The Record of Unusual Creatures

The sudden awakening of the petrified wardens had everyone in shock. The army of barbarians under Lily immediately descended into a howling bunch. Only Hao Ren seemed to have some idea regarding the occurrence, and he looked up at the first awakened giant statue. With a slightly curt lip, he said, “Looks like you’ve managed to free yourselves from the bondage of Chaos.”

The 21 wardens had slowly reawakened, as dust and debris fell of their body. These giants of rock and steel creaked as they moved their limbs. The first of the awe-inspiring giants that had awakened looked down at Hao Ren. “A surge of holy power had dispelled the shadow in our spirit. We saw your fight through a veil. We have no idea who you are, but you lot have defeated those Armageddon cultists…”

The giant spoke very slowly, and a rumbling echo was audible in his voice. It seemed like the long, torturous petrification had left him very weak. But Hao Ren could sense a surge of energy was re-emerging from the giant’s body, indicating that these ancient warriors have exceptional recovery ability.

Hao Ren nodded, and could pretty much sum up the reason of the giants’ release from Lockmarton’s thrall, and their subsequent reawakening.

Well, all thanks to Lavinia. That fanatical Armageddon cultist wished to release Lockmarton, but in her folly, she had activated the plastic plate that she had stolen from Hao Ren. The holy power in the plate did not match the Ark’s but its power to cleanse Chaos was the same as the goddess of creation’s own power. When the holy power exploded out of the plate, it detected the clash of powers within the wardens and had infused the demigods with it!

With Calaxus and Lily pacified them, the slightly panicked knights and barbarians calmed down. Aside from those who were tending to the wounded, most of them had congregated before the 21 wardens. Hao Ren’s gang of superhuman beings, while pretty oblivious about what was going on, but given their prior ‘work experience’ they were very much composed, and gathered around the moment the fight was over.

“You’re the head honcho of the ancient wardens?” Hao Ren looked up at the giant rock head, it felt like he was looking at a statue of a god from the Greek pantheon. “You’ve been corrupted for almost three centuries? What’s the status with Lockmarton’s breakout?”

“I’m the Lord of Kings Loken. The leader of the Ancient Wardens. We were tasked by our creator to suppress the Original Sin, Lockmarton.” The giants were slowly recovering from their deep slumber and regaining their senses. He knelt down to ease communication with Hao Ren. “But Lockmarton was a much more cunning foe, and we failed at our duty. Worse, we had allowed the darkness to invade our spirits, and even become the weapons of Chaos… Now that the core of the Forgotten Abyss had fully opened, Lockmarton’s spiritual body is no longer being bound. It now wanders the Desolate Flats and is in its initial stage of re-creating a new physical body. But Mother’s divine power still seals it within the last gate, and the lock is the Ark before you. Praise be to Mother, you had managed to stop the heretics just at the nick of time. We now still have some time at hand.”

“I think you had already experienced the surge of another source of divine power.” Hao Ren spoke quickly. “You can probably tell my origins from that. There is no time to waste for introductions. I’m here to solve the problem. Tell me what needs to be done.”

“We need to destroy his physical body once again, and seal its spiritual body after that,” Loken spoke. “Or… if you are able to, to completely annihilate it.”

Another warden beside Loken spoke. “But to complete this almost impossible mission, you need to venture into the Forgotten Abyss, and go against the monster on the Eternal Battlefield or else its powers will seep into the material world. Even a minuscule amount would be able to destroy a wavering mortal world.”

Hao Ren looked at the pyramid once again. “So we still need to figure out how to open the Ark… but it needs a key. You may not know, the temple complex at Cassouin had already fallen, and the key is missing.”

A faint smile seemed to have formed on Loken’s face. “The Cassouin Temple? Ah, there was a decoy placed there, but the real disc was never there to begin with!”

“What?!” Hao Ren was stunned. “You meant to say that the Radiant Disc at Cassouin is a fake?”

While he had never seen the exact shape of the disc at Cassouin, Hao Ren had never thought that the disc that both the church of the goddess and the Cult of Armageddon had believed to exist was fake! The secret of the Cassouin temple that had been circulating for so long was just an elaborate lie!

