The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 403

Chapter 403: The First Step of the Plan

 

Hao Ren recounted what happened over at Raven 12345’s place after arriving back home. He began to check to see who was going, but honestly, that was a moot question as everyone at home wanted a piece of the action. However, there were exceptions, namely Becky and the four ascetics who could not go. Coming over from the Plane of Dreams was already a problem in itself, so it was better if they did not venture anywhere else.

“Now I know what it feels like raising a toddler,” Hao Ren mumbled as he packed his stuff and looked resignedly at Lil Pea, who was in her aquarium. “But, I just have to bring her along. She’s just so worrisome.”

Lil Pea was perched on the side of the aquarium, looking at Hao Ren curiously. As she heard him speak, she happily slapped her tail against the glass. “Wurisum! Wurisum!”

“Well, this time around you can let her out from time to time,” Y’zaks said, suddenly appearing beside Hao Ren. “She won’t cause a ruckus there even if she gets discovered.”

“You have mermaids over at your place?” Hao Ren asked quizzically.

Y’zaks shook his head. “We don’t have mermaids, but we dabble in alchemy and chimaeric creations. There are lots of weird homunculi and chimaeric beasts there. Of course, they are far from being actual living beings, but they did not pop out of thin air either. So, explaining the little one’s origins will be very simple.”

“Well, one step at a time I guess.” Hao Ren pursed his lips. “If things go awry, I’ll have to shove her back into the Dimensional Pocket. This little one… is just so worrisome…”

Lil Pea continued slapping the glass with her tail. “Wurisum! Wurisum!”

Apparently she remembered the word, and seemingly knew that it referred to her.

After packing up, Hao Ren ordered the MDT to activate the portal towards the port where the Petrachelys was docked. He had also informed the station before hand, and the navigation path as well as the launch catapult were on standby, so they could depart as soon as they got there. Not to mention, it would spare them from Y’zaks’ frenzied reminders.

Once the flash of white light disappeared, the group arrived in the ever impressive docking bay. The Petrachelys floated silently by the dock, emanating a mysterious silver light as it waited for its master. Lanina still wondered “how reliable these loonies were” and it took her a while to realise that she had been transferred from the house to a very wide space—even wider than the goddess’ temple. The suddenness of things had her grappling to find her bearings. Looking about, she asked, “Umm… We’re taking a ship right? Where’s the ship?”

Hao Ren pointed at the Petrachelys. “That’s the one. We’re talking about a spaceship here. Were you thinking about the seaborne one?”

Only then did Lanina realise that the big monstrosity in front of her was Hao Ren’s “personal transport”. Not like she had never seen one before; she was knocked over by one after all. It just never occurred to her that Hao Ren would have such a vessel!

“This is bigger than the one that crashed into me!” Lanina was wide-eyed. “Wait a minu… you’re saying this is yours?!”

“Yep.” Hao Ren nodded. “My official vessel, although in reality it’s a private one. It’s called the Petrachelys. Just knowing the name itself is enough. Don’t ask me what it means or who named it.”

Lanina was still too stunned to react. She simply could not believe that the seemingly unreliable person had managed to conjure a ship of such proportions. Her mind still could not place Hao Ren’s place, which looked like it was awaiting demolition and his employer’s place, which was a wreck against the magnificent dockyard before her. The difference was just too vast a gap. “If you’re that capable… why don’t you renovate your place?”

“It serves its purpose, so why do I need to renovate it?” Hao Ren did not know why Lanina popped such a question.

Lanina tilted her head back. She surmised that this was probably just culture shock, and that it was how the goddess had decreed. It was not something she could ever understand, so she just left it at that.

Hao Ren led the group into the ship and the Petrachelys was soon outside Kuiper Station’s control zone. The ship was fast exiting the Milky Way and the station had turned into a sparkling dot in the blackness of space behind them. After the ship reached the void, the MDT activated the warp drive.

Once the image from the optical sensors faded to black, Hao Ren could relax and release himself from his captain pose. “Alright, we’ll be reaching the World Gate soon. We just have to wait.”

The MDT was in the control console, and leered at him. “What are you getting to relaxed for? You just had to press the auto-pilot button. I was controlling the ship the entire time.”

Hao Ren did not react to the provocation, and turned to look at the group on the bridge. This was not Lily or Vivian’s first space voyage and they had already went about doing things that interested them. Vivian was making gloves out of Lily’s leftover fur, but there did not seem to be enough. She would glance at Lily’s tail from time to time. The husky on the other hand, was in that oversized uniform again, and she was striking a first-mate pose next to Hao Ren. She seemed to be really into the whole first-mate shtick. Nangong Wuyue was studying the scale patterns of mermaids, thus Lil Pea was her subject.

Y’zaks was seated on the far corner of the bridge with a stony face. Everyone was wise enough to leave him alone. The great demon had finally encountered something that gave him the jitters.

Lanina was a ball of curiosity the moment she stepped foot on the ship. Everything was new and interesting to her. Most importantly, this was far more advanced that what she saw in Hao Ren’s place, and she finally had confidence in Hao Ren as well as the goddess behind him.

Hao Ren cleared his throat to attract everyone’s attention on the bridge. “I’ve received the report from the Space Administration… and oh, the navigation guide from the World Gate.”

Everyone looked up as they waited for Hao Ren to brief them.

“Based on these records, the home of good old Y’zaks is at a very far flung place.” Hao Ren looked at Y’zaks. “As for how far flung it is… let’s just put it this way, remember old Aerym? That place doesn’t even have any administration centers; only a World Gate, a few outposts and some automated fortifications. That’s almost a village level place, and Y’zaks place is even more far flung than that. Your world doesn’t even have a World Gate! It’s almost like our place back home…”

Vivian was surprised. “Not even a World Gate? How do we get there then?”

