The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Regardless if the mutated soldiers had any real combat ability, they would not have allowed any person to intrude upon holy grounds. Hao Ren did not want to raise any unnecessary havoc, so he thought of a plan. “MDT, you sneak in first, then teleport us in.”

The MDT did another scan on the internals of the reactor’s internals before shaking about. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. That reactor is currently in a very fragile state of balance. It had only shut down because there were insufficient power to supply it. The micro-energy waves from the teleportation may trigger the reactor core, and this place will get blown into kingdom come.”

“The mutated warriors are probably not that tough.” Nangong Sanba squinted as he looked at the Blood Wardens. “If we are fast and accurate enough, we could disarm them without any bloodshed.”

“But that will startle everyone in the city, and the entire ark world thrown into chaos. This is the Furnace of the Ancestors after all.” Nangong Wuyue was a little worried. “What happens when we do force our way in to find that the reactor is beyond repair? And even if we do that, we have not thought out a way to solve the societal issues here.”

“The societal issues can wait. If need be I can get the droids to forcefully tow the ark to either… Io or Tannagost, and proceed to rip the hull of their arks off.” Hao Ren replied. “There will certainly be problems later, but the good thing is that these people have long survived in a state where their survival is at stake, and such a society would be much easier to rebuild. But that’s for later, now we have a reactor to fix.”

To translate what Hao Ren said, it is fare easier to rebuild a societal order after tearing it apart than to fix it. After listening to this rather ambitious plan, Vivian and Lily did not have any particular reaction, but the Nangong siblings were stunned. It took hem a good while before they spoke in unison. “…That’s pretty cool.”

Even the MDT could not help but mutter to itself “That’s more and more like the Xiling style.”

“Then lets crash into the place head-on.” Vivian clapped her hands as she walked with swagger towards the Blood Wardens. “I suppose once we do break in no one will actually come after us. The radiation in there is not something even the Blood Wardens could survive in.”

The Blood Wardens stationed at the Furnace of the Ancestors are probably the most well-known and feared warriors. Legends say that their blood is poisonous and their bones are as hard as metal. A scorching glow exudes from their skin and muscle, and before they are called back by god and the ancestors, these pale warriors had mutated to the point of supposed invincibility and without equal. Everyone believed that, and even the bravest of warriors in all four countries cower at the sight of these massive warriors. At the same time, these warriors were probably the most inexperienced in the world. And while few would dare to state this out publicly, everyone knew that the Blood Wardens would have never needed to fight a battle their entire life. No one would have intruded upon the sacred grounds of the Furnace. Even lunatics knew the place was off-limits. So the warriors stood guard over a gate that would never be attacked, using their massive frames to stand guard, but yet will never see blood split in their lifetime.

So when one of the Blood Wardens saw a lady leading a few outlandishly dressed people crossed the axis and straight into the forbidden zone, his first reaction was not to draw sword. Rather, he was stunned.

It was not until a few other Blood Wardens started congregating than a massive, pale and clearly mutated warrior yelled. “Halt! This is forbidden land!”

The mutated warrior’s voice was hoarse, and had a bestial ring to it. The radiation had destroyed his vocal cords, and muslces grew abnormally over his throat. This warrior was only nineteen years of age, but he was already a veteran. Veteran in the sense that he probably only have five years remaining in his service.

Vivian and Hao Ren continued until there was only a five metre distance between them and the Blood Warden. Both of them spoke almost at the same time. “We’re going in.”

The Blood Warden stood there stunned, and that was probably there was no one who had really tried to intrude upon this forbidden place by force. That left the warden totally forgotteing how to react to the intruders, until Hao Ren had walked past him that he recovered and drew his blade. “Intruders!”

“We are here to fix the reactor!” Nangong Wuyue shouted from the back of the group. “Please calm down!”

The only answer the Blood Warden had for this was a round slash to the head. “Death upon the intruders!”

Nangong Wuyue’s head immediately shrunk back in as she saw the blade coming her way. The next moment a cloud of mist that canvassed the entire area appeared, and within the mist a massive female serpentine figure slithered. “I’m telling you! We really are here just to fix the reactor!”

