The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 431

Chapter 431: Y’zaks’ Double

 

It seems that no matter what the origin of the fake mad demon in the sky was, Lanina’s status in the military hadn’t wavered as as soon as she ordered the a protal to be opened, the demons immediately complied. It seemed that aside from flying, the only way to get to Helcrown in the sky was through the teleportation portal.

An obsidian colossus came up and half-kneeled in front of them, the alloy cover on the chest of the colossus opened, revealing its dark-red shining energy core. Two barrel-like dark dwarfs climbed up the colossus, activating the core before the air in front of the energy core began to warp: apparently it was a mobile teleportation portal inbuilt into the colossus.

Sure enough, knowledge is power – the demonic army was definitely the world’s most high-tech army…

Y’zaks looked on with a blank expression, no one knew what was on his mind. At the moment, Biggie had appeared to be more enigmatic than anyone else.

After a moment, the portal was activated, and a seven-meter-high warped door was opened in the chest of the colossus. The door was large enough that even Lily could march into it with her head held high. The demon commander raised its hand and gestured, “Please come in.”

Hao Ren glanced at Lanina who nodded at him signalling that everything was fine. They then followed the demon commander and walked into the warped door.

The other demons and black dwarfs had also queued up and went into the warped door but the obsidian colossi stayed back: these colossi could activate another teleporting mechanism to send themselves back to Helcrown, but for the moment, they would stay out there for any contingencies.

The colossi walked in their heavy footsteps returning to the rocky foothill where they crouched down one by one. In the blink of an eye, they disguised themselves as ordinary boulders—when Helcrown floated in the sky, they had to serve as sentinels below.

Meanwhile, Hao Ren and his entourage were sent to a majestic rotunda after a moment of weightlessness.

The hall had a radius of 100 meters, and was cast with a solemnly dark-colored metal. Every outer walls had the same neatly-arranged vertical ridges as that of Helcrown city. Each ridge had a shining glow to it as if the whole hall was powered by some kind of magic. The floor was covered in smooth gray brick stones, and a huge demonic rune array shimmering in greenish light was in the centre which echoed the faint light on the ridges of the walls.

As soon as Hao Ren opened his eyes, he was stunned by the granduer of the hall. He turned to Y’zaks and said, “It’s magnificent!”

Y’zaks just smiled and didn’t say a word. He still couldn’t figure out what it was all about, so he wanted to observe a little while longer before he revealed his own identity.

The demon commander motioned the other demons to leave as he would personally took Hao Ren and his entourage meeting the ‘mad demon king’. “Please come with me. The king would be pleased to see you— especially the great sage, your arrival is a pleasant surprise, the king will be very pleased.”

Hao Ren and his men followed the demon commander walking out of the hall to a broad and magnificent corridor. As Lily hadn’t a chance to morph so she was still on four. Her eyes darted around curiously, and looked up from time to time as if she was worried that she was going to hit the ceiling if she wasn’t careful. As Hao Ren and Vivian were walking right in front of Lily, they had to speed up their pace to avoid getting stepped on by the giant husky who mightn’t see them.

The demon commander turned and looked at the trio respectfully as it recalled the moment it was being pounced upon by the vicious dog. It said admiringly, “You guys are an amazing team of bitch, man, and woman …”

Still marvelling at the weird reliefs on both sides of the corridor, the words suddenly struck Hao Ren. He glared at the demon commander. “What did you just say?”

The genuinely ignorant demon commander hadn’t a clue as it pointed at Lily, Hao Ren, and Vivian matter-of-coursely. “Dog, male, female …”

The usually mild-tempered Vivian was dumbstruck. She turned and looked at Lanina and said, “… That’s how the people in your home town speak?”

Lanina was also baffled. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you three a dog, a man, and a woman?”

Lily could understand but she couldn’t talk. She could only keep shaking her head and made sound. “WOOF-WOOF-WOOF—”

Although no one knew what she was trying to say but one thing was certain: it wasn’t a good word judging from her angry look: it’s not that you could see husky’s angry face everyday.

It was only at this time that Y’zaks woke up from his deep thought. He patted Hao Ren’s shoulder and said, “Ahem, please don’t be offended. Here in our hometown, people are normally say thing lietrally.” Having said that, he nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve never thought of that before, but you three do fit the words.”

Hao Ren’s face turned black. “What kind of culture is that?”

The demon commander seemed to be confused. It hadn’t a clue what wrong it had done that had wrranted the anger of the guest. Though Lanina was just as clueless, she still comforted their own man. “Don’t worry, perhaps it has only something to do with the dialect.”

It wasn’t known how long they had been walking in the long, deep corridor as they finally came to the end of it. They saw in front of them a heavy, thick door, which was made of brass, with twelve demon-like images engraved on it and a warning on top the door in demonic text: Check Before Leaving The House, Remember to Turn Off The Light And Lock The Door.

