The Record of Unusual Creature

It was an old-fashioned introduction; Hao Ren could not help but think of it that way.

The ancient civilization plunged into the gap of space and time following an unknown disaster (the explosion of the divine realm). The world on the surface was destroyed, and the survivors barely survived in the shelter that they built inside the planet with their powerful technology. As time went by, the disaster on the planet’s surface subsided. But the survivors in the underground shelter had mutated or simply died from the perennial isolation as well as environmental changes. The shelter that they left behind became the dangerous Great Pit—a place that was filled with deadly poisonous gas and monsters. The civilization on the surface avoided it like the plague.

Hao Ren made some bold speculations; if his assumptions were correct, the so-called toxic gas in the Great Pit should be the normal atmospheric component of the planet 10,000 years ago. It was the foundation of life for the last civilization, but it somehow turned into a disaster for the present ecosystem.

However, could there have been such a massive change in just 10,000 years? Or, did something else accelerate the ecological evolution process?

Perhaps there was only one way to find out, and that was to go into the Great Pit.

What thought to be an insignificant encounter had turned out to be a significant development. The group had accidentally become mercenaries who signed an escort contract with the mage, but they never thought that it would lead them to such a significant discovery. Hao Ren could not help but be astonished by his good luck. Had it not been for Rheia who popped up out of nowhere and mentioned about the Great Pit, he wondered how time had to waste before finding out the secrets of the underground world. After all, ordinary people would stay away from the Great Pit; people like Rheia was a rare breed.

Hao Ren had made a decision and closed the geography title in front of him. “Everyone gets a good rest tonight. Tomorrow, we will follow Rheia to find the entrance to the Great Pit—”

But before Hao Ren could finish, Nolan suddenly reported in. “Boss! You better come out and see this!”

“What is it?” He did not expect that Nolan, who was standing watch at high altitude, would suddenly call him. “Is there an enemy?”

Nolan sounded as if she was shocked. “No! It’s the sky! Something is in the sky!”

Everyone exchanged a look before they ran to the vast expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows of the library, pushed open the window and looked up at the dark night sky outside.

Even the cat maiden was shocked by what she saw. “Meow?”

There was a broken world slowly passing across the night sky.

Huge shadows, bigger than any satellite or star could produce appeared. Ordinary people could see without the aid of optical instrument that the objects floating in space were fragments of a planet. The three largest pieces formed a triangle formation in the sky. There were mountains and rifts, and even traces of what seemed to be an artificial pattern on the planet fragments. At the same time, many smaller black objects were floating in between the three large fragments; those were the floating islands of the main fragments.

Without a doubt, all these fragments once belonged to the same planet.

The planet fragments were not completely dark, though, as there were some dark-red and dark-yellow patterns on their surface. Those faint glows looked like to be the lava, or they could be something else that emitted light.

The group watched in awe as the landmasses flew past the sky and now were right at the sky above them. The celestial fragments were so massive that they covered almost one-third of the sky. They flew past quietly but exuding a depressive and solemn air. Hao Ren even felt that he had an auditory hallucination—the rumbling of giant logs on the earth.

But a crispy voice quickly interrupted his hallucinations. “Ahh, what are all of you doing in front of the window?”

Hao Ren came to his senses and was surprised to see Rheia standing on in mid-air outside the window with some tiny shimmering runes floating around her to shield herself from the chilly wind of Longwind Peak.

The mage left her work and just came out to get some fresh air, it seemed.

“Ah, I just come out for a stroll, don’t look at me like this.” Rheia noticed the surprise on their faces. She waved at them and said, “I know it is a bit scary when someone waves at you all outside the window, but I thought you guys should have seen this enough?”

“Err, this is fine.” Vivian came out of her shock and put up a smile. “We are just watching the night.”

“Ahh, you are watching the broken divine realm!” Rheia looked up at where Vivian’s gaze was, and then turned back and smiled. She seemed to be unconcerned. “Well, no matter when and how many times you see it, it is still fascinating, isn’t it? It is just that I have not expected you guys who are so well-traveled to have hobbies such as reading and gazing the broken divine realm. I almost thought that you were wandering scholars.”

