The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

They had heard the female voice, which was hollow and ethereal, more than once. Hao Ren turned around. A woman was standing less than five meters away from him, wearing a long white dress. It was the kind of costume that upper-class women commonly wore two centuries ago. She had light brown curly hair, which she tied into a bun with two angel wings hanging down from behind her ears to her chest. Undoubtedly, the woman looked elegant and dignified with an aristocratic temperament, just as Hao Ren had seen in the portrait.

For a moment, Hao Ren’s gaze stayed on the woman, whose body’s edges were dithering slightly and translucent. Based on the information he had mastered, she was a ghost.

She was also undoubtedly the ghost that had warned them repeatedly.

“Here you are. You finally show up!” Hao Ren looked at the woman not far away. “I thought you will continue to watch from the sidelines.”

“You’re mistaken. It’s not that I finally show up, but you finally show up at my place.” The female ghost said coldly; she had an ethereal voice. “I didn’t expect you to come this far. Few could reach this dimension. Who are you guys?”

Hao Ren could not help but think of the little Malevolence in the bottle. It was only after the restlessness of the little Malevolence that the dimension started to deflect, and he and this team were able to enter this other realm. It is difficult to explain how a noobie possessed that ability, but what happened surely had something to do with the little guy.

Hao Ren could not explain this thing to the ghost, though. “We have our means,” he said.

The female ghost seemed to have no interest in this subject. Looking curiously at Hao Ren, she asked, “Why are you here? I can feel that you have a strong sense of mission; not for treasure, not for the knowledge of magic, and not for the sake of curiosity. Many had come before, but they were invariably after these three things. So what’s yours?”

“We’re here for Hercules.” Hesperides stepped forward. “We are looking for the divine artifact that he has taken.”

“Ahh, the worst of all the bad answers,” the ghost sighed. “You are looking for the most dangerous thing. I couldn’t believe that there are still people chasing after it—”

Hao Ren waved his hand, interrupting the ghost. “Wait a minute. You had better not to rush to the conclusion but first understand who we are. The one who was speaking just now was one of the survivors from the Olympian family, Hesperides.”

“A descendant of the Olympians?” There was finally an expression on the ghost’s face. “Why? Why has the survivor of the fallen Olympus suddenly come for Hercules and the divine artifact?”

“It’s not me, but my friend.” Hesperides pointed at Vivian. “Do you know who she is?”

The ghost looked at Vivian for a while and then shook her head. “I don’t know her. Even if I have known her before, I cannot recall now. Ahh, I have been dead for more than two centuries, and there are not many things I could remember now.”

“Vivian Ancestor, the oldest otherworldling; you should have some impression by now,” Vivian said faintly with a vibe of the elder. “The divine artifact, I suspect, has stolen my part of my power. I found out this from the records of the demon hunters and traced it until here. But now it seems that this thing is far more complicated than I have imagined.”

“The Countess of the Crimson Moon?” The ghost indeed remembered this ostentatious epithet. “Did you say that you found the record from the demon-hunters’ files? How is that possible? That information should be in Coldpath.”

Hao Ren cleared her throat and said, “We have gone to Coldpath multiple times. The outside world has undergone great changes. The war between the demon hunters and the otherworldlings has just ended. We have found the root cause of innate hostility and killing instinct and completely removed this curse. Ahh, this is not the right time to talk about this. If you would like to know more, we can explain it slowly later. Now, please tell us about this place.”

“Why not you tell me the changes outside.” The ghost suddenly floated up to less than a meter from Hao Ren; her face was as cold as a frost. “What you said sounds like a fantasy to me, which makes me even more suspicious of you guys. You are after a dangerous secret. I have no idea if you have a death wish, or are too confident. But convince me to believe in you!”

The stubbornness and moodiness of the ghost were well known. Hao Ren knew that if he wanted to figure things out here, he must gain the trust of this ghost, so he did not shirk. After letting out a sigh, he began to explain who they were, and the situation between the demon hunters and the otherworldlings. In his clarification, he especially emphasized on his adventures in Coldpath, which lent another layer of credibility to his words.

Of course, he did not divulge the secrets that outsiders should not have known.

It took him an hour to expound their background as the ghost frequently interrupted him with questions. When Hao Ren talked about the establishment of the Shadow Council and the rebuilding of Coldpath, the spirit became quiet at last.

“This is hard to swallow.” The ghost sighed in a whisper. “I wouldn’t have believed that the killing instinct is a removable shackle if not having experienced it personally. But your understanding of Coldpath is impossible to fake, just as the scene in the Netherrealm Clock Tower. I am willing to believe you—50 % maybe.”

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that 50% was an outstanding achievement already. He did not even mention about the First Sage accidentally reincarnating into the husky, and the vampire ancestor was the Thirteenth Sage. Had Hao Ren told the ghost about these, he would even have a harder time doing the explanation. Any demon hunters in their right mind, who had never witnessed the Battle of Coldpath, would not believe what he said. So he had better kept mom about these matters than shooting himself in the foot.

For this reason, he had shoved Lily back three times in a row to keep the matters under wrap. The canine maiden was too eager to interject as she could not wait to let the ghost meet Her Majesty.

“My name is Hathaway.” The ghost introduced herself—a signal of cooperativeness. “You can ask me any questions. I have a lot of time here.”

Vivian became the first one to ask, “Why did the demon hunters rub shoulders with the otherworldlings? The killing instinct and innate hostility of both Hercules and you all have also disappeared? Was it the effect of the divine artifact?”

“It seems that you are clueless about the situation of the divine artifact.” Hathaway looked into Vivian’s eyes. Probably because Hathaway was dead that she could see things beyond what the regular and young demon hunters could saw, she appeared less nervous when facing Vivian. “You only know that it possesses your strength, but not knowing that it also contains a secret far more profound than your power is. We were originally a strike team to hunt for Hercules. Twelves of us, on the west side of France, we set traps and fought Hercules, who was holding the divine artifact, for ten days and ten nights. During the battle, the innate hostility between us disappeared. Master Mohabben, who happened to have studied the killing instinct while he was inside the organization, first discovered the strange phenomenon. I think I don’t need to describe it in detail. In short, we finally came to a truce with Hercules.”

Hao Ren suddenly recalled what he had learned from White Flame. “Ahh, now I remember. I saw your records in the files of the demon hunters. Twelve demon hunters were missing during the last hunt for Hercules. People thought that they had perished together with Hercules. Are you one of the twelves demon hunters? You guys fake your deaths?”

Hathaway nodded and admitted it silently.

Hesperides asked, “As you knew that you guys would become heretics in the eyes of other demon hunters when you returned to the organization, and you were not willing to continue killing the otherworldlings when you found out that there was a problem with the killing instinct, so you chose to defect. Right?”

“We have not betrayed the organization,” Hathway treated this question rather seriously. “We are just concealing our identity and using our means to seek the truth.”

“Well, let’s not discuss this matter. The demon hunter organization of today is no longer the same as that of two centuries ago, during which the disappearance of killing instinct is a big deal.” Hao Ren said. “Let us focus on the divine artifact. I want to know what it is, what is inside it, and what have you done to this place.”

“We have built a prison to hold the mad potentate from our nightmares,” Hathaway said as she turned her head looking through the narrow window, which faced the village. “You may have seen its physical appearance in the real world. But here, this is the true face of the prison. As for the divine artifact, it is a long story. The core of that thing is not the creation of the Olympian gods. They stole it from the hand of the more ancient and more powerful existence.”

Hathaway said, looking at Vivian. “I’m not talking about you, by the way.”

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