The Record of Unusual Creatures

Thick fog shrouded the entire Ancattero territory, but the splendid architecture was still visible. The golden buildings looked different from the architecture on Earth. Though not as grand as what he saw on the other planets, the style of the architecture was no doubt of Tannagost.

Wayne had never heard of Tannagost and was surprised by the fog here. “Tannagost? What do you mean?” he asked casually.

Hao Ren was startled for a moment before quickly waving his hand. “Oh, nothing, it’s just the name of an ancient place. The buildings there are as golden as here.”

“Just like this Golden Manor?” Wayne asked, confused. He did not harp on this topic for long though, because the foggy air was puzzling him now. “Why is there a fog here?”

“You mean there was no fog previously?” Hao Ren asked, surprised. He thought that fog was a normal phenomenon in the alien dimension.

“Of course not, fog makes life more difficult,” Wayne replied, shaking his head. “I feel something strange in the fog. I can’t tell what it is, but certainly, it is not natural. Let’s go and check out the Ancattero family hall first,” he said.

Wayne led the way while Hao Ren, Vivian, and the others exchanged a look with each other, and kept a distance behind Wayne. While keeping an eye on the surroundings, they lowered their voices and discussed among themselves. “It is indeed the architectural style of Tannagost,” Hao Ren whispered into Vivian’s ear.

“Golden Manor… I should have thought of this a long time ago,” Vivian said, biting her lips. “The Ancattero family is the Tannaeans who are stranded on Earth!”

It reminded Hao Ren what Pierre, the spirit detective, said before; Pierre used to call the Ancattero family ‘Tara.’ “Tanna…Tara, they sound closely similar.”

Y’zaks nodded. “It might have been lost in translation after many years. Tanna was mistakenly passed down as Tara.”

Lily also nodded. “Well, maybe Pierre’s grandfather was a lisper.”

There was a what-the-heck look on Y’zaks’ face. “I don’t mean that. All right, forget about it.”

“You don’t have any impression of them?” Hao Ren looked at Vivian incredulously. “According to the information we found in Tannagost, the appearance of Tannaean is different from that of the Earth. You had been in contact with Tannaeans on Earth, and yet you couldn’t even remember their unique look?”

“I have even forgotten their golden houses. What do you expect me to remember?” Vivian snorted. “I deserve to be poor for not remembering these gold parvenus.”

Of course, Battie was self-aware. She accepted that she was destined to live a miserable life.

Hao Ren was surprised to find that the Ancattero family was Tannaeans who lived on Earth, but the existence of Tannaeans on Earth was not a surprise because all otherworldlings were from the Plane of Dreams. Though most of them originated from the planet Holletta, some of them, such as the sirens, were from other places. There was a stable breach in the planet Tannagost that connected Earth, and the vengeful spirit was also a variant of Tannaean, so the presence of the descendants of Tannaean on Earth was utterly ordinary. The conversation reminded Hao Ren about of something though. “Wait a second, didn’t Vivian say that the vengeful-spirit phenomenon has always been an unresolved mystery among the otherworldlings?” he asked.

Vivian nodded. “Yes. Why?”

“Did the Ancattero family not know what the vengeful spirit was?!”

Everyone had a light bulb moment when they realized about what Hao Ren was talking. Since the Ancattero family was the Tannaeans who were stranded on Earth and the vengeful spirits were the spiritualized Tannaeans, so it might be possible that the Ancattero family did not know about the vengeful spirits.

Vivian was startled. She began to recall the unresolved question that they had been discussing previously. “All otherworldlings had lost their memories when they crossed over to Earth. The sirens didn’t remember that Nasaton was a spaceship; the werewolf and the Blood Clan didn’t remember that they came from Holletta; so it is completely reasonable that the Tannaeans have forgotten about their compatriots who were the vengeful spirits.”