Hao Ren froze for a moment. “… Seriously?”

“Why not?” Y’zaks felt strange at Hao Ren’s question. “Don’t you write this over at your office? We do the same thing here.”

Hao Ren widemouthed, almost going crazy. “Wouldn’t it suppose to have a poetic phrase in such a grand building? If you don’t prefer poetic phrases, you can always write something like ‘WHOEVER PASSES THROUGH THIS DOOR SHALL LEAVE YOUR SOUL BEHIND’ or ‘OUR JOURNEY IS THE STARS’! At least that would match the grandeur of Helcrown…”

Y’zaks thought for a moment, then scratched his chin and asked, “Then why don’t you hang a ‘SAVING MANKIND FROM THE SEA OF MISERY’ at the front door of your house? Isn’t your job title pope?”

Hao Ren was speechless. He was tempted to reason with Y’zaks but thought better of it. He pondered for a long while and realised that not everyone was paying attention to details. He said gently, “After all, this is Helcrown—Don’t all former residences of great men have some famous quotes hanging on their front doors?”

Y’zaks smiled wryly and said, “That’s because their places have been turned into museums. Look, my place is still occupied by living people.”

Hao Ren was speechless again. As it turned out, normal people and demons had real differences in perspectives.

As Hao Ren was talking to Y’zaks in earth language, the demon commander hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. It hemmed twice and said, “The king is waiting inside. Please get inside.”

Hao Ren staunchly stepped forward and opened the door, what lay inside was a very wide throne hall. The rectangular hall was brightly lit, the walls were made of solemnly pure copper and black iron, countless sculptures of demons and other races lined on both sides of the hall, and at the end of the hall was a golden-red throne where the ‘mad demon king’ was sitting who seemed to have been waiting for them for a long time.

Although they were mentally prepared, they couldn’t hold back their surprise when they saw the demon on the throne: it wan’t that obvious from a distance, but when they moved closer, they found the one sitting on the throne was really almost identical to Y’zaks!

Hao Ren and his team kept quiet. Even Y’zaks himself hesitantly stood at a side pretending he was clueless. Only Lanina walked up, stared at the demon on the throne and said without salutation, “I’m back.”

‘Y’zaks’ on the throne stood up slowly, his face seemed a bit agitated but slightly stiff, and his voice was obviously delighted. “Oh, Lanina … it’s so good see you safe and sound. Were you in the human world all these days?”

Lanina repeated her story as ‘Y’zaks’ on the throne listened and nodded. After a brief conversation with Lanina, it suddenly said, “In this case, you guys must be tired after the long journey. Let’s go and get some rest first while I prepare a banquet. Lanina, by then I have a lot more to talk to you. So have a good rest.”

After the brief meeting, they were politely ushered out.

Chapter 432: Papa 3

 

Though ‘Y’zaks’ on the throne didn’t show any anomalies, the fact that he hurriedly cut the meeting short had Hao Ren suspected something was amiss.

They left the hall of the throne and followed a higher demon to the lounge. The earlier demon commander had returned to his job. No one spoke until they arrived the guest rooms until the higher demon nodded politely at Hao Ren and said, “This is a lounge designed for human race, and please feel at home.”

Then the higher demon looked up at Lily’s chin and said, “We have a dedicated kennel for canine, should we bring it some fresh meat or something? Besides, it doesn’t look like a cerberus. Would it quarrel with the cerberus?

Lily snarled and growled at the higher demon but unfortunately the demon didn’t understand her.

Hao Ren smacked Lily’s mouth and said to the demon, “No thanks. She just needs an open space. She could turn into a humanoid but you don’t need to know how. When Helcrown could get out from the space storm, nothing would be impossible!”

The higher demon stared at Lily, flabbergasted. Then it turned to Lanina, still confused. “Great Sage, would you prefer your own room?”

“No, I stay with them for the moment.” Lanina waved and said, “We have something to discuss. You may leave us alone.”

After the higher demon, Lily, and Vivian (who would be responsible for the safety of Lily during her formshifting) left, Hao Ren and the rest quickly entered the room and were surprised to find that the lounge was really different from the rest of Helcrown in terms of archectural style; it had bright white walls and floors, earthly wooden furnishings, and even a bookshelf full of human books. The rather spacious rectangular room was entirely decorated in human style of this world. Hao Ren was amazed. “It seems this city has everything … I was still worried that human wouldn’t have survived in this ice-capped fortress just now!”

Y’zaks grinned. “We have human, dwarfs, elves, and orcs in this city, and a dedicated metropolitan area for every race. You think the grand unificatioion that I was talking about was mere propaganda?.”

