The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

When Heimdallr was killed, the Bifröst link between the Nine Worlds was solidified into a chain. At the top of the chain was Asgard, and the Midgard space was located at the seventh place in the space chain. The other two, ranked eighth and ninth in the space chain, had a terrible reputation. They sounded depressing: Niebelungen, the world of death, and Niflheim.

“In fact, Niebelungen and Niflheim can be regarded as one,” Vivian said while standing on the broken steps of Bifröst, looking at the pale purple cloudy sky in the distance and the decomposed and cracked earth beneath her feet. “Even if Heimdallr died and the Bifröst system was disrupted and rearranged, the two spaces would always be connected because several of Yggdrasil’s most important branches undergo differentiation in these two spaces. According to the information we have now, this should be the location of the brain nucleus and important nerve ganglia of the Firstborn. The Firstborn’s powerful mental power substantially merged the two spaces, causing parts of the Niebelungen and Niflheim to coincide directly across the dimensional door. There is a zone known as the ‘Fog Gate’ at the border between the two worlds. It’s all dense fog. That’s where the two worlds overlap.”

A bright flash of lightning pierced the sky, but strangely, the terrifying lightning made no sound at all. It left a sharp crack in the sky and eventually broke into hundreds of lilac light streams and fell to the end of the horizon. The whole Niebelungen was dead as if the air here had died, too.

“It used to be Hela’s territory. She was a powerful necromancer. It is said that the deceased will first fall into the world of death and become residents of the world of death. As their souls dissipate, they will become lone souls wandering in Niebelungen, and gradually approach the ‘Fog Gate’. Once they enter the fog, the deceased will be completely lost their memory of life, and irreversibly absorbed by Niflheim into dark elements, and eventually became the energy source of Hela’s palace. But Hela is not the only ruler of Niebelungen and Niflheim. Another powerful creature occupies half of them…”

“Nidhogg, the black dragon.” Hao Ren nodded and looked to the far end of the broken earth, where a crater was vaguely visible.

They were now in Niebelungen, the world of death, and the direction they were looking at was the boundary line of Niflheim.

It has also been destroyed by the magic storm. The muddy lilac sky was filled with deadly toxic gases and radioactive dust. Toxic sludge and disgusting boiling springs could be seen everywhere on the rotten and curled land. All the mountains were bare and all the rivers had been steamed dry. But compared with several other spaces, Niebelungen was even worse: it was not a good place even before the Twilight of the Gods.

It used to be the research center for the study of necromancy and biochemical base of Aesir gods and the place where Hela created viral weapons and the necromancer legion.

The Twilight of the Gods only magnifies the degree of decaying in this evil land.

“Nidhogg keeps gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil, and eventually leading to the total decay of the tree, the branches that support the Nine Worlds withered and broke, causing all the worlds to collapse…” Hao Ren whispered while walking down the Bifröst along the vines of Yggdrasil and stepping on the severely decayed dark land, “Nidhogg finally falls on the border mountain of Niebelungen, which is its original nest, where it constantly gnaws at the root of Yggdrasil. The source of decay is here… Theoretically, the key to tackling the decay is here, too.”

Y’lisabet was trying to keep up with them, jumping forward and shouting, “Uncle Ren, do you really think that the old man who was locked up in the crystal for 2,000 years didn’t have hallucinations or anything?”

“It’s better to believe it. And I think Odin seems perfectly sane. He won’t have any hallucination.” Hao Ren then turned his head and looked at the little demon girl and asked, “So how long are you going to hold that leg?”

Y’lisabet carried a mechanical spider leg several times larger than herself on her shoulder, and though she was staggering, her face turned red with joy. “Of course, I’m going to carry it back! It’s gonna take me some time to take it apart.”

That’s right. That’s the mechanical arm removed from the spider made by Steam6. Y’lisabet disassembled the whole thing with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, and the little girl carried it all the way here!

“Well, if I let you keep it in my dimensional pocket…” suggested Hao Ren.

Y’lisabet almost jumped up at once, and the small horns on her forehead burst with squeaky sparks. “No! Uncle Ren, let me carry it for a while, just for a while, I want to lick it…”

Everybody was speechless.

“Man, keep an eye on your daughter. She dares lick it. Look at the engine oil in her mouth,” Vivian said while covering her head and shaking her head. Then she released a little bat and said, “I’ve found six larger tentacles. The mutation is as serious as Odin described.”

Hao Ren smacked his lips and found it incredible. “I can’t believe that Yggdrasil is actually rotting…”

He remembered the suggestion Odin had given to them before they left and the great amount of important information he had provided at the same time.

Odin said, “… If you want to save this place fundamentally, maybe you can go and see what happened to Yggdrasil. Although I don’t know what’s going on there, the decay of the tree is full of suspicions…

“I once heard a voice in a few unusual dreams. The voice had a frightening power, but it was struggling painfully. I believe that the source of the voice is Yggdrasil because I see huge, continuous vines running through all worlds in some messy dreams. The vines curled in pain together, with a heart that was constantly dyed black wrapped in the middle of it.

“The decay of Yggdrasil seems inconceivable to me. I know that in the legend of the human world, it’s Nidhogg that caused the tree to wither and die, but I know that the black dragon could not pollute the tree at all. Yggdrasil is a powerful tree far beyond our imagination. It cannot be destroyed, at least not by ordinary creatures. That’s right. I knew that before you came here. I still have this level of exploration in mind…

“I confirm the authenticity of those dreams. I am an Aesir. We have a deep understanding of our spiritual world. Especially in dreams, we can’t go wrong. A powerful creature intruded into my dreams with its spiritual power – not actively, of course, but the mental disturbance it produced in its struggle interfered with my thinking, but anyway, I believe it was Yggdrasil.”

That’s all the information Odin provided. Although ambiguous, the amount of information contained in it was astonishing, and eventually prompted them to go to Niebelungen to explore it: according to information recorded by the Aesirian, the decay began here.

As Odin said before, theoretically, Yggdrasil would not decay, and this was also Hao Ren’s view. Although the myth was that Nidhogg gnawed the roots of the tree, leading it to decay, according to Hao Ren’s understanding of the Firstborn, this process should be reversed: the powerful Firstborn unconsciously leaked its dream and attracted Nidhogg, Nidhogg was exposed to the body fluids of the Firstborn in a state of confusion, and then was contaminated and gone mad. Throughout the process, there was no ‘decay infection’ in Yggdrasil. This could also be confirmed by their previous observations of the Firstborn’s tentacles in Asgard: the tentacles along the Asgard border appeared healthy and robust, showing no signs of decay.

But Odin said there was evidence that Yggdrasil was indeed suffering from the decay, which was beyond Hao Ren’s expectation.

When something goes wrong, there must be a demon. Hao Ren thought of the strange state of Yggdrasil that Ymir said before.

And if Yggdrasil did have the next series of weird actions because of the mutation, then Hao Ren had a third option:

Investigate the cause of the mutation, try to treat the Firstborn, and finally, use his strength.

The magic radiation trapped in Midgard was an irresistible natural disaster for the ordinary race and great trouble for Hao Ren and the team – not that their power could not fight the radiation, but that it took professional equipment and team to clear it, and it took a relatively long time. But if they could wake the Firstborn up and get its helped, this kind of radiation may easily be eliminated: the great body of the Firstborn that ran through the Nine Worlds was the best purification tool, and his one breath may change the atmospheric structure of all spaces.

Even if the plan was unsuccessful, it was still necessary to treat the Firstborn: if they can keep the Firstborn from going mad, then they can move the Twilight Capital or build a second later of Twilight Shroud freely.

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