The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Lily’s departure was expected. It was a reminder to Hao Ren that he would have to complete the journey all by himself ultimately.

After the great battle of the Twilight of the Gods in 44 BC, the journey back in time went further and further back in history. In Hao Ren’s eyes, the world was strange during the BC era. The time-travel journey had utterly changed his view on history. History, as recorded by humans, was inaccurate. All the more so when it came to records about the era of the ancient gods. When there were too many supernatural elements interspersed throughout recorded history, materialistic historians of later generations often chose to separate the myths and legends, and they allowed the scholars of religion and mythology to deal with them. But for Hao Ren, those things that the historians removed were his personal experiences.

He had witnessed many ancient kingdoms that were not recorded in history books. Some were kingdoms of dark magic and some were indescribably different worlds. Some were built on land, which floated in the sky and relied on sunlight to stay afloat. Some were underground, harnessing the energy of magma and rock. Bizarre alien creatures ruled these worlds with strange laws and ceremonies that were ridiculous to modern humans. While at the same time, humans had been slaves to these kingdoms, serving their alien masters for generations and participating in endless wars with other “miracle cities”.

Hao Ren had also seen many real-life versions of myths. When he passed by the Mediterranean region for the second time, he found Jason with the help of Hesperides. Hao Ren helped Jason find the Golden Fleece in exchange for information of Vivian’s whereabouts. While Hao Ren was in Egypt, Seth raided Horus and thrust his knife at the Egyptian god of protection, Hao Ren appeared out of nowhere and decapitated Seth, gaining the gratitude and trust of Ra and access to the anti-gravity fortress, the Solar Ship. With the help of the Solar Ship’s radar, Hao Ren found Vivian in the pyramid buried under the yellow sand. In Babylon, the war battle between Marduk and Tiamat was in a stalemate. Hasse fired a shot from a nearby mountain and blinded an eye of Tiamat, earning the respect of the Babylonian gods, who told him the location of the Lord of the Blood, Vivian.

The prime period of the Mythological Era lasted for 5,000 years, during which Hao Ren saw a world where the aliens ruled the earth, humans were the slaves, and the rise and fall of many lost ancient kingdoms. Those otherworldlings had built many cities and kingdoms, but constant war and the lack of proper social order had often time caused these kingdoms to disappear from this world before they could even make their marks in history.

Those otherworldling gods who could survive the first 3,000 years were divided into two types. They either possessed strong inborn abilities or inherited the technologies and magical creations from their homeworld. The kingdoms these gods built were categorized into two distinct types. The former was darker and more brutal; the cities they built with rocks stank of blood almost every day. The cruel blood sacrifice ceremony was the favorite pastime of these beast-like gods. On the other hand, the latter was more like extraterrestrial aliens that had built their colonies on Earth. The metal and energy barriers that encapsulated the ancient cities were beyond the times. The center of some of the ancient cities was actually a stranded alien spaceship. The stone cities of humankind built around these seemingly sci-fi or magical fortresses looked odd yet mysterious.

But no matter which type of cities, there was not much difference to the humans at that time. Even those advanced cities with a high level of civilization, technology or magic, their comfortable environment was not prepared for humans.

Humans usually were for the biochemical laboratories, radioactive ore mining sites, and battlefields.

There were also a few relatively mild ‘paradise on earth.’ After all, even the most apathetic otherworldlings had a few god bearers who sympathized with the earthlings. But this goodwill could not reverse the tide of the Era. Humans were living in dire straits during the entire Mythological period.

Lightning flashed across the sky. The glaring light was frozen in the night sky before it disappeared. Black, white and gray were the only colors of the world and time stood still.

The Babylonians worshipping in the square had also turned into gray stone statues and were quickly swallowed up by the darkness that came from afar. At last, only the king of Babylon was left. The king, standing in front of the crowd, wearing a crown on his head, was merely regarded by the gods as a leader of the monkey group and a tool. But as the king of the humans, he still had the look of a king. But now, even the king had turned into a stone statue with a surprised expression forever frozen in time on his face.

Hao Ren poked his head out from the door and made sure that the entire city of Babylon had disintegrated into bits and bytes, just like previously before he turned back into the temple.