“To be honest, this city is amazing, it could fly!” Hao Ren totally marvelled at the strength and imposing look of Helcrown which was beyond his imagination. “No wonder the whole could merely defeat you back then, you are using zenithal technology to push against the earth!”

Suddenly, Y’zaks had a puzzled expression on his face. “Actually, I was surprised that the hover system of the royal city works!”

“Eh?” Nangong Wuyue’s brows twisted. “You mean floating system hasn’t been functioning?”

“It hasn’t. Although many years ago I’d redesigned the foundation of the city according to the works left behind by the old man, but due to the lack of a key power source, the planned floating city is also an empty one in the end.” Y’zaks scratched his bald head. “until the fall of Helcrown, the power source of the floating system was still unavailbel … where did they get the energy from?”

“About the fake Y’zaks …” Hao Ren looked up at Lanina, “did you find anything amiss?”

“It was hard to tell by just looking, but I didn’t dare to look too closely.” Lanina’s brows knit together. “Even if he has only one-tenth the strength of the king, acting too obviously would only arouse its suspicion, so I’d to be careful.”

Hao Ren nodded his head and suddenly revealed a mysterious expression on his face. “Nothing, perhaps the MDT might come back with something.”

“MDT?” Nangong Wuyue was very surprised, as she had only noticed the MDT which had been lying on Hao Ren’s shoulder all the while pretending to be an body armour had gone missing. “Wait a minute… Did you leave it in the throne hall ?!”

Hao Ren made a snap and said, “Of course, I’ve been strategising all this while from the moment we entered the city way to monitor the impersonator. I wouldn’t think twice to sacrifice the MDT for that.”

Nangong Wuyue, “…..”

“I was just joking,” Hao Ren hemmed twice before reached into the dimensional pocket and took out a mini holographic projector and placed it on the table. The projection flashed a few times and projected the image of the throne hall. The visual was taken from an obscure corner on the side of the throne. The mad demon king was sitting on the huge throne in the middle of the hall as it tilted his head and then remained motionless like a stone sculpture as if in deep thought. The MDT hadn’t moved a muscle like a block of metal after it entered into silent. No one would discover its existence. “MDT, what’s the situation?” Hao Ren inquired.

The screen flashed a bit, then the voice of the MDT was heard through the projector. “I’m watching. You’ve finally found me to be useful—high-tech intelligence gathering! This is what a MDT supposed to do! You know?”

“Yeah, yeah, just keep your eyes on it.” Hao Ren replied with a perfunctory voice and asked the MDT to shut up while he lamented: the brick had finally lowered it’s expectation unlike previously when it was pestering wanting to command an entire fleet of spacecrafts. Now it seemed to be pretty happy doing surveillance work at the corner of a wall. Apparently after while being a brick, its life goals were lowered too.

The MDT was still watching the demon king impersonator closely. When Lily and Vivian were back, Vivian immediately knew what Hao Ren was doing. “Spying on the fake demon king, eh?”

“Yup, if it’s fake, the cat would be out of the bag sooner or later,” Hao Ren nodded, “especially after it had just met with Lanina, it must’ve known that Lanina would soon be able to figure it out. So this’ the time to act …”

Suddenly, the MDT interrupted Hao Ren. “But, I’ve been watching here for ten minutes since you left, but the impersonator hadn’t moved.”

“Huh? Never move?” Though Lily was in human form, one couldn’t help but imagine her ears standing erect.

“It has been sitting still like a fossil,” said the data terminal, “and never blinked an eye..”

Nangong Wuyue looked at Y’zaks, face weird. “Saying that it’s in deep thought is an understatement.”

Y’zaks didn’t say a word. At this time, the visual th MDT transmitted back began to show movement!

The door of the Throne Hall was pushed open, a greenish gray, old demon which had an eye blind came in. The first thing the old demon did when it came in was to carefully scan the surroundings before carefully locked the door behind him and walked up to the throne. It was holding a plate which had some wield stuff on it. It must be food.

“He is my housekeeper, Zadamor,” Y’zaks suddenly frowned. “What is he doing there?”

As the housekeeper came before the throne, he coughed, then what happened next had everyone’s jaw dropped to the ground:

‘Y’zaks’ on the throne finally made some movement; it sat up slightly and then its chest armor and skin opened, revealing a layer of alloy door. The door opened and a folding ladder popped out before a small figure climbed down the ladder from inside ‘Y’zaks’!

That little figure had a strikingly golden hair, wearing a beautiful black dress, looking almost like an eight-year-old in human age and no more than one-metre-three tall. She jumped down the ladder and turned around, exposing a beautiful face with a pair cute horns on its head which proved that she was of demonic bloodline.