“Lockmarton’s ability to corrupt mortals is very powerful, so we had predicted the appearance of the fallen like the Armageddon cultists from the beginning. We too had foreseen that one day, the mortal world would find their way to the Ark’s cavern, and whatever their motives are, they would endanger the Ark.” Loken’s thunderous voice rumbled. “We loved the mortals as much as Mother did, and we are only too aware of their weakness. So we had hidden the Radiant Disc somewhere no one would ever think of. Lockmarton would someday command its underlings to search for the key to the Ark, so we had to leave some sort of misdirection…”

Lily anxiously sprung up. “So where’s the real thing?”

“Here.”

Loken said as he raised his arm and thrust it into his chest!

The other twenty wardens too followed suit and thrust their arms into their chest!

The expect scene of gore and collapsing stonework did not happen. As everyone looked on it awe, a dark hole appeared before the chest of all the wardens. Thick mist roiled in the hole as if it was connected to another dimension. And in that dimension, a faint light was visible.

As the wardens’ arm went into the hole, dimensional ripples formed.

Loken pulled out a broken shard from the hole, and the shard was translucent and looked like a crystalline construct similar to the Ark’s material. Similar shards too had appeared in the hands of the other twenty wardens.

“Since this is a prison, its key should always be on the warden.” A female construct spoke, slowly and thunderously, but with a touch of feminine gentleness and grace. Even when we were overwhelmed by Chaos, our spirit had a safeguard and that shielded the location of the shards from being revealed to evil. Even if Lockmarton had destroyed all of us, the key shall never fall into its hand. Because the key could only be reformed with all twenty-one members of the wardens alive!”

Twenty-one crystalline shards floated from the giant statue’s hands and as they spun in the air they slowly reformed, and after a series of dazzling runic verification, the shards reformed into a complete crystalline disc!

“It’s actually a crystal…”

Hao Ren looked at the radiant crystalline disc, as he muttered to himself, a surprised expression slowly take hold on his face.

It was a crystal disc! Not a golden disc!

After recovering from his stupor, Hao Ren turned towards Muru and saw that even the guardian giant was stunned in awe.

Evidently, Muru did not know the origin of the crystal disc, and by the looks of things that this thing is not part of the Creation Engine!

As Hao Ren and the rest was still gathering their thoughts, the crystal disc had reformed and activated. The Lord of Kings Loken raised his arm, looking almost like Atlas cradling the world as he placed the giant disc into the cavity on the Ark of the Sacred Covenant.

A deep hum later, the disc embedded firmly in the cavity of the pyramid. After that, the Ark let out a gentle light, and Hao Ren heard a gentle, yet mechanical voice ringing by his ear.

“The final covenant is activated. The Collow security system is online. Awaiting orders. All entryways into each level can now be controlled.”

“Reporting the current system status. Stability is at 30%, the central core had already been breached and the Buffer Zone is 85% contaminated. Alert Zone is 60% contaminated, and the final Defensive Zone is 50% contaminated. Comprehensive Security Assessment: Critical.”

“Warning. The Prison is contaminated. Lockmarton’s breach perimeter is more than 50%. Containment is expected to fail soon. Reinforcement signal deployment failed. Recommended action: Wardens should activate the final containment protocol!”

Loken’s voice rang. “The final containment protocol is to push Collow into the edge of the world, outside the worlds of Order to the edge of the empty void. This crystal disc is the key to the Ark, and once the Ark is activated by the key, the engine to propel Collow’s worlds of Order can be brought online. But if that protocol is activated, everything will be destroyed.”

“Wait a minute, you said… an engine!?” Hao Ren caught the keyword and immediately understood what Loken said about “outside the worlds of Order” and the “empty void”. “You mean that this thing could turn part of this universe’s structure into a void engine?”

“Sounds like you know what is going on at the edge of the world?” Loken was a little bit surprised. “But just as you said, the Ark is a type of engine.”

The MDT immediately came to Hao Ren’s side. “Buddy…”

“I’ve caught on as well.” Hao Ren nodded. “A reaction core made out of a disc, the Ark acting as the hull and being used to propel a universe or part of it to a remote area… It looks like this is the original Creation Engine!”