The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Apollo, the only god who retained his original name after being transferred from the Greek to the Roman religious system. Many people in later generations only knew that Apollo was the sun god in ancient Greek mythology, but in the Greek legends, Apollo was the god or arts. It was not until the fifth century BC that Apollo was accorded the title “god of sun and light”. After the Romans included Apollo into their religious system, they did not give him a new name like they did to other Greek gods. And in the evolution of mythology, Apollo was recognized as the god of music, healing, prophecy, the sun and light, and so on. In the Roman mythological system, Apollo’s multiple roles reflected the level of imagination of people from that period.

It also mirrored the collapse of the divine realm.

The reason was straightforward. When the Thunder Colossi—Zeus’ family—on Mount Olympus was still powerful, they directly ruled the creatures on Earth. Their existence was real and unquestionable. The mortals on the ground knew the gods they served and what kind of power their gods possessed. But as the army of the demon hunters brought down the protective barrier of Olympus, Zeus and all his family members were caught up in the war. They no longer had time for earthly things. For hundreds of years, the connection with the divine realm had been intermittent, and the priests on Earth had to find ways to maintain the status and influence of the gods they worshipped. So aside from feigning some stories about the deities, there was nothing else the priests could do.

So people’s understanding of their gods was blurred and shrouded in a mysterious veil as they accorded the gods with more and more roles as well as titles.

When there were no religious activities and celebrations, temples were relatively deserted. At the moment, the Romans had yet to enter the period where people would be immersed in worldly pleasure and indulgence. They still needed to spend a great deal of time working. Those who came into the temples on regular days were mainly nobility or people seeking help during a personal crisis. Today, the temple was mostly deserted. Hao Ren and his entourage stepped into the temple and saw the empty hall. The statue and altar of the sun god, Apollo, stood majestically as a few monks cleaned the altar.

Hessiana glanced at the statue of Apollo and twitched her mouth. “His eyes are too big.”

Hasse also took a look and said, “This is the one I killed.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

The monks had noticed the group of uninvited guests in the holy temple talking and pointing at the statue disrespectfully. An old man wearing a purple-edged white robes came up to them. He glanced at Hasse cautiously as if his years of serving the god had enabled him to sense the demon-hunter air of Hasse. “Are you here to seek guidance from the Great Apollo?”

Hao Ren glanced at the old man and said, “Who is the high priest here?”

The old man stood upright. He was as proud as any priests in this era. “I am the high priest.”

Hao Ren nodded. “Well, we have to talk to Apollo. Please contact him for us.”

The old man was startled. He does not sound like one who comes to seek guidance or is a worshipper, the old man said to himself. He had been here for most of his life as a priest and yet no one had ever come up with such a request. “Do not be rude! Do you know that this is a sacred place?”

Hessiana stepped forward. “Of course we know, that is why we come to look for Apollo. Otherwise, where else can we find Apollo?”

The old priest blinked and thought that they were barbarians who had no clues of the rules of the civilized world. He patiently explained, “If you mean to listen to the revelation of God, then you should first—”

Lily had run out of patience. She stepped forward and grabbed the collar of the old priest while a pair of pointed wolf ears popped up on her head. “Old man, can you not understand? We want to talk to Apollo. Look at my ears, do you still not figure out who we are?”

The old priest was scared stiff looking at Lily’s wolf ears. And then he saw Hessiana had summoned a blood-red energy ball and finally came to his senses. “You… you guys are deities?”

At this time, the Mythological era had not yet over, and the demon hunters were already right up on Mount Olympus, but the otherworldlings were a common sight in the human world. To ordinary humans, these otherworldlings were gods.

Hao Ren had all this while been dealing directly with the gods, this weird social and religious phenomenon appeared a bit ridiculous in his eyes. But during this era, this understanding was common sense, even part of human life.

Lily nodded with satisfaction. “Very good. We need to see Apollo, but Olympus is closed. We know you have a sacred object by which you could contact Olympus.”