It was another hurried reunion. This time, Vivian had left Hao Ren a suggestion.

“Do not use your human identity anymore. Going forward, humans would be a bad disguise as they would be regarded as runaway slaves of some gods. At least, this applies in most places where gods are present.”

“We will meet again in the next era.”

“The Mythological Era is such a terrible period.” Hessiana sighed and leaned on a black stone pillar after Vivian left. “Even I can feel how bad the quality of those gods at the end of the Mythological Era was. What could you expect from a group of disorganized and undisciplined otherworldlings in managing a habitable planet? They were unruly. The goddess of creations must have selected the passengers of the Ark by merely throwing the dice.”

Hesperides could not help but look at Little Bat. “Are you talking about me? I was very concerned about humans back then. I even saved an entire city.”

“But the Olympus family sucked.” Hessiana never minced her words. She did not give a shit of who was the senior and who was the junior, except for Vivian. “You do know what kind of person Hades was, right? What about the violent Ares, and Poseidon, who set off the storm at whim?”

As the atmosphere became a little awkward, Hao Ren hemmed and interrupted. “That was thousands of years ago. Let us not raking up the past.”

Hessiana rolled her eyes and still leaned comfortably on the black stone pillar. “Okay, okay. But then, compared to the disorganized small cities, major celestials like Olympus and Norse did have a better conscience. At the very least, they were big clans which had rules and regulations. The human kingdoms under their purview would live on as long as the humans abided by their rules. But the fate of those living under the control of behemoths or devils gods were gloomy. Sometimes, the devils would wipe out an entire city simply because they felt like doing it.

“Those fellows were not intelligent being,” Hasse said. “Perhaps they suffered from brain trauma after they crossed the Wall of Reality. Some of them had mutated into beasts on Earth. Humans living under their rules suffered the most but had no means to resist.”

“Well, from this point of view, the massacre of the pseudo-gods by the demon hunters has done humanity a great favor. Thank you for furthering the development of civilization on this planet and not letting it drown in the swamps of the Dark Ages.” Hessiana gnashed her teeth and said sarcastically. She then looked down at her legs as a grayish stone luster spread on her legs before turning to look back at the basalt stele of the Code of Hammurabi. “It looks like I am going the way of the dumb dog. Hammurabi’s era… Haih, I don’t even have the endurance level of a husky.”

The grayish petrification luster had spread to Hessiana’s waist and abdomen, but it did not prevent her from speaking. She thought for a moment as if trying to summarize a few words of advice for Hao Ren, but time was not on her side. She shook her head and said, “Forget it. You have enough experience now; I do not think I have any more advice for you. But just remember this: listen to Hesperides. The Mythological Era was her home turf while the demon hunter there was only an outlawed militant before 2,000 BC.”

After Lily, Hessiana was the second team member to drop out. This time, however, there was no new entrant.

Now, only Hesperides and Hasse left to helping Hao Ren.

It was true that Hesperides and Hasse were not the only ancients whom Hao Ren knew. The Norse gods Odin, and Coldpath’s Elder Gregowen were active in the early days of the Mythological Era and still alive in the real world. Raven 12345 had also gathered every ancient Hao Ren knew and had them standing by near the portal. But the journey back in time was filled with uncertainty; Hao Ren did not have the luxury of choosing who to summon.

It was because Hao Ren could only backtrack to a particular point in time, and his landing location was limited to nearby Vivian. Considering the wanderer lifestyle of the Countess, Hao Ren might end up in some city, at the bottom of the Atlantic, in the desert, or in extreme cases, in the crater of a volcano.

God knows how Vivian could sleep well in such hellish places.

The chances of getting new helpers while backtracking along the historical timeline was entirely a matter of probability.

Instead of expanding the geographical area to recruit his team members and thus increasing the risk of failure, it was better to make do with whatever resources and strength at hand. Such was the solution that Hao Ren, Hesperides, and Hasse had reached.

Now that Little Bat had returned to the real world, leaving only three persons in the team.

It was 1,788 BC, and it was going to be a long way ahead.