The vampire had joined Hao Ren on a voyage before and she took the effort to learn a little about the World Gate. She put in a better than Lily at least.

“The World Gate is mainly for ease of civilian transport. Many normal races don’t have the capability to cross the void and they need the World Gate to reach another world.” Hao Ren tapped the command console. “Our ship has a void drive in it and we can go to places that do not have a World Gate. The difference being that one is automated, and the other requires manual navigation. The Empire has laid claim to Y’zaks’ place, but they only have a sovereign hub there. Even that’s hidden in a different dimension, so we’re not heading to the hub itself. I’ve requested the coordinates from Raven 12345, so we can directly teleport near the spot where Y’zaks was first taken.”

“Serathon’s Demonic Foundry?” Lanina immediately knew the place Hao Ren was referring to. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Of course, hence we won’t land there directly.” Hao Ren nodded. “The ship’s AI will compute the safest place to send us. But then there’s the most important part, how do we disguise ourselves? The first stop is the demonic world, so how do we go about that…”

“It’s not a problem for me.” Lanina stroked her long and thin succubus tail as a faint, nostalgic smile appeared on her face. “Succubi are a common sight there and my looks are rather inconspicuous. Just a change of clothes will do. My Lord can just be a normal flame demon, or maintain his current looks…”

Lanina then peered at Y’zaks. “His current form looks like a human who’s undergone changes after demon worship. People like that are common too.”

Hao Ren took a quiet glance at Y’zaks as he demurred. “So, we can just disguise ourselves as demonic followers. We won’t raise any alarms this way, right?”

“No”—Lanina smiled—”there are many humans who fall into the demonic grasp in search of power. As long as there is a high level demon acting as your master, most demons won’t even look at you. While the demonic world is chaotic, there are still rules that all will follow. One of it is stealing other’s adherents. It is a strict no-no as it’s literally pointless.”

The group continued their discussion on how to diguise themselves until the ship arrived at the World Gate.

Chapter 404: The Demonic Plane

 

Y’zaks old place was in a universe at the outer rims of the Empire’s borders. In fact, with the great expansion 10,000 years ago, the Empire had claimed plenty of uncultivated space. And this “reserved land” only had the most basic of sovereign hubs and monitoring outposts. Y’zaks’ place did not even have a World Gate.

Hao Ren was planning a one-way teleportation for departure, and manual navigation for the return trip. His plan was to use the World Gate to “catapult” into Y’zaks’ homeworld and use the Petrachelys’ void drives to slowly make their way back. That was his conclusion after studying the World Gate’s activation rules. The method could potentially save them loads of time as well.

The ship soon arrived at the magnificent gate in deep space. It was a sight to behold as always with the traffic of various civilisations going in and out of the gate. It was as busy as ever. It was only here in the deep void of space that you could see so many extraordinary races and civilisations in the universe. This was Lanina’s first time seeing the World Gate and she was immediately stunned beyond words by the magnificence of the planet-sized structure. As the ship slowly approached the gate’s light screen, the succubus subconciously tied her tail into her knot, revealing her anxiousness.

“Ten thousand years ago, a one-way launching like this was not possible,” the MDT explained as it slotted itself into the console. “Back then, World Gates needed to be present on both ends; one being the launching point, and the other the receiving point. Breakthroughs were made later on for one-way launches and the World Gate can now serve as a guiding launch pad. I’ve already sent the coordinates to the World Gate and it will send us close to our destination. Of course, we’ll have to do it manually when we return.”

Hao Ren thought about it for a moment. “So, there won’t be any problems? Let’s say, a civilian vessel without a void drive accidentally enters the one-way launch bay, will it be stranded?”

“What do you think the sovereign hubs are for? Decoration?” The MDT considered the question juvenile. “The sovereign hubs have the ability to monitor the data transmission of every world, and similar to the control terminals used by the Celestials, it prevents unauthorised entry. Every person passing through the gate will be scanned, and any unauthorised persons or vessels will immediately be transferred back. Nonetheless, there are extremely rare occurences of leakages, but those are very small data packets, similar to a human’s data. This is a general case of “traversal”.

Lanina did not understand the weird technological mumbo jumbo that the MDT was spouting. She stared intently at the fast approaching light screen and realised that the real size of the structure could not be measured by eyes alone. She finally believed that Raven 12345 and Hao Ren could be relied upon. She then popped the question, “This gate… was it created by your goddess?”

There was reverence in her high-pitched voice.

Hao Ren was checking on the ship’s status when she asked the question. Without turning back he said, “No, she did not, but it’s under her supervision.”

Lanina took a deep breath. “So… if she’s that almighty, why didn’t she fix that house of hers?”

Hao Ren was truly confused and turned to face Y’zaks. “Old man, was there something wrong with your education system? Why is this lady here so insistent about fixing houses?”

Y’zaks covered his face with his hand. “Let’s just leave it at that. You just do your thing. But honestly, any normal person would have the same reaction if they saw your house and then the World Gate.”

Shrugging, he eyed the information hologram and announced, “Hold on tight, we’re almost ready to launch. This is a one-way launch, so expect a little rattling.”

As he finished, the Petrachelys hyper-accelerated into the almost borderless light screen, and only stardust lay in their wake.

After some violent shaking for a good while, things started to settle down. Lily climbed up from under her chair as she tugged on Hao Ren’s pants. “Mr. Landlord, you said there would be rattling? You call that rattling?”

