The Record of Unusual Creatures

As all of the illusions disappeared, Hao Ren looked at the engine room that had returned to normal. Rheia and Vivian once again appeared beside him. The two of them seemed normal, and it looked like he was the only one who had been affected by the hallucination…

Or rather, the goddess of annihilation… the Mad Lord had purposely looked for him to blabber nonsense.

He shook his head and murmured, “A whole load of hogwash.”

“She knows we are here.” Rheia’s expression was a sea of calm, and she looked in a particular direction. There was only an argent wall there, but her vision had pierced through the cabin, and into the vast space in the distance. “Everyone get ready…”

Just as Rheia’s words left her mouth, a sudden surge of pressure welled up in both Hao Ren and Vivian.

It was a feeling as if they were facing a beast capable of consuming all life, and their powers were meaningless before it, and even the strongest of the strong would simply be fodder for this monster, torn apart without any means of retaliating.

Rheia did not hesitate as she deployed her divine powers, and pulled out that holy notebook, and as the book opened up, divine words containing thousands of law and order appeared in the air and covered the ship within it.

The temporary mental attack was stopped by Rheia, and Hao Ren immediately pulled out the two blades from his Dimensional Pocket and turned to Vivian. “You just need to focus later, you don’t have to worry about us!”

A teleportation beam then swept past the three, and the next second they were on the Petrachelys’ upper deck, the vast and chaotic dark universe rushed towards them.

As the chaotic dimensional unraveled, the deepest part of the Dark Abyss and its constituent parts had reformed into a continuous structure, and the massive chaotic structures in the background that looked like floating mountains came into Hao Ren’s vision, and at the heart of all of the chaotic structures was a vast area, and there floated many ancient ruins and wreckage, the prison facilities that had been destroyed so long ago.

At the center of the ruins, a dark celestial body floated silently.

It was enveloped by a thick fog, and its surface was uneven, as all sorts of vortex and faces appeared on it. Dark red lightning and light roamed within the fog, just like flowing blood from an open wound, and between that dark star, and the Petrachelys, a pale figure stood silently in space.

The figure looked at the uninvited guests and smiled menacingly. “Welcome to the end of the universe. You are the first batch of guests here, and very soon, the last.”

Voice could never be transmitted in a vacuum, but for the people standing here, they do not need to speak to communicate, and the voices simply just rang in their minds.

The moment he saw the pale figure, Hao Ren knew that the latter’s assimilation had been completed.

She was still in that form when they first saw her in the Umbral Realm, but the same body now houses a completely different thing. If the goddess of annihilation had a tad bit of rationality and sensibility left in her before, now that shell was nothing but madness and the desire to destroy. Even when she smiled, even when she spoke, every ‘normal’ action she took gave Hao Ren a massive sense of dissonance.

It was a being that was not to be named… wearing human skin. The body that he could see was just a “model” that she had presented in this real space. Her actual form was actually hidden within the endless darkness in space. The blob was a revolting, squirming thing. Hao Ren’s special vision allowed him to clearly see it, and it filled the entire dimension. It had extended out from the body of the goddess of annihilation and linking to the dark star behind her, and then outwards to the vast space.

“Ever since you merged with that ultimate lunatic, you sure have become much more poetic.” Facing her evil half, Rheia had no anger, no fear, and had nothing but contempt. “So how is it? Feeling better now that you’re a monster?”

Looking at her other half ridiculing her, the goddess of annihilation lifted her finger without any expression and pointed at the direction of the Petrachelys.

The moment she moved, Nolan reacted, and the remaining thrusters were floored to the highest possible output. The ship then disappeared from its original location while Hao Ren and the rest teleported away.

A pale white orb appeared silently at where they originally stood, and as the orb faded away, there was nothing but a massive black hole, and the light around that hole was severely distorted, and was collapsing into the heart of the black hole.

Even as it faded away, Hao Ren realized what had just happened. A part of the Plane of Dreams had just been permanently erased.

“You think… you’re the only one who knows such a simple trick like this?!” Rheia laughed as the tome floating before here opened up again, and as the divine words flickered, the dimension around the goddess of annihilation distorted as a large part of time and space was ripped out from the space structure. “Knowledge is power!”

