The Record of Unusual Creature

Hao Ren did not know what the real “Throat of the World” and so-called core of the spatial bubble zone were. But judging from Y’zaks’ reaction, he knew it was something extraordinary. Scratching his chin with an unprecedented serious look on his face, Y’zaks asked, “Are the nature of this dimension and of those described in the manuscript consistent?”

“They match,” Zadamor nodded, “the gateway to the rest of the world, the unstable opening method, and the ever-changing mapping laws— all strikingly consistent with the manuscript’s predictions. But we didn’t manage to explore too deeply, that space wasn’t creature-friendly, there was no stars and solid planets, and only some strange celestial bodies which we could barely set our foot on. People could only survive with the deployment of a great barrier over the royal city, so we couldn’t send more people scouting out there.”

Y’zaks nodded slightly, he knew these things couldn’t be explained in a few words. “Well, please sort out what had happened for the past year and I will hear the details from you later.”

He then turned to his little daughter with a broad smile on his face. “The most important thing for me now is that my daughter is alive! Y’lisabet … I knew you would be fine, but this thing…” Y’zaks said, looking up to ‘himself’ which was on the throne, “What the hell is this?”

Y’lisabet’s face was still a mess after crying and laughing a while ago, but she had quickly calmed down. She held on to a finger of Y’zaks and said proudly, “That’s Papa III. I designed it with Uncle Hammer!”

Y’zaks was dumbfounded when he heard the name earlier. Hao Ren curiously came up to the throne and looked up, and found that the rough skin, the unique body armour were almost as identical as the genuine one—almost lifelike, only the flame and lava which were magic simulation had disappeared because the ‘demon doll’ was now in standby mode.

Hao Ren climbed up to the chest of the ‘demon doll’ and poked his head inside. He could see the compact alloy cockpit inside, but without the usual control sticks and buttons and stuff like that. Instead, there were some odd alloy cylinders and neatly-arranged rune slab panels, as well as a small seat. The control panel was glimmering with a faint light from time to time, and the complicated runes were occasionally projected out. Through the help of his translation plug-ins, Hao Ren could read them: pressure readings, power reactor, expression combinations, intelligence balance, skin camouflage, walking assistance control, running auxiliary control …

Suddenly, Hao Ren felt a furry thing squeezed itself past him next to his arm. It was Lily. “Let me have a look… whoa… this is a high-tech cockpit?”

“So you’ve been using this to impersonate me all this while?” Y’zaks looked at his genius daughter, half-cryingly and half-laughingly after he took a gander at the ‘demon doll’. “You’re real genius. No one spot the anomalies?”

Y’lisabet climbed up the demon’s legs and proudly exclaimed, “No one would spot the difference with occasional appearance to sooth the worries of the people.”

Then, the little girl lowered her head slightly, lamenting. “Unfortunately, it could only perform the most basic manoeuvers, and control is very troublesome. I’ve spent a long time fine-tuning its walking posture. Then I used posture-core of the obsidian colossus to stabilize it. But it still lacks combat capability, no magic ability, and hasn’t enough power…”

When the little girl talked, she babbled. Y’zaks touched her head affectionately and said, “Y’lisabet liked to study these things from an early age… She was physically weak but was clever, so I let her studied alchemy and astrology from the manuscript left behind by the old man.”

Hao Ren glanced at Y’lisabet, her physical build was obviously as different as day and night compared to the normal demon. How could Y’zaks at five-metres-tall have a one-meter daughter?

Lily who was beside Hao Ren was more blunt. “Are you sure she is your biological daughter?”

Y’zaks wasn’t offended at all as if he had long been expecting question like that. “Y’lisabet’s mother was a human.”

Everyone went silent. Lily, one of the most literary-loving in the crowd, couldn’t utter a word.

Hao Ren pattted the arms of Y’zaks and said, “I couldn’t believe that a rough guy like you could’ve actually gone down that road— why did you take a human as wife?”