Hao Ren stood up, still dazed from the experience. After confirming that the ship had reached the correct coordinates, he pulled Lily up from the ground. He noticed that almost everyone was getting up with the exception of Y’zaks. The big dude seemed to be stuck in his chair. Even the violent shaking did not make him budge.

Hao Ren then smacked the MDT. “Why was there such a violent shaking? Are one-way launches always like this?”

“Nonsense. Do you think that one-way launches are a leisure service?” The MDT buzzed from the command console. “Only the military, or civil servants of the Empire need to use one-way launches regularly. Most common races can’t use it. Besides, it’s part of standard Imperial facilities; its most notable trait being solid and reliable, so who has the time to consider comfort as a priority… Help me, I’m stuck…”

Hao Ren used a chopstick as leverage to get the MDT out of the console as he looked at the holographic display of the scenery outside. “So, we’re here?”

The Petrachelys was floating above a roiling dark crimson cloud, which gave out the vibe of an endless red smog. Light in the area was eeriely dim as well, and you could scarcely tell the light’s source. Hao Ren used the optical sensors to take pictures of their surroundings; there was no sun, or any bright celestial bodies nearby. Within the crimson clouds, there was only a huge mountain range of sorts.

Y’zaks looked at the area and quickly realised where they were. “We may be inside the Hulme Smoke Columns. This is indeed a safe space to enter. No one would open a dimensional gate here.”

He then pointed towards the red smog. “Over there.”

Hao Ren reconfirmed that there were no anomalies around the Petrachelys and allowed the MDT to pilot the ship out of the smog.

The roiling thick red clouds seemed almost impenetrable, but it soon thinned out as the ship made its way through the clouds and outside the Hulme Smoke Columns. The land’s landscape now lay bare before them.

It was an eerie crimson land, which stretched on for miles on end, and the hue of the land seemed like it was soaked in blood—a rather scary image to have. The land was bereft of any green vegetation and the uneven terrain was dotted with many odd looking objects. From a distance, one would be hard-pressed to tell if they were the local flora. The group saw rivers and valleys as well as plains and hills from the ship, but all of them had that unnerving blood-red tint to them.

One of the mountains in the distance had something bright, winding and sinew-like flowing from it. And upon zooming in, Hao Ren realised that it was a lava waterfall!

The skies above the crimson-tinted land were equally brooding. Thick clouds roiled across the skies as if there was something burning eternally behind the clouds. From a distance, thunderous streaks of light raced across the horizon. It almost looked like falling meteorites were igniting the atmosphere.

“F*ck…” Hao Ren gawked at the very inhospitable and hellish scene before him. “Your place sure is taking survival to the next level.”

Y’zaks looked longingly at the scene and nodded in nostalgia. “Ahh… I can finally see my old place again…”

Hao Ren rolled his eyes. “I should have just thrown you on Mars back then. That would have probably eased your nostalgic itch.”

Y’zaks retorted in a serious manner, “No way. Mars is too chilly, not even comparable to the warmth of my old place…”

Hao Ren allowed the ship to scan for a suitable landing site by the plains, and used the optical sensors to find out what the Hulme Smoke Columns were all about. What he saw was a great wall of smoke, which bellowed and created dust all over the place. He could not even get a proper view of the thing. After letting the ship run a couple hundred of kilometres ahead, he finally managed to get a full view of its scale. It was gaseous pillar that protruded from the planet’s core and it had managed to pierce the sky. There were no signs of it spreading all over the land and it was pretty much like a smooth heavenly pillar.

The magnificence of the scene had everyone in awe.

Hao Ren then realised something: he was truly in the land of demons, hence caution was the name of the game. Anything that could survive in this hellhole and still wage wars was not to be trifled with!

Chapter 405: An Abominable Environment

 

The crimson, barren land was littered with huge, eerie black rocks. Twisted scorched plants grew sparsely in the crevices of the rocks and lava flowed through the mountains. Poisonous vapors gushed from the cracks and holes in the earth as red clouds tumbled across the sky. The rumbling of thunder was also audible and the entire scene looked frightening, as if an endless sea of fire hung over the sky. In this hellish sight, there were also all sorts of low-level demons, who were wandering aimlessly in the wilderness and getting into fights for no reasons. They were the kind of chaotic monsters that were even lower than a demonic warrior of the lowest order. They were ephemeral creatures, born directly from the chaotic space. They almost had no senses, and were completely controlled by brutal impulses. If they survived in combat, they had a chance to be promoted into a higher order. However, most of these lower-order demons would soon die and become part of the energy cycle in that space.

It was where the demons lived in—a place, where it was a constant challenge for survival. Despite that, those manic, grumpy creatures were willing to live in such conditions.

Up in the sky, the Petrachelys was covered in dirty clouds as it darted through the air and dodged a swarm of low-level demons, who wandering in the red wilderness. The radar system detected a huge and deep pit in the plains, but there were almost no demons wandering around it, so that was where they landed.

When everybody came out of the ship, Hao Ren put the Petrachelys back into his Dimensional Pocket. Then, all of them took a deep breath at the same time to have a feel of the atmosphere in the Demonic Plane.

Lily immediately jumped up. Due to her sensitive nose, she was quickly choked by the strong sulphuric fumes in the air. She was holding on to Hao Ren’s arm, jumping up and down as she said, “I’m dying… I’m going to choke to death…”

Nangong Wuyue’s health points kept dropping too. The siren’s eyes were glowing green and she was gasping for air. “I’m really dying… This place is so dry… Water… Where’s the water?”