As Rheia launched her attack, Hao Ren, too, lifted the words, and while he recited Raven 12345’s name, he charged toward the pale figure.

With the powerful clash of energies, the dimensional structure shook, and at the center where the two sides fought, all light became ethereal and distorted as if a translucent screen had covered the entire area.

After losing half her thruster units, and her energy system severely damage, the Petrachelys could no longer join in the battle, and she left the most heavily damaged area as soon as the fighting started, to not be a nuisance to Hao Ren and the rest. She flown towards the floating wrecks in the darkness. That was once a part of the prison’s containment system, and the remaining energy of the wreckage could hide the ship’s information signature.

Vivian too did not join in the fight, and as Hao Ren and Rheia fully occupied the goddess of annihilation’s attention, she held her hands wide open and looked up at the dark, chaotic space.

“Prepare to bask in moonlight…” she whispered. “The true… moonlight…”

…

A massive hit came from the side and Hao Ren’s Steel Membrane Shield flickered, and he was sent flying a thousand meters away. The MDT yelled in a shrill voice, “Partner! Focus!”

“I’m already focusing!” Hao Ren crossed his blades together and smashed aside the chaotic energy orbs that were flying about. “Nothing I can do if my evasion stats are lower than her hit!”

“Why do you keep struggling?” The goddess of annihilation’s voice rang out once again in everyone’s mind. She was standing in the void, her hands held wide open as if she was giving a sermon, while countless pale rays and orbs appeared around her, slowly consuming every portion of the dimension. “The universe will end, and just like how this tiny space will be consumed by me. All of you are simply just wasting your strength against the clock!”

Rheia’s form reappeared a couple of thousand of meters away, and her body was shrouded with a golden glow, as the pages of her tomes parted and became floating papers around her. “The universe will end? Sure, I never denied that!”

The goddess of annihilation raised an eyebrow, as though surprised by the latter’s sudden proclamation. “Oh?”

“The universe will indeed end… but what does that have to do with you!!” Rheia raised her hand up high, and as she smashed it down in form, numerous divine words appeared from the papers around her and blocked off the dimension consuming pale rays. “There is a shelf life for the universe… but what does that have to do with you! All life will die someday, but what does that have to do with you! All things will one day be consumed by the void, but what does that have to do with you!”

A golden halo quickly spread out with Rheia as the center, and the chaotic dimension was equally put into order as the halo shone upon it. Those ancient ruins and wreckage that was distorted due to the chaotic dimension too had temporarily regained their original form.

“No one will give up living just because they will die someday! The universe will not stop growing just because it will perish someday! Death is a part of the cycle, and since when life was not part of it?!”

“This universe will end someday, and the me now can even calculate to the exact second when it will end, but what of it? It has its own death, but you want to bring it forward! Who do you think you are?”

“What does the Mad Lord think it is?!!”

A massive halo appeared out of the void, and where the radiance shone, all chaotic and distorted information was instantly restored, and this restoration was as damaging to the goddess of annihilation, the avatar of chaotic powers, as it can get. She could no longer stand where she stood, and slightly sheepishly teleported away from where the ‘Light of Order’ shone.

“You…” she roared.

“Is there any wrong in what I just said?” The pages around Rheia spun around rapidly, and within the radiance, her small figure was amplified a few times. “You keep going on and on about the struggle to live is against the what natural order, and you destroying it beforehand is not? You think you can represent and adjudicate the fate of all life just because you happen to grasp some destructive powers? You too will perish someday, so why don’t you go and off yourself first!”

Rheia had rarely ever exploded like this, but now that she was facing the Mad Lord and her evil half, she remembered the threat of catastrophe since time memorial, and she thought of the tragic scene where all of the countless of lives she had created perishing within an instant, that lit the flames of her wrath, and seeing her now had Hao Ren realizing that her calm and aloof self was her suppressing everything, and when she finally lets of steam…

“She sure is good at cursing,” the MDT floated by Hao Ren’s head and said with full sincerity.