“We come from a very faraway place, where people of knowledge are rare, but we are the exception. We are curious about the outside world, so we travel all the way to this place.” Hao Ren carefully faked their background. “May Ms. Scholar tell us about the broken divine realm if she has the time?”

“I have a lot of time, but it is a broad topic. Where should I begin?” Rheia was flattered and in a good mood after being called “Ms. Scholar”. “Some people say that it used to be the kingdom of the gods, and some say that it is our sister planet that has been destroyed by war. Some even said it was the old world where our ancestors lived but destroyed in a disaster. Our ancestors created a new world opposite the old world with the lost ancient magic. The new world is called L’Haronne, where we have all resettled. The fragments of the old world have since been floating around the sky of L’Haronne. Which narrative do you think is more plausible?”

Of course, Hao Ren was for the first one. But he did not tell Rheia for he was unsure what Rheia’s reaction would be. “What do you think?” he asked back.

“Throwing the question back to me? Tsk tsk.” Rheia said. But she did not mind. “I am a scholar. I also study myths and legends, but let me first look at the legends from the perspective of a scholar instead of a believer. I would think the third narrative is more plausible. There is the old L’Haronne, where our ancestors once lived. Whenever we look up at the sky, we see our homeworld. How awesome!”

“Awesome?” Hao Ren was speechless.

“Yeah, the people’s power.” Rheia became emotional in contrast to her usual carelessness. “We are mortals, and our ancestors are mortals. But when the old world was on the brink of destruction, they were able to create L’Haronne out of thin air and saved so many races from the broken planet. Isn’t that incredible? Even though these incredible ancient mighty powers have now been lost, we believe that there are still miracles when we see the ancient lighthouses that occasionally appear in the sea of fog, the underground ruins, and the palaces of machine that hover in the sky above the mountain. Our ancestors built those things with their bare hands. Are they not miracles? Why do some people turn a blind eye to these?”

Hao Ren did not know what to say. He did not know the mage whom he had just met, nor did he understand the background of this world. He could only understand Rheia based on what she said. She firmly believed that humans could shape the world and that the third narrative was true.

Vivian was somewhat curious. “You seem to outrightly not care about the kingdom of god narrative.”

“It is not that I do not care, but I do not think that it is a theory at all.” Rheia snorted. “Declaring that the ruins in the sky are the places where the deities lived? Then attributing the unsolved mystery on God and dismissing the trajectory as well as the structure of the ruins that defy the laws of nature as the design of God because you can neither prove nor disprove them? How easy is that! But that is not what scholars should say at all.”

Nangong Sanba reminded her, “But you still call it the broken divine realm. Why not the old L’Haronne or the Old World?”

“You are right. It is will called the broken divine realm. The name has existed since ancient times, but the name itself does not mean anything,” Rheia said. “If a god really lived there, why did the place become what it is today? Where was the god? If the god has died, isn’t the god useless? Is a god, who could not even protect its own house, worthy of our worship?”

It was a heretical statement. Few would openly talk about it even in that world where divine influence had declined. But Rheia apparently could not have cared less about the custom even in front of a group of mercenaries whom she had just met.

Nevertheless, Hao Ren refused to comment on what Rheia had said.

Hao Ren instantly linked the broken planet to the Stars of Creation and knew that the Umbral Realm and the goddess had an inseparable relationship. But he did not want to force his mind onto the mage.

Rheia’s perception of the world was her own business, and Hao Ren felt that he was in no position to interfere in this regard.

“Ahh, I think I have talked too much,” Rheia said with a smile. “It shocks your world view? You must be believing in the kingdom of god narrative.”

“I do. But I do not dismiss what you have said,” Hao Ren replied with a smile. “People could be mighty. Many times, they are so great that even God is stunned. But there is no need to compare the two because God has what God should do, and people have what people should do.”

“It is a very novel idea,” Rheia said. She could not help but glance at Hao Ren. “You would have made a good thinker had you not been a mercenary. Well, I have enough fresh air, and I should go now. It is a little cold out here.”

“We will see you again tomorrow, Ms. Mage.”

“See you tomorrow. You all had better rest early as we will set off tomorrow.”