“I think this situation here is a bit unique.” Hao Ren scratched his chin as a bigger question began to surface. “The otherworldlings have forgotten where their hometown is, and the Ancattero family has forgotten their compatriots. We need to re-examine the scope and intensity of the ‘collective amnesia’ of the otherworldlings.”

As they walked and discussed among themselves, they unknowingly fell behind Wayne and Hesperides. Wayne turned around. “Stick close to me. It is dangerous to get lost in here,” he said.

They stopped talking anymore and quickly kept up with Wayne’s pace.

As they ventured deeper into the realm, the real face of the golden buildings built by the Ancattero family began to come into view. The influence of high-tech alien civilization was evident on these exotic buildings with roads that were suspended in the air and the strange antenna towers that were significantly different from those of the magic-centric otherworldlings.

In the eyes of the people during the ancient times, there was no difference between the two: whether the magic masters from Holletta or the advanced technology from Tannagost, the ancient people saw them as gods.

They were like walking into an alien base—in fact, it was. Wayne explained the functions of the buildings from time to time. The Walter family had a close relationship with the Ancattero family for thousands of years ago, so the vampire patriarch knew this alien base well. He pointed to a tall electric-discharging tower in the dense fog. “This tower is located right in the center of the secret realm, and its function is to maintain the stability of the entire secret realm.”

“There is no damage to the buildings, at least the surrounding buildings,” Vivian said. Her brows knit together as she looked at a building nearby. “And more importantly, there is no dead body here.”

“It isn’t clear where this dense fog comes from,” Y’zaks said as he reached out and waved his hand in the fog, stirring a large area of dense fog like stirring a liquid, but the void was quickly filled back up. “Look, there are obvious traces of artificial control. The fog is restraining something. It could be some defense mechanism.”

Hao Ren looked up thoughtfully at the cloudy sky. He could not see where exactly the light from above came from, but he was sure that it was artificial lighting. The dense fog diffused the light, so their shadows under their feet were blurry.

“The fog weakens the power of the shadows?” Little Y’lisabet had also noticed the change of the shadow in the dense fog. “I can see that our shadows are lighter now!” she said.

Wayne glanced at Little Y’lisabet. He didn’t know what the little girl, who looked like a stepchild or something, was doing here, but her insight surprised him. Hesperides nodded lightly. “Probably as the little girl said, those shadows must be there, probably lurking in places where the fog can’t reach. The investigators of the Walter family might have bumped into the shadows earlier.”

The group moved very carefully towards the center of the secret realm. Further forward was the downtown area where residences of the Ancattero family and their family hall were. As they were approaching the place, Hao Ren noticed that the fog in the surroundings became thinner and thinner.

If the fog was there to ward off the Shade of Chaos, then its disappearance was not a good thing.

The little demon girl was not nervous at all. She was jumping around the adults, looking around curiously as if she thought it was a picnic trip. “With so much gold here, why other families didn’t come and take their gold away?” she asked curiously.

Gold was not a valuable commodity on the planet Tannagost, but it was a precious metal on Earth. Wayne laughed. “Gold? Money doesn’t mean much to us, because in most cases it’s at our fingertips. Even in modern times, most otherworldling families aren’t short of money. We have a powerful business empire in human society. Well? Why you all are so quiet suddenly?”

Everyone was looking at Vivian. Little Y’lisabet shook her head. “It’s at the fingertips, powerful commercial empire.”

Vivian was embarrassed—it was rare for a vampire to have flushed cheeks. She waved her hand frantically, trying to explain herself. “Don’t look at me! I had tried to do business back then! I was the first to come out with the idea of international trade, mind you,” she said.

Hao Ren counted with his fingers. “Then the entire Egyptian dynasty went bankrupt, and Mycenaean civilization, as well as ancient Rome, and ancient India, and—”

Vivian’s arms akimbo. She cut in. “There weren’t as many as you said! I had run out of money when I reached the Greek peninsula!”

Wayne whispered, “At least there was my family, we were fortunate enough to sail through.”

Wayne could also be blunt sometimes.