The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-488

Chapter 488: Two Curses

The mysterious knowledge which was hidden behind the common knowledge or even contrary to it was beyond average human’s understanding. Even Ogyust who had been living since three centuries ago and used much energy to study witchcraft and taboo knowledge, he would still get things wrong sometime. He didn’t know what vengeful spirit really was, he judged solely basing on the sound he had heard in his illusion that the ‘dark monster’ had been divided into half by the witch. One of them was suppressed in the frozen ground of Siberia, the other one was in him. Based on this understanding, he made the decision to distance himself from the Andrea family, and limit his frequency of contact with them according to the knowledge of witchcraft which only God knows where he had got from. this is what the bizarre hides. This was how the obscure letters came about.

Although many of the measures he took were ridiculous and useless in the eyes of the real expert, at least ‘staying away from Siberia’ was a sensible decision, especially when he took the thing out of the room, Vivian was more convinced of it.

Ogyust brought a black, complexly-structured wooden box to Vivian, handing it to her with both hands. “The stone is in there.”

“What the box is all about?” Vivian looked at the wooden box curiously. “It looks rather familiar.”

Ogyust was surprised. “Have you forgot? This is what you gave me. You had specifically told me and my descendents to keep this box. You said that you might come to take it back one day. I thought you come this box?”

“Was it?” Vivian’s brows knit together. “Oh, I think I might have missed something.”

She opened the wooden box as she spoke, and saw the gizmo inside. “This is the second piece on which a part of the power of the vengeful spirit still remains. I might have overlooked it as I was too exhausted back then.”

Hao Ren saw a palm-sized elliptical object lying quietly inside the box, which was different from the first device the Andrea family had kept. On the surface of this thing was a concentric circle pattern, in the middle was a hole. Beside that there was no visible unevenness.

From the outside, it is difficult to see how it was related to the first device.

“This thing is strange. What is vengeful spirit?” Hao Ren muttered, taking out the triangular gizmo from his dimensional pocket as he tried to put the two pieces of ‘stones’ together. “There’s no response?”

He help up the two bizarre ‘relicts of the vengeful’ and tried to join them together or click with each other lightly, but neither of them made a sound nor light. Lily looked at the stones and became interested. She came up and took them from Hao Ren. Hao Ren was hesitating but he let her; he knew that the husky was interested in collecting stones, he was worried she might bite the stones in her mouth just to try them out.

Lily had fiddled with the stones for a long while but nothing had happened. There were no signs of activation or start-up: no one knew how to use the gizmos.

Then the husky shoved the stones back to Hao Ren, frustrated. But judging from the reluctant look on her face, apparently she was eager to add these two stones to her collection.

“It seems that … something is missing,” the MDT hovered out and circling around the two ‘stones’. “I could sense that they are resonating, but it seems this resonance signal is sent to another device. There is no other device here, so they receive no feedback and movement.”

“Another device?” Hao Ren’s eyebrows pulled together, and suddenly remembered the crack in vengeful spirit dimension. “Is it really about that door? Are these stones the key to the door?”

While Hao Ren and the hald-baked experts were discussing about vengeful spirit, Ogyust was almost scared the hell out of him as he saw they tried to put two ‘stones of curse’ together. His was wide-eyed. He hemmed and said, “You can’t put them together.”

“It’s okay. The evil spirit has been destroyed,’ Hao Ren waved his hand. But he felt an unpleasant sense of coldness coming through his hand which was holding the second ‘key’. The breath of the vengeful spirit was till hovering over the stone. “Sanba, please help purify this thing.”

Nangong Sanba gave Hao Ren a side-look. “Your fish is much more powerful than my exorcism. You can let her sing a little.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hao Ren patted softly on his chest. “Lil Pea, come out and show what you got.”

The little mermaid poked her head out from Hao Ren’s collar happily. She had been watching the gongs-on outside. Although she had not a clue why, she knew her dad needed her. She looked at the the second ‘key stone’ and cleared her throat. Before she could start singing, Hao Ren already felt the chilly feeling on his hand was gone.

“Whoa, that’s amazing!” exclaimed Nangong Sanba as he looked at the demon hunting fish in awe. “How did she do that?”

Hao Ren has been bothered with this question for days. But he could only speculate. “I suspect that must have got something to do with her demon hunting power.”

Nangong Sanba was astounded. “What is hell is demon hunting fish?”

“Not only a demon hunting fish, she received the direct empowerment from the first generation of demon hunters. She is almost in the same realm of the ancestors of demon hunters.” When the Nangong Wuyue thought of the complicated process from which Lil Pea was getting her power, she facepalmed. “Please don’t ask, brother. It’s impossible to explain in just a few words, let me tell you when we’re back at home.”

Nangong Sanba had not a clue and was flabbergasted, because Hao Ren had not explained to him that Lil Pea had actually been empowered the power of demin hunters by the Relic of Origin. Ogyust was even more astonished: though he had seen many things in life, mermaid was not one of them, especially mermaid of only a foot long…

But anyway, he had been living for three centuries, he had witnessed the figths between werewolves and vampires, he was fairly calm. Vivian looked at the old man, and found signs of vengeful spirit remnant on him despite the ‘stone’ had been cleansed. She patted the head of Lil Pea and said, “Do it one more time. To him this time.”

The little one was happy as she felt her power for the very first time since birth. She opened her mouth as everyone was observing. A wonderful power accompanied her voice struck the cold and distorted vibe that lingered on Ogyust, which then dissipitaed like a fading electromagnetic wave.

“We must check what else new skills Lil Pea has.” Nangong Wuyue frowned as she looked at the cheeky Lil Pea whose voice was sharp and clear. The creepy vibe left behind by the vengeful spirit in the surrounding air was rapidly retreating. Even Nangong Wuyue had felt her spiritual power was subjected to a harmless but tangible perturbation. “…maybe it’s a good idea to teach the little one some new songs in the future. She can’t always sing the same Little Apple in all rituals.”

Meanwhile, Ogyust had finally come to his senses as he realized that the voice that had bothered him three hundred years was removed rather hilariously. He was in a great shock just as he had experienced great changes and been rejuvenated. He got to his feet and his palms together thanking everyone. Vivian waved to him stopping him from overreactiing. “To be honest, I’m a bit curious. Since the ‘stone’ had brought you so much trouble, why didn’t you just throw it away? It was not like you were followed by the evil spirit like the Andrea family was and being trapped in Siberia and couldn’t get out.”

“To be honest, I did think of that,” Ogyust said, looking at the two ‘stones’ in Hao Ren’s hand with a complex expression on his face. “And it did throw it away several times, but after seven days, it would come back like a curse. So just I gave up.”

“Seven days?” Hao Ren exchanged a look with Vivian. “Wasn’t the Andrea family unable to leave the castle for more than seven days too? Is it for the same reason?”

Contrary to the situation of Andrea family which were directly trapped and confined by the vengeful spirit, Ogyust suffered relatively less. He was only disturbed by the nightmare, the ‘stone’ did not cause harm to his life. Apparently, the two curses shared many similarities: the victim could not leave the cursed object too far, or for too long, and the cursed objects had infused the victims with inexplicable information in their memories.

Vengeful spirit was a senseless creature. What was the meaning of the ‘curse’ that had so obvious purpose and regular pattern?

“We’ve got the stones,” Vivian temporarily set the issue aside as she turned to look at Ogyust. “Pavel, are you going with us to Andrea Castle – would you?”