The Record of Unusual Creatures

The Plane of Dreams was full of hidden secrets.

The biggest stumbling block to finding out the truth of anything divine was the long history behind it. Be it the fall of the goddess 10,000 years ago, or the initial cultivation of life hundreds of thousands of years ago, or even further back when the goddess fought a war against the Mad King—a time even the guardians had never experienced; all of these events were buried under the proverbial sands of time. How much forgotten history did the dimension have? How many lost ruins were there? How much of evil was defeated but not vanquished? Even the goddess of creation would be hard-pressed to count them all.

Hao Ren looked at the dark sky above the temple complex. The world called “Collow” was probably one of those buried secrets. And it was a very unique secret: the largest ever rift in the Wall of Reality led to it. Was there a special meaning to this?

He recalled the details he got from Raven 12345 and he knew that the rift in the Wall of Reality opened about 3,000 years ago. By then, the goddess had already fallen, and the calamity in the sagas of the Plane of Dreams had already ended. From Veronica, he learned that the war against the Chaos had lasted almost 8,000 years (after conversion), and possibly even longer. Meanwhile, this “Collow” place had already been the way it was prior to the collapse of the Wall of Reality based on chronological theory.

The people living in that dimension did not know of the existence of the giant rift in the Wall of Reality—though, the dimension was directly “obscuring” any traces of the rift.

Hao Ren did not think that it was a natural cosmological phenomenon.

The temple complex was dim, but it was much better than the desolate lands outside. The power of Order that remained on the holy site gave everyone a peaceful feeling, and the exhausted knights were finally able to find some respite in the horrid land. While rest was paramount, there was no relief. The knights only found refuge in the temple to recover, but their faces were still grim.

They had found out, much to their chagrin, that the place was not the sanctuary and resupply area they had imagined. At most, it could only serve as a temporary “safe house”. The holy powers of the site had long dissipated away, and the holy relics within the temple had been consumed by the Chaos. Only the remaining power of Order prevented the Chaos from overwhelming the entire mountain. They were pretty much trapped on an isolated island, and any peace was fleeting as they would sooner or later be worn down by attrition.

The group was looking forward to finding supplies in the temple—not food or drinks, but the more important holy crystals, golden banners, Amulets of Order, and the statuettes of the goddess. The lost group was hoping to find these items after stumbling into the temple, and Veronica too was nursing the same hope. However, once they saw the empty hall, the disappointment was clear on their faces.

Hao Ren was not all that sure about Collow’s laws, but the disappointment of the knights was palpable. Looking around, he asked, “Do you need food and water?”

“Those are not a problem.” Veronica patted the golden pouch hanging by her waist. Her dimensional pouch still had provisions for a few more days. It was not sufficient initially, but as attrition of manpower took its toll, the provisions became more than sufficient. “What we direly need are those Amulets of Order and golden war banners. Their powers have depleted and we cannot resupply them deep in the Chaos. Our consumption rate for battles beyond the walls of Order has been much more terrifying than I had expected. I was hoping to restore the items in this temple, but that…. is pretty much in the gutters now.”

The knight princess was rather forthright about her predicament. She then looked at Hao Ren curiously.

How is this recently-awakened “ancient guardian” going to prepare to face this situation?

The ancient one was still human and would need to live in the realm of Order. At the same time, the power of Chaos would still be similarly fatal. It was fine when he was in deep sleep, but now that he had awakened, he would need to start consuming resources. Did he plan to stay there indefinitely without food and water?

“Guardian,” Veronica had stopped calling Hao Ren “hermit” now and switched to a more respectful title, “do you know of any other holy relics that are being stored in this temple? We have checked the nearby towers, but found nothing.”

Hao Ren pointed at the ceiling, or where it used to be. As the temple complex was sliced in half, all of the structures there were now simple walls without a roof. The upper parts of the structures were missing (they were actually floating about in the main material universe). What was left were simply a few pieces of debris floating lifelessly in the vacuum. “The lower levels of the temples were for the masses to gather and pray, so all of the items here are simple. The holy relics were all kept at the upper levels. The pulpit and the statuettes were all kept there. Those things were probably all reaped by that dimension storm.”

Veronica already knew the truth, and her expression slowly turned glum.

“If we were to find those sacred relics that you speak of…” Hao Ren had no plans of staying stranded there, and he immediately changed the topic, “What would you do?”

A light shone from Veronica’s eyes as she pondered. “We will make for the Dark Morass, a place even more dangerous than the wilderness. There is another country of Order, the Kingdom of Torch is just across the morass. There are many corrupted monsters in the swamp, and they can be much harder to deal with compared to the Servants of Chaos. We would be hard-pressed to break through that place even if we were well supplied. My plan was to retreat after restoring our power of Order, then take the path back through the Darkshadow Thicket back to Taros. While the Black Forest is also dangerous, the Kingdom of Taros has set up many sentry posts in the forest, and even though the flames at these posts may not be as big as the one in the Spire of Flames, they can still weaken the power of Chaos. I am familiar with the locations of the flames and can find a path back.”

Hao Ren tilted his head and found himself totally clueless…

But that was not a problem. He could slowly adjust his view of things as time went by. The main thing was, he now knew that the princess before him could bring him back to civilization, and he could probably learn of Lily’s whereabouts there.

As for that husky, she could probably survive for months on end after transforming. Food and water may be a problem, but given the vitality of a werewolf, even if she was howling in hunger, she could still survive for a couple of months.

While he pondered the matter, he stood up and the knight, Morian turned to him. Hao Ren waved him off. “You can rest here. I’m going to carry out a simple experiment.”

“An experiment?” Veronica raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Hao Ren shrugged. “Just testing some ancient toys. I don’t know if they still work. I’ll come back in a jiffy, and don’t follow me.”

As he spoke, he stepped out of the temple complex. Veronica and a few knights followed him out of curiosity. The moment they saw Hao Ren going down the mountain, a young knight could not help but step forward. “Your Highness, he—”

“We’ll wait here.” Veronica held the knight back. “He is an ancient one of vast experience, and we probably can never hope to understand such arcane ancient knowledge.”

Morian simply listened and did not say a word. He scanned the area, feeling conflicted about reminding the princess of books’ trustworthiness. However, as the weird being, Hao Ren just went down the holy mountain, even the old grizzled knight was confused and wisely decided to keep his mouth shut…

Besides, Hao Ren did not even go that far. He just went about halfway down the mountain.

Thin mist swirled at his legs as if an invisible wall was surrounding the temple complex. And just by looking at it, one could tell that the mist was all sorts of sinister.

Hao Ren then started to pull out items that he thought would be useful out of his Dimensional Pocket.

His initial signed contract, the paper box that once stored the golden apples, the pen cap of a pen that Raven 12345 once used (there were still bite marks on it), a cup, a memo pad, a decorative item that he swiped from the goddess, and a few strands of silver hair… Raven 12345’s hair…

After he pulled them out, he began to put them inside the mist to experiment. As he did so, he started to feel like a terminal stage fetishist. If Raven 12345 were to see what he was doing, she would probably start screaming, “Hold it right there, you pervert!” before slamming a blessing right into his skull with her Zankantou… Or, she would not even blink since she was screwed in the head.

Hao Ren tried to continue with his experiments as those silly thoughts ran through his head. Atop the mountain, the princess and her retinue’s jaws dropped.