The Record of Unusual Creature

It seems that no matter what the origin of the fake mad demon in the sky was, Lanina’s status in the military hadn’t wavered as as soon as she ordered the a protal to be opened, the demons immediately complied. It seemed that aside from flying, the only way to get to Helcrown in the sky was through the teleportation portal.

An obsidian colossus came up and half-kneeled in front of them, the alloy cover on the chest of the colossus opened, revealing its dark-red shining energy core. Two barrel-like dark dwarfs climbed up the colossus, activating the core before the air in front of the energy core began to warp: apparently it was a mobile teleportation portal inbuilt into the colossus.

Sure enough, knowledge is power – the demonic army was definitely the world’s most high-tech army…

Y’zaks looked on with a blank expression, no one knew what was on his mind. At the moment, Biggie had appeared to be more enigmatic than anyone else.

After a moment, the portal was activated, and a seven-meter-high warped door was opened in the chest of the colossus. The door was large enough that even Lily could march into it with her head held high. The demon commander raised its hand and gestured, “Please come in.”

Hao Ren glanced at Lanina who nodded at him signalling that everything was fine. They then followed the demon commander and walked into the warped door.

The other demons and black dwarfs had also queued up and went into the warped door but the obsidian colossi stayed back: these colossi could activate another teleporting mechanism to send themselves back to Helcrown, but for the moment, they would stay out there for any contingencies.

The colossi walked in their heavy footsteps returning to the rocky foothill where they crouched down one by one. In the blink of an eye, they disguised themselves as ordinary boulders—when Helcrown floated in the sky, they had to serve as sentinels below.

Meanwhile, Hao Ren and his entourage were sent to a majestic rotunda after a moment of weightlessness.

The hall had a radius of 100 meters, and was cast with a solemnly dark-colored metal. Every outer walls had the same neatly-arranged vertical ridges as that of Helcrown city. Each ridge had a shining glow to it as if the whole hall was powered by some kind of magic. The floor was covered in smooth gray brick stones, and a huge demonic rune array shimmering in greenish light was in the centre which echoed the faint light on the ridges of the walls.

As soon as Hao Ren opened his eyes, he was stunned by the granduer of the hall. He turned to Y’zaks and said, “It’s magnificent!”

Y’zaks just smiled and didn’t say a word. He still couldn’t figure out what it was all about, so he wanted to observe a little while longer before he revealed his own identity.

The demon commander motioned the other demons to leave as he would personally took Hao Ren and his entourage meeting the ‘mad demon king’. “Please come with me. The king would be pleased to see you— especially the great sage, your arrival is a pleasant surprise, the king will be very pleased.”

Hao Ren and his men followed the demon commander walking out of the hall to a broad and magnificent corridor. As Lily hadn’t a chance to morph so she was still on four. Her eyes darted around curiously, and looked up from time to time as if she was worried that she was going to hit the ceiling if she wasn’t careful. As Hao Ren and Vivian were walking right in front of Lily, they had to speed up their pace to avoid getting stepped on by the giant husky who mightn’t see them.

The demon commander turned and looked at the trio respectfully as it recalled the moment it was being pounced upon by the vicious dog. It said admiringly, “You guys are an amazing team of bitch, man, and woman …”

Still marvelling at the weird reliefs on both sides of the corridor, the words suddenly struck Hao Ren. He glared at the demon commander. “What did you just say?”

The genuinely ignorant demon commander hadn’t a clue as it pointed at Lily, Hao Ren, and Vivian matter-of-coursely. “Dog, male, female …”

The usually mild-tempered Vivian was dumbstruck. She turned and looked at Lanina and said, “… That’s how the people in your home town speak?”

Lanina was also baffled. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you three a dog, a man, and a woman?”

Lily could understand but she couldn’t talk. She could only keep shaking her head and made sound. “WOOF-WOOF-WOOF—”

Although no one knew what she was trying to say but one thing was certain: it wasn’t a good word judging from her angry look: it’s not that you could see husky’s angry face everyday.

It was only at this time that Y’zaks woke up from his deep thought. He patted Hao Ren’s shoulder and said, “Ahem, please don’t be offended. Here in our hometown, people are normally say thing lietrally.” Having said that, he nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve never thought of that before, but you three do fit the words.”

Hao Ren’s face turned black. “What kind of culture is that?”

The demon commander seemed to be confused. It hadn’t a clue what wrong it had done that had wrranted the anger of the guest. Though Lanina was just as clueless, she still comforted their own man. “Don’t worry, perhaps it has only something to do with the dialect.”

It wasn’t known how long they had been walking in the long, deep corridor as they finally came to the end of it. They saw in front of them a heavy, thick door, which was made of brass, with twelve demon-like images engraved on it and a warning on top the door in demonic text: Check Before Leaving The House, Remember to Turn Off The Light And Lock The Door.

Hao Ren froze for a moment. “… Seriously?”

“Why not?” Y’zaks felt strange at Hao Ren’s question. “Don’t you write this over at your office? We do the same thing here.”

Hao Ren widemouthed, almost going crazy. “Wouldn’t it suppose to have a poetic phrase in such a grand building? If you don’t prefer poetic phrases, you can always write something like ‘WHOEVER PASSES THROUGH THIS DOOR SHALL LEAVE YOUR SOUL BEHIND’ or ‘OUR JOURNEY IS THE STARS’! At least that would match the grandeur of Helcrown…”

Y’zaks thought for a moment, then scratched his chin and asked, “Then why don’t you hang a ‘SAVING MANKIND FROM THE SEA OF MISERY’ at the front door of your house? Isn’t your job title pope?”

Hao Ren was speechless. He was tempted to reason with Y’zaks but thought better of it. He pondered for a long while and realised that not everyone was paying attention to details. He said gently, “After all, this is Helcrown—Don’t all former residences of great men have some famous quotes hanging on their front doors?”

Y’zaks smiled wryly and said, “That’s because their places have been turned into museums. Look, my place is still occupied by living people.”

Hao Ren was speechless again. As it turned out, normal people and demons had real differences in perspectives.

As Hao Ren was talking to Y’zaks in earth language, the demon commander hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. It hemmed twice and said, “The king is waiting inside. Please get inside.”

Hao Ren staunchly stepped forward and opened the door, what lay inside was a very wide throne hall. The rectangular hall was brightly lit, the walls were made of solemnly pure copper and black iron, countless sculptures of demons and other races lined on both sides of the hall, and at the end of the hall was a golden-red throne where the ‘mad demon king’ was sitting who seemed to have been waiting for them for a long time.

Although they were mentally prepared, they couldn’t hold back their surprise when they saw the demon on the throne: it wan’t that obvious from a distance, but when they moved closer, they found the one sitting on the throne was really almost identical to Y’zaks!

Hao Ren and his team kept quiet. Even Y’zaks himself hesitantly stood at a side pretending he was clueless. Only Lanina walked up, stared at the demon on the throne and said without salutation, “I’m back.”

‘Y’zaks’ on the throne stood up slowly, his face seemed a bit agitated but slightly stiff, and his voice was obviously delighted. “Oh, Lanina … it’s so good see you safe and sound. Were you in the human world all these days?”

Lanina repeated her story as ‘Y’zaks’ on the throne listened and nodded. After a brief conversation with Lanina, it suddenly said, “In this case, you guys must be tired after the long journey. Let’s go and get some rest first while I prepare a banquet. Lanina, by then I have a lot more to talk to you. So have a good rest.”

After the brief meeting, they were politely ushered out.