The Record of Unusual Creatures

Everyone’s eyes were on stalks as they witnessed her series of strange behaviors. But she seemed to be incognizant of their stares. She rubbed her eyes, the weariness on her face even more apparent now. She finally noticed their strange stares and asked, “What’s wrong, Mr. Landlord?”

Hao Ren took a step back. “Who are you?” he asked.

Lily wagged her tail and said, “I am Lil—”

The words were stuck in her throat. The husky maiden suddenly appeared confused and shocked. A moment later, she slowly got to her feet, as though she had just woken up from a thousand-year dream. Looking around, she saw the antique furnishings in the secret chamber.

After a long while, a teardrop slid silently down her cheek, but she seemed unaware. Her face was petrified and also confused as if the teardrop had come from another hidden consciousness, which had been long dead in the forgotten part of her soul.

“Doggie!” Vivian called out, trying to wake her. “Do you have something on your mind?” she asked.

“No… I just feel this place is weirdly familiar,” Lily replied. She finally woke up from her stupor. Feeling a cooling sensation on her face, she instinctively reached to the corner of her eye with her hand and was surprised. “Huh, why am I crying?”

Hao Ren looked at Lily, stupefied. For the first time, he saw the spirited canine maiden in such an extremely fragile state, as if she was experiencing emotional turbulence. Noticing her floaty footsteps, he quickly lunged forwards and held her to sit down on the stone bed. “Stop talking. Relax. Maybe something in the secret chamber has affected you. Let the MDT check you up.”

While saying, Hao Ren had already made some conjecture in his mind. But it was a frightening conjecture, which if really happened to Lily, it would be a mind-bending phenomenon. So he chose to believe that the husky just had an upset stomach.

A gust of chilly wind suddenly blew from a corner of the secret chamber, followed by a sudden appearance of a translucent dark shadow in the air. The sense of the presence of this figure was powerful, Hao Ren had immediately noticed it.

“You are…” Hao Ren looked at the spirit that emerged out of thin air with amazement. He suddenly realized that he had seen this ghostly figure for the third time. The first time was in the library, where the figure ran and disappeared into a towering bookshelf. The second time was in the ballroom, where the figure had also emerged out of thin air and disappeared near Lily. The third time was now, in this secret chamber.

The ‘ghost’ did not say a word. It stood quietly about four meters in front of Hao Ren and Lily. Its face was vague, and its body was translucent, but it obviously was a petite woman.

Her appearance stunned everyone. Claude carefully observed the ghostly figure and exclaimed in shock, “The soul’s echo?”

Hao Ren and Vivian snapped in unison, “In human language, please!”

“It’s the echo of the first sage!” Claude explained. “The first sage was killed by the crimson moon, and her soul was torn apart and couldn’t rest in peace. You could see the image of the first sage roaming around in the Netherrealm Clock Tower; that is the reverberation of her soul. But the truth of this matter was only known to the twelve sages and their attendants; the ordinary demon hunters always mistook these images for the space-time illusions that existed everywhere in the Netherrealm Clock Tower. Only we know that this is the remnant energy of the first sage.”

Hao Ren looked at the phantom, struck dumb. Never did he expect that the figures he saw in the previous two encounters were actually the remnant of the first sage. But the bigger surprise followed: the phantom stood silently for a while, then walked towards them. Her body was waving like ripples of water, and her blurry face gradually became recognizable. As her eyebrows, lips, and other facial features appeared, it turned out that it was Lily—in Lily’s appearance.

The figure suddenly lunged forward into Lily’s body.

Screaming spontaneously, Lily’s tail puffed straight up. “It’s a ghost!”

“Shut up! You are only being possessed by yourself!” Vivian said. She had quickly figured out what happened; her 10,000-year experience and intuition were not without purpose. As unbelievable as it was, Vivian still asked, “Doggie, are you the first sage?”

Lily looked straight at them and said, “Do I look like one?”

“It’s not a matter of look,” Hao Ren said as he stepped forward to grab and fiddle with Lily’s tail and ears. “I thought I have seen enough all this while, but what happened to you had just blown my mind.”

Hao Ren’s action caught Lily by surprise. She snapped, “What are you doing, Mr. Landlord?”

Before her voice trailed off, she slapped Hao Ren on his face. His Steel Membrane Shield was dancing with sparks.

The slap sent a shockwave into Hao Ren’s head; it rang in his head. Having the Steel Membrane Shield saved him. Otherwise, the spontaneous slap could have sent him into the ground. He quickly took his hand off her. “I was just checking if you have any changes,” he said.

Flowing around, the MDT had captured the entire walk-in phenomenon. It now analyzed it. “I think you’ve guessed it right: she’s not possessed but the return of her soul.”

Surrounded, Lily appeared innocent. “So what should I do?”

Discussion, study, observation, analysis.

Those precious ancient scrolls suddenly seemed unimportant. They were focusing their entire attention to Lily. Hao Ren was using the high-tech MDT scanning her; Vivian and Y’zaks were checking her mental state; and White Flame, Teuton and Claude were busily browsing through the ancient scrolls looking for information about the first sage.

After much ado, things finally became clearer.

“How does Doggie become the first sage?” Even though it was clear at this point that Lily was the first sage, Vivian still found it unbelievable. Staring at the happy-go-lucky husky, Vivian could not make the connection between Lily and the great leader of the demon hunter. “This is truly theatrical!”

Ymir’s voice suddenly sounded in the head of everyone. “Maybe I can help if you trust me.”

They came out of the secret chamber. Ymir looked at Lily, his voice was filled with awe. “It’s a surprise to see the reincarnation of the first sage, and all under the illumination of the crimson moon. That’s amazing,” it said.

“What are you going to do?” Hao Ren asked the guardian giant curiously.

“Examining the soul and spirit,” Ymir said calmly. “I have been in the Netherrealm Clock Tower for thousands of years. My perceptivity reaches every corner of the tower. So I am very familiar with the echoes of the first sage. Through this connection, I should be able to figure out what the little girl is up to.”

Hao Ren suddenly realized: spiritual power was the biggest strength of the guardian giants.

All demigods created by the goddess of creation possessed an amazing mental power. Other than the First Borns, the guardian giants also had a mind-bending power over the mortals. The nightmare of Muru had caused the creation of a cult in Beinz Diocese. So it goes without saying that Ymir’s power would be just as good.

After some pondering and getting Lily’s consent, Hao Ren nodded to Ymir. “She’s all yours.”

He then said to the MDT in his mind, “Monitor them at the side. Cut off their mental connection immediately if you detect something wrong.”

He had to play it safe. Although Hao Ren respected the guardian giant race, Ymir to him was still a stranger. What was more, Ymir was a guardian who had lost his memory to the Sin of the Divine Blood, no amount of cautiousness was cautious enough. It was not a suspicion and conspiracy theory, but a necessary vigilance and responsibility.

When everything was in place, Lily stood nervously before Ymir’s big skull. She began to relax her mind as per Ymir’s instruction.

Ancient runes began to appear and glow on the floor near Ymir’s head.

“Open your mind,” Ymir’s voice echoed with soothing and peaceful energy in Lily’s head. “Uncover your buried memories… Recall the moment when you first opened your eyes in this body… I will see what you see…”

Lily closed her eyes and relaxed her body. Her thoughts sank deeper and deeper, gradually returning to the starting point of her life.

The snow-capped mountain, which name she had forgotten, and the unknown cold village…