The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-484

Chapter 484: One of the Stones

Seeing Igor falling backwards and was held up by the butler, he couldn’t help but turn and looked at Vivian. “Why didn’t you say it earlier that you’ve left behind a mark? I’d not have taken the portrait out if I knew it earlier. Now I’ve to return it to him.”

“I just recalled it just now,” Vivian said. “And what are you doing with this painting? If you like, you can always look at the real one.”

Hao Ren looked at the portrait regrettably. “This painting looks very valuable, unfortunately it was spoilt by Lily.”

At this time, Igor had regained his consciousness. He looked at Hao Ren and the others, and then Vivian. “The witch?”

Vivian nodded and looked at Igor who seemed like passing out again, she quickly said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to punish you. Easy. Take a deep breath. Your ancestors were more calm than you are.”

Of course Vivian was lying, when the ancestors of Andrea family saw her, they keeled over immediately.

Igor grabbed the buttons of his coat with his hand tightly. His knuckles turned pale because he had used too much force. It seemed that he was doing this to confirm what he saw was real, and also to avoid blacking out again. He was trembling, his face disturbed. “Then the purpose of your coming today is…”

“To help you get rid of the evil spirit,” Vivian waved her hand. “In fact, I didn’t know you were the descendants of that boy I met.”

Igor was nervous. “Not because of our ancestors had violated the covenant…?”

Not waiting for Igor to finish, Vivian waved again and smiled almost as if crying. “Forget it. You guys have been misunderstanding the thing for three hundred years. For God’s sake, the thing wasn’t really like what you have been thinking. The curse of the evil spirit had nothing to do with your ancestors. I won’t bring down any punishment. In fact, I even feel I’ve wronged you guys….Okay, let’s leave this matter to another time. Now it’s important that the stone is still here, I hope you guys haven’t thrown it away lest I will really get mad at you.”

Igor hurriedly waved his hand and said, “Of course, of course… I mean, of course it’s not lost. It’s kept in a room on the highest floor of the castle. Let me take you there.”

Igor walked back towards the castle with the group. Hao Ren looked up at the 300-year-old ancient building before he entered into it. he saw On the castle’s gray-black exterior, he saw large swathes of ice and snow on the castle’s gray exterior were gradually breaking up and dissipating in the air like waking up from a nightmare. The entire castle looked sublime while covered in a layer of broken crystal. Under this wonderful but strange sight, the depressing vibe that enveloped the castle of Andrea gradually faded away. The vengeful spirit had left, and the strange magnetic field and space phenomena it produced had also retreated back underground. The sunlight that shone on the castle at a sloping angle had brought warmth and splendid feeling for the first time.

The servants in the castle had already learned the news of the defeat of the evil spirit. They came out of the room, still scared. But feeling the cold had receded, and the strange vibe that had been lingering in the castle was gone, these servants who had been serving the Andrea family for many years began to immerse in joy.

In the hallway of the castle, servants were walking around and sharing the news. A thin figure suddenly ran down the stairs and weaved past the crowd toward them. It was Anna. The poor girl had finally got rid of the nightmarish voice whispering in her head. She was exhilarated. When she saw Igor, she rushed to him. “Daddy, the voice! The voice! The voice is gone!”

“I know, I know,” Igor could not hold back his excitement too, but he still tried to keep his composure in front of Vivian. He placed his hands on Anna’s shoulders and said, “It’s over, honey. The evil spirit won’t come back again.”

Anna stared at Hao Ren and the others, wide-eyed. Her face was still pale. So she looked a bit scary to them. “You guys have really killed that evil spirit? But how could this be possible?”

When Hao Ren saw Anna, he could not help but think of the strange things she had mentioned—Tannagost, high-energy polymerised body, sublimation and stuff like that. He suddenly realised that the quaint knowledge in Anna’s head might be the key to uncovering the secrets of the vengedul spirit. “Anna, do you still remember the vengeful spirit… the things it told you? What’s Tannagost?”

When Anna heard the term, she could not help but shiver. But as the whisper in her mind had gone, she was not affected by the fear, and the quirky knowledge was just an incomprehensible piece of memory to her. “Probably… a little…”

Vivian looked at Anna and said, “Recall whatever you can. I hope you can tell us everything you know about the evil spirit. Of course it mustn’t be right now, you can go back, take a rest to regain your strengh.”

Anna looked at Vivian, feeling confused, and glanced over at her father curiously. Igor quickly said as his face turned serious. “Just listen to her, honey. She is the lord of the Andrea family.”

Anna was astonished, but she did not ask why. Igor let her go back to the her room.

“By the way, go and see Akim. Let Dr. Freeman take a look at him,” Igor said to Anna. “He may need some time to fully recover, don’t try to remove the chain yet!”

“She’s not so scary now,” Lily muttered. “She was so strange from head to toe when I was her earlier.”

Igor brought them to the top of the castle where no servants could be seen and only four guards dressed in black were guarding the two entrances. Apparently, the four were Andrea’s best elite bodyguard. Even when the castle was covered by supernatural phenomena earlier, they did not leave their posts. Igor greeted the guards and then pointed to a metal door which looked very heavy. “It’s just behind this door.”

After entering a complex set of passwords, iris and fingerprint scans, the treasury vault door slowly opened to reveal a brightly lit room inside.

There were only a few racks in the room, on which were the most valuable collections of the Andrea family. Two ancient swords, some unknown books, and a gray-black, unassuming, triangular ‘stone’.

“Oh, this is it,” Vivian had spot the small stone in the center of the room with just a glance. Igor lowered the bullet-proof glass which enclosed the stone with a security alarm system. Vivian beckoned to the stone and it flew to her.

“Oh, well, that was why you thought it was just a stone three hundred years ago,” said Hao Ren, taking the stone and turning it in his hand. “This is obviously something man-made.”

It was a device of a cigarrette pack in size with a texture feel of stone and metal, and a few raised ridges on one side and a few pits on the other. Hao Ren had never seen this kind of thing before, but judging from its uniform polishing lines, there was no doubt it was made using very advanced processing technology.

This was the so-called ‘stone’ which Vivian gave to Andrea’s ancestors three hundred years ago.

“Yeah, it’s man-made at first glance, but nobody knew what it was. That was why it was called a stone,” Vivian said, turning her head and looking at Igor. “You said that this thing had brought great fortune to the Andrea family. How?”

“It’s gold,” Igor took over the little device, stroking its ridges in a certain order. “I still can demonstrate the opening a dimensional exit, but everything in it had been taken by my ancestors. That was where the wealth of the Andre family came from…”

As Igor’s voice trailed off, a purple ray shone out from the the device and opened up a space crack of about one meter in the air. Igor put the little device on the table, and walked over and put his hand into the space crack. His face looked reverend. “An unexplainable supernatural phenomenon. I can put my hand in, take something out or store something inside. It was full of gold back then—the treasure of the witch.”

Vivian stared in astonishment at the little device which she had given to the humans. Her face looked just blank and dead. “..I was almost rich…”

Hao Ren patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t think too much!. It was probably not going to last for three days in your hands.”

Vivian almost in tears. “Why I didn’t study it for a little longer?”

Lily bluntly pointed out. “Because it was who you were, you wouldn’t want to study for even a minute. Even if you really studied it, you wouldn’t find the password. You wouldn’t be able to become rich. It’s destiny.”

Vivian. “…..”