The little demon girl who popped out from the body of ‘Y’zaks’ ran up quickly to Zadamor and grabbed the food in the plate and stuffed it in her mouth as if she hadn’t eaten for years. She yelled as she ate. “Uncle Zadamor, Lanina is back! She is safe and sound!”

“I know, I know. It seems things are getting better and better.” Zadamor was stooped and looked weak and old from the inside out which was rarely seen in demons. “Your Highness, you did great today. Just keep it this way and no one would discover.”

The little girl nodded. “Of course, I tuned it personally, it’s going to be OK. However, there’s still some glitches with Papa Three, the control is too complicated, it can only make some simple movements. There would be problem if it couldn’t perform soon. And it’s not known when the psychic connection in Papa Four could be configured.”

“Rest assured, Your Royal Highness, with the data you provide, and the skills of dwarven masters, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Witnessing the whole time, Hao Ren was flabergasted. “… what?”

Y’zaks slammed on the table, his facial muscles quivering. “Y’lisabet … Y’lisabet!”

Chapter 433: Reunion

 

In fact, as soon as the little girl climbed out of the cockpit of the fake mad demon king, Hao Ren had already guessed she was Y’zaks’ daughter—but guessing is one thing, believing it is another matter. He glanced at the little girl in the visual, then to Y’zaks whose look was as strange as it gets. “Biggie, are you sure this is your girl?

“I’m sure as hell!” Y’zaks rose to his feet, “I’m going to see her!”

Lily jumped to her feet and followed. “I’m going with you.”

There were still some questions on Hao Ren’s mind he would like to ask but obviously it wasn’t the right time. He followed everyone and hurried to the throne hall while he still couldn’t figure out what: he had conjectured numerous scenario about the fake mad demon king, little did he expect things would turn out like that—Wan Daquan’s daughter was driving that thing…

He had always felt that something was wrong somewhere but then even the demonic army had already used chainsword, he might have thought too much.

While hurrying to the throne hall, and they had run into some guards on the way. Lanina told them it was an emergency and the guards let them pass. The entrance as locked but Y’zaks just stormed it open – he was really anxious to meet his daughter and cared not about anything else especially when this is his own place.

The heavy front door was kicked open. Inside, the little demonic princess and the old housekeeper hadn’t expected someone dared to storm in just like that as the princess was wolfing down the food. Hao Ren was right behind Y’zaks as they came in. He saw the blond little girl was grabbing a piece of food which looked like a bread, looking up with her mouth filled to the brim and her face looked stunned.

Then she choked.

“Y’lisabet!” As Y’zaks rushed to his daughter, Zadamor and Y’lisabet began to come to their senses. The latter immediately gobbled down the food and then ran toward Papa No. 3 while Zadamor stood in the way of Y’zaks and asked, “What do you want…”

“You don’t recognise me anymore, do you?” Y’zaks stared into Zadamor’s eyes. “I am your master!”

The little girl Y’lisabet staggered and turned looking back at Yazikesi, her reaction was like a frightened girl. Zadamor instantly tossed the food plate away as he drew out a sword. “How dare you..”

“Put down your sword!” Lanina stepped forward to stop Zadamor and then looked up and motioned Y’lisabet and said, “Come here, Y’lisabet!”

The girl looked on in astonishment, and hadn’t a clue what was happening. Y’zaks smirked in a way more like crying. “It’s me! How could this child not even recognize her own father?”

Hao Ren facepalmed when he saw Y’zaks. “Your look! Your temperament are all wrong! You have been in disguise all this while, how could they even recognise you?”

Then Y’zaks only came to grisp with it and hurriedly transformed back from the human body into his real appearance—an even scarier face, body covered with bulging muscles, a mean and imposing aura radiating in all directions, even the sculptures around the throne hall seemed to have sensed the aura, buzzing. The little Y’lisabet was stunned looking at him. Only until Y’zaks had completely revealed himself, she started to make sense of it. She took two steps forward, then suddenly burst into tears.

Hao Ren smacked and said, “Look! You have made your child crying!”

Vivian pulled Hao Ren back. “Couldn’t you just keep your mouth shut?”

Y’zaks walked past Zadamor who was rooted to the spot toward Y’lisabet, every step he took his human look faded away and finally became a five-metre-tall, full-fldeged demon. He sat on the ground with his legs crossed as he reached out to Y’lisabet. “I’m back, honey…”

Truly a demon princess; she cried because she was just being herself when she lost control emotionally, but she had quickly calmed down. She then came up to Y’zaks without worrying about his body heat and climbed up his arm and said, “Dad, you okay?”

A little more than one-metre-tall, the girl went up Y’zaks’s body like rock climbing. Hao Ren looked on and was dumbstruck. “I still feel something is wrong somewhere.”

