The Record of Unusual Creature

When Hao Ren heard Vivian calling him over, he hurriedly dragged Lily along to meet her. He stuffed his MDT and the older version of the data terminal together in his pocket. The MDT shouted in his pocket, “Hey, hey! What are you doing? Would you please not squeeze me in here with this hick? It’s already so crowded in here…”

“If you think it’s too crowded, come out and fly!” Hao Ren said, and that shut it up.

As the both of them followed the direction of the communicator to find Vivian, they found that the rest were already there. They were studying something in a circle.

“What’s the sitch?” Hao Ren asked. He was holding on to Lily and slowly moving towards them. He found this place to be a very broad area. Although it was surrounded by jungle-like tentacles, the original structure was still visible; it was probably a storehouse. There were a lot of neat platforms that were slightly above the ground, and the remnants of some fixed brackets could be seen amid distant tentacles.

He looked up and found a big hole, but it was completely covered with criss-crossing tentacles.

“It appears that we were just below this big hole when we came in earlier.” Hao Ren approached Vivian and asked, “You found a way in?”

Vivian nodded and pointed to an object on the ground. “Look at this, it’s extremely weathered and it looks older than the tentacles around it.”

It was a large piece of an irregular-shaped object. It felt like skin and it looked a little red. Too much time had past, and coupled with the activity of the surrounding tentacles when they were still alive, it was already rotten as well as broken. Hao Ren moved forward to flip the thing and broke off a big chunk easily.

“There’s a lot more here!” Y’lisabet shouted to them not far away. Hao Ren followed the direction of her finger and found a large pile of the same thick skin among the tentacles. There were also some floating skin-like substance that were detached from the tentacles.

Hao Ren looked at the lines and markings on the surface of these thick pieces of skin and they suddenly reminded him of something.

He recalled seeing something similar “somewhere”… Yes, in the mirage of the gigantic brain! The seed of life that rose up from the scarlet sea had the same skin!

Although these pieces of skin were old and dried up, the extraordinary “creatures” had physical strength beyond comprehension. After all these years after their death, the pattern on their skin was still discernible. In addition, the mirage produced by the gigantic brain was truly impressive. Hao Ren quickly associated the two things together.

“I probably know what’s going on here…” Hao Ren said. He threw the thick skin aside and took out the ancient device that he found with Lily from his pocket. “Let’s go back first. I’ll tell you everything.”

They then returned to the palace of Helcrown. Hao Ren told them in-detail about the ship’s discovery and his theory based on the “sowing mirage”. Everyone was shocked right away. After reading the contents of the log, Y’zaks kept repeating to himself, “So, that’s how the space bubble zone was formed…”

“Now, we can smooth the whole thing out.” Hao Ren was subconsciously knocking his hand on the MDT while talking. “First of all, we can confirm one thing. It was not the First Born who hit the ship, but a seed. The First Born was hatched from the seed after that—”

Before he could finish, the MDT jumped up from the table and yelled at him, “You can pretend to be deep, but you don’t have to keep knocking me!”

Hao Ren passed the MDT to Lil Pea. “Flip it.”

The little mermaid immediately played with her favorite “merry-go-round” happily. The MDT was angry, but it did not dare show it. Hao Ren began to discuss the relationship between the goddess in the Plane of Dreams and this place. “According to the information we collected in the Plane of Dreams, especially the mirage I saw in the gigantic brain, the goddess of the Plane of Dreams should be an ancient creature similar to the ‘origin of life’. She created a large number of seeds to explore the outer planets. Those seeds were very powerful; they could live throughout the universe and could fly over time and space. A tiny piece dropped from it could become a legendary creature, possibly with the First Born hatching from it. And now, we’ve confirmed a new function: they can also travel across the universe. Forget the principles—just think of it as a plot device…

“The spaceship outside could have been left behind by the native civilization of this universe. According to the MDT’s calculation, the spacecraft was abandoned 200,000 years ago. At that time, this place was not a space bubble zone as the log clearly recorded. Hence, the dimension of this place was still continuous. The aliens on this spaceship came here to explore the ecology and then the accident happened.”

