The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-546

Chapter 546: It’s Not Safe to Use That Thing

Everyone moved to their nearest porthole and looked at the view outside in surprise. They saw a huge shadow floating in less than dozens of kilometers from the convoy fleet, and the shadow was the Helcrown. The black city, which was supposed to be docked near the southern coastline of the continent, was now floating around the edge of the atmosphere.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and looked at Helcrown, and suddenly exclaimed, “The dome shield is not turned on!”

Hao Ren was shocked: The oxygen was very thin in this position and space was only one step away. If the shield was not turned on, that would be the same as floating in space, and only a small part of the residents had the ability to survive in this situation. A thought flashed through everyone’s mind: something was wrong?!

“Quickly call the airship control room,” Y’zaks said immediately. But as he finished his words, the VIP cabin door was already slid open silently and several elf mages ran in hurriedly, looking anxious and said, “Sun King, the Helcrown is floating in the vicinity of the course…”

Hao Ren was baffled before he realized ‘Sun King’ was him, but now was not the time to correct the name. He hastened to inquire about the situation, “How can the Helcrown drift to this place? Have you been notified?”

“No, we had contact with the terminal tower of Helcrown before we set off and everything was fine over there,” the leader of the elf mage team answered anxiously, “shall we change course to see what’s going on there?”

“Of course, now!” Hao Ren replied anxiously.

The convoy fleet immediately changed course towards Helcrown and the huge airship also turned into low-speed mode after a few seconds, slowly approaching the dark, eerie, floating city. The convoy fleet flying in front of the airship were circling several miles from Helcrown. A series of signals were issued, but no response was received.

“Why do I feel the Helcrown looks weird?” Hao Ren suddenly discovered that the outline of Helcrown did not look right. After he thought for a moment, he realized what was going on: Now there was a sun rising from the other side of the horizon and shining on Helcrown, but the reflection of sunlight was blurred everywhere in the city, and the edge of the city was strangely translucent. The news that was soon reported back from the convoy fleet proved his feelings. An observer reported, “We have entered the periphery of the city. This is an illusion.”

“Illusion?” Nangong Sanba was surprised to hear the news. “The mirage of the alien planet is so high-tech?”

“No. Mirage doesn’t look like this,” Wuyue was occupying three seats alone and hissing to her brother, “maybe the people of Helcrown are studying high technology again, and this is projection technology.”

Y’lisabet stepped on the seat and looked at the unreal image of Helcrown and said, “But I don’t remember we have this kind of projection technology in Helcrown.”

The convoy fleet gingerly entered the ‘city’ that floated in the top of the atmosphere and circled between the shadowy towers. After the actual contact, they were completely certain that the whole city was some kind of very high fidelity image, just the illusion was so much more real than the mirage that it almost identical with the real city, except it did not look right in the sunlight. They could even see the residents on the streets of the city.

If this was a natural phenomenon, it could only mean that Raven 12345 was high when she was creating the planet.

Hao Ren let the airship and the convoy fleet back to the course. No matter what the situation was, they would find out after they met Lanina.

The next step was to accelerate the journey, and the airship quickly reached the southern coastline of the continent. They saw the real Helcrown was docked there. The black giant city had been fixed on the coastal continental shelf. The mages raised a huge stone bridge from the bottom of the sea to connect the city and the coastline. At one end of the bridge, a small market town was being built. Some of the residents in the city were moving to the continent, and they intended to build the first local town on the other side of the bridge.

Everything looked good as usual. There was no sign of any chaos in the city at all.

Not far from the new town was the terminal tower of Aerym. There were several glittering characters on the huge square: the North Station of Helcrown. Hao Ren immediately felt those words downgraded the whole city…

Y’zaks’ subordinates heard about his visit and were already waiting for his arrival. The moment Y’zaks had just stepped down the ramp, Lanina immediately came up to greet him, “King, we haven’t seen you for a long time. I’m glad you can come.”

Y’lisabet jumped on Lanina and grabbed her demon horns and shook them vigorously. “And me and me!”

“Yes, yes, and Your Highness…” Lanina smiled and put Y’lisabet down, touched her little horns and said, “You’re growing up and soon to be a big demon. You can’t behave like a kid anymore after the seventh rings on your horns have grown.

Y’zaks pulled his daughter back and asked directly, “Is there anything unusual in the city recently?”

“As usual,” Lanina said and nodded, but she found that Y’zaks and Hao Ren looked unusually serious. “What’s wrong?”

“We saw an illusion of Helcrown at the top of the atmosphere.” Hao Ren roughly told her what they saw and asked, “Have you guys studied anything like this lately? Like a mirage system or something…”

Lanina was baffled. “No… We have been busy building new towns and exploiting wasteland recently and almost all of our manpower is in this area.”

“Is it really a natural phenomenon?” Y’zaks frowned and glanced at Hao Ren and suggested,” or ask the Goddess?”

Hao Ren hesitated. He really did not want to bother the Goddess because of these messy things. After all, she seemed to have a bad habit of giving people her ‘blessing’ lately, but after hesitation, he had to connect to the heaven hotline: After all, only Raven 12345 knew the situation of the planet.

The Goddess’s voice sounded fierce as usual, and she seemed to be in a bad mood at the moment. “Who? What’s up? Asking for longevity? No way. Asking to get rich? Get lost. Asking for a baby? Go and see the doctor. Asking for world peace? Go back and read the Bible again…”

“Ahem, it’s me… So you’ve been annoyed with prayers lately?”

“Oh, Hao Ren,” Raven 12345 sounded better now. “Nothing, just two days ago the pope held a celebration of ‘3000th Anniversary Prayers Big Bargain’. I was so angry with their crazy requests. Don’t talk about me first. What’s up?”

Hao Ren told her the unusual phenomenon of new Aerym planet carefully, and then asked, “Is this a natural phenomenon? Or is it the surprise you left for the planet?”

Raven 12345 yelled back at once, “What surprise? Do you think creating a planet is a game? The natural laws of the whole universe are the same. Go and check if there’s something out of order in the city, like an oversized holographic projector or something. That’s it, I’m hanging up.”

Hao Ren turned to look at them, shrugged and said, “Not a natural phenomenon. The Goddess suggested that we check the city.”

Y’zaks frowned while pondering. Suddenly, he remembered something and immediately walked ahead of them. “Let’s go to the power furnace.”

Others hurried to catch up. Hao Ren asked, “Do you suspect that there’s a problem with the power furnace?”

“I’m familiar with all the things in the city, except for one thing,” said Y’zaks. “The core of the power furnace is part of the remains of the Firstborn. It’s the only thing I don’t know much about.”

Y’zaks was two steps faster than all of them. The little Y’lisabet could not catch up with her dad and yelled anxiously, “Dad, wait up…”

Finally, the little girl gave up. She just pulled a hook from her pocket and threw it toward Y’zaks, and then she grabbed the rope and crawled to her father’s shoulder. “Phew… Dad, you’re walking too fast.”

The way they get along was always so surprising.

Soon, they reached the power furnace deep underground and met the technician who was responsible for operating the equipment. Y’zaks waved to interrupt the technician’s salute and said, “No need to salute. Is there a problem with the power furnace?”

“The power furnace is functioning as usual, but its core has been releasing some kind of signal since one hour ago.”

They looked at each other and thought: Something was not right!

“I knew it. It’s not safe to use that thing,” said Y’zaks.