The Record of Unusual Creature

The heavy footsteps and tremors sounded all too familiar. Everyone braced themselves and just as expected, a group of recognisable shadows emerged from the Gnarled Grove—they were the rock monsters!

“Sure enough, we’ve run in to them.” Hao Ren took a deep breath. “God knows what’s happened to the town.”

Big Beardy was stunned when he saw the rock monsters. A pale, golden light radiated from his body as he got into his combat stance and muttered, “What are these things? The rock monsters?”

“That’s right,” Y’zaks said. A glowing, red light lingered around his body as he walked towards the rock monsters. “Be careful, they can resurrect themselves. You must get them off the ground in order to totally kill them.”

*Boom*

Before Y’zaks voice trailed off, a rock monster closed in on him. The great demon raised his leg and struck the rock monster on its knee. The kick smashed its limb into pieces. Likewise, Y’zaks crushed its’ other limbs before grabbing its’ body and lifting it off the ground. In a blink of an eye, it was dead; easy-peasy. Already having prior combat experience, Y’zaks did not find these solid and powerful monsters challenging at all.

Everyone lunged forward and engaged the rock monsters. Unlike their previous encounter, they were better prepared this time. Despite her mediocre skills and inability to kill the rock monsters, Becky the swordswoman did not get hurt. Roars, explosions and rock-crushing sounds filled the air between the Blood Lake and the Gnarled Grove like a rolling thunder!

The four ascetics were meeting the monsters for the first time, and they were a little clueless when it came to fighting them. But as ascetics of the Church, they were not slouches. Big Beardy was covered in a golden light; even his eyes were glowing. He was using a very peculiar fighting technique. With a swing of this fist, he was able to smash through the rock monster! He had learned about the monsters’ regenerative abilities and as he took two steps back, he began to chant something. Gravity in the surrounding field changed as pebble stones on the beach began to tremble and float in the air before descending slowly as if in slow motion. Affected by the strange gravitational magic, the rock monsters began to tumble: although they were equipped with basic fighting instincts, the rock monsters lacked inteligence.

Big Beardy noticed that the monsters could barely hold themselves steady under the influence of his magic, so he lunged forward. With his Rising Dragon Fist, he threw the monster, which weighed several tonnes into the air and blew its’ limbs into pieces. Well, monkey see, monkey do, so the other three ascetics followed suit.

Such were the ascetics trained by the Disciples of Glory. They practiced a type of fist fighting technique, blessed with powerful magic. They were able to remain calm and they were powerful as well as skillful in all types of battle—long ranged or close quarters combat alike. Under the almost weightless gravitational field and continuous thrust of their fists, the rock monster remained suspended in the air for minutes. But Big Beardy had no clue how long he had to keep the monster suspended before it would completely lose its strength. So, he had to keep asking his comrades while he kept the thing afloat. “Can you see if mine’s already done?”

“It’s still moving… Keep whipping!.”

“Is mine done yet? I’ve already battered it with 10 rounds of Rising Dragon Fist.”

“Yours should be done. It’s already turned black. Mine too. But, can you take a look if the colour is right, just to be sure?”

Hao Ren was perplexed when he overheard their conversation. He turned his head and took a look at them: if he had not checked on what the four were up to, he may have actually thought they were in a cooking class…

Ten rock monsters were down. Broken rocks and pits were strewned across the battlefield, but the pressure they faced was only increasing. Hao Ren had to divide his attention to protect Nangong Wuyue, who only had minimal fighting power, and keep an eye on the forest. More rock monsters were coming out from the Gnarled Grove!

Meanwhile, in the distance, the sound of heavy footsteps did not stop. It seemed like there was a large group of monsters—the main course of the battle— coming their way! The rock monsters before them were just the appetisers!

