The Record of Unusual Creatures

Something was amazing about Raven 12345; she was anything but fathomable with common sense. But when pondering what she said carefully, more often than not, it was true. People thought she was mad because they could not keep up with her fluid mind.

Looking at the set of kitchen utensils, which was said to be made of metal from the divine realm, Hao Ren had to admit that the items were practical.

It was more practical than a bunch of swords and spears for fighting and killing. At least that was what the peace-loving Vivian thought.

The oldest vampire-turned cook and nanny happily held a golden frying pan in her hand, looking at it appreciatively. She felt that this thing was entirely tailor-made for her. Regardless of the weight, size, and feel in hand, it just ticked all the right boxes. There was a line of text on the back of the frying pan. The writing was foreign to her, but everyone could understand what it meant: Macroworld Pope’s Dedication Award by the Personnel Department of the Shadowy City of the Space Administration.

The pale gold text seemed to float on the metal. It glowed in a halo and filled with the divine power of sacredness and veneration.

But still, it was just a frying pan.

Hao Ren sat in front of Vivian, burying his face in his hand. The others surrounded them, looking with amazement. Hao Ren’s mouth twitched when he said, “It’s said that these things are made with an alien mineral called starite, which is indestructible.”

Vivian’s eyes instantly brightened up. “Wow, this is awesome. We don’t have to repurchase a new one!”

“I f**king couldn’t believe that they have given me a bunch of pots and pans!” Hao Ren said. “I really shouldn’t have held any expectation.”

Vivian raised a spatula and knocked Hao Ren on the head. “Don’t swear at home!”

Lily looked at the thing in Vivian’s hand, envious. “So lucky, you’ve got present. But Mr. Landlord didn’t bring me anything.”

“He has bought you a lot of snacks, mind you!” Vivian shot Lily a sideways glance and put away the kitchen utensils. Looking at Hao Ren, she said, “Did the goddess say anything about our findings?”

Hao Ren looked at everyone in the room, gently nodded before waving open the dimensional pocket. “She asked me to bring this back,” he said.

A ripple appeared in the air before the Godslayer condensed in Hao Ren’s hand. The blade of the black sword continued to excite tiny cracks in the air and circles of blue light were spinning around it, which added a tad of sacredness to the strange thing.

The appearance of the Godslayer shocked them. Y’lisabet immediately climbed over the sofa arm to the other side while Lily had jumped out of her skin. “Ahh!”

It was lucky that she did not jump high enough to punch through the roof.

Lil Pea appeared to be the calmest of them all. The little mermaid had no clue of what that black thing was. While everyone around jumped out of the way, she hopped out of the fish tank and went up to Hao Ren on her tail, seemingly interested in the sword.

Hao Ren would not let her touch the weapon. He took the little mermaid to a side before telling them of the changes in the Godslayer.

“That is to say this sword has run out of energy?” Vivian looked at the sword with suspicion. She remembered the serious consequences during her last close encounter with it. But this time, the sword had completely failed to sense her presence. “Just because you sealed it with the safe box, its power disappeared?”

“It is already at its weakest. In the ceremonial hall, it could create a storm because it was harnessing the energy of the Netherrealm Clock Tower. When the energy was cut off, it continued to weaken. Coupled with the depletion for the past thousands of years, this sword is no longer as dangerous as we imagine,” Hao Ren explained. “Raven 12345 has also given it a divine restraint, which makes it impossible to influence us negatively. So even though Vivian is right in front of it, nothing is going to happen. Otherwise, I would not have taken it out.”

“The goddess said that this thing will lead you to the Star of Creation?” Y’zaks looked at Hao Ren with a serious face. “Did she tell you how?”

“She could not directly observe the Plane of Dreams, so she could not know what structure it was inside.” Hao Ren nodded. “But as a true god, her intuition is definitely better than us. Since she said that as long as I had the sword, it would work, so I keep it. This aside, honestly, I’m more interested like this sword. The world fragment: anyone of you have ever heard of it?”

They all looked at each other while Lily scratched her head. “I think none of us know what it is. Mr. Landlord, didn’t you ask the goddess to explain it?” the husky said.

“Her explanation sounded iffy. Keep in mind that this is something beyond the mortal perceptibility. She could only tell me the knowledge, but there is no way for me to understand the principle,” Hao Ren said frankly. “More importantly, I want to hear what you all think. A fragment that has fallen off the Plane of Dreams; do you think this fragment has any special significance?”

“World fragment?” Y’zaks crossed his arms, and his voice was low. “In my homeworld, someone once used this theory to explain the dimensional vesicles in our universe. But the level of cosmology that the scholars could understand certainly fell short of the truth by a mile. In their understanding, the world fragment was only a more complete dimension or a half-plane. They absolutely had not a clue that the world fragment could be turned into a weapon. But I think they had at least gotten one thing right: world fragment is related to the structure of time and space. There should be a space inside where it could accommodate other things. No matter what state it exists in the three-dimensional world, the internal will never change. Otherwise, it will collapse due to time and space imbalance.”

“Is there something in the sword?” Hao Ren murmured, staring thoughtfully at the Godslayer.

Countless light spots as if twinkling stars floated inside the blade. As the new master of the sword, Hao Ren believed that these lights were definitely not a decoration. When thinking of the nature of this thing, he could not help but began to suspect…

Were those really a galaxy?

“When the sword moves, it looks like a crack. The light spots are not distributed on the blade, but in a space opposite the crack,” Hao Ren said as he moved the blade slowly. As the blade moved, the ‘starlight’ on the blade also moved. No, more correctly, the opposite was true; the ‘starlight’ was fixed in place. As the blade moved, the positions of the light spots on the blade changed. “It’s like watching space through a moving hole. But in reality, this crack is unpassable. The sword is powerful, and the blade is solid; I can’t reach in and grab the ‘stars,’” he said.

He used his finger and tapped twice on the sword. The taps did not make a sound even though the solid body had indeed blocked his finger.

“I could not even probe the inside of the sword.” The MDT cut in. “Ma’am Raven also said: don’t just peep at the blade before you understand the specific process of conversion of the world fragment into weapons. If you do that, it could lead to unexpected damage.”

Hao Ren looked at the tip of the sword with a strange look. “The culprit who bit off a piece of the blade shouldn’t have thrown stones in glass houses.”

Rarely agreeable with Hao Ren, the MDT gave him a seal of approval. “I also think the same, but who makes her your boss?”

Listening inexplicably to their conversation, Vivian’s eyes landed on the tip of the Godslayer. She was amazed. “Is this a bite mark?”

“Do not ask.”

Everyone surrounded and studied the Godslayer for a long time. Not much progress was made other than mere speculations. The first one to lose interest in the sword was Lily because she was hungry. Followed by Y’lisabet, who nagged her papa to go away because she found that she could not disassemble the sword, leaving only Hao Ren and Vivian sitting at the coffee table looking at each other. Hao Ren continued to study the sword, but Vivian had turned her attention back to her new kitchen utensil set. It was almost dinner time, she was going to use this new gear to show off her skill.

Suddenly there was a loud bang in the bathroom, followed by a series of slapping sound of someone running barefooted. Hao Ren looked up and saw Rollie wrapped in water vapor sneaking out of the bathroom. She yelled while she ran, “Stupid humans! I’m still alive—”

A ball of water hit the dumb cat before she could get far. Following immediately, a snake tail popped out of the bathroom and rolled her legs and dragged her back. Nangong Wuyue’s voice was heard amid the splashing sound of water. “Come back in and put on your clothes!”

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at each other, watching the drama that went off once in a while. They suddenly sighed in unison. “It is good to be naive!”