mansion, and finally stood in front of a tower.

The tower looked familiar to Hao Ren. It was sophisticated and gorgeous, independent of Raven 12345’s mansion. It was the most striking building upon entering the divine realm. Located behind the villa, it looked almost as if it was connected to the mansion, but in reality, there was a garden and a straight, wide road between them. Hao Ren had been to the divine realm many times, but he had never stepped into the tower. Therefore, he always felt that the tower was extraordinary. Perhaps it played some significant role so the goddess never opened it to outsiders.

But in reality, there was nothing in the tower. Filled with fog and light, the tower only had a narrow staircase spiraling upwards. The mist that surged around the stairs was giving the impression that if one took a wrong step, death was inevitable.

“You will only see what you should see. The tower will only show what it should show,” Raven 12345 said while leading in front. She seemed to notice Hao Ren’s doubts. “We need to go on foot to get there because it is the deepest part of space and time. Except for me, anyone who wants to go there must take this route. This tower is actually a transit station from my divine realm to all other places. These all other places not only include the universe, but also every ‘level’ of the mathematical structure of the world, from the most basic data layer to the most difficult to understand formula expression layer, even to the boundary of the world’s barrier.”

“But there is only one road here,” Lily said casually.

“There is only one road, but it leads to many places,” Raven 12345 said. “Okay, we have reached.”

Hao Ren did not notice when this long spiral staircase had turned into a straight up ramp. He even did not see how they got to the end of the ramp. It seemed that as soon as Raven 12345’s voice trailed off, the scene ahead suddenly opened up. The fog had dispersed, and a vast space appeared in front of everyone.

The place was like a vast space in the universe. There were no stars but complicated formulae and symbols in the background. Things that made up of light and looked like machines were flying in between these symbols as if they were maintaining the ‘digital space.’ There was only one platform in the vast space where they could stand. The platform floated at the end of the ramp, from where Hao Ren saw a maelstrom hovering above. And that thing looked very familiar too.

The maelstrom seemed to be made up of black-red clouds where lightning and flames burst continually. The air around the maelstrom was pervaded black-red fog, in which phantoms from the nightmare appeared.

Hao Ren fumbled in his memory and finally remembered where he saw this maelstrom. It was during his visit to the divine realm with a group of volunteers, including Lorrisa. The mansion of Raven 12345 exploded and collapsed in front of the demon hunters and otherworldlings. During that time, there was such a maelstrom behind the image of Raven 12345 who explained that she was performing some security preparations.

Was she preparing the maelstrom at that time?

“Look familiar?” Raven 12345 had noticed Hao Ren’s reaction. Her smile was as sly as ever. “You guessed it right. This is the thing I built the last time I blew up my house.”

This goddess did not feel embarrassed at all.

Everyone stood on the platform. It transpired that there was not only a maelstrom above, but there was also something else.

A massively complex, dizzy-to-look-at magic circle was running on the ground right below the maelstrom. At the edge of the magic circle on each node, there was a crystal container the height of a person. The crystal containers flashed in red light and were the Malevolence collection of Raven 12345.

“Those are…” Hao Ren could not help but wonder. He knew he would see some Malevolence, but seeing them in this place and under this circumstance was a surprise. Are these Malevolences part of this enormous facility? Hao Ren thought to himself.

“I have been studying their resonance and trying to figure out something from it. This platform and the maelstrom are by-products of recent research progress,” Raven 12345 said. “I wanted to turn them into a control and sealing system, holding down most of the resonating points of the Malevolence to minimize the risk of losing control. But little did I expect the biggest source of resonance was outside the system. So the sealing part of the system becomes redundant although other parts are still usable. With some modification, I retained the control function and redefined the input/output modes of the system along the resonating frequency to create this maelstrom, which I turned into a door.”

“A door? To where does it lead?” Hao Ren asked.

“To the place where Vivian is. Through it, I can send you to those space and time fragments, and then you can get Vivian back.”

Hao Ren thought for a moment and said, “Space-time fragments? Is that not on Earth?”

“Of course not. The ones you see on Earth are the ‘buffered data’ generated by the security system. It is a temporary scene created to prevent the world from producing significant bugs. The real contaminated space and time has been isolated,” Raven 12345 said with a cunning smile. “Do you think that the security system of the universe under the imperial rule is lax? As soon as power leakage was detected in Vivian, the sovereign hub K2 had kicked into action. It instantly froze the space and time where Earth was and replaced it with two mirrored Earths. These two mirrored planets took the impact of the power leakage. One is left in place to fill the information void left behind my the disappeared real Earth. Another mirrored Earth is placed in isolation to take the contamination. So chaotic space and time generated by the Malevolence is actually running in a sandbox, where you will be going. You guys have not been swapped away with the real Earth because of your connection with me. You all are on the first mirrored Earth.”

Y’lisabet’s eyes were darting around curiously. She was astonished when hearing those terminology and technical jargons. “Wow, that is cool!”

“Of course. Who do you think I am?” Raven 12345 boasted.

Hao Ren was used to the bragging of the neurotic goddess. He could not care less but ask again, “Where is the real Earth now? Are the people on Earth safe?”

Raven 12345 took out a small crystal object from her pocket and threw it to Hao Ren. “Here you go.”

Cold sweat trickled down Hao Ren’s forehead as he hectically caught the thing from Raven 12345. It turned out that it was the little crystal doodad that the goddess was fiddling in her office a while ago. In the shape of a crystal cube, there was a beautiful blue marble suspended quietly in the center.

That was the earth.

Next to Earth was a moon circling around.

“Initially, the security system only captured Earth. But I saw that it was lonely, so I threw the moon inside as well while we were at it. There was no one on the moon anyway.”

Hao Ren was rendered speechless.

While she was at it? Did the goddess ever use her brain at all? Hao Ren thought to himself.

But then, considering the state of mind of the neurotic goddess, probably she did it willfully.

But in any case, Hao Ren was relieved to see Earth was safe. He knew that the influence of this event was far and wide, but as long as there was no irreparable damage done, he could still live with it. Hao Ren could not care less about the year-end bonus and performance appraisal of Raven 12345. She had ever gotten them before anyway, Hao Ren bet.

“All I need to do is jump into the maelstrom, right? And then? How do I find Vivian? How do I bring her out? What is more important is that how do I know the one I find is Vivian? What if it is a Malevolence?”

“You have a lot of questions but can you ask one question at a time?” Raven 12345 said and shot Hao Ren a look. “You have to do a lot of work. This mission is different from any previous one. It will be an unprecedentedly dangerous adventure. So we have to prepare many things. But before I tell you what to do, I need you to meet a few people. These guys will not go with you, but their opinions might be of help.”

“Who are they?” Hao Ren asked. His eyes were full of curiosity.

Raven 12345 pouted her lips at the ramp from which they came up earlier. “Here they are.”

Hao Ren turned around and saw the tall arcane servant Big Bluey walking toward the platform. Behind the arcane servant were several old acquaintances including Hessiana and Hasse.