All of a sudden, a blinding flash of lightning filled the sky. A large swarm of bats then expanded outwards from the centre of the lightning and travelled into the forest. Shortly after, the bats regrouped and transformed into Vivian. She flew up into the air and called out to Hao Ren. “There’s another wave coming! Hundreds of them! We’re under siege!”

“Did we just stir up their nest?” Running up to him like a silver whirlwind, Lily began to pant despite her extraordinary stamina. She gave her wrist a little massage and allowed Nangong Wuyue to reinvigorate her as she kept her ears on the forest. “No… fighting like this is way too slow.”

Hao Ren also realised that they lacked an effective fighting power. Forget about where these gazillion rock monsters were coming from; they were already being surrounded. The biggest problem for them was the impossible task of fighting so many monsters! They could keep attacking the enemies’ weakest point by lifting them up into the air for a certain amount of time before totally destroying them. However, this was difficult to execute when the number of enemies were this many. Hao Ren scrunched his eyebrowd together as his mind race to look for a better way in dealing with these strange creatures. Then, he heard Y’zaks yelling from afar. “If worse comes to worse and there’s no better way, you guys better take cover because I just discovered an asteroid belt 20 AU¹ away—talk about pure iron core, which is particularly great for handling…”

Hao Ren had cold sweat trickling down his back. He tried to calm the meteorite maniac down while his mind went on overdrive, trying to find a solution. Suddenly, he had a light bulb moment!

“Watch me!” Hao Ren aimed at a rock monster, who was in a fight with Becky. Then, he pranced forward.

Becky was very not good at dealing with such monsters and she was getting a little frustrated at it. She was elated when she heard Hao Ren was coming for her. Wielded her Flaming Sword, she forced the monster back, and bounced to the side. Meanwhile, Hao Ren grabbed that moment of opportunity to raise his hand and swipe the rock monster into his Dimensional Pocket.

Everyone was in awe, but Hao Ren did not stop there. He looked inside his Dimensional Pocket, feeling elated. He then ran amok, collecting all the monsters he could find. “Move out of the way, people. Bring them to me! Give this one to me too! This one too… Umm… it’s already dead…”

Hao Ren ran a circle around the battlefield and the fierce battle at the lakeside subsided just like that. He went and found himself a large open space, after which he took out the MDT, checked the time and waited. With a swipe of his hand, his Dimensional Pocket was opened.

The rock monsters—dead and blackened, came crushing out, and piled up like a hill…

Vivian flapped her wings and descended to the ground. She looked at Hao Ren, wide-eyed. “…That’s pretty creative.”

“There’s no such thing as a wasted skill—all you need is some creativity.” Hao Ren looked up and saw a group of rock monsters coming out from the forest. He could not help grinning from ear to ear. “The most valuable asset nowadays is a creative talent!”

Hundreds of rock monsters were turned into blackened rocks by Hao Ren’s creative skill. The amount of rocks was so great that it filled the valley and beach to the brim. Hao Ren stood on the tallest heap of rocks, clapped and jumped down. “With these many rocks, I wonder how many siheyuans² I can actually build.”

Lily squatted at the bottom of the heaps, clawing away. She discovered some black stones, which she found beautiful, and shoved them into her pocket. Hao Ren was perplexed. “You’re collecting these rocks?”

“I love them.” Lily looked happy. “We left in a hurry the last time. But this time, I’m gonna collect all my favourite stones!”

Everyone back home knew that Lily was a stone collector. In fact this hobby of hers was one of the few things considered artistic. In fact, when she first arrived in Hao Ren’s place, her suitcase was partially filled with various kinds of stones. Lily treated her stones like precious jewels. She would not let anyone touch them. For this reason, Vivian had given the stones a name: the Treasure of Woofie.

Of course, Lily had her opinions about that.

When Lily was done with her stone picking, they began to leave the creepy and dangerous lakeside. They wanted to take the short route to Leyton by cutting through the Gnarled Grove. But before they moved, a rustling sound came from the nearby forest.

This time, it was a human voice.