The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Marchieri came from the Holy Tumen Empire, which no one had ever heard of. He had ventured deep into Gorgon’s Abyss and died alone in the ruins of the asteroid factory. The only clues left were a few words on the pipe. From all sides, he was as small as a speck of dust in that mysterious and strange world.

Nevertheless, Hao Ren had found some clues in the words he left behind. There seemed to be an unimaginable truth in those words, but it was hard to penetrate the hidden secrets with mere guesses.

Hao Ren thought of the “special observer” explanation. Marchieri may have come from a civilization that stumbled upon the mysteries of time and space, having the ability to observe the end of the universe. Therefore, he could explore the secrets of Gorgon’s Abyss from the perspective of a non-linear timeline after the Mad Lord had destroyed the world. However, there was a subtle resistance in Hao Ren’s heart. He was not willing to invest too much in this explanation because it was too far-fetched.

Though plausible, it was built up by hard guesswork.

Hao Ren felt that Marchieri’s appearance had a deeper meaning. Maybe L’Haronne was not, as previously suspected, merely a remnant of the universe’s collapse.

“He mentioned in his last words that ‘all collapsed history is tilted towards the ‘source point’.” The MDT reorganized the elements of that brief message and determined that it was of great value. “This description is very close to a typical doomsday feature, ‘the information collapse of the universe’. And judging from the previous section of his message, this Marchieri must have ‘seen’ something with his own eyes in the depths of Gorgon’s Abyss to say what he did.”

“All collapsed history… According to Rheia, the Black Pine Forest, Gorgon’s Abyss, and similar ‘secret realms’ can all be regarded as collapsed history,” Hao Ren whispered. “And tilted towards the ‘source point’… The source point is supposed to be some ‘point’ at the end of the universe, either a point in time or place. If it’s the latter, then it’s L’Haronne, right? Nope… Why do I feel that it’s not that simple…”

Then the MDT suddenly said, “Maybe we should look at something from the third probe. It has found some interesting scenes at the edge of Gorgon’s Abyss.”

“Oh? Sync it.” Hao Ren’s tone rose slightly.

The scene before his eyes was then transformed into another unfamiliar space, and the moment he saw the scene, he knew it was from the edge of Gorgon’s Abyss.

The reason was that the world was divided into two distinct parts—on one side of the line was Gorgon’s Abyss with its murky clouds and dark red background, filled with giant space pumice stones and debris from starship, while on the other side of the line was a vast darkness, as dark as the abyss.

“Is there anything here?” Hao Ren frowned.

“You can’t see it with the naked eye. But with filters, it’s different…” the MDT reminded him.

The probe activated the multi-frequency filter, and some bizarre colors began to emerge in Hao Ren’s sight. As the scope of the collection expanded, he saw things that could not be seen in a normal way. He saw a zigzag mark emerging out of nowhere from the immense darkness beyond the edge of Gorgon’s Abyss. The mark was extremely wide with a pale texture, and countless tiny crack-like branches could be seen around it. It was floating in the empty darkness, bisecting the boundless space and slowly wriggling as if it were alive.

“What is it?” Hao Ren was confused. “Is there also a World Scar in Gorgon’s Abyss?”

“Yes. Although it has serious distortions and decay, according to the energy samples collected by the probe, this crack contains the divine power of the goddess of creation,” answered the MDT.

“…Wait, that means it came about thousands of years ago…”

“Yes, the shockwave that broke free from Rheia’s control thousands of years ago and destroyed the old L’Haronne. What you see here is the aftermath. So in a sense, this rift is really the World Scar. The rift in the physical world splits L’Haronne in two, but that’s only a small part of the whole rift. More of it extends into the lower regions such as Gorgon’s Abyss. Since the evolution of information in the lower regions has ceased, it has remained in the form of a divine shockwave until now and will remain so forever,” the MDT explained.

“Can it work like that?”

“Of course. Divine power can directly act on everything in the world, regardless of the boundaries between dimension and reality. Even if the universe collapses, that will not stop it from working. That’s why your boss’ Finger of Death can instantly cause real damage to its target, passing straight through the world line!”

“Oh my god… I thought Raven 12345 was just boasting…”

“You have an attitude problem… but it doesn’t matter,” said the MDT nonchalantly. “The most important matter is, do you remember Marchieri’s last words?”

Hao Ren was shocked for a moment, then the words came to mind, “‘But in that point of collapse, I saw a crack that did not belong in our world’—the crack he was talking about is this one right before our eyes?”

“Should be.”

“Wait a minute, the timeline doesn’t match! Marchieri lived many years before the Umbral Realm took shape, and it was many years after that that the goddess of creation’s shockwave destroyed L’Haronne. How did Marchieri… Wait! No, the time in this place has already…”

“Yes, the time has collapsed here, so we shouldn’t have been caught up in the timeline in the first place,” said the MDT. “And since the Umbral Realm has been attached to the World Barrier of the Plane of Dreams from the very beginning, information could easily permeate and interfere with the space between the two, so it’s very likely that Marchieri saw the formation of the World Scar in advance at some point in the distant past and vice versa. Marchieri may have died not long ago, or even a few minutes ago in Gorgon’s Abyss.”

“I don’t like to study such super dimensional knowledge. It kills too much of my brain cells,” said Hao Ren while he shook his head.

“But I’m curious about something. If the ‘collapse of time in the deep world’ led Marchieri to observe the future, wouldn’t that mean that events such as the goddess of creation’s fall and L’Haronne’s rebuilding were ‘destined’?” asked Hao Ren.

“There should be more complex mechanisms inside the deep world,” the MDT speculated. “In general, time-axis disruptions like this are closed systems. The timeline of the disorder is limited to the time period from the birth of the world to the destruction of the world. That is to say, the disorder is limited to ‘events that have occurred and have ended’. The goddess of creation and all her traces, which appeared after the destruction of L’Haronne, could not have theoretically been observed by Marchieri, yet Marchieri did…”

Hao Ren frowned. “Closed systems can become open systems? So the World Scar that appeared after the timeline closed was observed by Marchieri?”

“But it’s almost impossible,” said the MDT as it swayed. “‘After the end of the world, the timeline of the world system closes, and everything that happens after that becomes independent of the closed system’. This is the original text found in the Introduction to Annihilation and Doomsday, which talks about the law of the universe without the intervention of God. There hasn’t been any observed natural event in which a closed timeline after the end of the world becomes open again.”

“Despite that, Marchieri saw the forming of the World Scar. How do you explain that?”

The blue light on the MDT’s surface flashed violently. After a long period of intense statistical calculation, it finally admitted its failure like never before. “Not enough computational power to build this model.”

“Well, I can see that you’ve done your best. Look at the smoke from your cooling slots.” Hao Ren sighed.

“Never mind the details,” the MDT said calmly.

After confirming that the MDT was not going to burn up, Hao Ren shrugged and walked to the large French window not far away.

Outside the window, the wind was howling, and the snowflakes were whirling. A snowstorm was coming.

“Partner, are you going to investigate the old palace?”

“Not tonight. I want to sort out my information. Let’s stay here one more day.”