The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-1660

Chapter 1660: Dissipating Away

“What the hell does the ‘setting has changed’ even mean?” Lily was the first to react after she heard Hao Ren’s words. “Don’t tell me this world is scripted? And the scriptwriter actually did a last-minute edit?!”

“There’s probably no scriptwriter in the background, but as for the ‘script’… there probably is one,” Hao Ren said as he placed the book on the table. At the same time, the words on the pages were being refreshed as new lines and passages overwrote the old text. This happened right under the eyes of everyone present without any pretense of concealment. “Vivian, go ahead.”

Vivian nodded and held her hands wide open. Lily, who was oblivious to what was going on, moved her gaze between Hao Ren and Vivian. “Hey, what sort of charade are you guys on? Your affair is already a known subject, why are you still acting all mysterious…”

Honestly, at times, Hao Ren really wanted to cement her potty mouth shut.

Rheia was even more clueless to what Hao Ren and Vivian were up to. The little mage nervously tightened her grip on her iron staff as her gaze swept across the two. “Why do I get the feeling…”

Before she could finish, a mysterious bell toil rang from afar. And the toil seemed to ring directly in everyone’s soul. As it rang, the entire world’s operation was disrupted, and everyone could not help but stop what they were doing.

Simultaneously, crimson moonlight with faint traces of blood appeared.

The crimson moonlight directly pierced through the libraries walls and roof as it enveloped the entire space. Outside the tower, the entire White Maple Leaf City, no, even the entire continent of L’Harrone were basking in the crimson light.

No matter the attacking monsters, the defending city guards, or the escaping beasts, as the crimson moon appeared everyone went into a mysterious sluggish state, and they seemed to be compelled by an unknown force as they all looked up at the same time towards the mysterious celestial body in the sky. A crimson full moon that shone over everything.

Vivian’s hair was floating as powerful energy waves emanated from her body. Thousands of silhouettes appeared ethereally within the crimson moonlight. She looked at her both hands, a smile at the edge of her lips. “Since my sickness was cured, I feel like I’m getting better at summoning the Crimson Moon.

Lily looked on in a stupor before she started howling and yelping, “Awwooo!! My god Battie, you scared the crap out of me with that summoning! Didn’t you know I was killed by that thingamajig in my past life, and I’m still traumatized over that thing!”

Hao Ren patted Lily’s head as he tried to console her before looking with a half-smile at the stunned Rheia. “If we don’t summon a powerful enough ‘alarm’, how could we wake a sleeping goddess?”

Rheia had sunk into a mysterious silent state just the start of the summon, and at this very moment he raised her head and stared at the glowing ceiling as if she could see through the thick rocks and cement and gaze at the crimson moon in the sky above. As she heard Hao Ren, a confused look appeared on her face, and this confused look was swiftly replaced by a thinking look and then an expression of realization. Her gaze was changing rapidly as countless of personas were being restored in her body, and in the end, her expression turned into a faint smile. The ‘little mage’ looked at Hao Ren. “How did you find out?”

“There were plenty of clues, but all of them were well hidden, that’s why it took me so long to connect the dots.” Hao Ren wore a smile as well. “But the most obvious clue would be… because I have not been dreaming for the past few days.”

Rheia smiled as she shook her head. The next moment, her form dissipated away like sand in the wind.

And disappearing along with her, the entire world.

The wizard towers, White Maple Leaf City, the Great Flatland, Longwind Peak… the entirety of L’Haronne were engulfed by light and became a scattering of tiny light orbs. Within this few seconds long dissipation process, the true face of the world was now before Hao Ren.

A dark, cold, silent, chaotic space with tons of broken debris floating within it. Between the shattered continents were leaping energy arcs spanning hundreds of kilometers long. Dead cosmic islands were floating and spinning around the edges of the shattered continents as unknown shadows leap between the islands.

Hao Ren and his friends were now standing on one of the broken continent shelves. A few energy currents connected the continent with the fragments of the celestial bodies around it. And on the charred continent, there was nothing that could help with identification.