Lily looked on and was touched by the scene. She pushed Hao Ren and said, “What’s wrong with that? Isn’t this heartwarming?”

The husky had always been naive probably nothing in this world would ever make her feel amiss.

The old court adviser Zadamor was also stunned to see what had transpired. Everything happened so fast that he almost felt surreal. He turned to Lanina. “Great Sage … is… is this true?”

“Uncle, don’t doubt it, it’s true,” Adpoted by Y’zaks, while Lanina was still a kid roaming around the castle she was also taken care of by Zadamor, so she always spoke to him affactionately. “The king is fine, he was just recuperating in a faraway place… I was out here looking for the king.”

Hao Ren’s mouth contracted, feeling what Lanina said was a little far from reality—she was obviously lost in that period of time, and only when God couldn’t bear to see her predicament she was brought before Y’zaks…

Meanwhile, the little girl Y’lisabet sat on the shoulders of Y’zaks, holding on to his head muttering, her face like crying and sometime laughing like a human child, but the way she disregarded the high body heat of Y’zaks clearly demonstrated that they both shared the same bloodline. The father and daughter talked for quite a while before Y’zaks finally got to his feet, carried Y’lisabet and came up to Hao Ren rumbly. He didn’t know what to say. He just looked down at them scratching his head and guffawed, fire rained down from him…

“Please don’t laugh!” Hao Ren had to keep dodging the rain of fire and shouting, “Transform it back! You both have got time on your side!”

Y’zaks slowly formshifted into a human. Y’lisabet jumped down agilely and looked at Hao Ren and his men curiously. “Dad, who are these people?”

“They are my friends.” Y’zaks grinned, the heroic face he displayed a few days of ago in the city of Cadessar was no more. Hao Ren looked at him and sighed: Sure enough, even the greatest king had his day, no one who was capable of thoughts and emotions could escape from his own mind.

Hao Ren and his company briefly introduced themselves but without explaining their origins: cross-world things were a little too complicated to explain, it was better for Y’zaks to do the explaining to his own daughter himself. When they finished introducing themselves, Y’zaks turned to Zadamor. “What happened to you? How did the royal city survive? How did you come back to this place afterward?”

Zadamor opened his mouth but stopped short of saying. He instinctively glanced at Hao Ren and his men, Y’zaks waved at him immediately and said, “Well, there’s nothing you couldn’t say here, just treat them as our own.”

Zadamor was wide-eyed looking at the strangers which seemed to have appeared from nowhere, but he didn’t ask more since the demon king and the great sage were with them. He nodded and said, “Dear master, we haven’t yet figured out how it works, but the space storm hadn’t damaged the royal city, it instead opened up a door to a deep dimension where we found a hidden plane. If I’m not wrong, that is the real ‘Throat of the World’!

“The real throat of the world?” Y’zaks’ brows pulled together. “Tell us more.”

“It was a peculiar space that no one had ever set foot in. Wreckage and remains were everywhere, and there were also remains of huge unknown creatures,” Zadamor’s face appeared very serious. “We’ve also found an unusually large number of spatial nodes. After calculating the teleporting rules of several spatial nodes, we found that it closely resembles the ‘bubble core’ theory which was foretold in the manuscript left behind by the great scholar. I’m afraid it’s really the theoritical ghost dimension!”

Chapter 434: Y’lisabet’s Mother

 

Hao Ren did not know what the real “Throat of the World” and so-called core of the spatial bubble zone were. But judging from Y’zaks’ reaction, he knew it was something extraordinary. Scratching his chin with an unprecedented serious look on his face, Y’zaks asked, “Are the nature of this dimension and of those described in the manuscript consistent?”

“They match,” Zadamor nodded, “the gateway to the rest of the world, the unstable opening method, and the ever-changing mapping laws— all strikingly consistent with the manuscript’s predictions. But we didn’t manage to explore too deeply, that space wasn’t creature-friendly, there was no stars and solid planets, and only some strange celestial bodies which we could barely set our foot on. People could only survive with the deployment of a great barrier over the royal city, so we couldn’t send more people scouting out there.”

Y’zaks nodded slightly, he knew these things couldn’t be explained in a few words. “Well, please sort out what had happened for the past year and I will hear the details from you later.”

He then turned to his little daughter with a broad smile on his face. “The most important thing for me now is that my daughter is alive! Y’lisabet … I knew you would be fine, but this thing…” Y’zaks said, looking up to ‘himself’ which was on the throne, “What the hell is this?”

Y’lisabet’s face was still a mess after crying and laughing a while ago, but she had quickly calmed down. She held on to a finger of Y’zaks and said proudly, “That’s Papa III. I designed it with Uncle Hammer!”

