The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren was now no stranger to Lavinia Turson Kant, the sister of Count Willie. During their journey across the wilderness, the freckled female knight went up and talked to Hao Ren. The way she behaved in front of the ancient guardian was like a great admirer of the people of the sanctum. It was her peculiar demeanor that left a deep impression on Hao Ren.

Count Willie had been proven to be an Armageddon follower lying low in the Kingdom of Order. There was fear that the entire Kant Family would not be able to get away from it. As his sister, Lavinia naturally would be a suspect.

After the incident in Kant Manor, Rudolph III’s court knights had arrested the guardian knight, Lavinia. But the kingdom had underestimated the scale of the action of the Armageddon believers and the importance of Lavinia in the cult. On the way to a secret prison outside the city, Lavinia was saved by a group of cultists. Not only that, she turned back and attacked the standard-bearers that she had been part of for many years, and ran away with an anciently sacred device.

Hao Ren was not surprised by the incident, which he had anticipated. When he found out the real identity of Count Willie, he had first suspected Lavinia who had tried to get close to him from the beginning. After the escape of Count Willie, he knew that Lavinia would somehow escape too. When Rudolph III finished, Hao Ren nodded and said, “I have been wondering if you have known from the very start that Count Willie and the Kant Family are members of the cult. It seems that you have long known that Count Willie and the Kant Family are members of the Cult of Armageddon?”

“The Armageddonists have infiltrated the Kingdoms of Orders, but we are not sitting ducks,” Rudolph III said faintly. “We had mastered the information of the cult members in the kingdom. But some of them had implanted deep into the foundation of the kingdom, getting rid of them requires careful planning and timing. More importantly, our operation had to remain discreet not to alert them. I had my eyes on the Kant Family since a few years ago, but it was only until today that things were ripe to take action to wipe them out completely. But unfortunately, I had not anticipated the situation of the tide of Chaos and the subversion of the Cult of Armageddon. So there have been some regrets.”

Ania looked at Hao Ren’s reaction curiously. “Your Venerable Guardian, it looks like you don’t worry about the loss of the anciently sacred object.”

“Let’s put it in another way: it was only proper that they took away the thing. It proves my suspicion.” Hao Ren said with a wry smile. “When they equivocated and asked about the two sacred items of the Cassouin Grand Temple, I knew that the things must be important to them. At that time, I still had no idea they were cultists, but I had guessed their motives for finding the artifacts.”

The old scholar Alfred became interested after hearing that. “The two sacred objects in the Cassouin Grand Temple? What are they?”

“The Radiant Disc and the Sky Heart.” Hao Ren started to describe the situation at that time. Then as he finished, he said, “That’s all about it. They seemed to want these two things badly, and even took the risk of blowing their cover to mention it before me.”

Veronica seemed to have finally understood. “The items that Lavinia snatched away are…”

“Oh, if they plan to hold a ritual with the ‘Radiant Disc,’ they will be disappointed.” Hao Ren shrugged.

Everyone in the room suddenly quieted down and looked at each other with a subtle smile.

Ania looked at Hao Ren, who was having an evil smile on his face. “Your Venerable Guardian, you… Ahh, I get it. But this doesn’t befit a person of your stature.”

“It’s called wisdom!” Hao Ren said.

While the atmosphere in White City was tense because of the cult incident and the discussion about the destiny of this world was going on in Rudolph III’s secret chamber, a large army had arrived at the border of civilization in the southern part of the kingdom.

A series of fluttering sound rose as movements in the forest scared a group of birds resting on the tree. The birds took off and flew into the overcast sky as feathers and leaves dropped from the air. Under the canopy in the thick bushes, a pair of small round eyes with orange glimmers rolled back and forth. The eyes were watching for movement outside the forest carefully. A lizard, covered in scales, walking in an upright position, came out from behind the bushes. The lizard was wearing simple armor made of animal skin and carapace, holding a sharp obsidian spear in its hand. The dark red pattern on its forehead showed that it came from a lizard tribe in the southern forest, and the obsidian spear in its hand suggested that the lizard was a warrior.

More lizards came out from the bushes. There were a total of 10 of them.

It was a scouting team. But experienced human commanders believe that lizardmen in the Black Forest were just a bunch of indisciplined, inferior creatures with low intelligence and civilization. This lizard tribe hid in the densest part of the woods. Usually, these lizards would not dare to come close to the patrolling human forces in the woods, let alone scout at the border of the human kingdoms.

So the appearance of the 10 lizards, a scout team, at the border of the kingdom was unusual.

“It is human… This city… The smell of smoke.”

The first lizardman who stood up whispered. It then hissed and twitched its nostrils to smell the changes of scents as well as temperature in the air.

The second lizardman who stood up stretched its neck. The dark blue wrinkles under its neck flowed with a magic glow, and the weapon in its hand was not an obsidian spear, but a stick made of animal bones. This lizard was a shaman. Its superficial and almost instinctual skills of magic were childish and ridiculous in the eyes of the human wizards but were commendable among the lizard tribe.

The lizard shaman focused his energy and summoned an eagle-eye spell for himself. It carefully observed the human territory opposite the forest, and said with a hissing sound, “There is a plume of smoke rising from the back of the wall. The wall has collapsed. The human city has fallen.”

The other lizard soldiers began to hiss.

“Probably it happened many days ago.”

“Smoke is still billowing, probably not long ago, about three days.”

“Humans have probably abandoned the city and ran to the north.”

“But maybe humans on horseback there. Those humans are violent and not afraid of monsters.”

“Those humans have also run away. They need to have a city to be active, but now their city is gone.”

“Should we go to check it out?”

“No, the Alpha only ordered us to check things out at the border of the forest,” the lizard shaman interrupted the soldiers’ conversation. “And the new leader has said that the amulet may lose its power if we go too far.”

The other lizards immediately quieted down and looked at the amulet hanging under the shaman’s neck in awe.

It was a rough handicraft made of a stiff leather rope, two colored stone beads, a feather and a small coat of wolf fur. But the only thing that worked was the white wolf fur, which came from the tail of the alpha.

The wolf fur emitted a faint glow in the dark, but it was enough to keep the forces of Chaos in the surroundings at bay. The lizard soldiers could move freely in the dark forest, which the Chaos had infested and distorted, with this powerful magical object.

The magic knowledge of the lizardmen was rudimentary. The amulet the shaman wore was already a potent magic item. If their intelligence were any higher, they might even treat this amulet as divine and include it as part of their myths and legends.

The storm of Chaos that landed in the southern part of the Ansu continent had crossed the migratory army of the alpha, transforming the entire southern forest into a distorted black forest. Sixty percent of the forest’s creatures had died or turned into chaotic minions, leaving the rest hid in the underground, waiting for the tide of Chaos to end. But over 70 % of these survivors in the underground would also die soon. Few could survive the tide of Chaos.

The storm of Chaos had ravaged the human city a few days ago. It seemed that even the most secure human fortress could not stand more than a few days under the rage of the storm of Chaos.

The lizard shaman saw the destruction; fear rose in it. But it also felt grateful.

Under the pressure of the alpha, the lizard tribe chose to surrender and became a member of the massive beast legion. The surrender proved to be entirely wise: they had lived to this day.

“Go back, report to Alpha.” The lizardman’s yellow eyes turned, and it walked towards the forest. “The human city is gone.”