The Record of Unusual Creatures

Chapter 1753: Anomaly in the Gilded Discs

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lemendusa’s emergency report had destroyed whatever appetite Hao Ren had. With the importance of the Creation’s Engine could not be overstated, and now the battle was upon them, the successful assembly and activation would directly affect the outcome of the battle, and now… it ran into trouble?

“What’s the exact problem?” Rheia’s expression was unusually stern and she stood up in a flash, “Didn’t the simulation testing solved the compatibility issue of the Heart of God? And the hardware was tested during the first connection…”

“The compatibility between the Heart of God and the Creation’s Engine proper has no issues, the problem lies with the three Gilded Disc,” Lemendusa explained. “The abnormal fluctuations of information originated from the discs, and we’ve tried to reset its data vault but ended up running into a very unusual… situation.”

The ‘Gilded Discs’ that Lemendusa was talking about was the very same Hao Ren had found during his adventures in the Plane of Dreams. While the other nine discs had been taken by the goddess of annihilation into the Dark Abyss, the remaining three were with Hao Ren. And while they are unable to function as a complete computation unit, they were still installed into the almost completed Creation’s Engine as a secondary computer and execution unit. Those functions were pretty much necessary.

As the Heart of God was not the original core of the Creation’s Engine, and as a foreign object from a different technology tree, it was natural for it to have compatibility and synchronization issues with the Creation’s Engine, and even when the software could allow them to be compatible, the hardware adaptation and buffer was still needed. The best idea Lemendusa had managed to find was to use the original computation core of the Creation’s Engine, the Gilded Disc to function as a secondary computer, and this idea was also approved by Rheia and taken as the only plausible idea at the moment.

Frankly speaking, Hao Ren would have preferred to hear that his boss’ place had been blown up again than to hear this sole solution running into hiccups. After all, Raven12345’s place get blown up every now and then, but there’s was only one Heart of God…

“The Gilded Disc being problematic… Don’t tell me it has malfunctioned after being lost for so long..” Rheia murmured with a pained frown. With a wave of her hand, a glowing teleportation gate appeared beside her. “Wait there, I’ll come over to have a look.”

“I’ll go over as well.” Hao Ren quickly followed, “I may not be of help with the technicalities, but I found the discs, and have some understanding of their conditions.”

“Vivian, come too,” Rheia turned back just as she was about to enter the gate and pulled Vivian up. “Maybe you can be of help to.”

And the three left just like that, leaving the rest looking at each other in the dining hall. No one had the intention to tag along as this was technically beyond them, plus with the matter so serious, even Lily also knew that this was not the time to join in…

Nangong Sanba looked at the remaining light particles after the teleportation gate disappeared and then at the ‘divine meal’ that was barely even touched before him and with a slight hesitance, said, “So… let’s continue eating?”

“Yep,” Lily rumbled as she stuffed food into her face, “Can only fight properly with a full stomach…”

Nangong Wuyue pondered for a bit, “I think Mr. Landlord doesn’t need any help from us fighting, he clearly needs technical support.”

“And since when Mr. Landlord’s technical support does not involve violence to solve it?” Lily rolled her eyes.

No one had anything to retort, with only Sanba facepalming, “Bloody hell, I really envy her world view at times…”

On the other side of the universe, Hao Ren, Rheia and Vivian crossed through tens of thousands of light-years in just one step, and they arrived at the “Star Forge” deep within the Solenne Nebula.

The teleportation point was a white platform floating in space. The platform was carved out of stone and was a few kilometers long. On it was a temple and tower complex with a loud of giant crystals of nondescript usage. The ancient stars of the Solenne Nebula flickering brightly in the background, and before the platform was a awe-inspiring mega space-structure.

It was the almost completed Creation’s Engine.

The platform Hao Ren was standing on actually circled the Creation’s Engine like the latter’s orbital satellite, and it was used to control, monitor and modify the grandest divine weapon in history.

The almost completed Creation’s Engine looked more like a metal ball, and those complex and mysterious interior structures had been covered by layers upon layers of thick, faint gold shell. The flowing lights between the lines of the shell made the metallic star radiant, and on its solid ‘metal’ surface, countless of antennas protruded out, and this was the “touchpoint” for the Engine’s control mechanisms, and around each of the “touchpoints” were many tiny flying machines around it. These were the engineering robots performing the final adjustments to the Creation’s Engine.

Lemendusa walked over as he bowed towards Rheia. “Mother, you have come.”

“Lets talk business, what’s the situation like?” Rheia waved him off, and went directly into the heart of the matter, “I sense the engine’s condition, its energies are all over the place… and while everything may look normal on the surface, most of the processes are not synchronized.”

