The Record of Unusual Creatures

The shimmering light from the crystal clusters began to shine regularly, and the crystals all over the seabed resonated like an orchestra. It was a silent resonance. There was no sound under the deep sea. Only the light traveling on the crystals intersected with some wonderful rhythm as if they were playing a silent movement. Soon, the crystal fragments floating between the crystal clusters also started sparkling. A series of arcs of light was emitting from one crystal and then jumped to the other crystals which spread to the whole seabed almost instantaneously. In the depths of the Crimson Moon Sea, the light surged like a tide!

The data terminal saw this scene and immediately shouted in its mind, which connected to Hao Ren, “Bro! Why did these crystals suddenly start flashing? What did you do? Bro… Bro?”

Hao Ren did not respond to the data terminal at all. He still stood motionless with his palm sticking to the crystal. In fact, he lost all his perception of the real world for a short time just after he touched the crystal.

Because he was pulled into an illusion – a new one.

Heavy clouds lay low on the horizon, the sky was covered by chaotic dense clouds, and it was covered with iron-gray texture. Countless huge lightning flashed between the clouds, illuminating the world covered by clouds as bright as day. Occasionally, one or two lightning flashes broke free from the shackles of clouds, like pythons falling from the clouds, whipping the ground, erupting deafening explosions. On the dark earth, there were hundreds of meters of blue-and-white crystals standing everywhere, growing in clusters into an endless forest.

Lightning strikes from the sky were attracted by huge crystals from time to time. Strong electric currents were injected into the crystals instantaneously, causing the crystals to burst into brilliant light. The light emitted by a crystal would ‘activate’ more clusters around it. The light was bouncing and spreading between crystals, extending to dozens of crystals before gradually weakening.

Hao Ren opened his eyes and saw such magnificent scenes: crystal clusters all over the ground, lightning that energized the crystal, and light that bounced between the crystals.

Even if he did not understand the situation, he could be sure that it was definitely not the scene that would occur on the Crimson Moon or the Star of Creation.

After trying to call his teammate who failed to respond, he was vaguely aware of what had happened: it seemed that he was once again falling in an illusory world related to the Goddess of Creation.

But what he saw in this illusion was obviously different from what he had seen before — the world full of thunderstorms and strange crystal clusters was not like the battlefield of the god-slaying war, nor the place where guardian giants or Firstborns lived. It was rather desolate and it did not seem to be suitable for any kind of carbon-based life. Why did the crystal jungle of the Crimson Moon Sea bring him to such a place?

Hao Ren checked his shield, then took out the plasma lance and the inspector gun from his dimensional pocket, and began to explore the place carefully.

According to the past experience, this kind of illusion was related to a major activity of the Goddess of Creation. Whether it was the scene of the Goddess launching the Seed of Origin or the scene of the assassinating, the scope of the illusion was limited, and the Goddess of Creation was often at the center of everything, and in this process, some mysterious ‘guidance’ would play a role, leading Hao Ren to the core of this scene. So after confirming that this is an illusion, Hao Ren let go of his worries and followed his own inner guidance to wander around.

He first examined the crystals clusters that grew everywhere, confirming that they were the same thing as the crystals on the seabed of the Crimson Moon, but that they were many times larger than the latter, probably because the Crimson Moon was only a 1:8 size ‘model’ and that the crystals on the seabed were shrinking accordingly.

There was another benefit in this illusory world – it was not a ‘still snapshot’ like the Crimson Moon. Here, everything was in a state of motion: lightning energized the crystal, the resonation between the crystals, the rhythmic sound coming from the depths of the earth, and the noticeable tingling in the air when some kind of energy field was active.

This allowed Hao Ren to observe more accurately and clearly the way those crystals work and the secrets that the world might hide – if only the data terminal was there. Its scanning function could certainly provide more detailed data.

Unfortunately, Hao Ren was the only one who could enter the illusory world.

“It seems to be some kind of signal amplifier…” Hao Ren stood under an electro-optic crystal, carefully touched the crystal surface with the handle of a plasma lance, and observed the response of several nearby crystals to this stimulus. “Reminiscent of neural networks…”

“The sky is constantly discharging electricity, and there is no obvious trend of strengthening and weakening. Clouds are so thick that it is impossible to observe the stars.”

“Probes don’t work here. They can’t fly above the clouds. Probably the scope of the illusion is limited. Above the clouds is the boundary of this space”

Hao Ren recorded his discoveries while exploring the world. Although the absence of the data terminal caused him a lot of trouble, the first-hand observation would come into use in the future: This was the experience accumulated after experiencing the illusory world more than once.

