The Record of Unusual Creature

It was not a surprise for Hao Ren to find Letta runes in the strangest of places. The ancient and mysterious written language was bound to exist where otherworldlings had existed. If not for their rare appearance from years of supression by the demon hunters and the church, perhaps these magical runes would have become part of the human civilisation, or even altered the course of human history. Nonetheless, the runes were buried in the sand dunes of history and maybe, this was a good thing for the human civilisation.

After all, the runes were not particularly suitable for humans. Hao Ren got the hunch that anything to do with The Plane of Dreams was not particularly safe.

Rows of Letta runes were discovered on the wall, just in the corner at the end of the gallery. The runes almost covered an entire three-by-two-metre slate. Vivian got closer and started deciphering the runes. Meanwhile, Hao Ren allowed the MDT to sync with his vision and had the runes on the wall recorded.

Letta runes were hieroglyphs of a previous civilisation. It was widely used in the area where the Kingdom of Holleta was presently situated. But this was not the only language the ancient era of The Plane of Dreams used. According to investigations as well as recounts by Vivian, a few other languages had existed at the same time and they were spoken by a few major groups of unusual creatures. These users had to have existed in some other kingdoms within The Plane of Dreams. However, Letta runes were the only written language that possessed special power. So, Hao Ren thought that these runes had specific usages like in prayers, magics and other rituals; runes were not found to exist in other places.

The runes on the wall had caught his interest.

“The grammar is weird. It doesn’t look like a spell. It’s probably a record,” Vivian slid her hand across the surface of the runes, mumbling to herself. Though there was a weathering process in the other dimension, it was far slower than that in the Surface World. Most things in the temple, including the runes, were still perfectly intact. “The architectural practice at that time was fond of inscribing the deeds of the house owner and an introduction to the house on a slate. The slate would then be imbeded into the house. But this is the first Letta rune record of its kind that I’ve ever seen. This must be an important place… Wait a second, I’ve found the starting point and the phrase rhythm.”

Letta runes were very different from normal languages in that its writing and reading method were very strange. The first sentence was not always the starting, it was somewhere else. Sentences were made up of many phrases, in which readers used to determine the starting point with their rhythms. This reading method was cumbersome and it was rarely used for other purposes other than in various rituals. Vivian pointed to a paragraph as she slowly deciphered it, “…The ancient thing, the origin of the thing, kept in the deepest place of the long gallery. Under the protection of the obsidian hunting dog, no outsiders shall trespass thereinto… the Scholars’ Hall shall remain closed and always linked to the long gallery, dossiers…. the responsibility of deciphering this writing shall be on Athena in finding the origin, or restoring order, or suppressing every unclean…”

As Vivian read, she stumbled upon some nonsense-sounding phrases. She skipped the last part of the writing and found some descriptions about the functions of the temple. “Storage, research centre, dossier archives, and… umm, prison?”

“What the hell is this place?” Lily used her claws to scratch the wall. “Did those ancient people really know how to write and speak properly?”

“It most likely means that something is being stored here.” Hao Ren dragged Lily away by her ear to stop her vandalism. “And it seems that the goddess of wisdom, Athena was assigned to study that particular thing…”

“It also mentions ‘origin’ and ‘ancient’,” Vivian rubbed her chin as she mumbled to herself. “Something that was considered ‘the origin’ and ‘ancient’ even by the old fellows must have been very important. Landlord, what are your thoughts?”

Hao Ren twitched his mouth slightly and said, “I think we’ve come to the right place. It must have something to do with the home of the otherworldlings. But one thing I don’t understand; have otherworldlings no memory of the other side? Why were Zeus and his family trying to find their origin? They must have found out that they weren’t originally from Earth before they even thought of searching for their roots.”

“I’m not sure what exactly happened back then. But towards the end of the Mythological Era, right before Mount Olympus was plunged into choas, the ‘gods of the moutain’ were all behaving really strangely.” Vivian frowned as she tried to recall every memory of the past. “I remember Zeus being very anxious and Athena barely showing her face. But one month before non-believers under the leadership of the demon hunters launched an attack on Mount Olympus, in a baffling fashion, Zeus and his family held an overnight party. Their actions gave the impression that they had all given up resistence. I also remember that when I visited Hera, she wasn’t in her right state of mind; she even told me to go into hibernation because ‘the world is going to be in choas and everything is destined’.”

“And?” asked Hao Ren curiously.

“And then they were all murdered.” Vivian spread out her hand. “The demon hunters were ruthless. Even the poor dog wasn’t spared, it was like they dug Cerberus out from its crypt and cooked it. When I arrived at the scene, all I saw were bones.”

Lily was digging at the gap on the wall, probably trying to figure out how the stones of the temple were staggered up. When she heard what Vivian said, her tail puffed up as if she had just heard some horrible ghost story.

Hao Ren was at a lost for words.

Hessiana heard them muttering to themselves about these strange things. “What the heck are you guys talking about? I don’t understand a thing.”

Vivian waved her hand and walked away. “It’s none of your business. Just some old stories. Tell you next time.”

Zeon did not bother at all. He was a typical vampire, he only cared about the temple and its power. “How strong were these Olympian Gods? Did their power come from the thing they were studying?”

“They were a branch of the Thunder Colossi, a medium-sized Thunder Colossus. It was a small species the size of a human. They had strong magical powers and a natural affinity,” said Vivian as she shot a glance at Zeon. “Are you still interested with the power here? Like I said, it’s probably not a good thing.”

Zeon was straightfaced. “Thanks for the advice, but I know what I’m doing. You shouldn’t meddle in the business of others even though you’re an elder. We will deal with whatever comes to us, by ourselves.”

Vivian scoffed at him. “Heck, for power’s sake? You haven’t learned, have you? Yes, it’s none of my business anyway, but I’m just giving you a reminder.”

“Lady Vivian, Lady Vivian!” Hessiana came up to her. “Can I also study it a little?”

“No!” Vivian stared at her. “I can’t control him”—pointing at Zeon—”but you, I can.”

Hessiana then withdrew to the rear of the team and sank into a stupor.

“According to the runes, there is a storage chamber and a study chamber. These chambers are connected to the long gallery.” Hao Ren finished scanning the entire temple and found that the temple had some sort of flowing energy. There were more than one energy hotspot scattered throughout the temple, hidden inside the staggered stone walls. He needed to find an entrance. “Where’s the gallery?”

“Right ahead.” Zeon pointed to a faint light at the end of the corridor.

They hustled through the deep and long corridor, coming to the end of it. As they arrived, an entirely bright, different world opened up in front of them.

It was a big gallery, rectangular, with rows of white colums on each side. The wall between the columns had ancient reliefs depicting various battle scenes and parades. No columns were present in other places and the centre of the gallery was completely empty, making the place look even bigger.

The space was filled with a soft tone of bright light, which came from nowhere.

Hao Ren was not interested in the stone columns or the reliefs on the wall, his eyes were affixed on a giant sculpture at the end of the gallery.

The sulpture was of white stone, exquisitely luxurious and lifelike.

It was a sculpture of Vivian.