The Record of Unusual Creatures

With precise control, Lady Gloom summoned a super-large magic circle in the air. Complicated lines and runes formed a complex three-dimensional circle two meters above the ground. Since the energy nodes lit up, the three-dimensional circle gradually materialized into a weird structure, of which the top was larger than the bottom.

Hao Ren was unfamiliar with the magic circle of the world of Collow, so he could not see anything unusual about the circle. But the Sanctum monks were wide-eyed as if they saw something they had never seen before. Hao Ren went up to Calaxus. “Hey, Uncle.”

Calaxus had his attention on the magic circle and did not notice the presence of Hao Ren and Lily. Now when the senior monk turned his head around, he saw Hao Ren. “Ahh, you guys are already here. I was thinking to send my men looking for you.”

“Yeah. We saw the light,” Hao Ren said. “Is she working on a portal or something? You all look shocked.”

Calaxus turned his eyes back to the magic circle in the air. “I have no idea what she is doing. For all my knowledge, I have never heard this school of magic—she is creating something out of her spiritual power and magic energy without using any spell-casting medium or incantation. It is as if she is a magic creature herself. Who exactly is Lady Gloom?”

Calaxus’ way of response was unexpected, but Hao Ren could not answer the senior monk’s question. “I too have no idea. As you know, I’m also a foreigner. The first time I met this woman was in the palace of Rudolph III. She was the inner court knight of the Taros Royal Family. That’s all I know.”

“The Inner Court Knight? That’s not a skill an Inner Court Knight would have.” Calaxus frowned. “I have never heard of a sage-level mage being a spy.”

While saying, the magic circle, filled with energy in the air, was almost ready. It started with the flow of a blue light steams inside. It was hard to believe that this thing appeared out of thin air. Lady Gloom exhaled, lowered her hands that she had put up in the air while casting the magic, and struck the ground with the long crystal wand, planting it half a meter in the earth. Such power the strength of Lady Gloom was. Blue lines and magic runes began to spread from the wand onto the ground, forming a runic circle that echoed the three-dimensional circle in the air.

The upper part of the wand shattered into tiny crystals, which droppped to the ground to form a ring of spar nodes.

Lady Gloom took a couple of steps back and pointed at a cross line in the runic pattern on the ground. “Mr. Calaxus, please put your holy seal there. It is a fragment of Asurmen. It will serve as a road sign to guide us to Sanctum after catalyzation.”

Lady Gloom took the trouble to explain a little this time to alleviate the doubts of the senior monk.

Calaxus, casting his doubts aside, took a deep breath and put the fragment of crystal on the energy node.

Immediately, the circle burst into light.

All the light streams flew toward the crystal that Calaxus had put in the circle. The crystal let out a hum under the excitation of energy. Ripples began to form, and the light streams deflected and merged. A door, created by light, appeared in the air between the top and bottom magic circles.

A vague image began to appear in the door as, and it seemed that there was another continent on the other side of the gateway.

The image was shaky with noises of black stripes and plaques as if there was a severe interference.

Calaxus looked at the portal with surprise. He did not expect the passage that the mysterious woman said was a portal. What was more, the gateway could form despite the violent interference of the storm of Chaos.

“It’s Sanctum!” A church knight exclaimed quietly. “It’s indeed Sanctum; a mountain near Lu’an. I have been to that place.”

“The portal would last for four hours. You have plenty of time to think about it, but if you want to pack your belongings, you’d better hurry,” said Lady Gloom, whose voice appeared exhausted. It seemed that summoning the magic portal was challenging. “There is only one chance. Even if you guys don’t want to go to Sanctum, I would.”

“What more to think?” Calaxus stepped forward and then looked back at his followers. “My comrades, we have no choice but bet on it now.”

While saying, Calaxus looked at Hao Ren and Lily. “Alpha, and Mr. Landlord, we may have known each for a short while, but—”

“No worry,” Hao Ren said, interrupting Calaxus and taking Lily with him. “I’m here to help. The safety of Sanctum is too important to the survival of Collow.”

