The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren was stunned upon hearing what Vivian had said. “You know what this thing is?”

Vivian looked a little confused on her face as she rubbed her forehead vexingly. “I… I think I have seen this thing before a long time ago, but I can’t remember when it was. I can only remember it had caused a lot of troubles in the early days of the mythological period.”

“Thing from the mythological era?” Hao Ren thought that it was some rare otherworldling or magic attack, so he had not given much thought to it initially. Never did he expect that it had something to do with the mythological era. “Is this… the creature of that era, or just a magic effect?”

“Sorry, I can’t remember.” Vivian knocked on her head. “But I’m sure it caused a huge problem back then as I remember that other ancient ones and I had dealt with the shadow-induced incident. It was rare that we the ancient ones acted together like that, so the thing must be very unusual.”

Hao Ren recalled the strange nature of the shadow. Though its attack was not lethal, its unique attributes were very tricky to handle. Without the help of the MDT, he would need unique means to capture the shadow, and it would be a lot more troublesome. However, according to Vivian, this kind of shadow was only active in the early days of the Mythological Period, which meant that this thing was once extinct after that, he thought.

“This thing was gone after the end of the Mythological Era. Otherwise, I must have an impression,” Vivian said, nodding her head. “Though I don’t remember exactly how we had dealt with the things back then, it was us the ancient ones who chase the shadows to… Err, I can’t remember the place. Anyway, we had contained them. I remember that there was some family responsibility for guarding the containment, and that family was in some place in South America, but I can’t recall the name of the family.”

Hao Ren was astonished of Vivian’s crappy memory. “All you know is just in South America?”

Vivian spread her hands. “It’s not that you don’t already know that my memory sucks, let alone it was thousands of years ago. It’s already good that I can remember it was in South America.”

Lily did not pay attention to the shadow in the carton right from the beginning. After hearing what Vivian had said, she said with a stumped face, “It’s okay to forget. The most important question is where we should go looking for clues. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Hao Ren looked at the carton that everyone surrounded. Though he did not know where to start, he felt the need to investigate the matter. It was something that Vivian and other ancient ones on the earth teaming up to contain. It should have disappeared on the planet long ago, and its sudden appearance was pointing to some terrible sign. He ruled out the possibility of some shadows had escaped the dragnet simply the shadows had not appeared for thousands of years. The only possibility was that there was a breach in the containment. He was now wondering how many of the shadows had escaped, how many of them in total and how severe the breach was.

Most importantly, in today’s world where the Mythological Era had ended, the influence of otherworldlings and the demon hunters had significantly declined, he did not know who else could handle this kind of thing now.

He might not realize it that apart from the reasons he had thought of, there was another reason why he was so worried about the shadow—that was his intuition. He intuitively felt that he could not turn a blind eye to this incident.

Nangong Sanba’s brows knit together, he was worried about the same thing Hao Ren was concerned about. “We got to find a way to find those shadows. Since this was something that even the ancients had difficulty to deal with, I’m afraid no one would be able to control them now. The threats would be unthinkable if they all run loose in the wild.”

Lily spread her hand. “The problem now is that Battie has remembered nothing but South America! What could we do?”

Hao Ren thought for a moment. Just when he was about to say something, the loud voice of Y’lisabet was heard at the doorway. “Uncle Ren! Something has happened! Papa met an assassin!”

Everyone was shocked. They turned around unison and saw Y’zaks was standing right next to Y’lisabet. The great demon patted his daughter on the head and forced a smile. “This kid was exaggerating it. I just met a strange thing that attacked me, but I got it anyway.”

Y’lisabet jumped up and down under her papa’s big hand. “It was such a weird thing! Scared the wit out of me!”

Hao Ren and Vivian exchanged a look instinctively, both of them had thought of the same thing. Vivian’s looked extremely serious. “Was the one attacking you a shadow?”

Y’lisabet immediately came over. “How do you know that?”

Hao Ren raised his finger and pointed to the containment carton on the coffee table. “I was attacked too. Here, I captured it in the carton.”

Y’lisabet came to the coffee table and took a peek inside the containment carton. Then she uttered loudly, “This is the one! My own shadow beat me, and it took my papa a great deal of trouble to pull that thing out. That thing looked exactly like this one!”

Y’zaks nodded slightly, meaning what Y’lisabet said was true.

Hao Ren glanced at Y’zaks in amazement. He had seen the strength of this demon king, who could destroy the earth by just a wave of his hand, and the little girl Y’lisabet was no slouch either when it came to magic. Both of them, who were considered all-powerful even during the Mythological Era had been given a hard time by the shadow, of which Hao Ren had ‘upgraded’ the threat level.

Though the capturing of the shadow with the triple helps of the MDT, golden-apple carton, and his Steel Membrane Shield was a little alarmingly dangerous, it was not that difficult. He unconsciously took the shadow lightly. Now it seemed to him that this thing was nastier than he had imagined.

Y’zaks smiled and explained to Hao Ren, “It was all because I had never seen such a thing. I thought it was something like a shadow monster or a night-shadow devil. I blew a big hole on the ground, but that did not affect the shadow a bit; it was pulling my leg.”

When Y’zaks patted on his strong arm heedlessly, Hao Ren suddenly understood what ‘pulling his leg’ meant. The body of the great demon was as strong as, if not stronger than Hao Ren’s Steel Membrane Shield, and the shadow would most probably be unable to defeat Y’zaks’ defense. At most, it could only frighten the little girl a bit and threw Y’zaks off guard for a while.

“Did you just say you blew a hole in the ground?” Hao Ren was alarmed. “Don’t tell me you’ve torn the town apart!”

Don’t worry; it was in the field at the back.” Y’zaks smirked. “Looks like that the thing only attacked when we were alone,” he said.

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief, but he was a bit curious. “How did you manage to defeat the shadow?”

“Both conventional magic and physical attacks didn’t work at that time,” Y’zaks said, scratching his head as he recalled the strange battle which had turned knotty. “Then I found out that when it faced with a mirror, it would bounce off, so I summoned two pieces of mirror and drew the shadow to it and let it bounce between the mirrors. The shadow finally exhausted after two hours of fun.”

“Seriously?”

Y’zaks spread his hand and said with a blank expression, “I’m thinking the same.”

They now focused on the origin of this shadow. Lily related what Vivian knew to Y’zaks and Y’lisabet. “In short, this is what Battie and other ancients had once contained back then, but somehow it escaped.”

Hao Ren let out a sigh, feeling helpless. “The biggest problem now is that Vivian has completely forgotten the clues that could lead us to understand the shadow. She even forgot who she had joined hands in capturing the shadows, and the location of the containment,” he said.

Vivian was a little upset by Hao Ren’s words. She disputed his argument. “Did I not remember it was South America?”

Everyone buried their faces in their hands as they were too embarrassed to even look at the forgetful bat demon.

Nangong Sanba had been in thought for a long time. Suddenly, he spoke as if he had thought of something. “I think other people might have experienced the same thing. According to Vivian, these black shadows had caused a lot of problems back in the Mythological Era. Would other ancients know something about these shadows?”