“Water is a rare thing in the Demonic Plane and it’s quite useless to us. I was the only one who built the city near a water source to look after the other races,” Y’zaks said and looked at the two ladies who appeared to be suffering. “If you can’t stand the environment here, you can—”

“Forget it, I’ll endure it.” Nangong Wuyue could finally breathe. She waved her hands and tried to squeeze a little water from the surrounding air to form a protective enchantment. Nonetheless, she sighed and said, “It’s more difficult than squeezing water in the desert… Can’t believe you guys can live in a place like this.”

Lanina did not find the environment bad. She took a deep breath comfortably, smiled and said, “The smell of my homeland… I haven’t come back for a long time. I really miss the smell of sulphur in this place.”

Hao Ren looked back and found the huge plume of smoke still standing. It looked like it was supporting the sky and connecting Earth to the heaven. The huge plume of smoke was so smooth and straight that it was almost impossible to tell that it was actually formed by gas from their distance. Only the vaguely visible lines that kept rolling over and over its surface could prove that it was not a solid object. He was amazed by the scenes in the Demonic Plane, and the smoke plume was one of the most amazing scenes there. “What is that?”

“That’s a Hulme Smoke Column. Under it is the Hulme Crater, also known as the Great Pit,” Y’zaks said with a solemn expression. “The diametre of this smoke pillar is more than 200 km and the crater below it is one of the most magical things in the Demonic Plane. Nobody knows where the crater’s huge hole leads to. It’s said that even the most powerful demon can’t reach the bottom of the Great Pit. For tens of thousands of years, the crater has been spewing out the smoke columns. But when a smoke column rises high enough, it disappears into a space crack and nobody knows where it goes.”

“You’ve got all the weird stuff here,” Hao Ren said, feeling amazed.

Y’zaks nodded solemnly and said, “Yes, the Demonic Plane is the most unstable form of a space vesicle. So naturally, there will be a lot of unnatural landscapes. By the way, it’s better to stay away from the smoke columns. Without the protection of the spacecraft, the average person will die. The temperature in the smoke column is very high, and air masses that measure thousands of degrees can suddenly burst from the crater. The smoke and dust is also highly toxic as it is mixed with a neurotoxin that makes demons lose control.”

“The smoke column is part of the arsenal of Serathon’s Legion,” Lanina explained. “Serathon, the demon king has a plague corps. They use highly toxic substances and neurotoxins in combat. Their weapons are created under the smoke columns. Thanks to the columns, the old mad man is one of the most powerful demons and my king’s most dreaded adversary. ”

“Don’t call me that from now on,” Y’zaks suddenly remembered that he should remind Lanina. “I’m no longer a demon king, and it’s very easy for my identity to be revealed here. You can call me Wang just like everyone else.”

Hao Ren rolled his eyes and said, “Now I realise why you got yourself that name…”

Lily pondered for some time and finally realised something. “…Wang means ‘king’!”

Y’zaks scratched his big, bald head and said, “That’s just a coincidence.”

Vivian used her hand to fan herself, frowning at the surrounding situation. She then said, “Okay, let’s stop chatting and get down to business. Lanina, you know the situation here, what’s the plan?”

“We have to get to the Obsidian Plains as soon as possible. It’s where the princess disappeared.” Lanina nodded and said, “We have to leave this place first. This is Serathon’s territory. Serathon and the king… Wang are mortal enemies. We need to cross the Demonic Foundry to get to the nearest teleportation portal, and we better go straight through—it’s easier to bump into the patrolling team if we make a detour around the Demonic Foundry. ”

“Can’t we directly teleport there?” Hao Ren asked as he held the MDT in his hand.

Lanina shook her head and said, “It’d be better if we don’t. Demons are experts in dimensional science. Even the dimensional magic of other races originated here first. It’s easy for them to sense the presence of an unfamiliar dimensional door hundreds of kilometres away. Plus, the demon king is cautious. His people will monitor all the dimensional phenomena in their territory in order to prevent other people from coming in.”

The demoness then laughed and said, “They fight all day long, even the demon king has to becareful of not to getting himself beheaded at times. This is the daily life in the demon world. The king… Wang almost ended this mess the last time, but he was eventually betrayed by that idiot, Serathon. It seems like that idiot enjoys such a chaotic life.”

Hao Ren wanted to tell her that the MDT had high-tech teleportation functions, perhaps it could bypass monitoring. But after thinking about it for a while, he decided not to take the risk. After all, the teleportation function of the MDT was just to save them some time; it was not a device specialised for spying, and their teleportations were not encrypted. It would cause a lot of trouble if the demons there noticed them. As powerful a man as Y’zaks was, he was still held captive and beaten for months…

“Where’s the Demonic Foundry?” Nangong Wuyue asked. She remembered Lanina mentioning it earlier and she knew that Y’zaks was imprisoned by the big demon named Serathon in the Demonic Foundry.

Lanina lifted her finger and pointed to a faraway piece of land that was cracked and rolled up. It was at the edge of the deep huge pit they saw before the ship landed. “That’s the Demonic Foundry. Serathon held the enemies he captured in the bottom of the Demonic Foundry and tortured them. He would then extract their souls and inject them into the Hellfire Demon to expand his legion. But the place is gone now after Serathon encountered some unexpected calamities, ha!”

Y’zaks was held in the Demonic Foundry. When the Xi Ling disciples took him away, they also killed the demon guards who were trying to stop them, destroying the entire Demonic Foundry in the process. Lanina found it funny as she spoke on the matter. Lily saw Lanina wagging her thin, devilish tail in the air and Lily felt like doing the same. Luckily, considering how bad the air was for her beautiful fur, the husky resisted the urge to poke her tail out and wag it together with the demoness.