The Blood Wardens by then had already drew their blades to kill the intruders and as they saw Wuyue transformed out of reflex they were startled. Someone amongst the Wardens shouted. “A witch! A witch! Sound the alarm!”

Lily swiftly picked up a stray brick on the ground and slammed it into the warden’s face before sending another flying with a powerful kick. As she danced about in her furious assault she mumbled to herself. “Stay your hand… do not kill… stay your hand… do not kill…”

Hao Ren spun his spear about to deflect two oncoming sword strikes as he struck his way out of the surrounding wardens and dashed towards the metal gate. At the same time, the alarms rang.

Lights immediately lit up all across the royal city and many other Blood wardens came dashing out of their camps. All the shoulders were massive hulks with pale skin and popped veins without any torso protection. They raised their blades high as they charged at Hao Ren like enraged beasts. Some of the warriors had visible hot air around them. The radiation sickness had left their body temperature higher than normal, and even in chilly weather before the onset of winter did not faze them. Such a scene where a group of half-naked men doing a berserker charge in the chillwind was indeed awe-inspiring!

And it did surprise Hao Ren that how did these warriors with radiation sicknes would be so strong. For normal Earthlings, anyone living under such condition would have withered away. Forget about building abs and muscles, even standing would have been a problem. Yet for these humans on the ark, while they may look like your run of the mill Earthlings, their body structure and composition may be different and in exchange of the shortened lifespan brought on by the radiation sickness, they have gained massive strength and musculature in place. That was the surprisng part.

Regardless, the Blood Wardens were still mortal, and they were not able to stop the intruders even as they came in waves. A stun grenade lobbed by Hao Ren into the camp laid many low, while Lily’s martial prowess saw her sending everything within her brick attack’s range flying all over the place. Nangong Sanba was then left with nothing to do, he ended up posing with the Letta rune cards in his hand in various attacking positions. Each pose was calculated and cool. Even Hao Ren could not help but ask. “What are you doing?!”

“Trying to look busy!” Nangong Sanba shouted back as he continued posing.

Yet the ones that the wardens were most afraid of was not the techno-sorcery lobbing Hao Ren or the furious brick warrior, Lily. The one that they were the most afraid of was Nangong Wuyue who was begging them to “Stop hitting me!”. The siren’s reflexive transformation made her look much much more intimidating. The three meter long giant serpent was like a monster from the legends to this bunch of ignorant and superstitious Blood Wardens. They swarmed towards Wuyue before recoiling in fear. Wuyue, the useless one in combat was scared out of her wits, as she flail her tail to protect herself she finally realised that her brother had nothing to do. With a swift motion she wrapped her tail around Nangong Sanba’s legs as swung him about as a shield. “Brother, help me!”

As Nangong Sanba’s scream echoed throughout the air, an epiphany came upon Hao Ren. “Well, he finally got busy…”

The invasion was both dangerous and exihilirating, but yet it did not last long. Before long, Hao Ren had already reached the main gate of the central control station. The gate wwas connected to a massive slanting catheter that extends all the way into the internal part of the reactor, like somesort of weird coiling elevator. The artificial gravity within this enclosed world was designed based on the locality, and the gravity field where Hao Ren stood was supposed to be vertical, and the constructs before him appeared just that bit unique for that.

Hao Ren held his hand forward to push the gate, and Vivian, this time around did not need any reminder as she conjured a lightning bat in her h and. “So, how many volts to get it talking?”

Hao Ren pushed the gate. “… It’s already open.”

Vivian was speechless.

“Halt!” The remaining few Blood Wardens shouted. “That is forbidden land!”

Hao Ren turned back, and put on the most convincing smile he could. “Don’t worry, we’re here to fix this thingmajing…. F*CK!”

Lily had just gotten out of her offensive trance and quipped. “What’s wrong?”

Hao Ren pointed towards the royal city. “Somone familiar is here. Shoul we go say hi?”

Towards the direction Hao Ren was pointing, a group of people was running as fast as they could towards him. And the one leading the pack was Willy.

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