Y’zaks smiled, showing a nostalgic look on his face as he leaned back in his throne and recalled slowly. “It was the beginning of the unification war. As usual, humans had thought that I was just another brainless demon king, many of the braves had come out to fight me in the hope of lifting their own prestige, and Y’lisabet ‘s mother was one of them who came to look for trouble.

They were all astonished. Vivian twitched her mouth as she looked at Y’zaks. “How more uncommon-sensical could you be?”

Hao Ren was curious about the story of the brave women and the demon. “And then what happened? What kind of person was Y’lisabet’s mother? Was she powerful but kind-hearted, kind of person, as holy as a lamp in God’s home? How many times had she fought with you before you were turned?”

Y’zaks laughed as he waved his hand. “As powerful as she was, she was a silly girl. I still remember people called her ‘Sword Saintess’. She was very famous in the human world, and was symbol of something in her country. In short, she was an important person but deep down in her she was just a naive and innocent girl. She focused all her energy in learning how to fight, was duped into becoming a guardian of her country to fight the demon king. The way I see it, the so-called guardian was just a convenient title politicians use to exploit her. But she was quite proud of it, though.”

Lily shoved herself forward and asked, “Then what happened?”

“There were quite a few of the braves came looking for trouble at that time when I needed more people. So I basically would persuade them to join us. Those who refused, I would just let them go and spread the message on my behalf.” Y’zaks shrugged, “so too Y’lisabet’s mother was let go three times, when she came back for the fourth time I was stunned— she was recalcitrant despite losing in every fight. To be honest I have never seen anyone coming with this reason. So I got interested, and then did something extraordinary: I transformed into a human, sneaked over and joined her team, saying I was the brave too looking to fight the demon king.”

Hao Ren also could not help it. “How more uncommon-sensical could you have been?”

“It was mainly because I was bored,” Y’zaks shrugged. “At that time I hadn’t much entertainment, so I’d occasionally observe the habit of creatures such as the Brave to quench my boredom. Anyway, that naive girl had believed me. She even said that her wasn’t good enough to challenge the demon king by herself, she dragged me along going around getting more ‘experience’ before going back to Helcrown again.”

La Nina suddenly hemmed. “I’ve heard this history before from the elderly people in the city: in order to make that naive brave one coming back to Helcrown to challenge the mad demon king, he himself led her running around in the territory. A few demon kings had come to fight her, and even let the Evil Flame Dragon lie on the ground pretending to have been slained”

“When she finally got back to Helcrown, I confessed everything,” Y’zaks shrugged. “She froze for a moment and said she wanted to stay.”

Hao Ren held his breath and expected the story to continue. But after a long while of silence, he asked, “So that’s the end of the story?”

“That’s the end.” Y’zaks nodded with a smile.

Vivian asked dumbfoundedly, “You two had no problem with the racial differences and all that? Let’s just talk about the aesthetic side of it—both of you OK?”

Y’zaks laughed. “Demon has a different aesthetic perspective from human… In fact, we don’t care about our partner’s look, it does not matter as long as it feels right. That was how we were together and she seemed to have accepted me in human form.”

Lily glanced at the big face of Y’zaks, wondering if the brave maiden was already blind when she first met Y’zaks.

Vivian asked hesitatingly, “Then where is she now?”

“She was dead a long time ago.” said Y’zaks without much emotion on his face. “Don’t worry, she went peacefully. I used demonic magic to extend her life and she had stayed with me for three hundred years. But after all she was still a human, and not willing to completely turn into a half-demon to extend her life again. So I respected her will. But anyway, we had lived happily for three hundred years, and I think that’s already better than most demons families.”

He patted on Y’lisabet’s head and said, “What’s more, I’ve a daughter!”

Y’lisabet’s eyes darted around curiously. She felt that her father was a little different from her father she remembered but she could not tell what. But she knew it must have something to do with these strangers.

“Well, and I think we could keep on talking if we want to,” Y’zaks interrupted the conversation. He guffawed. “Today is a good day! Zadamor, haven’t the banquet been ready? Send my word, today we’re going to make it big!”