Lily put her hand on her chin quite solemnly and said, “They were literally slapped by the goddess of the Plane of Dreams!”

Vivian pinched Lily’s pointed ear, pulled it vigorously and said, “Be Serious! We’re talking about world peace here!”

“The seed travelled across the void and crashed into the alien spacecraft, changing the entire galaxy due to world hedging—or perhaps, a larger range of space structures, creating a space bubble zone in the process,” Hao Ren said while he came in between Lily and Vivian. “Some of the aliens died, while the rest retreated to the safe section and recorded what happened afterwards. The seed mistakenly thought it had ‘landed’ and proceeded to hatch the first generation of creature, the First Born according to procedure.”

Nangong Wuyue sighed and said, “I can understand. It’s just like how I’m very excited when I see water. I’d jump down only to find out that the water is frozen…”

They immediately looked at the siren with a very perplexed look. Lily patted Wuyue on the shoulder sympathetically and said, “I didn’t expect you to have a similar experience…”

Hao Ren coughed and said, “We now know the origin of the space bubble zone. The aliens have either managed to escape this mutant galaxy, or they died halfway. But, these historical issues are not important at the moment. The thing is… the First Born recorded in this log is not the same as the one we met in the Plane of Dreams.”

“In the log, the First Born has a gentle personality.” Vivian knew what Hao Ren meant and said, “The aliens who left the record didn’t have to lie on this issue. It seems that the First Born that hatched from the seed was likely a very peaceful creature at first. The one in the Plane of Dreams had turned berserk.”

Y’zaks laughed and said, “It went berserk because the Second Born was treacherous. It demolished and sold their house as well as dug up their ancestral grave. In those days that was equal to digging up their own mother’s ashes and using it to study immortality. So, it’s understandable that the eldest brother beat up his younger brother.”

Nangong Wuyue curled her lips and said, “However, it ended up beating him to death…”

“Going berserk is not the point.” Hao Ren waved his hand and said, “The point is that the First Born in the log was able to communicate!”

Everybody then realized it: the author of the log made it clear that he had communicated with the First Born in his sleep. Even outside his sleep, he observed the First Born’s intention of “talking” to the outside world—but, the First Born they met in the Plane of Dreams was a chaotic creature with no logic, just frenzy!

“That time, I asked the MDT to try all kinds of communication channels, including reading the nerve pulses on the First Born’s body. We concluded that it was impossible to communicate. In all fairness, I think the version that can communicate is the normal version.” Hao Ren slammed the table and continued, “The one in the Plane of Dreams was not a normal version from any angle. Why did it lose its mind?”

Lily leaned forward and asked, “Could it have been driven mad by the Second Born?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think the Ancient Magic Empire was capable of that. They were all killed by the First Born.” Hao Ren waved his hand and said, “In short, 10,000 years ago was a very critical point of time: 10,000 years ago, the Plane of Dreams and the Surface World were connected, unusual creatures appeared on Earth and the First Born went mad before destroying the world. These are the things that happened after that point in time. And before that point of time…”

Hao Ren gazed in a certain direction and seemed to look through the walls of the palace to see the wreckage outside. He then said, “The First Born who was lost 200,000 years ago was mentally normal.”

Y’lisabet looked at the circle of adults, and she did not understand what these guys were whispering about. She was just curious about one thing. “What was the energy core that I took back?”

Lily thought about it for a long time and gave a creative answer. “Maybe that was the fruit of the First Born. After all, it’s a tree.”

After that, she licked her lips and said, “I’m hungry.”

Vivian grabbed a fruit from the table and threw it towards Lily. “Your life is all about food. Can you stop being so useless!”

Hao Ren stood up and said, “Anyhow, I have an idea now.”

Everyone looked at him eagerly at once.

“Let’s drag the spaceship back. We’ll go back and study it slowly,” Hao Ren said as he smiled. “Didn’t we need a reason to move Wang’s entire city back? Now we got a reason.”

“What reason?”

“Buy one, free one!”