The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-310

Chapter 310: Why You Should Read the User Manual

A beam of white light enveloped Bethanos and the strange device. Wielding a pair of Fire and Ice Blades, Lily charged towards it. Sparks emitted as she managed to scrape its surface. However, the light beam did not move an inch.

“Don’t waste your energy.” Bethanos sneered. “This artifact comes from the Land of Origins. It’s powerful enough to tear the barrier between two worlds into pieces! A mortal’s strength is just child’s play in front of this miracle.”

Hao Ren stared back at him angrily. He did not expect things to turn out this way. Bethanos, the cunning shadeling, was just a few feet away from him, engulfed in a strange film of light as unbreakable as his Steel Membrane Shield. Lily spent half a day trying to force her way in but her efforts were to no avail. Even Y’zaks summoned his Flameburst and blew a hole in the floor but, the light beam refused to budge.

“Bethanos!” Hessiana waved her whip as she stood outside, jumping with anger. “You coward! Bastard! Dang creature! What do you want? Don’t you realise you’ve destroyed the sanctuary?”

“Like I said, you guys are short-sighted.” Bethanos looked as if he pitied them. “That’s why I never wanted work with you lot right from the beginning. The sanctuary? For a mere thousand years of peace? I can’t believe there are people who would be content with that. But I’m different; I know better than all of you. I vie for eternal strength, which is powerful enough to set the world free from demon hunters and humans. In the pursuit of this goal, the sacrifice of a few idiots is totally reasonable.”

It appeared to take some time before the strange device behind Bethanos began to fire up. Hao Ren allowed the MDT to hack into the light membrane quietly as he tried to divert their attention. “What the hell is that?” he referred to the device behind Bethanos.

Bethanos did not give a hoot. He just looked at Vivian with a deep gaze. “Vivian Ancestor, the ancient one. I must say, I have to revere you as an elder. But, your memory is a mess. Otherwise, you could’ve become my best partner. I pity you, you know nothing.”

Vivian furrowed her eyebrows. “What do you mean? What should I know?”

Bethanos turned his eyes on the device behind him, seemingly finding that the thing was running slower than expected. He looked impatient, but he soon began to enjoy the process of waiting as he anticipated his victory. With his hands behind him and his body slightly stooped, he began speaking to Vivian outside the light beam like a kind old man. “Do you know that we… I mean, all of us, including humans, vampires, shadelings, demons, wraiths, sirens and other races who are known as Otherworldlings came from another world? We’re all creatures not of this planet, not even of this universe…”

Hessiana scratched her head. “Are you just out of your mind because you’ve become too old?”

However, Hao Ren and the others began to realise: this old shadeling knew something incredible!

“I know some won’t believe it.” Bethanos remained calm and glanced at Vivian indifferently. “Even those whimmy humans don’t believe in parallel universes and the Otherworld. How many Otherworldlings actually possess such foresight? In the first few thousand years, they immersed themselves in greed and lustful desires. Then, they became fugitives and have been living like cowards for the last couple thousands of years. The fool is a sad creature. Shadelings are the only ones in this world who care about all these ancient truths. You people on the other hand, treated the truth like it was a taboo. Tsk, tsk!”

“That thing behind you, it’s—” Hao Ren quietly said.

“It’s the door to the Land of Origins!” Bethanos felt like he had the situation under his control. His did not find the need to mince his words as he talked to a bunch of prisoners on death row. “The Shadeling Family have been accumulating various broken scrolls and mysterious relics for the past thousands of years. From them, we deduced that we were sent to this world by this amazing thing. It possesses the power to link the two worlds together. It’s even comparable to the sun and moon combined! We call it the Sacred Relic of Origins. The name suits it well, doesn’t it?”

Then he turned around and looked at the device’s bright, crystalised front panel. After that, he shook his head with a sense of regret. “It’s a pity that an error took place during the transmission 10,000 years ago. The memories of the ancient ones were erased and some of them even had memory—”

Bethanos paused for a second, glanced at Vivian then continued, “—defficiency.”

Vivian remained silent.

Bethanos did not care about their silence. He scratched his chin and kept mumbling in a frenzy. “What was the purpose of the transmission 10,000 years ago? For exploration or subjugation? What does the Land of Origins look like? How powerful is it? What kind of knowledge and power can I find there? Ah… these are good questions and some even make me feel a bit scared. I haven’t experienced the thrill of exploring new things for thousands of years. But no matter what lies behind this door, it’s not going to be worse than this. And all of you short-sighted wretches will live here in regret.”

Hao Ren frowned. He was surprised that as mad as Bethanos was, he had secretly uncovered such a revealing truth. His interpretation was rational and it closely matched the intel Hao Ren had, which made one wonder: was Bethanos telling the truth?

The strange device began to buzz in a low pitch. Bethanos heard it and was delighted. “Aha! Looks like it’s almost fully charged. Although I’d like to shed some light on the truth for ignorant fools like the lot of you, looks like it’s time to say goodbye. Maybe, I’ll come back to this world some time later. I hope all of you will live long enough to witness my return.”

After that, he turned around and his eager eyes stared unwaveringly at a series of panels on the device.

A short beep was emitted from the Sacred Relic of Origins as a succession of complicated, glowing symbols, which appeared to be the operation buttons materialised on the panel. Meanwhile, the light beam began to shrink gradually. Obviously, the door Bethanos had mentioned was about to open; he was going to tear open the dimension and go into The Plane of Dreams!

“Stop him!” The MDT rose up. “Don’t let that device go into The Plane of Dreams!”

Hao Ren aimed his pistol at the device behind Bethanos; not only was he going to stop Bethanos, he was also going to stop the door from opening. Mainly because, the door would likely become the final nail on the coffin for the shabby Wall of Reality. No doubt, the psionic gun could penetrate the protective light membrane but, it would also totally destroy the precious device.

He was hesitant, however he did not have any other choice. There was no way to stop the door from opening unless the whole system was destroyed.

Bethanos sneered at them and at their futile last attempt. Meanwhile, Hao Ren already had his finger on the trigger. In just a second, the psionic flame would consume possibly the very last sample of the Sacred Relic of Origins.

However, just a second before he pressed the trigger, the device stopped beeping and the light beam faded away.

Bethanos’ smiling face froze. Before he could say anything, a cold synthesised voice was heard from the device. “Dedusting operation completed. The dust shield has shut down.”

Everyone was speechless, including Bethanos.

“Wait-wait a second!” Bethanos pounced on the device, clearly livid. “Wait a second! It shouldn’t be like this! It shouldn’t be like this! Where’s the door? Where’s the Land of Origins? How can this be? You can’t just—”

A gigantic, flaming finger then gently tapped Bethanos on the shoulder. Bethanos turned around with his stiffened expression and saw the face of the flaming demon, who was taller than a normal man.

Y’zaks sat down with his legs crossed as smoldering lava flowed everywhere—he was of course careful not to let the lava flow to where his friends were. He picked Bethanos up with his fingers and placed him before his eyes. “Little creature, let’s talk about the dialectical opposition between your spirit of exploration and your methods of exploration…”