A commotion came from the outside as the Alpha’s guards were shoving themselves in and looking forward to following Lily wherever she might go.

“You guys will come with me,” Lily said while waving her hand. “Size does matter when it comes to fighting.”

The beasts broke into a commotion again as they all expressed their support.

After a month long of an arduous journey, the Sanctum investigators almost looked like a group of refugees. They had lost all their belongings when the Sacred Hammer airship they flew fell into the Chaos. The supplies they had gotten from Fort Raven were tucked inside the dimensional bags of Calaxus and his deputy. Hao Ren and Lily were also traveling light as they kept all their stuff in the dimensional pocket. The beasts needed little but food, which they could acquire along the way.

Everyone was ready to depart after a short ten minutes of preparation. The groups gathered in front of the portal and crossed the gateway under the instruction of Lady Gloom.

As soon as entering the portal, Hao Ren felt his surroundings began to spin, disoriented his senses. Strange scenes flashed past his eyes as endless darkness and streams of light appeared in his field of vision. The vision looked almost identical to the illusion that he had when he fell into the Cassouin Grand Temple.

Either it was the default condition of the magic of Lady Gloom or the storm of Chaos was interfering heavily with the portal; the teleportation was not a comfortable experience.

But the discomfort was short-lived; Hao Ren had only experienced about ten seconds of dizziness before a light flashed around him and his vision stabilized.

He found himself standing on a hill, and one by one, beams of light flashed around him. Men and beasts, unable to stand on their feet because of the disorientation, began to fall out from the teleporting light and throw up big time.

Hao Ren realized that he had held up better than anyone else.

At last, Lily fell out of the gateway. Feeling dizzy, the husky landed on four. It took her a while before Lily realized she needed to walk upright. The husky then staggered up to Hao Ren, who shoved her to the other direction. “Go that way if you are throwing up!”

After a moment, several bear monsters, carrying a large cage, had also passed through the portal.

The cage contained a mysterious monster, of which even Hao Ren could not figure out what it was. Before finding out the origins and secrets of the Shadow of Nightmares, Calaxus did not want to free or kill it. So they had to bring the monster together.

The last person to go through the portal was the magic caster, Lady Gloom. Compared with the others, the mysterious woman seemed to have not been affected by the disorientation. She walked out of the gateway steadily as light dissipated around her. Glancing at the others, Lady Gloom said, “There has been a strong interference. To be able to maintain the portal open was the best I could do under this circumstance.”

“That’s good enough,” Calaxus said while bending over and gasping. “I have never thought that it would work.”

A moment later, the soldiers of the Sanctum investigation team regained their senses and found the strange environment around them.

It was indeed Sanctum but was no longer a familiar place.

“This is Sanctum?” A church knight stood on the top of a hill and looked into the horizon. He was in disbelief. “Goddess, please protect us. The power of Chaos has gotten in.”

Dark clouds were hanging low with shadows lurking around the hills. There was a faint light behind the cloudy sky as natural sunlight had faded behind the clouds, becoming a shimmer. Peeking through the gaps between the clouds was a layer of faint light, the shield of Order, which in the eyes of Hao Ren, had almost disappeared.

Hao Ren stood on a hill and looked around. A blanket of haze was shrouding the land while faint images of the human settlements spread in his field of vision. The cold light seemed dull and devoid of liveliness.

It was the pure land in the legend of Collow’ worldly kingdom, always enshrouded in the sacred light, the goddess of creation’s last miracle: Sanctum.

It had been eroded.

“This is indeed Sanctum,” Calaxus froze when he saw the scene. But Calaxus was mentally prepared and strong as a senior monk. He forced himself to calm down. “We should be near Lu’an, some distance away from Fidelinopolis. But I’m not sure about our exact location.”

All eyes were on Lady Gloom. Everyone was waiting for the mysterious woman to speak.