Y’zaks was dumbfounded when he heard the name earlier. Hao Ren curiously came up to the throne and looked up, and found that the rough skin, the unique body armour were almost as identical as the genuine one—almost lifelike, only the flame and lava which were magic simulation had disappeared because the ‘demon doll’ was now in standby mode.

Hao Ren climbed up to the chest of the ‘demon doll’ and poked his head inside. He could see the compact alloy cockpit inside, but without the usual control sticks and buttons and stuff like that. Instead, there were some odd alloy cylinders and neatly-arranged rune slab panels, as well as a small seat. The control panel was glimmering with a faint light from time to time, and the complicated runes were occasionally projected out. Through the help of his translation plug-ins, Hao Ren could read them: pressure readings, power reactor, expression combinations, intelligence balance, skin camouflage, walking assistance control, running auxiliary control …

Suddenly, Hao Ren felt a furry thing squeezed itself past him next to his arm. It was Lily. “Let me have a look… whoa… this is a high-tech cockpit?”

“So you’ve been using this to impersonate me all this while?” Y’zaks looked at his genius daughter, half-cryingly and half-laughingly after he took a gander at the ‘demon doll’. “You’re real genius. No one spot the anomalies?”

Y’lisabet climbed up the demon’s legs and proudly exclaimed, “No one would spot the difference with occasional appearance to sooth the worries of the people.”

Then, the little girl lowered her head slightly, lamenting. “Unfortunately, it could only perform the most basic manoeuvers, and control is very troublesome. I’ve spent a long time fine-tuning its walking posture. Then I used posture-core of the obsidian colossus to stabilize it. But it still lacks combat capability, no magic ability, and hasn’t enough power…”

When the little girl talked, she babbled. Y’zaks touched her head affectionately and said, “Y’lisabet liked to study these things from an early age… She was physically weak but was clever, so I let her studied alchemy and astrology from the manuscript left behind by the old man.”

Hao Ren glanced at Y’lisabet, her physical build was obviously as different as day and night compared to the normal demon. How could Y’zaks at five-metres-tall have a one-meter daughter?

Lily who was beside Hao Ren was more blunt. “Are you sure she is your biological daughter?”

Y’zaks wasn’t offended at all as if he had long been expecting question like that. “Y’lisabet’s mother was a human.”

Everyone went silent. Lily, one of the most literary-loving in the crowd, couldn’t utter a word.

Hao Ren pattted the arms of Y’zaks and said, “I couldn’t believe that a rough guy like you could’ve actually gone down that road— why did you take a human as wife?”

Y’zaks smiled, showing a nostalgic look on his face as he leaned back in his throne and recalled slowly. “It was the beginning of the unification war. As usual, humans had thought that I was just another brainless demon king, many of the braves had come out to fight me in the hope of lifting their own prestige, and Y’lisabet ‘s mother was one of them who came to look for trouble.

They were all astonished. Vivian twitched her mouth as she looked at Y’zaks. “How more uncommon-sensical could you be?”

Hao Ren was curious about the story of the brave women and the demon. “And then what happened? What kind of person was Y’lisabet’s mother? Was she powerful but kind-hearted, kind of person, as holy as a lamp in God’s home? How many times had she fought with you before you were turned?”

Y’zaks laughed as he waved his hand. “As powerful as she was, she was a silly girl. I still remember people called her ‘Sword Saintess’. She was very famous in the human world, and was symbol of something in her country. In short, she was an important person but deep down in her she was just a naive and innocent girl. She focused all her energy in learning how to fight, was duped into becoming a guardian of her country to fight the demon king. The way I see it, the so-called guardian was just a convenient title politicians use to exploit her. But she was quite proud of it, though.”

Lily shoved herself forward and asked, “Then what happened?”

“There were quite a few of the braves came looking for trouble at that time when I needed more people. So I basically would persuade them to join us. Those who refused, I would just let them go and spread the message on my behalf.” Y’zaks shrugged, “so too Y’lisabet’s mother was let go three times, when she came back for the fourth time I was stunned— she was recalcitrant despite losing in every fight. To be honest I have never seen anyone coming with this reason. So I got interested, and then did something extraordinary: I transformed into a human, sneaked over and joined her team, saying I was the brave too looking to fight the demon king.”

Hao Ren also could not help it. “How more uncommon-sensical could you have been?”

“It was mainly because I was bored,” Y’zaks shrugged. “At that time I hadn’t much entertainment, so I’d occasionally observe the habit of creatures such as the Brave to quench my boredom. Anyway, that naive girl had believed me. She even said that her wasn’t good enough to challenge the demon king by herself, she dragged me along going around getting more ‘experience’ before going back to Helcrown again.”

