The Record of Unusual Creatures

A sea of glittering light suddenly appeared over the surface of the ‘visual screen’.

Only after a few seconds did Hao Ren realized that those glittering light were actually the Nightwatchers of the Denizens of the Stars.

One by one, prisms or discs of light appeared from the “visual screen”, and their size ranged from a hundred meters to hundreds of kilometers long, as the size were heaven and earth, and the similarity was that all of them exudes a yellowish-white glow, as lightning leap within their interior and a few bright cores moved about. These were the Denizens of the Stars in their migration mode. They had abandoned their starship form and had taken a more primordial energy convergence form to quickly moved within the Dark Abyss, and thousands upon thousands of Denizens were converged together and the scene was majestic.

It was a veritable tidal wave of light.

But behind that sea of light, a wave of chaotic shadow was pursuing them.

“Warning, massive incursion of madness detected. Have visibility of its minions… All weapons, disengage safety. Focus fire on Sector C-3 to C-6!”

As the Nightwatchers withdrew, the layer of visual screen roiled like boiling oil as countless of bizarrely shaped shadows darted out of the screen and quickly took form in space into horrifying monsters. Some were giants with countless limbs, some were filled with eyes from head to toe, some were just a blob of mist that spat out rotting flesh and ripped apart faces. These mindless minions were hot on the heels of the withdrawing Nightwatchers as they surged out in waves.

“Every unit aside from the Annihilation Lances, fire at will!”

As Hao Ren commanded, the walls of the Overwatch Bastion immediately rippled in a wave of light as hundreds of thousands of blinding beams streamed across the vast space towards the surging minion swarm.

And just as the Overwatch Bastion opened fire, the withdrawing Nightwatchers too reacted. Even if this was the first time they had fought together, the two parties were coordinating like they had rehearsed this for ages. The light orbs large and small moved about agilely across the space as they split into about ten streams of light away from the main firing path of the Overwatch Bastion and regrouped at the side of the battlefield, reforming.

The orbs of light violently compressed and transformed as lightning cackled all over their surface, and as the thick mist faded away, a complex crystalline structure appeared from the light mist, and a few minutes later, the mist-like orbs transformed into a fleet of crystal starships…

Just like Asurmen.

After a short repositioning, the crystalline battleships entered the best firing position. Their solidified crystalline structures could morph into many shapes as countless of crystal prisms ‘grew’ on the surface of the ships, and every prism was an extremely powerful laser cannon.

“The Nightwatchers have all withdrew from the Dark Abyss!” A voice similar to Asurmen came from the control tower’s communicator. “This is the commander of the Nightwatchers Adier, we are grateful for your assistance.”

“Adier?” Rheia asked curiously, “I remembered the commander of the Nightwatchers was…”

“Goddess, very glad to hear your voice again. Our commander had fallen when the ‘prisoner’ had broken through the central defensive line.” Adier’s voice was devoid of any emotional changes. “The Nightwatchers have lost a third of our numbers, and the rest is all that remains.”

“…I understand.” Rheia sighed. “The brave sacrifice of your people bought us valuable time, but now is not the time to rest. The taint that had seeped out is invading the real world, please coordinate with us to destroy them.”

“This is the calling of the Nightwatchers.”

The Nightwatchers fleet started bombarding the pursuing minions of madness in return, and as the Overwatch Bastion launched salvos after salvos it had also unleashed the droid swarms from the various hives within it. Swarms of droids surged out from the launch bays like a swarm of bees and engaged the massive monstrous army, and between the heavy combat droids were many new self-destruct droids.

The self-destruct droids were the traditional units of the swarm but them being deployed was a recent thing. After tabulating the massive combat reports along the Borderland, Hao Ren noticed that the minions of madness had a high degree of combat capability and aggressiveness. And before these ‘elite cannon fodders’, only the heavy combat droids was able to fight on normally while the lighter variants would not even survive the first encounter. In that situation, Hao Ren decided to modify all of the light combat droids as he dismantled their weapons and ammunition storage modules and filled them to the brim with explosives…

Reality proved that as a unit that has a battlefield life expectancy of mere minutes, the effectiveness of the self-destruct droids were far higher than the traditional light combat droids, as the latter would only be able to fire out a few shots before being destroyed while the former could take a couple of enemies down…together with them.

