The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Hao Ren told them what he had seen and heard on the Crimson Moon and what he had experienced in the illusion, including the mysterious exotic land full of thunders and crystals, the boundary blocked by dark fog, and the ‘second scene’ after crossing the boundary. He also mentioned some of his discoveries and conjectures for their analysis and reference.

“Now I can confirm that the Crimson Moon is a mini copy of the Star of Creation — or a projection. So I think the thing I see on the Crimson Moon will definitely have an ‘original version’ that is several times bigger on the Star of Creation, or it will have an original, such as Lockmarton’s lair. Although Muru and Lemendusa did not know it existed, at some point in history, the Goddess of Creation apparently made such a home for Lockmarton on her own planet.

“Secondly, regarding the world I saw in the illusion, it is obviously not the Star of Creation, but the crystal clusters growing in that world are exactly the same as the crystal jungle on the seabed of the Crimson Moon, and the crystals on the seabed of the Crimson Moon are the key to entering the illusion, so the connection between the two is obvious. I guess the Goddess of Creation visited the planet full of crystals, built some mysterious facilities on it, and then brought some crystals to the Star of Creation and hid them under the sea. I just don’t know if Muru knows the existence of these crystals… If only we could get further information from the guardian giant.

“At the end of the illusion, I saw the Goddess of Creation sitting on the crystal throne, sealed with the throne by a huge crystal, but we all know that the Goddess of Creation was finally stabbed and fallen on the battlefield of the god-slaying war, so the illusion is somewhat contradictory. I think of three explanations. The first is that the scene I saw at that time was not a seal, but just a normal phenomenon when the Crystal Throne was activated. Maybe that device is used this way, just like some kind of dormant chamber. The second is that not all illusions are real. It may have been distorted or changed with the subjective idea of the observer himself. At that time, when I looked at the illusion, I felt that the Goddess wanted to sit on it, and then she sat on it, which may be some kind of ‘observer phenomenon’. Third, this conjecture was based on the information just given by Vivian. Perhaps the one sitting on the crystal throne was not the real Goddess of Creation, but another Goddess, the contaminated one.”

Hao Ren stopped here for a moment to give them some time to think. Lily frowned for a moment and then raised her hand. “Landlord, I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“You said the Crimson Moon was the projection of the Star of Creation, right? And it’s stationary, so the Crimson Moon is like a snapshot of the Star of Creation at a certain moment. It records the state of the Star of Creation at that moment, and time no longer flows,” Lily said, wagging her tail as if indicating that her brain was running at a high speed. “So which moment of the Star of Creation is recorded on the Crimson Moon?”

Hao Ren blinked and thought for a moment, then answered, “It should be before the Goddess of Creation cut out her own memory because there’s Lockmarton’s lair on it, so the point of time should be before the birth of the guardian giants and Firstborns.”

Lily, looked proud as if she had discovered some amazing secret, asked, “So the crystal jungle on the Crimson Moon seabed should have appeared at that time too? The world you see in the illusion, and the crystal throne, is also the scene before the Goddess of Creation cut out her own memory?”

Hao Ren frowned and finally realized what was wrong.

Nangong Sanba also realized the problem. “That is to say, if the crystal jungle on the Crimson Moon seabed, the crystal throne and the goddess figure in the illusion happened before the Goddess of Creation cut out her own memory, then landlord’s third guess is not true. According to Vivian, the Goddess of Creation was completely split into two on the eve of the godslaying war, so the goddess figure in the illusion couldn’t be another Goddess of Creation. At that time, the Goddess was not split into two.”

Hao Ren muttered to himself, “Unless there is a problem with the timeline…”

“What did you say?” asked Vivian.

“No, nothing. I’m just wondering if there’s a problem with the sequence of these things.” Hao Ren frowned and shook his head. “But I have no idea yet. I need to go back and think about it carefully.”

Nangong Sanba, leaning on the wall next to him, said leisurely, “The most important thing is that we have to sort it out from scratch – how many of the ‘final acts of the Goddess of Creation’ we know so far are actually done by the real Goddess of Creation, and how many by another woman under the influence of the Mad Lord?”

“The Mad Lord is just a chaotic creature without any thinking ability, but what he did had eventually turned into such a complicated situation…” Nangong Wuyue sighed and said.