La Nina suddenly hemmed. “I’ve heard this history before from the elderly people in the city: in order to make that naive brave one coming back to Helcrown to challenge the mad demon king, he himself led her running around in the territory. A few demon kings had come to fight her, and even let the Evil Flame Dragon lie on the ground pretending to have been slained”

“When she finally got back to Helcrown, I confessed everything,” Y’zaks shrugged. “She froze for a moment and said she wanted to stay.”

Hao Ren held his breath and expected the story to continue. But after a long while of silence, he asked, “So that’s the end of the story?”

“That’s the end.” Y’zaks nodded with a smile.

Vivian asked dumbfoundedly, “You two had no problem with the racial differences and all that? Let’s just talk about the aesthetic side of it—both of you OK?”

Y’zaks laughed. “Demon has a different aesthetic perspective from human… In fact, we don’t care about our partner’s look, it does not matter as long as it feels right. That was how we were together and she seemed to have accepted me in human form.”

Lily glanced at the big face of Y’zaks, wondering if the brave maiden was already blind when she first met Y’zaks.

Vivian asked hesitatingly, “Then where is she now?”

“She was dead a long time ago.” said Y’zaks without much emotion on his face. “Don’t worry, she went peacefully. I used demonic magic to extend her life and she had stayed with me for three hundred years. But after all she was still a human, and not willing to completely turn into a half-demon to extend her life again. So I respected her will. But anyway, we had lived happily for three hundred years, and I think that’s already better than most demons families.”

He patted on Y’lisabet’s head and said, “What’s more, I’ve a daughter!”

Y’lisabet’s eyes darted around curiously. She felt that her father was a little different from her father she remembered but she could not tell what. But she knew it must have something to do with these strangers.

“Well, and I think we could keep on talking if we want to,” Y’zaks interrupted the conversation. He guffawed. “Today is a good day! Zadamor, haven’t the banquet been ready? Send my word, today we’re going to make it big!”

Chapter 435: The Royal Banquet

 

Like father, like daughter; Y’zaks’ daughter had inherited his great quality as proven by her unusual behavior. Hao Ren and company quickly learned what had happened to Helcrown in the past year from little Y’lisabet as well as the old court advisor, Zadamor. The story basically centered around a gifted child who drove a huge robot, pretending to be her father. She tried to boost the morale of the people while at the same time, build enough troops for another wave of counter-attack. Although the whole process did not sound like a fantasy script, none of them were really sensible people who would act according to the script, so let us not delve into the details.

In the final battle a year ago, Helcrown was sucked into a space storm. It miraculously survived, but it was sent into a strange space where no one had ever set foot in before. Thanks to Y’zaks’ foresight, he remodeled Helcrown to be completely self-containing and self-sustaining, knowing that he had enemies all over the world. The city’s controller activated the system at a critical moment to protect its citizens, and afforded Y’lisabet time to plan for the future.

She knew there was only one person who could lead the people under the prevailing circumstances, but she had no idea when they could get out of that strange space. So, she immediately started to design “Papa I” to preside over the throne. With the help of Zadamor and a few veterans, she made up a variety of excuses to justify the “return” of the fake mad demon king to the city… This was indeed a miraculous gene inherited from Y’zaks. Both of them were good in doing things the unorthodox way.

The fake “demon king” rarely appeared before the public and only showed its face to reassure the people. It was done in the guise of pondering about the future. Meanwhile, when Y’lisabet was not driving the Papa I, she would go around as usual, acting as Helcrown’s “executive director”. That was how she kept things under wraps.

The only problem with the entire impersonation process was, Y’zaks had not been seen in human form againever since that day. However, it was not a cause for concern as no one raised any questions.

So far, only a handful of people in Helcrown knew about the fake demon king. This small group of people were Y’lisabet, Zadamor, a few veterans, and a few dwarven engineers who were the builders of the Papas.

Hao Ren found that the little Y’lisabet was a genius. Of course, he knew Y’lisabet’s true age as well. She was at least a few hundred years old, but this did not help when it came to her 1.3-m body height. Anyway, as Y’zaks’ buddy, Hao Ren treated Y’lisabet like a child.

A grand banquet was being held in the demon king’s palace. When Hao Ren and his group stepped into the banquet hall, they were startled; they never thought they would actually see a feast of this scale in demonic territory. Rows of tables that were filled with food lined the massive hall, and people of various races were among the attendees—they were mostly dwarves and humans, but elves with sharp ears could also be seen gathering and chatting in the quieter corners of the hall. Despite the hall itself being of demonic style, the furnishings and decorations throughout were clearly made to accommodate people of all races. Such a place could only be found in Helcrown. For all along, Y’zaks was the only demon king who had seriously considered the possibility of integrating all the ethnic cultures in the world. This massive city of Helcrown was his biggest achievement.

When Lily pushed open the door to the banquet hall, she almost screamed in joy. She jumped and yelped, “Yay ! The food’s so delicious!”

