The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren was now very glad that he chose to stay in the city for one more day. It allowed him to explore Gorgon’s Abyss and find Marchieri’s last words there, from which he learned the existence of the Tumen Empire.

He was vaguely aware that what seemed like messy fragments of clues were actually the most vital information. He had come into contact with the ultimate truth hidden in the mysterious L’Haronne.

Plus, when he mentioned the Tumen Empire and the inheritors, Grand Duke Owen did not immediately answer him, instead, he asked, “Are you here to take part in this Turn of the Eras?”

Hao Ren looked into the old duke’s eyes, solemnly nodded, and replied, “Yes.” Of course, he was lying.

That was his professionalism as an excellent inspector.

Grand Duke Owen, with a long sigh of relief, turned his eyes to Charlemagne and his sister. “I know you’ve brought something—now take it out.”

Charlemagne frowned. “But it has to be in the presence of either His Majesty Berentine or Princess Constance—”

“Princess Constance will be here in a moment,” Grand Duke Owen interrupted, looking at the silver-haired woman standing next to him. “Ginny, Princess Constance may come now.”

The silver-haired woman nodded gently, then her eyelids closed slowly. Her muscles relaxed and her body appeared to be in a state of complete stillness. After a few seconds, Hao Ren heard the slight noise of an electric current and some mechanical friction coming from her body as if some device had been activated.

The temperament of the silver-haired woman changed completely in that instant. When she opened her eyes again, she looked fierce and powerful, no longer gentle.

“I am Constance. It is wonderful to meet you.” She looked at her guests and nodded at them.

Then she looked at Charlemagne and Awenna. “This is the second time I have met you, guests from Izzo.”

“Oooooh…” A long and exaggerated exclamation was heard from Lily. After a brief moment of surprise, she realized what had happened. “Are you being possessed? Ahem, mind transmission? Or is it something like soul links?”

“Is it the same skill as the Knights of the Ebon Blade’s?” asked Hao Ren. He had detected a burst of signal links in Ginny as she closed her eyes. Before the link was established, the woman also showed signs of communicating wirelessly with the outside world. “If I’m right, you’ve been watching the room through this woman’s eyes?”

“Mind transmission technology as you said. It is nothing great to all of you,” said Princess Constance, nodding. “I am sorry I have to meet you in this form. Things are not going well on the frontline. There are still mutated knights attacking us from time to time, but we have found a way to deal with them, so I have to stay here.”

As she spoke, she turned her eyes around the room. Since the Mad Lord’s power in Grand Duke Owen’s body had been purged by Rheia, the unnatural gloom in the room was gone, and the remaining divine power made it brighter than any other room. “When I heard what you did in Black Pine Forest, I assumed that you, too, were inheritors. I did not expect you to have such power. If that is the case, then there is more hope for the Turn of the Eras.”

“Excuse me…” Awenna interrupted. “What does the Turn of the Eras mean?”

Hao Ren was immediately relieved as Awenna asked the question: he was worried about how to ask…

After all, he had been pretending to have everything under control. Having a lot of questions and not being able to find the right way to ask them was the most frustrating situation for an inspector. Luckily, the seemingly confused Charlemagne and Awenna were there…

“Do you really not know the details?” Princess Constance frowned a little but was soon relieved. “It does not matter. You can take out the things you’ve brought.”

Charlemagne and Awenna looked at each other before they nodded slightly.

Then they each took out a fine silver dagger, and without hesitation, they cut their fingers and put their bleeding fingers on the amulet that hung on their chests.

“Archivist, C-3035 (C-3036),” the brother and sister said the password together. “Synchronous authentication. Identification information submitted. Request to open the vault.”

Hao Ren looked at them in surprise and saw that the amulet on their chests began to shine at the same time. As the two amulets were activated simultaneously, Hao Ren felt the space around the brother and sister suddenly distort. Soon, a mercury-like silver ball with a radius of more than one meter emerged in the air. With lines similar to honeycomb patterns appearing on the surface of the silver ball and peeling off layer by layer, a long platinum staff finally appeared in front of everyone.

The platinum staff was the treasure that Charlemagne and Awenna escorted all the way from Izzo to the Dragon Empire?

Hao Ren could not stop looking at the platinum staff, feeling like he had seen the long staff somewhere else before. Its carvings, which depicted the sun, moon, and stars were very familiar.

“MDT, compare it.”

“No need to compare. This is the platinum scepter that was in the hand of Haersonca, the Holy Queen who appeared in the illusion within Black Pine Forest,” said the MDT in Hao Ren’s head. “The appearance matches 100%, and the energy fluctuations are consistent. It’s authentic.”

Hao Ren was a little shocked but did not show it. It was best not to express one’s thoughts without knowing what the scepter did.

Charlemagne and his sister looked thoughtfully at the platinum scepter for a moment. Apparently, they, too, realized the scepter looked exactly like the one they had seen in Black Pine Forest’s illusion. It looked like they were seeing what they had been escorting for the first time.

“It seems that you have kept your promise not to open the vault before you came here.” Constance guessed it from Charlemagne and Awenna’s expressions. “Have you seen this scepter anywhere else?”

“In Black Pine Forest…” Awenna replied. “We experienced an ‘illusion’ in Black Pine Forest of an ancient queen holding this scepter. She was called the Holy Queen…”

“Ah, that must be the echo of Haersonca.” Constance sighed softly. “May the Queen rest in peace. She has endured too long in this broken world.”

Charlemagne stepped forward and asked, “What is—”

“Do you know the purpose and meaning of this scepter?” Constance interrupted before he could finish his words.

Charlemagne and Awenna shook their heads with the same puzzled expression on their faces.

“Then you probably do not know the Turn and Annihilation of Eras?”

They still shook their heads.

Constance looked at them in silence before she calmly asked, “Then why did you come here and give it to me?”

“Our father suddenly summoned us to the inner court and gave us this mission,” Awenna answered honestly. “He seemed to have foreseen civil strife in the Dragon Empire and told us to come to you if there were enemies in the imperial capital.”

“However, he did not explain things in detail,” Charlemagne continued, “and I think—”

“You do not think your father knows exactly why he is doing this, do you?” Constance went on, sighing a little. “As my father told me, the succession will eventually be broken. The dynasty will not last, the gods will die, the Holy Spirit will die, the wise men and the dragon will die. The reshaping of the world will strip away those memories and knowledge, and even eternal souls will not be immune. In the end, we will all live blindly and ignorantly, driven by ancient obsessions to wage a war that we do not even understand. The immortals will eventually become walking dead. That is the price of eternal life…”

Charlemagne and Awenna were both stunned. Hao Ren’s heart, on the contrary, skipped a beat when he heard “reshaping of the world”.

Princess Constance knew that the world had been reshaped!

Not only did she know, but even her father did!

And between the lines… Hao Ren sensed that the “reshaping of the world” had happened more than once.

In other words, they even knew how the universe was destroyed by the Mad Lord!

“Sorry, this could be hard for you to understand. In the state of mind transmission, some subconscious thoughts are more difficult to control, and I become more emotional than usual. Now, let us get back to the main subject. First, let us talk about the fact that our world has been destroyed in the past.”