The Record of Unusual Creatures

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The whole of Louen was like a ghost town; living beings still existed, but it felt dead.

The group traveled through the central avenue of the city and bumped into a few pedestrians who saw them but avoided them like the plague. Lily forcibly stopped a couple of the passersby, who appeared afraid and hostile. They could not talk coherently, so Lily was unable to extract any valuable information from the people. As such, she had no choice but to let them go.

Most of the houses along the streets were inhabited. But irrespective of Calaxus and Hao Ren who went up to knock on the doors, the gloomy and wary people in the houses would invariably refuse to open the door, let alone telling the strangers what had happened here. When Calaxus offered to help them, those people viciously curse and drove him away. A sense of hostility and anger that came out of nowhere shrouded the city.

Hao Ren could not help but miss the days when the MDT was around. The mobile data terminal might be annoying and bitchy, but at least its function was handy. Hao Ren could have used its life detector to scan the residents to see if these people had any anomaly in them.

The other knights and monks had also split up and gone into the streets to find the locals who could talk. After some time, everyone came back to the rendervous on the avenue. Things seemed to not go smoothly judging from the disappointed faces.

“No one wants to talk to ‘outsiders’,” a monk said sadly. “Even though I have told them that I am a senior priest, they still treat me like a thief.”

Another knight shook his head too. “I feel an atmosphere that has turned people in the city into a seriously exclusive community. They seem to regard all those who do not belong to them as threats. I have no idea how this mentality came about.”

Calaxus traced a religious symbol in front of his chest. “Goddess bless us. Are these still the same glorious people of Sanctum?”

Hao Ren turned and looked at the mysterious woman who had never said a word since coming to the city. “Lady Gloom, you seem to know a lot of things. So, what is the situation now?”

Lady Gloom shook her head and said, “Stop treating me like I am omniscient.”

The church warriors that Calaxus brought refrained from entering the houses by force, so things had gone nowhere. They could only fall back on using magic. A few monks took out their sacred items and began to measure the magic-energy level in the city. Calaxus believed that in such a strange urban atmosphere, most likely, they could capture the shadows of dark creatures. Since the city inhabitants could not help, they could only grab and interrogate a few spirits.

Hao Ren took this opportunity to find a quiet place and made a call to the outside world.

The communication speed was surprisingly fast, and the signal was strong—the strongest since he first came to Collow.

“Hey, buddy!” The voice of the MDT sounded in Hao Ren’s head. “Wait a minute, did you get a wifi router over there? The signal is pretty good!”

“I am in Sanctum now,” Hao Ren said quickly. “Something is wrong here. This place has been semi-Chaoticized.”

“Sanctum?” It was Vivian. “Are you talking about the place where the goddess of creation performed her miracle? Is it not the center of the sacred power of Collow, the place with the strongest power of Order?”

“It used to be, but now there is a problem,” Hao Ren quickly told of the rapidly weakening Light of Asurmen in Sanctum over the past few months and its final extinguishment. “I will investigate the cause of the snuffing out of the Light of Asurmen; you do not have to worry about it. Now it is important to test whether you can deliver physical material to me. According to the MDT’s and my previous speculations, the goddess of creation is a bridge between the Collow dimension and the outside world. As the core of divine power, Sanctum is the foundation of this bridge, the place where the two spaces are most closely connected. Now the strength of the communication signal proves this theory. Here, the connection between Collow and the external universe is solid. We can now begin to experiment with a material transfer.”

“I got it. I will start the crack generator, which I have just finished building, right away. The first round of testing will take twenty four hours. But because it is a test, I cannot precisely control the timing and drop point of the material transmission but only guarantee that it would come out within a certain range around you,” the MDT said.

“No problem, I will watch for any phenomenon here.” Hao Ren nodded.

“Is Doggie obedient?” It was Vivian who spoke again.

“She…” Hao Ren glanced up and saw Lily looking for strange stones in the distance. The husky turned around and grinned at Hao Ren when she noticed his stare. The furry pointed ears stood erect in the air and the tail wagged behind her, which meant Lily was in a good mood. “She has been obedient. I am pretty content after getting her back. Do you still have the hair growth herbal formula with you?”

“Hair growth soup?” Vivian was curious. “Yeah. Two of the herbs are not available now, but I can use magic or other potions as a substitute. My blood magic is the main active ingredient anyway. Why are you asking?”

“Lily’s tail has gone bald.” Hao Ren’s mouth twitched. “When she goes home, don’t laugh at her; it will hurt her self-esteem.”

“She has self-esteem? Okay, I know. Please be safe and come back soon.”

When the communication ended, Hao Ren smiled and shook his head. Suddenly, he saw a shadow in a dark corner the street in his peripheral vision.

Shadows of people lurking around were not an uncommon scene in this city that had been invaded by dark energy. But Hao Ren immediately found that the figure, not far away from him, was somewhat different from the people on the streets he had seen before.

The person ambled, unlike the panicking people who would flee quickly. But this figure was also unlike a normal person because he was so slow-moving that his walking posture became weird.

“There are no normal people in this place,” Hao Ren mumbled, pacing quietly to follow the person.

The person was unaware that someone was trailing him and kept staggering ahead. His footsteps were unsteady, but every step he took was almost of the same distance.

Hao Ren got closer and the person still did not respond.

Seeing this situation, Hao Ren might as well get up to the person by making noise with his footsteps.

But there was still no response from the person.

Hao Ren came before the man, who looked like an ordinary civilian. The man’s greasy hair stuck to his scalp and his short black coat was not cheap, but dirty, as if he had not changed it for many days. There seemed to be no expression on the man’s face as he staggered along a fixed route. Hao Ren stood a few meters in front of the man, who seemed not to notice him.

It was as if the man’s spirit had detached itself from the body.

Hao Ren was no stranger to this phenomenon. He had seen many similar phenomena in various mysterious and cursed places, but the key was to find out what had caused this phenomenon and the connection between this man, who seemed to have lost his soul, and the cautious and hostile residents of the city.

Others had noticed the anomaly here. Lily and Calaxus ran over. When they saw the man doddering ahead, a chill ran down their spines. Lily pulled Hao Ren’s sleeve and asked, “Mr. Landlord, what happened to this man?”

“It seems that his soul is detached from his body, or he is hallucinating,” Hao Ren said in a whisper. “I tried to wake him up but couldn’t.”

“Follow him,” Calaxus said after thinking for a moment.

The man who seemed to have lost his soul lurched on a cold and empty street while a group of mean-looking guys trailed him. Everyone lowered their voices. In the city shrouded in darkness, the atmosphere only became stranger.

“Where is he going?” Hao Ren asked in a low voice.

“He seems to be heading to the cathedral in the city center,” someone among the Sanctum warriors, who knew Loen well, said.

As the man continued to amble, Hao Ren saw a similar figure emerged out at a nearby intersection.

“Look over there, another one!”

Lily also shouted quietly, “Mr. Landlord, there is also one here!”

As they got deeper into the city, more of these zombies emerged from the streets.

Up to this point, those residents who appeared panicked and in fear were nowhere to be seen. Only people who looked like zombies were on the street. Body after body, which had lost their souls, staggered in the street, forming a crowd and moved towards the cathedral in the city center.

But there was no sound.

Lily’s ears and tail suddenly perked up. “Mr. Landlord, things are creepy!”

The silhouette of the cathedral was visible at the end of the square. The top of the cathedral was still radiating the Light of Order. Like a candle in the wind, it would go out anytime soon.

The silent crowd moved forward, like a sludge, slowly but persistently as if wanting to devour the last piece of pure land.

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