The Record of Unusual Creature

The white, brick building across the river was a chapel.

Hao Ren approached the chapel with the pot in his hand. As he got near the entrance, he saw runes as well as a heraldry with a circle, triangle and bolt on the door. The door was closed. The heraldry belonged to the Disciples of Glory. He remembered Vivian mentioning it and he knew the meaning behind this insignia: the circle signified the view of the Church of this world, where completeness, formlessess and emptiness formed it; the triangle, signified the authority of the goddess, who was right and it also formed a three-point support for the circle, representing a determinator by which the goddess made the rules of the world; the bolt was right in the centre, signifying the church. The tip of the bolt met the tip of the triangle denoting that the Church’s authority was a third of the goddess’ power. It was an interesting sect; they had a clear definition of their authority, which was one-third of the authority of God. Hao Ren had a very deep perception about it when he first heard the ministers of the Church claiming that they had only one-third of the authority of God.

If not for the heraldry, there was no way Hao Ren could tell this small building was a chapel: the size of the building was small and it was not a typical steeple building. There were no stained glass windows or religious decorations. Compared to the churches in town, this chapel was built with function in mind rather than form.

The light he saw by the river had disappeared. The chapel was pitch dark in and out but, Hao Ren was pretty sure the light he just saw came from the circular hole above the door. He enabled the MDT to go up there for a quick look and confirmed that it was a decorative opening through which he could peek inside the chapel. There were no light fixtures on the inside.

The gleam of light seemed to have appeared for quite a while. Hao Ren did not notice it earlier because for one, the entrance was closed. In addition, the main windows were at the side of the building so, he could not have possibly seen any abnormalities in the chapel.

He placed his hand on the door, giving it a little push but, the door remained close. He frowned. “It’s locked.”

“Looking to go inside?” The MDT stayed afloat beside Hao Ren as if it was interested too. It left Lil Pea alone as this had drawn its attention. Lil Pea curled herself up and slept at the bottom of the pot: she was probably frightened quite a bit in the river so, she was likely going to stay quiet for some time.

Recalling the moment when Lil Pea was swimming against the river’s strong current almost made Hao Ren laugh his head off.

“Get a position inside then, teleport me in there.” An idea came to his mind: the convenience of technology was using the MDT to go wherever you wanted, no matter where and how secured the place was. You could “sneak” through any opening bigger than a rat hole and get to the other side.

Without further ado, the MDT sneaked through the hole above the door and Hao Ren was shortly teleported inside. No need to blast through the door, the whole action was absolutely silent.

The chapel was empty. A solemn, dark-red carpet lay across the rectangular hall. There was no furniture. Unlike churches on Earth, the Disciples of Glory believed and practised the Theory of Human Atonement; believers and even the popes were not accorded the luxury of any kind of bench and seating.

The pulpit was at the end of the hall and it was the only fixture present.

Coming before the pulpit, he set his foot on its steps, which had four levels and began to walk up to the pulpit. He immediately sensed that the number “4” had a special meaning in this world—the Kingdom of Holletta had four holy places, the Orb of the Holy Synod stopped at the Blood Lake for four days, and now the pulpit of the chapel four levels of steps. But, what did it mean? He could not think of any religious explanations.

There was a heavy, black book on the pulpit. The book cover had some shades of dark red to it, which was difficult to perceive. Hao Ren flipped the book open and found that it was just a bible.

Coincidentally, the page he opened detailed the achievements of the goddess. It was written in a rather obscure and uninteresting language to him. “…in the beginning, She lay between the heavens and the earth, spiritful and spiritless, Her existence was in the high places where no man could comprehend… She was the original water, the original ocean, the original source, the original thunder storm, the source of life, and the promised land… because She is the mother of all lives, She is the Goddess… She is omnipresent and exists between the stars, She carved the world and sowed the seeds of billions of mortals. This was Her authority and mercy…”

“I don’t really understand it.” After quite some time, Hao Ren got fed up with it. He flipped to the end and there it was, the chapter on the banishment of the world by the goddess. “…man went astray in their search for truth, and were unrepentant despite the Goddess’ warning. The ancient werewolves, the Blood Clan, spirits and humans, who desired to claim sea of origin as their own backyard, were full of arrogance and absurdity. The Goddess was enraged, saying, “It was a mistake to gift you with spiritual knowledge, and this must be put right.” Then, the old world was destroyed in a fire. Persons of virtue bowed down to Her…and they survived.”