They watched their surroundings, guarding themselves against any sudden encounters with the wandering lower-order demons as they headed towards the huge, deep pit.

Chapter 406: A Tight Defense Line

 

The Demonic Foundry was once one of Serathon’s most important military installations. Just a few months ago, there were a total of two demon legions and hundreds of powerful hellfire, but now there was only one big pit left. Nothing else left.

Hao Ren was quite shocked when looked at the huge deep pit in front of him. This was a pace that was transformed directly from a large crater. The bottom of the pit was covered with evil ores, dark brown mingled with foul green light. Huge cracks could be seen everywhere. The flames of evil fire poured out from these cracks, and the whole Demonic Foundry was like a cauldron that had not been extinguished, looked daunting.

However, this place had been badly damaged. Only the ruins of the demon facility left. The walls of the Demonic Foundry were only left with black iron bracket now. The bottom of the Demonic Foundry was now only a jungle of sharp irons. Those things were originally part of the demonic facility to fix the hellfire giants that were not yet activated or to suppress powerful hostile demons. They were once as high as dozens of meters or even hundreds of meters, but now only stubbles of less than two or three meters high left. This section of the demonic iron jungle was so neat that it was cut with a knife.

They could not see the other fragments of the destroyed buildings around the Demonic Foundry, left only a few bases as if the top half of them had vanished into thin air.

When that ‘goddess’ came and took Wang, she was intercepted by other demons, but she didn’t do anything, and all the demons and buildings in the Demonic Foundry vanished into thin air,” Lanina said, and still found it very strange. “It really just disappeared, there was no process, and just directly turned into the scene in front of you.”

“They were deleted,” the data terminal checked the traces left behind professionally and explained, “Just like you smash a file in a computer. Lord Tawil should have removed the enemy from the Demonic Foundry. It really fits her style. I heard that Lord Tawil was the best researcher in the Empire. She is highly efficient, doesn’t like to waste time in the fight, and everything is solved as soon as possible.”

Hao Ren gulped and thought that luckily he and those lunatic gods were one family. Probably it was true that deputy chief and above could destroy the galaxy in a second…

They gingerly entered the crater along a path at the edge of the Demonic Foundry, and at the same time, ready to guard against the demon guards. Although the spacecraft used radar to confirm that there was no demon reaction in the Demonic Foundry before the landing, the demon was a really strange creature. Their physiological structures were fine and marvelous. There were also creatures like hellfire giants, which could hardly be categorized as life. So they had to be careful there.

However, they did not meet any demons. There was a dead silence in the Demonic Foundry, only the evil flames whistling and gushed out of the ground. It seems that Serathon the demon king had given up the Demonic Foundry that had a strange incident. Perhaps he had sent some people to investigate, but apparently, they could not explain the disappearance of the whole ‘factory’.

But Hao Ren still thought something was wrong and asked, “How come there’s really no one here?”

“Are you expecting that we’ll encounter the patrol team?” Vivian turned her head and glanced at Hao Ren and said, “We’re in the demon’s territory. Once we’re exposed, we’ll be directly surrounded by the legion, and die.”

Hao Ren frowned and said, “No… I mean, that Serathon really gave up this place? Such a big foundation, although it was ruined… He should at least organize a long-term investigation team to hang around here. Why isn’t there a single demon in here? Did he totally abandon it or something?”

“It’s not quite right,” Lanina agreed with Hao Ren. She stooped to pick up a bizarre stone glowing with green light. This stone was a ubiquitous thing at the bottom of the Demonic Foundry. The green light with a metallic texture looked like it was burned and formed by the flame spouted from the ground. “This is the evil ore, the most common thing that can be used to make hellfire giants. The equipment of Demonic Foundry is ruined, but the Demonic Foundry itself is still there. Serathon has no reason not to rebuild this place.”

Just now Lanina suggested passed through the Demonic Foundry because the radar of the Petrachelys showed that there were no demons here. But even then she could not believe that Serathon actually gave up the place completely, until now, seeing the desolate Demonic Foundry ruins, she was sure there was really no demon here.

“How does Serathon look like?” Hao Ren asked curiously.

Lanina nodded and said, “Uglier than Wang.”

Everybody stunned. Hao Ren looked at Lanina in a strange way and thought that was this demon girl always recognizing people by how ugly they were?

“Besides, Serathon is also the second strongest demon king among the ten Demonic Planes,” Lanina quickly explained, “He was our strongest and most stubborn enemy, was the toughest of all the demons against us. He was a reptile-like lord with 33 legions. He uses poisonous fire, curses, and brute force during battle. We’re now in Serathonian Plane. The whole space is his territory, also known as the third plane. ”

Y’zaks also explained, “By the way, I used to occupy the seventh plane. There are a lot of Demonic Planes, but only ten of them are stable. They float in the space bubble area and connect to each other with a teleportation portal. There’re ten demon kings occupy these ten Demonic Planes. Back then, the force of the seventh plane was almost the sum of several other planes.”

Y’zaks was obviously a little proud of himself, apparently, he was quite proud of the empire he built back then. Lily asked curiously, “Why not the strongest one ranked first? Your territory just ranked seventh?”

Y’zaks shrugged and said, “This ranking is not important. It’s called this way since the beginning. Confucius is a saint, but he’s still the second brother in the family.”

Hao Ren almost fell into the Demonic Foundry. “You know Confucius as well?” he asked, clearly surprised.

“I have nothing to do so I just keep reading,” said Y’zaks, “I just finished studying Greek philosophy two days ago.”