He did not wander too long between the crystal jungles. After about two hours of intuition moving in a certain direction, he came to a ‘barrier’ of dark fog, and there was no way forward.

There was a thick dark fog moving ahead, forming wall rising up against the sky and down to the earth, and stretching on either side to the horizon of infinity as if the whole world had been cut off by it. Hao Ren was stunned when he saw the boundary: this was the first time he had seen such a situation.

He came to the boundary of the illusory world but did not see the most important part of the scene… The Goddess of Creation.

Was the Goddess of Creation not here? This illusion was not left by the Goddess? What did this world mean? The lightning bouncing in the sky, the crystal sparkling on the earth, and the mysterious connection between this world and the Crimson Moon… Was the clue broken here?

Hao Ren shook his head and instinctively felt that this mysterious illusion was not so simple. The relationship between the ‘crystal world’ full of lightning and strange energy and the Crimson Moon was far from simple.

He took another step forward and put his hand into the dark fog.

At the same time, in the real world outside, the Crimson Moon suddenly shone several times brighter than before.

The moonlight was so bright that all the visible stars in space were obscured by the moonlight. Then the crimson moonlight faded gradually and turned into a clear normal light, but its brightness increased. The people on the surface of Aerym looked up in astonishment at the strange scene. It looked as if the sky had become a huge projection platform, and the Crimson Moon was the source of the projection. Around that moon, the original sky was replaced by a star map with various icons and symbols. The map was full of strange, unknown galaxies, connected by intricate lines. A bright light band, dancing between the stars, seemed to indicate a hidden passage. But the map did not seem complete. It was dark, with lots of data replaced by jumbled codes, and even the light band indicating the passage was intermittent, with a completely unrecognizable state of chaos and nothingness at the end.

Lily immediately held up her huge alloy X9 sword and looked at Vivian. However, she saw Vivian looking up at the sky with the same confused expression. Vivian noticed Lily’s action and quickly turned to stop her. “Don’t shoot! I’ve seen this map before. It’s harmless… But why did it pop up all of a sudden?”

Nangong Sanba shouted to the communication device immediately, “What the hell is going on up there?”

“Hao Ren touched the crystal at the bottom of the sea of the Crimson Moon and seemed to be sucked into the illusion. I’m monitoring his condition. He’s in good condition, but I’m not sure…” answered the data terminal.

Knowing that Hao Ren was not hurt, Vivian breathed a sigh of relief. It was not terrible to touch the illusion. After all, it was not his first time involving in it, but the reaction this time… Why was it so big?

The dark dog quivered violently before his eyes as if it had been greatly stimulated and on the verge of collapse. Hao Ren tried to pull his hand away, but things moved faster than he could: the next second, the fog had swallowed him, and when he finally got rid of the fog, he found himself in some kind of hall.

It was a magnificent domed hall, as large as the palace of the goddess he had seen on the Star of Creation, but of a very different style. Strictly speaking, this was because the entire hall had not been refined and decorated, and thus appeared primitive and rough.

The entire domed hall looked carved out of the mountain, the walls and floors were of uncarved rock, and the high domes were inlaid with large crystals: the crystals look exactly like the crystal clusters that Hao Ren saw on the plain.

In the middle of the crystal hall, there was a cluster of crystals of unprecedented size, almost like a hill. There was a distance of tens of meters between the top of the blue and white crystal cluster and the dome. The thick electric arc jumped silently between the crystal cluster and the dome as if it contained huge energy.

Beneath the huge crystal cluster, Hao Ren saw the crystals grow abnormally, twisted and tangled, forming a sort of throne.

A shadowy figure stood before the throne, and a woman dimly discernible from the back.

The Goddess of Creation?

Hao Ren ran to it quickly, but even when he got there, he found it impossible for him to see the woman’s face clearly.

All he could see was that the figure suddenly started to move slowly towards the crystal throne.

The phantom world shook violently. Hao Ren felt that he was going to wake up from this illusion.

He desperately wanted something to hold on to, but there was nothing he could do to stop the dream from collapsing. In his increasingly distorted vision he could only see the shadowy figure slowly ascending to the throne, and then the crystal growing out of the ground, sealing and freezing her with the throne.

The illusion was over. Hao Ren opened his eyes and saw that the crystal prism was fading.