The Record of Unusual Creature

The fighting on Amantir started underground, but the scale of the destruction had already spread across the planet’s surface, and half the planet was consumed in a catastrophic disaster. Even from space, the terrifying changes on the planet’s surface were obviously visible.

Salaman stood on the Aiur’s bridge, watching the images sent in from the external surveillance cameras with his adjutant. Amantir’s image was in the middle of the holographic projection and took up almost three-quarters of the space. Everyone could clearly see that near Amantir’s equator, the entire landmass was buckling and folding upon itself.

That was where Amantir’s control center was. A massive temple complex there was visible from orbit, and it was now being torn from the middle as continuous explosions trailed along the cracks towards the cluster of buildings nearby. Temples and shrines, big and small, all shook violently as the land they stood on liquefied like melted butter. They were quickly sinking into the heart of the planet, as though a black hole had appeared at the core of the planet and was consuming the planet whole.

Of course, there were no black holes, and Salaman was very clear on why the planet was collapsing on itself. Like Agodal, Amantir’s internals consisted of a massive cavity with many strong crystal pillars that supported the outer planet crust while they served as energy network nodes. To have the entire crust collapse meant that something incredible must have happened within the crystal pillar layer.

Before then, Salaman had received an encrypted message, and after decoding it, he found out the plan that Hao Ren and the sprites had developed. When he saw the catastrophic changes to Amantir’s surface, the commander could only gawk in awe, “They really blew the entire crystal pillar layer up…”

“Only a part of it,” the young adjutant corrected him.

“But this is still an insane plan,” Salaman laughed bitterly as he shook his head. “I have to admit, the creativity of the observers is way above that of us conventional and conservative soldiers. I think any guardians conducting this infiltration mission would not have pulled this off, even if they are able to get into the heart of Amantir.”

“Based on the calculations of the time the planet’s support system is able to hold on after the collapse of the pillars, the combat within the Lair of Nightmares is probably at its end.” the young adjutant said, “But we have yet to receive any news about their success. The control center is already coming apart, their time is short.”

“The continuing disintegration of Amantir’s crust is the best possible news, that means the monsters do not have the spare attention to stabilize the planet, and the havoc within the lair itself has not ended.” Salaman shook his head before looking to another set of projections, “And the drones have yet to act…”

The screen beside him showed the image of the droid army. After the guardians and the droid army had retreated to the area and faced off against the corrupted ones in the distance, the movements of the droids were a mystery to the guardians: A large number of the droids have built layers upon layers of barriers at their rally point and many more other droids came warping into the sector, and all of the new entries were not combat types.

And a stream of droids kept going in and out of the sector, and at times they could see large units of unknown usage being shipped in as well.

And in the latest movement, Salaman saw them dragged a few massive crystals into the mysterious ‘construction zone’. The size of the crystals was like a mountain, and its energy signatures terrifying.

The droids did not communicate with anyone, and the guardians did not have permission to enter the droids’ base, and using active radar or any other monitoring and surveillance equipment to scan a friendly camp would, of course, be seen as a very provocative signal, so Salaman and his shoulders could only look on at the busy machines working day in and out without a clue of what was going on inside.

Until noon today, the activity ceased and as the droids seemed to have completed the mission their master had assigned them, and now entered standby mode while they await new orders: They had been in this state ever since.

As Salaman wondered what the standby droid army was up to, he caught sight of movement of the droids at the outer ring of the camp. They were scattering away, seemingly to make way for something.

At the same time, the adjutant exclaimed, “Received encrypted transmission. It says. Shadowlord has lifted the Oscars!”

That was one of the weird code words the observers have left him. Salaman did not understand the terms used in the message but he knew exactly what it meant: The observer’s infiltration team was successful!

They had destroyed the Lair of Nightmares, and have seized the crystal of Amantir!

“Report! The droid swarms have started moving and they are shutting down the barrier around the base. Massive energy signatures detected within the heart of the swarm! The energy signature is off the charts! Repeat, the energy signature is off the charts!”

“They are going to attack Amantir?” Salaman could not help but grip on to the armrest. “The observers have yet to withdraw…”

Hao Ren had told him that he had a withdrawal plan in place, but Salaman did not know the details of the plan, and as he saw the movement of the droid swarm he realized that the final assault was about to start, and Amantir would be the focus of all weapons. But until now, he had yet to see Hao Ren and his team escaping the planet.

As Salaman was feeling curious, a tiny sliver of blue light flashed on the holographic projection.

The sensitive external monitors noticed the tiny blue light and expanded the image. Salaman was finally able to clearly see that it was an argent starship. The observer’s high tech flagship.