Lily immediately stuck out her tongue behind Hao Ren and said, “You better don’t study philosophy. Judging from your body size, if you study philosophy, you’ll do something that you shouldn’t do…”

Hao Ren looked at Lily awkwardly. He dared not imagine what sort of stuff this girl was usually reading…

They did not know where the demon guards of Serathon had gone. Anyway, they did not meet any obstacles in the Demonic Foundry. They safely crossed the vast and scorching wasteland. From the ramp on the other side of the Demonic Foundry back to the surface, the magnificent demon teleportation portal finally appeared in front of them.

They saw a large pedestal built on a huge obsidian slab in the open ground hundreds of meters ahead. Two large black pillars stood on each side of the pedestal. The stone pillars were carved with hideous images of demons. In the middle of the two pillars, there was a whirlpool-shaped twisting dimension.

From the whirlpool-shaped twisting teleportation portal, one could see a faint red dimension behind the door, apparently leading to another Demonic Plane.

In the vicinity of the teleportation portal, Hao Ren finally saw the Demon Corps. A large crowd of black armored, hideous demon guards was guarding the teleportation portal’s pedestal and nearby sentries. Their skins were dark red, with crooked horns on their heads and flaming infernal swords in their hands. Each demon was three meters tall. Their size and the appalling weapons in their hands made Hao Ren wonder how many human soldiers were needed to be able to fight such a demon.

The demon guards placed a tight line of defense around the teleportation portal, and this let Hao Ren’s suspicions vanished. He thought Serathon had perished. But now it seemed that his regiment was all right, but for some reason, no one was sent to take care of the Demonic Foundry.

Now there was a question in front of Hao Ren: There were so many demon guards around. How did they go through the teleportation portal right under their noses?

Chapter 407: Putting Up a Mask

 

The demonic teleportation portal was surrounded by a vast expanse of open territory. They did not dare to get near, could only hide behind black giant rock hundreds of meters away from the portal, looking for the chance to get past.

“That’s the teleportation portal,” Y’zaks took this opportunity to share the knowledge of this world with them, “in this world, at least within the already ascertained world, space vesicles are the only form of space, and each space vesicle will have more than one natural channel connected to other spaces, just like this one. This kind of portal is the most important military hub in every space and will be heavily guarded by the rulers of each space. Of course, these are limited to natural portals, the randomness of artificial teleportation portal is too strong, and usually unstable, can only last for a short period of time.”

“10 Demonic Planes have a direct teleportation portal connecting each other,” Lanina added, “This one leads us to the seventh plane, which is our former territory.”

“So this kind of stable teleportation portal is naturally formed?” Nangong Wuyue asked and looked at the magnificent obsidian building in the distance, “since the teleportation portal is naturally formed, then what’s the use of the pedestal below it and the pillars on both sides of the door?”

Y’zaks casually replied, “They’re useless, just for decorative purpose.”

Hao Ren was wondering how the teleportation portal worked, and now he was almost choked… That pile of dark, intricate patterns of obsidian slabs looked like magical artifacts, people who had no idea of it would really think they prop up that huge dimensional rift, did not expect that the teleportation portal was a natural thing, and the demons created them just to make them look powerful and dynamic…

“OK, now the important question is how we get through it.” Fortunately, there was still a steady and reliable vampire reminded them to focus on the big problem. “There are hundreds of sentries at the gate, and I’m afraid there’ll be more guards are in the guardhouse and under the pedestals. We’re no match for them. It’s absolutely impossible to enter the portal by force.”

Lanina frowned and said, “If we encounter lower-order demons, you guys can disguise as my human servant as we’ve already discussed and agreed, but I’m afraid it doesn’t work here. The stable teleportation portal is the important thoroughfare of each plane. The interrogation is very strict, you’ll need the badge of Serathon Legion to pass.”

Hao Ren looked around the scorching plains, trying to find a lone Serathon Legion demon to rob a badge back. Lanina looked at him, shook her head and said, “The demon guards of teleportation portal are impossible to act alone, and they have a secret means to communicate with each other. It’s difficult to kill one undetected.”

“Is Shadow Stealth possible?” Vivian had an idea. “The Shadow Power in this dimension seems strong, and I can cover you all in the shadow…”

“Demons are very sensitive to the Shadow Magic, and there are sensors near the portal, we don’t know the form of the sensors, so we can’t make ourselves invisible according to the specific form,” Lanina said and continued to shake her head, “We can only wait for them to change shift, and seize the opportunity to kill those guards…”

Before Lanina finished her words, they suddenly heard a loud noise sounded like a giant beast thundering from afar!

Hao Ren turned to the direction and saw a giant beast running out of the flying dust. It was a giant monster that looked slightly like a wolf but was four or five meters tall. The giant beast had a pair of blood-red eyes, hideous face, and its fangs were stained with blood red color. Its body was covered with dark red furs that were as sharp as needles. The dark red flame was burning in the crevices of the furs and looked daunting.

The beast rushed all the way from the scorching plains and dashed straight to the portal. At first, the guards got a little nervous when heard the loud sound, but they calmed down when saw it was just a wild beast. They swayed lazily and watched the giant wolf dashed into the portal. This seemed to be a very common thing.

“What’s that?” Hao Ren asked curiously.

Lanina looked at the direction of the teleportation portal and said, “Oh, it’s a kind of Cerberus, a wild breed, often seen in the Demonic Plane.”

Nangong Wuyue surprised and asked immediately, “Cerberus? Does a Cerberus look like this? I remember that Cerberus is the kind of creature that has two heads, a body full of magma, a short stumpy head, a mouthful of rotten teeth, and kept sneezing while running…”

Lanina nodded and said, “The one you refer to is also a Cerberus, but that’s domestic breed, is specially bred as a pet. The one just now is the wild breed, the original form of Cerberus. The domesticated Cerberus will become like that after three or four generations of cross-breeding with the wild one.”

