The Record of Unusual Creatures

The spaceship built by the rebels was showy and exaggerative, just like themselves. Inside the giant spaceship, every corridor, every piece of equipment, everything was beautifully decorated and meticulously arranged.

The corridor was spacious and bright. It had a gracefully curved vault, with plenty of pale golden glowing light streams with crystals hanging at the end of them falling from the vault. There were countless relief sculptures on the walls of the corridor, depicting pictures of religious legend with exquisite artistry, including struggles against natural disasters, mystical rituals related to the stars, and the domestication of dangerous beasts. The heroes or heroines of these pictures were, of course, all tall, handsome and beautiful ‘perfect human’. They were either dressed in holy armor or clothed in robes that represented wisdom and knowledge, playing the role of savior or leader in every picture. And all sorts of other species, including humans who looked like them but thinner, were all prostrating at the feet of these ‘Gods’.

Hao Ren felt like he was walking in a magnificent temple. If it weren’t for the flickers of the facilities between the sculptures and the statues of Gods, he would have almost forgotten that it was a spaceship floating in space.

Y’zaks was walking beside Hao Ren and looking at the luxurious decorations around him. These magnificent and beautifully decorated corridors reminded him of something about his home—the art-loving elves and the human kingdoms would build something similar. Of course, they were slightly less luxurious, but from the point ‘exquisite art’, the two were very similar.

“If it’s not a weapon, it’s actually quite a fine piece of art,” Y’zaks said with a smile, “but such decorations should not appear on the battlefield. As a battleship, it’s too luxurious and full of unnecessary decorations.”

“It’s a luxury on the battlefield. Human beings have had such a period, but that was in ancient times. It’s hard to imagine that a space civilization will keep this practice,” Hao Ren said and shook his head, “these treacherous children have completely gone insane, becoming gods can’t be real and they have already taken themselves as true Gods.”

Lily was poking at the sculptures on the wall with her Frostfire Claws while muttering, “Collective insane. This happens from time to time in any society. Anyway, it looks like there’s really no one here.”

The data terminal was floating in front of them and scanning around with a blue light. It was detecting the flow of energy in the walls of the corridor and the life in the vicinity. “No signs of life were found—except some microbes. The spaceship’s power seemed to be intact, and I detected a regular signal transmission, so the basic system is probably still operating automatically but it seems that the core system is off-line. I found a line that’s in a silent state. This line runs through the entire spaceship. We can locate the host of the spaceship through the line and then figure out the general structure of the spaceship.”

“Oh,” Hao Ren responded. He wanted to figure out the structure of the spaceship, but he’s more concerned about the whereabouts of the crew. Every inch of this place corner looked elegant and magnificent, but at the moment, it was all lifeless, like a cold handicraft floating in space, and he wanted to know why. Along the way, he did not find any traces of damage and there were no signs of fighting on the walls of the corridor. So basically, he could rule out some factors that might have caused the crew to abandon the spaceship, such as invasion, crew mutiny, and internal environmental disasters. Similarly, because no apparent injuries were found outside the spaceship, he could rule out the possibility of the ship being abandoned because of damage.

The ship was abandoned in perfect condition.

They came to the end of the corridor. There was a fork, and a door in the middle of the fork, which might be a place for the staff to take a break. Lily scratched the metal door with her paws and asked, “What’s behind this?”

Hao Ren pushed the husky girl aside to stop her from making noises and then went forward to check the door. The power supply of the access control system should be fine, but he did not know how to activate it. He walked around the door and found that there were two small sculptures symmetrically placed on both sides of the door. The sculpture was some kind of beast with long fangs and slender faces. When Hao Ren put his hand on the head of the sculpture, he heard a slight noise coming from the wall, then the door slid open.

“This reminds me of those tomb traps in the TV series. The design is quite retro,” Hao Ren said.

Behind the door was a small rectangular room, which, as Hao Ren guessed, was a lounge. There were some soft, spacious seats and long metal tables in the room but what caught their attention were the things that were placed on the metal tables.

Hao Ren walked quickly into the room. The metal tables were set with strange cutlery, and some of the food had not been touched at all. There was a holographic projection in the corner of the room showing a section of the cabin that they had not yet explored. Lily exclaimed with surprise when she saw the food on the table, “Ah, they also need to eat?”

“Of course. Raven 12345 also eats instant noodles, not to mention these guys who are not even demigods,” Hao Ren said while reaching for a drink on the table which was cold as expected, “Err, it looks like they’ve been away for a while.”

Y’zaks looked at the scene in the room and frowned. “The food was on the table and the projector didn’t turn off, but there was no sign of fighting. Probably they were evacuated abruptly, and the cause of the evacuation has nothing to do with violence. Judging from the situation, they left here in a hurry but did not panic. So the reason for the crew abandoning the spaceship is most likely to be the order of the superior.”

“Let’s keep looking.”

The evacuation order was probably sent from the bridge or a similar command center, so everybody targeted there. The data terminal looked for command center by hacking the data lines buried in the corridor and led them all the way to the depths of the ship.

As they went deeper, they continued to find more evidence that could prove that the crew was evacuated under a unified order.

They found more cabins like lounges, meeting rooms, dormitories and a variety of workshops. Every room showed signs of a sudden abandonment: food was left untouched on the table, personal belongings discarded in the corner of the room, and some devices maintained on the power-on state. In some rooms, the clothes were thrown in the bed, it seemed that the owner of the room suddenly ran out while changing the clothes. Hao Ren wondered what had happened that made those treacherous children evacuate in a panic.

Finally, they found a broad corridor leading to the deepest part of the ship. At the end of the corridor was a magnificent door that allowed giants like Muru to walk in. The door was made of crystals and carved with the image of the Gods, and was bigger and taller and more exquisite than every door they met before. The data terminal confirmed that the control center of the spaceship was behind the door by hacking into the surrounding lines.

This time, Hao Ren could not find the control switch of the door. Lily tried to force open the door with her paws but it did not work. “It is so sturdy!”

Hao Ren looked around and confirmed that the door could not be opened like the previous ones. He knocked on the data terminal and asked, “Is this door connected to a self-destruct or any other warning switch?”

Data terminal then checked the door and replied, “No, just a simple access control system.”

Hao Ren patted Y’zaks on the arm and said, “Give us some technical support.”

Y’zaks rolled up his sleeve and summoned the Infernal Brimstone, swinging it and then smashed it towards the door. “Get out of the way!”

Lily was still trying to open the door with her head down. As soon as she looked up, she saw a fireball of the size of a calf flying over her head. She screamed and sprang away and then, a loud bang echoed in the corridor.

Lily was shouting and stamping her foot in anger in the smoke, “Don’t do it so abruptly! Can’t you give me a little time to react?”

“You should have realized it was going to explode when he mentioned technical support,” the data terminal said mockingly, “and that’s great, my partner. Your work style is getting more and more on the right track!”