The argent starship had clearly activated a piece of acceleration equipment, and while it was not using hyperspace engine she had pretty much almost broken light speed. A layer of reinforced shields appeared and covered the entire ship like a drape, at the same time, a moving projection floated across the hull, and on it was two lines of words that Salaman did not recognize.

Top dog brawler. Galaxy’s Fastest.

Nolan charged towards the corrupted one’s base like a bolt of lightning, and as she crossed the demarcation line she started deployed her decoy launchers as about ten ellipsoidal metal objects were launched into space and immediately became optical decoys mirroring the Petrachelys. A large number of projections were quickly exchanging places as they charged towards the corrupted one’s defense platforms. The latter had reacted as many interceptors and mutants quickly took to the air as the anti-air cannons roared. Yet Nolan was so fast that none of the corrupted’s tracking and targeting equipment were able to get a bid on her. Meanwhile, the enveloping barrages simply hit the decoys that were left by Nolan.

Within the collapsing Lair of Nightmares, the swarms of mutants and corrupted monsters had surrounded Hao Ren and the rest as the rampaging mutants and minions of nightmares clashed against the defensive perimeter the automated drones and combat droids had set up. Hao Ren and the rest had retreated to the center of the circle and were using various long-range attacks to take out any enemies that managed to break through.

Lily, in her mega husky form, was still exhausted from the combat earlier and was lying powerlessly at the back. Y’lisabet and Rollie lay by her bushy tail and were being healed by Nangong Wuyue. In fact, almost everyone had been patched one at least once, and they were taking turns to enter the fray.

After using a Venomblood Arrow to take out a brain monster hiding in a corner casting an offensive spiritual spell, Vivian turned towards Hao Ren, “Is the homing signal still unstable?”

Hao Ren took a quick glance at the MDT, “The monsters have probably figured that we are withdrawing. Their disruption signals are intense, but we already have a lock-on..”

The MDT followed up loudly, “Nolan is on her way and will arrive in a bit. The dimensional signal is strengthening! I need a bit of time to recalculate the homing marker! Not too long, a few minutes will do!”

Y’zaks casually tore a mutant that had rushed towards him into two, laughing loudly as he tossed the corpse aside. “Hah! That we can manage. After the brain monster’s death, these minions are pretty much pitiful.”

“They are still many though.” Nangong Sanba laughed bitterly.

Hao Ren did not mind that. “Well, they can send more if they want, but they’ll all get blown away.”

Right at that very moment, Nolan broke through Amantir’s orbital and atmospheric defense rings. With an elegant and dangerous anti-parabolic curve, Nolan cut through the equator rift.

“Homing marker has been re-calibrated! Commencing teleportation!”

A white light enveloped everyone, and within the light, Hao Ren gave the charging mutants a slow-rising middle finger.

“Goodbye, suc—”

The white light disappeared and everyone disappeared into thin air before the mutants. The only thing left behind was a giant metallic object with a flickering red light on it.

A few seconds later, a massive explosion ripped through the crust as a mushroom cloud blasted out of the command center.

And just within these few seconds, Nolan had reached deep space, and everyone on the bridge looked at the mushroom cloud rising slowly. Nangong Sanba could not help but break the silence. “Say, weren’t the droids there were already gonna blast it to pieces? What’s the point of that explosion?”

Hao Ren had an inscrutable look on his face, “What do you know. This is called a character’s mark. Every heroic character will always leave a mark after wreaking havoc. Zorro even leaves a bloody Z mark behind.

The MDT immediately slammed against Hao Ren’s head, “Those characters leave a letter, a flower or a bloody poker card, and you had to leave a bomb behind, the f*ck are you on?”

Hao Ren did not mind that at all and simply laughed it off as he turned towards the scene in space.

The startled corrupted army was chasing Nolan like a swarm of locust, but they were thrown far behind as the lady pilot slammed the accelerator, and farther away in deep space, the droid base had opened up. Once all camouflage, barriers, and decoys were taken down, a titanic space structure appeared before everyone.

This was a facility cobbled together at the last minute, and the mountain-sized crystals were arranged into a spear-shape as a good number of argent metal beams and connecting strobes connected the crystal into one single object, and at the point of the spear tip, a powerful energy torrent had already converged into a globe of blinding light.

For anyone familiar, these crystals were actually part of CARS…

“The Annihilation Lance’ charging is completed.” Nolan’s holographic projection appeared on the bridge and her face excited and smug. “Let’s send those fools that can’t even chase after my fumes to hell!”

Nangong Wuyue immediately raised her tail and poked her brother. “Why does Nolan sound so different ever since she started to drag race.”

“Shhh, softer. Don’t let her hear you.”