Hao Ren felt that demon’s aesthetic sense was really peculiar. They purposely transformed a normal creature into an ugly and odd two-head creature, and actually kept it as a pet…

“The demon guards won’t stop the animals from crossing the border?” Nangong Wuyue asked curiously.

“Of course they won’t,” Lanina replied, “These natural teleportation portals have tens of thousands of or even hundreds of thousands of years of history, older than any demon monarch. It was a migratory passage for wildlife before it was occupied by some demon monarch. Many animals have to travel through the portal to migrate back and forth in several spaces to complete the process of reproduction. Not only in the Demonic Plane, similar cases also happen in other spaces of human races. The similar ancient teleportation portals have become part of the ecological cycle, and guards won’t stop animals from using them.”

Vivian pondered for a moment, suddenly looked at Lily and said, “I have an idea…”

Lily immediately felt a shiver ran down her spine, and quickly moved behind Hao Ren and said, “What are you going to do? I warn you, I am more beautiful than that beast, you don’t…”

Hao Ren turned and looked at Lily and thought it’s time for this useless husky to sacrifice a little…

30 minutes later, they had retreated back to the Demonic Foundry. Lily squatted on the ground nervously and asked, “Are you sure this works?”

Not far behind them lied an already dead huge Cerberus, which was just caught by Lanina. This kind of creatures was all around, and there was a lot in the Demonic Plane. Y’zaks was busy peeling off the skin from the Cerberus. Nangong Wuyue tried to squeeze water out of the air to clean up the poisonous blood stains and the strange smell on the fur. The whole scene was very bloody. Lily turned to glance at it, a little shivered and said, “… You want to deceive them with this stuff on me? Demons are not fools.”

Vivian patted Lily on the shoulder and said, “So I’m going to use my magic to help you make up–rest assured that there’s one type of blood magic that’s specializing in mimicry which can also mimic other biological tissues. I’ll handle it…”

Lanina also said, “You look ok. The mutation rate of this kind of creature is particularly high. Sometimes demons also like to make some weird biological transformation on the wild Cerberus. As long as you are not walking upright, the guards will not become suspicious of you.”

Hao Ren glanced at Lily and said, “Stop complaining, Y’zaks and I are going to have to let you bite in the mouth, okay?”

After Lily transformed, she was five meters tall. She looked really huge, but there were only so little places to hide them. Even if Lily was wearing an oversized fur, it could only accommodate a few petite girls, so they had planned carefully. And this creative plan really surprised Lanina.

Lily had no choice. She let out a long heavy sigh and cradled her favorite spicy sticks…

A moment later, a silver giant ‘wolf’ appeared in front of everyone. Nangong Wuyue and Lanina immediately put the newly treated Cerberus fur on Lily while Vivian used the blood magic to create flesh and blood as a disguised to cover imperfect places, then the girls hid under the fur, leaving Y’zaks and Hao Ren standing outside.

Lily lowered her head and licked Hao Ren, then put them in her mouth, ran out of the Demonic Foundry and ran toward the teleportation portal.

The rumbling of the giant beast immediately caught the attention of the demon guards, but what the demon guards saw was just a mutant Cerberus running over there with two humans in its mouth, the smell of beast and humans–all normal, so the guards put their guard down.

Hao Ren still remembered that he had a line. In order to make it look real, when Lily ran to the transmission door, he yelled, “Help!”

The ‘mutant Cerberus’ rushed into the teleportation portal and left no traces behind.

Several of the demon guards looked at each other, and one of them shrugged and said, “Wild dogs have a pretty big appetite.”

“There are so many humans in the Demonic Plane these days.”

“Yes, but most of them are eaten by dogs…”

Chapter 408: The Bizarre World

 

As they walked through the teleportation portal, Hao Ren thought he saw countless strange sights. Green forests, vast grasslands, oceans, mountains, rivers, and even the streets of the bustling city of the other world. The vision came and gone in a second. It scattered and dispersed in all directions. Hao Ren ‘thought’ that he saw it because this vision came quickly, and then scattered and dispersed before he could see it clearly, left him suspect that it was just an illusion.

These things were unique phenomena in this world. Perhaps due to the imperfections of the dimensional structure, the teleportation portal would project the landscape of other spaces, and every person who crossed the large teleportation portal would see the illusion. There was also a group of scholars who studied the illusion occurred during teleportation process. They delved into the connections between the various spaces. By continually using the portal, these scholars basically dead 30 years earlier before ordinary people…

After these strange and bizarre illusion dispersed, Hao Ren found that he already passed through the teleportation portal. Lily was running down from another obsidian pedestal. There were also a large number of demon guards around, but the scenery around the portal had changed, apparently, they were on the other side of the portal.

Lily dared not stop in the vicinity of the teleportation door. She was carrying five people, at this moment she just wanted to find a safe place to unload these people. The demons near the portal also did not pay too much attention to the ‘Cerberus’, only a few nearby demons turned to look this way, and then ignored her.

They crossed the border under the demon’s nose in such a bizarre guise. They quickly moved away from the portal and came to a red hillside two kilometers from the portal. Lily ran up the hill and immediately put the two men in her mouth down, then shook her body vigorously while panting. Vivian’s voice immediately came from underneath the fur. “Stop shaking. I know we’re already here.”

The Cerberus fur on Lily’s back split open and they filed out of the big cut, and then began to help Lily clean up this layer of fur. Apparently, the husky girl had been suppressing her dissatisfaction. She stuck out her tongue and made faces, trying to communicate with Hao Ren, unfortunately, she could not talk in this form, no one knew what she was trying to express.