As she stood on the upper observation deck, Rheia looked impassively at the void that was ablaze with fire as the hideous monsters were destroyed millions of miles away from the Overwatch Bastion, even so, she could clearly see the details of those monsters. Shaking her head, she said, “There’s almost no normal materials in the Dark Abyss, and these flesh beasts are all from the nightmare, and they… are all new models.”

“New models?” Hao Ren asked.

“The original minions from the Dark Abyss would not have so many shapes and forms, as well as attacking methods. They were usually a blob of mist, and their attacks are straightforward and easier to fight against.” Rheia shook her head. “But these… they clearly came from the nightmare, and are much more sophisticated, evolved and sinister, and these monsters with physical form will only usually appear in areas with intelligent life, but here…”

Hao Ren’s brow furrowed. “You mean the goddess of annihilation created them?”

“The goddess of annihilation was once me.” Rheia nodded. “I was connected to almost ninety percent of the minds of the intelligent life in this universe, and that includes the mortals and the demigods I had created. Their dreams and nightmares would be shared with me… and by proxy, the goddess of annihilation. The ones that you see now, are the monsters from the nightmares of all intelligent life in this universe across the millions of years.”

How many living souls would have dreamt and how many monsters would have appeared in the dream across the entire universe, for the past millions of years? Just thinking about the mathematics behind this simple sentence sent chills down Hao Ren’s spine.

Even Vivian joined in, lamenting, “Dreaming… in the Plane of Dreams sure is a high-risk move.”

The comms from the Sentinel then interrupted them, “The strength of the madness is dropping, the visual screen is starting to restore itself.”

The monsters oozing out of the Dark Abyss had finally been suppressed as no more monsters appeared, and the ones already on the field were withered down by continuous barrages from the cannons and the combat droids.

The Mad Lord or the goddess of annihilation had not fully broken free yet as its body was still being held behind the last screen. The monsters pursuing the Nightwatchers were nothing but ‘shadows’ of the taint of madness in the Borderland, and thus their numbers were naturally limited, and after a short but furious exchange of fire, the battlefield finally turned silent again.

“Woah… I really thought we might have to use the Annihilation Lance.” Hao Ren heaved a sigh of relief as he looked at the visual screen stabilizing. “That last wave was bloody harrowing.”

Rheia was also looking silently at the screen in the distance, but she was not as relaxed as Hao Ren was, and her tiny brows met. “The recovery of the screen is slowing down… the Mad Lord is struggling really hard.”

Adier’s voice then rang from the comms. “The prisoner’s unusual reaction started a very long time ago, and for the past few years the changes were the most monumental, and the collapse of the interior defensive line started then.”

A streamlined crystal battleship detached from the fleet of the Denizens as slowly moved towards the control tower. The droid swarm then established a data link with the Denizen battleship, and after confirming all security verification, a connection tube appeared from the tower and connected in a port beneath the hull.

Ten odd minutes later, the entrance to the control tower opened, and a floating crystal entered the room. The crystal had a shape and texture similar to Asurmen, and just as similar was the light of the nebulae sealed within it. But the nodes of the glowing nebula were clearly different from Asurmen. That was probably the differentiator between the Denizens?

The crystal that floated it was the commander of the Nightwatchers, Adier.

“How many years has it been…” Rheia came before the crystal, her voice sorrowful. “Adier… I still remember the time when you bravely volunteered to guard the interior defensive line… I never thought we would meet again.”

“We have heard the news of your fall, but we always believed that you would return someday.” Adier’s wind-chime-like voice was a delight to the ear. “But not all of my people were able to see this.”

“The universe will remember their sacrifice, each and every one of them,” Rheia said firmly. “But that’s dependent on our universe surviving this test.”

As she spoke, she moved to the side, and Hao Ren walked before Adier. “Greetings, I am the high commander of the droid army and the observer of this universe. You can call me Hao Ren.”

“We have heard your name in the murmurs of the stars, observer.” Adier’s surface glowed, probably a sign of respect. “Asurmen told us of your tale, and your contribution to the Plane of Dreams is beyond words.”

“It is part of my job.” Hao Ren nodded. “Now, let’s talk about the Dark Abyss.”