“That’s because the three Gilded Discs are not ‘cooperating’. Lemendusa rumbled, “They reject the commands coming from the Heart of God, and will unilaterally let out a series of scrap code… This code not only prevented the Creation’s Engine from working normally, and it will cause it to go out of control. We had to cut off the secondary command flow, so the energy flux should recede soon.”

Rheia frowned. “How did the simulation testing clear that other time?”

“We did not really connect the Heart of God and the Gilded Disc together, we only performed a blueprint match between the two.”

“That is to say… at least from the blueprint, these two should work together fine,” Rheia nodded. “Let me look at the thing.”

“As you wish.”

Under Lemendusa’s control, the platform had moved to the back of the Creation’s Engine, and there was a massive opening on the mantle of the Creation’s Engine as a massive amount of light current and engineering robots were moving about inside the engine. And the Heart of God floated before the gap, and not too far away from it was the three tiny dots. The three Gilded Discs.

Even the massive discs were like a tiny dot beside the supermassive Creation’s Engine, and if not for Hao Ren’s excellent enhanced eyesight, he would not be able to spot them at all…

“This was a test installation. We have not placed everything into the core chamber of the Engine.” Lemendusa’s voice rang from above, “Thankfully our connection circuits were all left outside and when we first detected the anomaly we cut the physical connection, and there’s no damage to the Engine itself.”

“You handled the situation well,” Rheia nodded as she waved in the direction of the three Gilded Discs. The three golden dots in the air disappeared and reappeared the next moment on the platform. “Now let me see… what’s actually causing the problems.”

The three Gilded Discs floated before Hao Ren, Vivian and Rheia as the ten-meter-long discs reflected the light from the stars afar. When Rheia approached them, a series of unknown runes and letters appeared on the surface of the discs.

“The resonance is normal… there’s no outer damage as well…” Rheia mumbled as she closed in on the disc, “The energy pulse is stable… the runic array.. is slightly damaged but nothing serious, something that can be fixed by self-repair…”

She placed her hand on one of the discs as she tried to read the internal information of the disc, and at the same time, she professed, “Truthfully, now that I’ve studied about the theory of informational control, looking back at these discs… I found many places that can be improved upon. And the information clusters I used that time was far too messy. It’s a shame that we don’t have time left, or I’ll rebuild them from scratch.”

Hao Ren did not say anything but looked subconsciously down his right hand as a blood-colored taint faintly spread across his palm, letting out considerable heat.

“The data seems to be intact, the hardware is fine, but…” Rheia mumbled on as she communicated with the disc before suddenly yelping, “Eh? Why is this around…”

Hao Ren looked at his palm as the mark had been imprinted onto his palm, it was red as blood and a scorching sensation felt like that was imprinted directly on to his soul and cannot be ignored.

Vivian too had noticed the anomaly and came over, concerned. “Why… did this thing appear again?”

“Eh?” Rheia also noticed Hao Ren’s movements as she lifted her hand from the disc. As soon as she turned back she noticed the anomaly on the latter’s palm. “What’s that on your hand?”

Hao Ren felt that the mark had stabilized and the burning sensation was now a throbbing one. He shook his hand as he explained the origin of this mark. “This thing actually has something to do with you. This was left when I made contact with the disc the other time.”

He then told the entire origin of the blood mark to Rheia, and when he recalled the ancient memories he saw in the illusions his expression changed, “Frankly, when I saw those illusions it was so bizarre and you appear even more like a charlatan than my boss in that. I broke out in cold sweat all over especially when you looked up. I never thought the real you would be like that…”

“Is there any difference now? I have always been like that, okay! It’s all your fault for assuming things…” Rheia retorted with her hands on her waist. “But the things you mentioned… I never thought that just spraying some blood on the disc would leave that sort of ‘illusions’, huh…”

As she said she scanned Hao Ren and demurred, “And your ability to read those illusions… how strange…”

Hao Ren scratched his head, “I think so too.”

“No… I remember now,” Rheia took another look on the mark on Hao Ren’s palm. It had totally faded away now and only left a very faint mark. “This blood mark…”

Hao Ren had chills as the latter stared at him. “Managed to recall something?”

“Vivian, use your mind powers to connect with the three discs. I’ll teach you how to do it.” Rheia did not answer Hao Ren’s question but instead turned towards Vivian to instruct her. She then pulled Hao Ren towards the disc, “Come with me.”

The strength of a god was impressive and before Hao Ren could say anything he was pulled over to the disc by Rheia and then pressed down against one. At the same time, Rheia placed her own hand nearby.

And everything else happened in such a sudden that Hao Ren felt a shudder in his mind as he descended into darkness…