The more he read, the more confused he got.

Anyway, he did make something out: Despite the fact that the Disciples of Glory had a defined god that they worshipped, there were no mentions of the image of their god in the religious doctrine.

Any mention, if at all, about the goddess in the sacred book was as good as vague descriptions like “place of origin” or “the origin of something”, which was totally unlike other religions. Others clearly or vaguely described their god’s image in detail, whether it had wings or an eight-yard tall or whether their god was filled with light or authority—such descriptive words were non-existent in the sacred book. It seemed the goddess had no form, the book lacked even the slightest abstract illustration. It gave the impression that the Disciples of Glory worshipped a symbolic thing.

All Hao Ren found out from the sacred book was about some phenomenon of nature, despite “Her” being called a goddess.

They worshipped the creation of the world.

“Their understanding of their goddess is pretty interesting.” That inadvertently led Hao Ren to think about Raven 12345 and he shook his head. “There’s simply no comparison.”

“Where did the light come from?” Putting down the sacred book, Hao Ren scanned their empty surroundings. At a glance, there was nothing there which could have been the light source. He turned around and looked at the mural on the wall behind the pulpit. By right, this was where statues or other religious symbols were supposed to be at but, the Disciples of Glory had put up a strange picture of a twisted shadow, red fog and light. He was not sure if other chapels were the same but he found this particular chapel rather strange.

After spending almost half the night looking around, nothing was found. Realising that the others were still waiting for him at the village head’s home, he left and headed back to the village of the mountain people.

The chapel returned to darkness once again. The double moons shone through the coloured-glass at an angle and onto the strange mural behind the pulpit. Under the moonlight, the strange, twisted black and red picture slowly came alive—so slow that it was almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

Amid the black and red bands, the moonlight on the mural was becoming less intense.

Vivian came up to Hao Ren when he stepped through the door. “Where did you go? What happened to your pants?”

Before Hao Ren could explain, Lily chimed in noisily. “Haha, Landlord, have you just peed your pants?”

That pricked him and he forgot what he was going to say. He lost his coolness as he lunged forward and used his hands to pull Lily’s ears. “Think before you say anything!”

Lily jumped up and down in pain. She muttered, “Ouch, that hurts! My bad… I should know no man could have peed so much in a day…”

“….”

He yanked the husky aside. “I slipped and fell into the river while I washing my hands. By the way, is that a chapel across the river?”

He did not mention the strange things in the chapel, and his venture in it though.

“It was built by a pastor from Lamberg.” The village head did not suspect anything. “The mountain people believe in mountain spirits but this doesn’t violate the teachings of the Disciples of Glory. The pastor would come on every full moon to preach and perform healing here. During other times, the chapel would stay closed. Are you a believer? If you want, I have a key with me, you could go in there to pray tomorrow.”

There were two moons in this world; the larger one was called the primary moon a.k.a. the big moon, the smaller one was called the secondary moon. The secondary moon’s phase cycle was 17 days, exactly half of the primary moon’s phase. Most religious activities of the Disciples of Glory coincided with the cycles of the primary and secondary moons. The full moon of the secondary moon was a particularly meaningful day.

“No, I’m not. Just asking. I didn’t know there was a chapel here.” Hao Ren waved his hand. He did not show any abnormal expression on his face.

“I’m sleepy.” Becky yawned. “The village head has arranged for us to stay at the two houses next door. Us girls will have to put up with the crowded space as there are many of us. You two guys will have the luxury of space.”

Hao Ren thought for a moment, figuring that the Disciples of Glory could wait. He still had plenty of chances to explore the various myths of this world later. So, he set his thoughts aside and found his room. He rested for the night as tomorrow, their journey would begin.