As Lily was transforming back to human form and changing clothes in somewhere else, Hao Ren finally got to stretch his body and said, “I would never forget this kind of experience… I was worried about Lily. What if she got too excited, lift her head and swallow us down?”

Y’zaks was also stretching his body and said, “Don’t worry. At that time I was in front of you, should be stuck in throat…”

Soon Lily joined them, clean and refreshing again. As she walked, she sniffed her body suspiciously. She came to Hao Ren, stretched out her arms and asked, “Landlord, you smell it, see if there’s any strange smell…”

Nangong Wuyue rolled her eyes and said, “You don’t believe my ability is it?”

“Anyway, I’ll never do this again!” Lily said angrily, “Look at your bad idea…”

Lanina was not chatting with them. She came to the end of the hill, looking at the direction of the teleportation door in a complicated expression. The details of the magnificent portal could still be seen clearly at this distance, and so the demon guards. Those demons, dressed in the armor of the Serathon Legion, looked high and mighty, but what they stepped on was the sentry and tower built by Y’zaks’s legion.

“There used to be our soldiers,” Lanina said and gnashed her teeth. Her tail drew an arrow in the air. “Bastard!”

“It’s useless to talk about this now,” Y’zaks patted Lanina’s shoulder and said, “Now Serathon should have become the most powerful demon king. We have no soldiers on hand, must try to avoid conflict with his men.”

Hao Ren was observing the environment here. He found that every Demonic Plane seemed to have no difference in the environment. The place was also covered with crimson hardened soil and black rocks, with bright lava flowing over the mountains, and red or green evil flames spewed from the surface cracks in the wilderness. But there was a difference between this place and Seraton’s place: the sky here was clearer.

The sky in this place had much thinner clouds. Behind the thin cloud, a huge crimson planet was hanging high above the sky. This was a completely different view that they could not see in Serathonian Plane. Looking at this scene, Hao Ren had a deeper understanding of what the ‘bizarre world’ meant. Who would have thought that the universe had such a strange dimensional structure if it had not been seen by his own eyes? Serathonian Plane and Y’zaks’s plane were both Demonic Planes, but they had this great difference in the most basic structure of the world. God knows how the ‘space bubble zone’ of the universe was formed.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Y’zaks said casually when he saw that Hao Ren seemed interested in the giant planet in the sky. “Among the ten planes, my Demonic Plane is the only plane that has another planet. In fact, the earth beneath your feet is just a broken planet floating in space. It has only one-third structures left. On the edge of the continent, you’ll see a scary big cliff. If your angle is good enough and your eyesight is strong, you can even see a ball of dark red ashes of the planet’s core. The core has been exposed for tens of thousands of years and is not completely cooled yet. And the planet above us is the real continent of this space. Unfortunately, it’s not very suitable for survival. I had built a research station on the planet with the help of the little old man, but it was soon abandoned.”

Hao Ren listened with amazement. It was hard to imagine how a normal universe would be able to produce such a peculiar landscape. The land occupied by Y’zaks was a fragment of a shattered planet. So how did this planet become the way it is?

“I tried to investigate before, but nothing was found,” Y’zaks said and sighed. “There are too many unknown things in this world, but many people don’t have enough curiosity, and those with curiosity are often not capable.”

He suddenly looked at the huge teleportation portal in the distance and said, “Do you know? These portals brought this world a glorious civilization, but also ruined a lot of things.”

Hao Ren frowned and did not understand what Y’zaks was saying.

“Because of the existence of these portals, we can relatively easily reach all kinds of ‘Newland’,” Y’zaks said with an ironic expression. “There are dozens of space vesicles known to provide a stable living environment, including the ten Demonic Planes, seven Human Kingdoms, three Elusive Elven Realms, four Orc Empires, the unknown number of Halfling Planes, as well as many different space continents as resource origin or colony. These ‘space bubbles’ are connected to each other by the portal, and only a simple step is needed to reach a foreign land far away.”

Hao Ren nodded. He heard Y’zaks talked about these before, so he understood.

Y’zaks smiled and continued, “And in addition to the independent planes that have been developed, there is plenty of room for exploration. They may not be suitable for habitation, but they have plenty of minerals and supplies and the potential to build new homes. In the last few centuries, there have been three to four new spaces found in almost every 100 years. Each race has its own professional scholar, responsible for their exploration of the unknown ‘space bubbles’ floating in the universe. This exploration is easy: you only need to find a stable ancient teleportation portal and then throw a few slaves in to determine whether the environment over there is habitable, then you will be able to open up a whole continent, or even a territory as large as the planet.”

Lily stuck out her tongue and said, “It sounds very convenient.”

“It’s really convenient,” Y’zaks grinned and said, “so before I did, no one had ever studied the real space environment, this world didn’t even have the concept of ‘aerospace’, and no one was interested in the space that was icy, void, dead silent, and full of high-energy radiation. Even though some of the space vesicles were huge and there was a complete stellar system inside, the people who lived there never wanted to explore the planets near them. Occasionally someone would open the teleportation portal that led to space, but they would immediately seal it off, fear of it and never touched it again–because space was dangerous, and they thought there was no need to take the risk to explore something.”

Y’zaks sighed and said, “Most people’s thought was simple: as long as they found the suitable teleportation portal and crossed the border. There were a lot of ‘space bubbles’ that were habitable, why bother to study space navigation?”

“But they don’t know that the space bubble zone is just a small part of the universe. The truly vast world is outside the bubble zone–a vast universe with countless stars, but unable to reach via teleportation portal.”