Hao Ren had to pull her back by grabbing her tail (the maiden had let her tail out to get some fresh air since she felt safe in Y’zaks’ place). “Behave yourself! We’re only guests here!” Hao Ren reminded her.

“I thought Helcrown was in a state of a meltdown, little did I expect you people to be so optimistic!” Vivian looked at the grand banquet hall and glanced at Y’zaks in surprise before her eyes fell on Y’lisabet. “This kid is amazing.”

“Yes, I am.” Y’lisabet nodded. “I’ve been trying to keep the people’s morale up.”

The grand banquet was held to welcome the return of the “Great Sage”. It was a very significant event attended by all the high-level leaders. However, they absolutely did not expect another figure to be the first one to come in through the door.

Y’zaks had changed his appearance slightly. He was back in the human form he once used in Helcrown. It was more like a post-car-accident look. He did not have to suppress his aura anymore as he strode toward the host’s seat in the long hall.

At this moment, the entire hall became quiet. Everyone, be it demon or another race had their eyes fixed on the figure, who they had not seen for a year. Most of them were just surprised that the demon king was suddenly appearing in his human form—in their minds, the demon king had always been living in the city. Only a few people were shocked: they were the ones who had knowledge of the fake demon king.

Y’zaks guffawed as he walked to the front. He then nodded to everyone as if nothing had happened. “How’s everyone?”

Many people found the question weird, but they still raised their glasses and gave him a toast. A few figures near the long tables suddenly stood up.

They were four demons who had shrunk in size and a few dwarves.

Y’zaks noticed them at once. He smiled and nodded at Hao Ren before raising his hand to motion the dwarves and demons to step forward. The dwarves and demons immediately approached Y’zaks. Leading them was a dark dwarf, who was old and short like a wine barrel. The dwarf was wearing a working uniform full of pockets and his beard was so long that it looked almost like a scarf hanging down his chin. It felt as though the dwarf was rolling over when he ran, at least to Hao Ren. As the old dwarf came before Y’zaks, he looked up and exclaimed, “Oh, my god…”

Y’lisabet’s hands were instantly in akimbo, a sign of her stress. “He’s my dad, not your god!”

The dwarf continued to look up and say, “The princess’ dad… Oh, wait… Demon King? This-this is…”

Hao Ren quickly bent down to prop the dwarf’s head up. “Calm down, your neck almost made a 90-degree turn. Yes, you’re right, he’s your boss.”

Y’zaks folded his hands across his chest and smiled wryly. “It’s me, I’m back—the genuine one.”

The old dwarf had no clue what Y’zaks meant by “genuine one”. The first thing the dwarf did was reach into one of his pockets, and take out a screwdriver. “Please don’t move. Let me poke you a little. If there’s no cockpit in there, then you’re real.”

Y’zaks guffawed as he grabbed the funny dwarf up by his beard and said, “Now tell me, am I still a fake?”

The old dwarf immediately waved and danced in the air. “Judging from your grab, I know you’re real!”

Hao Ren and the rest looked on, dumbfounded. The corporate culture in the demonic army was way too difficult for outsiders to comprehend.

Y’zaks put the old dwarf down, and began introducing him to Hao Ren. “This is Sentius Hot Hammer, my chief engineer. The chainswords and cannons on the walls are all the creations him and his fellow dwarves.”

Y’lisabet added, “He’s the Uncle Hammer I was talking about earlier.”

Then, Y’zaks pointed at the four higher demons who had shrank in size. “They are my four generals…”

After introducing each and every one of them, Y’zaks folded his hands across his chest. He looked at his old comrades and laughed heartily. “Okay, I’m done here. Do you have any questions you’d like to ask?”

“My King, is it really you? Are you all right?” A demon with a horn on his head still could not believe that Y’zaks had suddenly appeared before his eyes. “Is-is this real?”

“I’m not going to repeat the same thing,” said Y’zaks. “I was taking refuge in a very faraway place. This gentleman beside me is Hao Ren, who has been my ‘landlord’. It’s all thanks to him. Without his help, I wouldn’t have made it back to this world.”

“Back to this world?” Sentius Hot Hammer was suddenly wide-eyed. “You mean all the while you were at…”

“The Theory of the Spatial Bubble Zone is real. Even the multiverse theory that the great scholar put forth a few years before his death is also real.” Y’zaks laughed. He then pointed to Hao Ren. “Salute him. This is the guy who’s in charge of the bridge between two worlds. It’s a good thing that he’s easy to talk to, or else I really don’t know how I’d make it back from the other world.”

Hao Ren smiled wryly and greeted the demons as well as dwarfs, who already had their jaws on the floor. “Well, actually, I’m just a policeman and traffic warden…”