The Mad Lord himself has no thinking ability, but the creatures it eroded have,” Vivian shook her head and explained. “It can’t think, but the intelligent creatures controlled by its power – they will become the thinking organs of the Mad Lord, and serve the Mad Lord consciously or unconsciously. The Goddess of Creation should be the most powerful brain the Mad Lord has ever found. If the Goddess of Creation hadn’t chosen to destroy herself at the last moment to stop all this, I’m afraid we would face a more troublesome situation.”

“If that happens, it won’t be a rookie like me to deal with it,” Hao Ren joked. “I heard my boss has The Annihilation Protocol. Once it’s signed, the whole world will be deleted in the blink of an eye. So scary.”

Lily couldn’t help looking at him when she heard this. “Landlord, to be honest, are you really sure that you’re doing a rookie job now? Why do I think that a rookie like you, who has just been on the job for less than four years, is more successful than your colleagues who have worked for hundreds of thousands of years?”

And the one answered her was the data terminal that was lying on Hao Ren’s head pretending to be an iron hat. “Not just you, I also think that there’s a shady deal behind it…”

Hao Ren, “…”

Hao Ren did not really care. He had come to this stage entirely of his own choices, and he had no regrets for these choices. What he was more concerned about now was what Nangong Sanba just reminded him.

The Goddess of Creation did many things before she fell. How many of them were done by her own will, and how many were done under the subconscious influence of the Mad Lord?

According to the information provided by Vivian, the split of the Goddess of Creation took place less than a thousand years before the outbreak of the godslaying war. At that time, she discovered the abnormal situation in her soul, and then she realized that there were two ‘selves’ on the Star of Creation. Through a process that no mortal could understand, she pulled another her out and deceived or induced it to accomplish a wave of ‘anti-interference’.

She banished the ‘dark side’, who was intent on releasing the Mad Lord, into the kingdom of the godslayer race, which was a race with great potential danger which she created under the influence of the Mad Lord, and it was another back door for the Mad Lord to get out of trouble.

Through unconscious influence, she let her dark side lead the god slayers to launch the rebellion, and finally, willingly die on the battlefield.

She skillfully utilized the two hidden threats that the Mad Lord had left beside her, removing all the route of retreat for the Mad Lord by letting the two hidden threats and her die together.

However, in the whole process of confronting the dark side of herself, the Goddess did not take the absolute advantage. Although she expelled the eroded Goddess, the connection between the two was uninterrupted. She interfered and induced the latter to act, but in fact, the latter was also influencing her constantly. Her greatest achievement after banishing the dark side was actually to restore the Star of Creation from a crazy quantum superposition to a normal state so that she could stay a little more awake, but essentially, from the day she realized that she had been eroded, she had not really awakened.

So everything she did in this period of time… It’s hard to say whose will it was.

What did she do in the process?

She induced the god slayers, plotted her own assassination, and eventually fell on the battlefield.

At the last moment, she found out that the situation was out of control, so she urgently organized the evacuation of the refugees of the Plane of Dreams, sent a large number of ‘kindling’ of the Plane of Dreams to the trans-space Ark Yggdrasil, and sent them to the Earth.

She also executed the final absolution to forgive the sins of all mortal races.

She created Vivian Ancestor and made her the ‘guide’ for some grand project.

Oh, and earlier, she designed and started building the Creation’s Engine, a mysterious plan that even her guardians did not know what their mother was trying to do with it.

She also left behind a network of divine oscillations in the universe. The network, which used remote stars as oscillating nodes, could transmit information throughout the Plane of Dreams. Like the Creation’s Engine, however, this network was a mysterious product of which no one knew its specific effects and was not completed.

This was only part of what Hao Ren had found so far. What about the part that he has not found? How many things did the Goddess of Creation do when she was not being in her right mind?

Which of them was used to… release the Mad Lord?

Cold sweat rolled down Hao Ren’s forehead.

He grabbed the data terminal and said, “Now send a message to Lemendusa to suspend the assembly of the Creation’s Engine.”

“The reason? Give him a reason – he’s not your subordinate, after all, he’s just a collaborator.”

“Just say… we suddenly found the fatal BUG in the blueprint. It’s suspected that the Goddess of Creation caught up with the outbreak of war when she designed it, so the key part went wrong. Wait for me to find someone to finish the design. This should be a good reason.”