The Record of Unusual Creature

The “porous rock site” was a large area where more than a dozen teams were busily installing energy broadcast antennas and extraction devices. Each such team had a siren supervising and dozens of slave labourers. Due to the huge rocks and complex terrain in the area, there were many monitoring blind spots. It seemed the sirens were not very alert too because they did not seem to think that enemies would appear suddenly near their homes. Their carelessness gave the enemy a chance.

A pale vampire, whose teammates were busy on the edge of the site, was assembling metal twigs under the watch of the siren supervisor. The vampire looked at the sirens holding a crystal polearm swimming slowly in the distance, but he had more will of revolt. He knew no one could escape from this place, even though the open waters were just twenty meters away behind him. Even if the siren wet to let them go, no one could make it out through the layered, invisible maze and reach the surface alive. He looked around; there were two werewolves in his team. This situation was depressing to a Blood Clan. However, after the initial days of conflict, all races in the teams had come to grip with reality. He was now standing with the werewolves in peace, and even the deceitful shadelings would no longer think of doing anything stupid.

The siren supervisor glanced at him expressionlessly. The vampire and the two werewolves bluntly glared at the siren but did not stop the work at hand. The supervisor was only to check on their pace of work and indifferent to their impertinent gaze. She nodded with satisfaction before moving on to another rock like a snake.

“Brainless idiot.” The two werewolves whispered in unison.

The vampire lowered his head and focused on the most delicate step of the assembly process, but at this moment, a strange female voice suddenly sounded in his mind. “Which family are you from, young Blood Clan?”

The vampire looked around crawly. He noticed something strange in the shadow of the boulder in the distance, but the voice in his head stopped him. “Keep doing what you’re doing, young Blood Clan. Just answer a few questions; I’ll see if we can find a way to help you.”

The young Blood Clan felt the power of the higher Blood Clan from the voice that directly went into his mind. He respectfully asked in his mind. “Who are you, my elder? I’m Bruce from the Nordic Abram family.”

“You should have seen my name in your family genealogy. I’m Vivian, the elder of Blood Clan.”

After a few minutes of exchange, Vivian turned her head around and Lily immediately came up to her. “Battie, what is the situation? What happened to these people? How did they get here?”

Vivian nodded. “As expected, it’s about the day of return. Many otherworldling families believed in the day of return and then gathered all the races together before they were held up and sent here. However, the number of those being held is not many so far. These Blood Clans and werewolves were only captured in the past recent years. Looks like the Queen of the Sirens had only lost her mind completely a few years back; she has not managed to launch a large-scale attack on the surface.”

“It’s fortunate that we’ve found out early,” said Shaqira, forcing a smile. “What are they doing here?”

“Feeding energy to the maelstrom; that growing thing is devouring the energy of the planet every day,” replied Vivian. “These metal pillars are only part of the system, and the rest of their components are inside the city of Nasaton. The sirens have built a huge magic device to control the energy collected. Those sirens yet fully controlled were forbidden from going out. They were used as the ‘stabilizer’ of the magic device that drew energy from them. The situation inside is not much better than the slave labourers outside.”

“I did not expect the deep sea has deteriorated to this extent,” said Hasse. “Have you found a way to enter Nasaton?”

“Of course, and it’s surprisingly simple,” Vivian smiled. “Follow behind the human soldiers; Nasaton is open once a day, as those dead soldiers are sent to a facility in the city centre where the crystal in their chests would be recharged. During this process, the dome will not respond to foreign living beings, so we entered.”

Hao Ren was surprised. “Is it as simple as that? The sirens won’t do anything?”

“See the eyes of the siren?” Vivian pointed to a siren, which was patrolling on the edge of the open space. “Its eyes had completely turned black. This is a possessed siren. They have lost their ability to think and could only act on according to their natural instinct. A few years back, a revolt broke out in Nasaton, since then, all the out-going personnel were replaced by these completely possessed sirens. They are stronger than the ordinary sirens, more obedient to the command of that gigantic brain, but the downside is that they lack intelligence and it’s easy to trick them. All we have to do is to grab some sand from the sand bank near the submarine, hold it in the hand, and then follow the slaves into the city. While doing this, don’t get in the way of the siren overseers and they won’t alert the gigantic brain, as they will only treat us as workers on the construction site. Of course, what’s going to happen next once we’re in is hard to tell, so, improvise—our primary goal is to enter the city.”

Lily shook her ear. “I can’t fathom it…wouldn’t that gigantic brain be afraid intruders?”

Vivian smiled. “Well, common sense tells that no one would be able to find Nasaton. The city doesn’t need to be fortified. The loophole is quite normal.”

Hao Ren nodded and said to Vivian. “Well, you and Lily stay on guard here. Let’s us go to the submarine first.”

Though a day in Nasaton was two hours shorter than the surface world, it felt that time crawled. Vivian had learned as much as possible the situation in the city of Nasaton through the mind exchanges with several Blood Clans. However, these slave labourers also knew little about the city. It seemed that they could not possibly rely on this information to get the safest infiltration method. Therefore, they had no choice but decide to let Shaqira lead the way.

The first team of dead soldiers had completed their work today. A sirens overseer ordered the dead back to Nasaton, and the other nearby dead leaving the site. When the last group of people left the site, the small team quickly followed closely from behind.

Following the dead of the Second World War, Hao Ren and others passed through the city shield without incident.

In front of them was an elegant and peculiar city of the deep sea—

Nasaton had an incredible sense of ‘wholeness’. All buildings here seemed to be a part of a larger facility. The city’s ground was like single piece of cast and all buildings were ‘installed’ on this piece of ground. Most of the things here appeared like shells and corals. The elegantly curves of the houses and the towering coral towers of different heights gave the impression that this was a deep-sea palace in the fairy tales—although weird, it was exquisite like a piece of artwork.

Only now that this elegant city had become dead and gloomy. All doors and windows were shut, streets devoid of any siren activities, and the clear seawater was filled with a depressing air as quiet and dull as a ghost town.

“It wasn’t like that when I left…” Shaqira looked sadly at the state of the city. “It used to be a lively and peaceful place. The sirens always like to swim around these pillars and sing… but now all has changed.”

“Don’t worry, everything will be fine as soon as we kill that monster brain,” Hao Ren comforted the depressed siren. “The situation isn’t too bad. Though they are under control, at least they’re alive.”

In order to avoid bumping into other patrolling sirens with higher thinking ability, they did not follow the dead into the city centre. Instead, they turned into another road to their destination: the Palace.

Shaqira had remembered some of the most inaccessible paths in the city. These places were close to the water-circulation pipeline of Nasaton. Usually no one would have noticed and it was much safer to move from here.

They were now advancing along a huge alloy pipe, which was buried in a groove that was more than ten meters wide. The groove itself was the best cover. Shaqira led the way as she touched the pipe around her. “When I was young, I would usually sneak out and play around the pipes, climb into the water inlet, and then transform into a gush of water inside, and circle the city before spouting out from the outlet on the other side of the city.”

Hao Ren was attracted by something else.

He looked at a nameplate on the pipe trough, which was written in twisty siren language. The translation was like this: Nasaton. Fourth Water Circulation Pipe. 3-Bar Pressure.

On the way earlier, he also saw more signs that could tell about the city. He finally figured out it was from those nameplates and simple maps of the facilities.

“Your city is a spaceship?”