This was normal, as the Star of Creation back in its heyday was covered by an endless sea, and the planet’s landmass did not have many buildings on it. And those tower complexes build on the surface of the Sea of Origin… they were all floating in the void between the continents, and shattered in a state worse than the planet itself.

All of this happened within a short span of time, and when the true identity of the world was revealed, none of them could process what had just happened. The first to recover was the typically calm and experienced Y’zaks. The old demon rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “So, we were trapped in some sort of dream world all this while? And this is the real look of the Umbral Realm?”

As Y’zaks spoke, only did everyone realized what happened. Nangong Sanba looked about before smirking. “Heh, this is more like the Umbral Realm…”

Hao Ren looked up and saw the Petrachelys floating diagonally above them. The elegant argent starship was trying to regain stability as she blasted bright lights. Nolan sounded extremely excited. “Boss! I can fly! I can fly!”

“Okay, okay, okay, I know you can fly now. Turn off the lights and the radar on.” Hao Ren helplessly tried to get his speed freak of a shipgirl to calm down. “Change the scanning mode to divinity detection. If I’m not wrong, the goddess of creation is nearby.”

“Okay! You betcha… Ugh… Understood.”

Only after seeing the Petrachelys changed into detection protocol and started slowly navigating around the broken celestial bodies that Hao Ren returned his sight back to his crew. While Y’zaks had rightly guessed part of the content, the truth of the matter still had to be explained by himself.

“Remember the last battle in Star Cluster X?” Hao Ren popped a question before he started explaining. “The last thing the dreamer said before it was killed.”

“Oh, that dreaming brain right?” Lily recalled the fight immediately, “It was saying something about the dream is ruined, and two people will be waking up, bla bla bla… Wait, Mr. Landlord, you mean that the dream the brain was talking about…”

“Yes, ever since we arrived in the Umbral Realm, we have been living in a dream.” Hao Ren smiled as he pointed to the sea of the shattered celestial bodies in the darkness. “L’Haronne is not a real planet, but a dream. That’s why the world was so weird and all races from the Plane of Dreams were mingling together. There was plenty of seemingly unreal history, not to mention a trove of inexplicable ancient ruins. Also, the Great Pit, and the things within the pit… These illogical things can be easily explained, as they were simply a product of the dream. And in reality… well, is what you are seeing right now. A shattered Star of Creation.

Nangong Wuyue grabbed onto her arm as her tail coiled. She felt that goosebumps were all over her after realizing that she was living in a dream for the past few days (although elemental beings do not have such a setting). “My goodness… I was already terrified when I watched Inception back then, but to live through a VR…”

“Dreams will always have a point of origin,” Y’zaks grunted with furrowed brows. “And the source of this dream world…”

“The goddess of creation, or the goddess of annihilation, or both of them together.” Hao Ren’s smile disappeared as his tone turned serious. “The ability to create these sort of ‘dream state’, within the Umbral Realm, the only possible candidates were these two. But based on L’Haronne’s peaceful situation, it seems like the goddess of creation has the upper hand in the dream.”

Lily’s eyes spun about. “Then, Rheia…”

She remembered that before the dream world unraveled, Hao Ren said the same thing to her.

“I guess she could be an ‘incarnation’,” Hao Ren said, “But I don’t know the exact facts, we need to find the goddess of creation’s real body to understand everything, including how I found out the truth of this dream world. All of that needs to wait until then.”

“Oooooohhhh…” Lily murmured in slight disappointment. She then turned around to look at the broken universe, and as she looked up at the dark, chaotic dimension, she seemed to have noticed something. “Eh, eh, Mr. Landlord, over there!”

Hao Ren turned to where Lily was pointed and was flabbergasted.

A floating fragment of a continent was slowly moving, and the covered skies were now exposed. Within the darkness, there was a bright spot.

That was another planet, another torn planet, and based on the distance, they were clearly not part of the Star of Creation. The planet’s fate seemed to be better than the Star of Creation as it was only broken into two, and was not shattered into thousands of floating debris like the Star of Creation. Even then, for the denizens of the planet, an apocalypse was still an apocalypse.

But…

Hao Ren squinted as he focused on the planet.

“I’m afraid… L’Haronne may not totally be a dream.”