Hasse chimed in and said coldly, “It is your honor.”

Cold sweat trickled down the old priest’s forehead on the shoulders. He then suddenly shouted at the junior priests and monks. “Fast! Close the temple gate!”

The massive entrance shut. If this happened during the day, it would arouse speculation among the people. But Hao Ren and his team could not care less about what the people thought. The old priest brought them further inside the temple. There, another statue and altar of Apollo stood, but there was no worship place for the general believers. It was a place used only by the priests of the temple.

The old priest took out a delicate brass box from a hidden spot below the statue. He opened the box and took out a gold badge with a sun relief, his face filled with a complicated expression of excitement and awe as he handed the badge to Hao Ren.

When Hao Ren reached out to take the badge, the old priest suddenly took a deep breath and said, “You… you might not be able to contact the great Apollo.”

Hao Ren’s eyebrows arched. “Why?”

The old priest seemed reluctant to reveal more. As a humble mortal servant, he had limited understanding of the divine realm, nor did he know whether his actions would please his god or anger him. After some hesitation, the old priest finally said, “Even we have a hard time contacting the divine realm. Perhaps the sinful behavior of the humans had angered the gods. Since decades ago, the gods rarely reveal their will and only occasionally answered our prayers. Especially in the last ten years, I have never heard from the Great Apollo. Probably… maybe we have lost God’s protection.”

The old priest sounded nervous. On the one hand, it was the uneasiness from losing response from the gods; on the other hand, he was worried that he would anger these unknown gods before him.

Otherworldling gods had never been sympathetic to humans. They only wanted the worship and entertainment of humans. In this era, humans were more at awe and in fear of the gods. Gods of Olympus and Norse were more amiable to them but much harder to deal with the deities that wandered around in the world.

The gods could become angry, and sometimes, even massacre the entire town at a whim. The old priest was uneasy because he had no idea whether these people in front of him were good or bad deities.

Hao Ren and Hasse exchanged a look after hearing what the old priest said.

The war in the divine realm would not directly affect humans, but its indirect influence would inevitably spread to the human world.

The first ones to feel the effect were people in the temple. Most of the temples in the world had lost contact with their respective divine realms.

But that did not bother Hao Ren at all. As long as Mount Olympus was still there, he would have a way to contact the gods.

Hao Ren took the badge in his hands as the old priest watched nervously.

Hidden beneath the gold-plated surface was a delicate magic mechanism. Its function was to read the mind’s signal of the holder. After a simple decoding process, it forwarded the signal to the Olympian communication center in the other dimension.

It was sort of a magic version of the walkie-talkie.

And to make the mentally weak and humans who lacked magic skills, this communication device had also been deliberately simplified to make it human-friendly. Even so, only a small number of trained and talented humans could activate its power. But at least the priests in the temple had been able to use it.

Since ordinary humans could master its usage after some training, it was so much easier for Hao Ren to decoding the gadget.

In the blink of an eye, Hao Ren had removed the anti-theft chain module of the golden badge, and then activated the device as the surface of the badge began to glow with a faint golden brilliance.

The old priest looked in awe. He used all his strength but could barely make the badge respond, but Hao Ren had made it glow like a star with the snap of a finger. The old priest now realized how powerful these ‘gods’ in front of his eyes were; he humbly bowed his head.

“Your power is amazing.”

As the Olympian gods were caught up in the battle with the demon hunters, they had no time to take care of what happened in the human world. Their rule of intimidation and violence became unsustainable, and not many priests were still loyal to them.

“Leave us alone,” Hao Ren told the old priest. “What we are going to discuss is the secret between the gods.”

The old priest was hesitant. “But—”

“Don’t worry, Apollo will not blame you,” Hessiana said and shot the old priest a glance. “But if you do not leave, we will blame you.”

The old priest quaked in his boots and left the place.