The Record of Unusual Creatures

Sitting in his favorite spot on the sofa while watching TV, he spaced out. His mind began to wander into some distant universe. The variety show did not interest him; he just liked the feeling of losing his thoughts, especially after a day of hard work. On regular days, he would not have been able to secure the seat in front of the TV, because the husky would grab the remote control, and the silly cat would interrupt him. Just so happened that today, Lily had gone out to inspect her troop of canines in the neighborhood while the dumb cat…

Rollie closed her eyes and curled herself up beside Hao Ren, snoring. He grabbed her tail in her hand, wrapped it around his arm and then released. The cat maiden did not object to this; she had taken some wrong medicine, half a bottle of sleeping pills to be exact.

“I have told you to discard those pills.” Vivian sat on the sofa on the other side, fiddling with cross-stich. “You are sickness resistant now; you wouldn’t need this, and nobody would need it. The silly cat has popped all the pills in the bottle thinking they were candy. Fortunately, she has transcended; she would get sleepy at most.”

Hao Ren forced a smile. “I’m just frugal, all right? Are you not still keeping your clothes for twenty years despite your lack of food and clothing now?”

Since gaining the body of a superman, Hao Ren’s life had changed. He had been trying to maintain his human habits, but many things were out of his control. He would not fall sick, almost could not be injured, unafraid of hot and cold. The medicines and the first-aid kit had been lying around for two years, untouched, and many things had passed their expiry date. He began to stay away from the many necessities of life that humans needed, and he could throw himself into the wilderness to live with nature if it was not for the convenience of comfort and habits. Today, he finally did not have to remember the expiry date of the pills he kept in the cabinet, as Rollie had opened the cabinet and emptied the sleeping pills into her stomach.

When Hao Ren came home earlier, he was shocked to find the silly cat sprawled on the floor in front of his room, the hair on her tail and ears drooping. After examining, he discovered that she was asleep from ingesting too many sleeping pills, and sending her into an unusually quiet moment.

“Speaking of which, Y’zaks, you haven’t been out for the past two days.” Hao Ren turned his head to look at the demon not far away while another commercial set in. “Didn’t Y’lisabet want to fiddle with old appliances? Why don’t you collect some for her?”

Y’zaks lifted his head from the magazine, grinning from ear to ear, exposing a mouthful of shark-like jagged teeth. “I just brought back an excavator the day before yesterday. It’s good enough for a few days of fiddling. Didn’t you see that right at the back of the house?”

Hao Ren was dumbfounded. He couldn’t imagine how the demon papa and daughter collected old appliances usually.

“Is excavator an appliance?” Vivian asked curiously.

Hao Ren shook his head, knowing that an excavator and an appliance made no difference in the eyes of the little girl Y’lisabet as long as she could take apart those things with a screwdriver.

“I’m bored.” Hao Ren could not help but sigh. “It’s boring to stay home all day.”

“Do you usually not wanting to rest for a few days?” Vivian looked at him with a strange look. “Have a change of heart?”

“The Goddess must have screwed with my brain.” Hao Ren sank back into the sofa, burying his face in his hand. “It used to not get bored for months at home. Now I couldn’t stand it after three days watching T at home. MDT, has the drone cluster checked the coordinate?”

He was talking about the star chart he obtained from the Dorasil pyramids in Inferno. The star chart indicated that the planet Inferno was used to be in the Plane of Dreams. By figuring out the coordinates, he hoped to find the location where the first crack appeared on the Wall of Reality. However, it might be that when the breach on the Wall of Reality happened, a backlash in the Plane of Dreams had changed the original location of the celestial system where Inferno used to be in. The drone cluster had come back with nothing after searching the coordinates on the star chart.

At least in the regions where the drone cluster had explored, there were no celestial bodies that matched the start chart.

“Not found yet,” the MDT said after contacting the drone cluster. “Maybe we have not searched wide enough. The drone cluster is heading to a new galaxy. We’re expecting to make some discoveries. Wait a minute! There is an incoming call. It’s from Muru!”

Hao Ren immediately sat up. “Patch it to me.”

The MDT turned on the holographic projection, and Muru’s face appeared. “Hao Ren, I have a situation here, I need you to come over.”

“What happened?”

“It’s complicated. I heard a voice from the deep space during my meditation. It seemed to come from my long time compatriot, but I am not that sure. The mental connection among the guardians has long gone, and the source of the voice seemed to… I think you’d better come. Our planet has some new developments that you need your attention.”

Hao Ren hung up, he was a little excited now, wondering if Muru had contacted another guardian.

There were indeed other surviving guardians in the universe!

“Are you bored now?” Vivian put down the cross stitch in her hand and gave a sideways glance. “You are the ultimate harbinger of bad news.”

Hao Ren laughed wryly. He really could not explain himself. Y’zaks had put down the magazine in his hands and said unhurriedly, “This time I will go with you.”

“You’re coming out from your cocoon?” Hao Ren was surprised.

Y’zaks grinned and swung his shoulders. “Just like you, got bored over time staying at home.”

Once a workaholic, always a workaholic. Y’zaks was a little restless now after living a retirement life for a while. The explorer in him was calling out for him again.

Tannagost was now like a base in his backyard. He only needed to go through a few portals to reach Tannagost. He required not much preparation when he set off in the same afternoon. This time, only Lily and Y’zaks were going with him. Vivian had just absorbed the memory of a super-large split body, and now her mind was like having a hangover. Hao Ren let her rest at home.

Oh, this time he brought Lil Pea. She felt bored at home when Hao Ren was on a trip each time, so she badgered him until he gave in and brought her along. Considering that Tannagost was now a relatively safe place, Hao Ren decided to bring the baby sigh out to see the world. If something terrible happened, he could always send the little one back quickly.

After passing through the crack in the Wall of Reality, Hao Ren arrived at the golden city of Alamanda.

This beautiful ancient city had not changed much from the past. Other than the dome that Hao Ren built around the space cracks, there was only an autonomous factory running in the corner of the city. When they came to a tower in the city, they found that changes were happening in the wilderness outside the city: vegetation with pale gold and green luster had spread over the entire land, where ecosystem reconstruction was on still going.

Muru appeared in front of them and greeted Hao Ren with a slight nod, then got straight to business. “The voice has stopped, but it has been going on for dozens of minutes before it went silent. I have recorded the entire connection process.”

“Are you sure it was the signal of other guardians?”

“I’m sure,” Muru nodded slightly, “but the question is that this signal carries the mark of the Gate of Solenne.”

Hao Ren. “What is that?”

“An ancient galaxy, the main passageway leading to the Star of Creation. In the words of the believers, it is the primary staircase to the kingdom of God.” Muru looked serious. “It was the first to fall in the deicidal battle. I saw it was pulled into the Umbral Realm during the final big bang.”

Hao Ren was stunned for a few seconds. He tried to calm down. “What about the signal content?”

“It was a distress signal.”