The Record of Unusual Creatures

A fire suddenly rose from the center of Domir, starting from the wooden houses around the open space in the center of town and quickly spreading. Flames jumped from building to building across empty spaces like a living creature and turned Domir into a sea of fire in the blink of an eye. Looking down from higher ground, all they saw was red.     

They watched in horror as the fire did not look like a natural phenomenon. The way it spread and its speed were almost reminiscent of a film with lousy special effects. Nangong Wuyue was shocked. "What… What happened?"     

Hao Ren squinted. Something did not add up. "Wait a second. It is a normal fire. Look at the houses!" he said.     

Houses burned, collapsed and turned into ashes so fast that it was surreal. As the wind blew, it swept the ashes into the sky.     

Smoke like black ink rose into the sky above while falling black ash covered every corner of the town. Looking at the scene, Vivian could not help but mutter, "Ashes... Where are the ashes coming from?"     

However, the weird fire went faster than it came; it burned for only a few minutes and disappeared like a phantom. But it changed the town of Domir dramatically; houses had gone, and what was left were charred beams and columns; it was an eyesore, which appeared as if things had been in that way for centuries.     

A thicker layer of ash covered the earth.     

"It seems like this is how the town's supposed to look like." Vivian bit her lip. "Fire may have destroyed it hundreds of years ago."     

Lily was confused. "Then the town we saw earlier was just an illusion? The power of sorcery?"     

"Nope. It was the town before the fire. It was there." Vivian had seemingly figured it out. "The space-time structure of this mysterious realm is in a mess. The timelines of many things here are at odds with each other. Remember the lights that suddenly lit up and the flames that burned out of thin air? They were the results of a misaligned timeline. So there's been an overlapping of time in Domir, before the fire and after. Baptiste must have superimposed the town's timelines. But since he's gone into Inferno, the timeline probably turned normal again."     

Vivian did not explain in detail how the mysterious phenomenon worked, but they understood what happened. Hao Ren finally understood the supernatural events he had experienced in Domir, including the spiritual images that Lily saw, the faded objects, and the lamps that lit up automatically. He now had the answers.     

The same mysterious realm contained the different timelines of Domir. The random stack of images had created the strange ghost town landscape.     

Baptiste was undoubtedly the one behind it all. But why did he do that? And how?     

"The wizard extracted the power of the souls. He already admitted to it," Hessiana said. "I'm afraid that this dimension he created here is to extract the power of souls better. Additionally, he locked the space and time here for his magic to produce a kind of cycle. That's what I can think of."     

"A wizard can do that?" Hao Ren frowned. "It sounds like he was bending the rules."     

Hessiana shook her head. "To tell you the truth, I don't believe that a wizard is capable of such things. Bending space and time is very difficult. People back then didn't have this knowledge. But I've read in some ancient books that some of the 'old gods' from the Mythological Era could manipulate space and time. But wizards, it's not that I look down on them, but most wizards are humans. Their talent is just not enough to let them gain capabilities of this nature."     

Vivian also nodded in agreement. "So Baptiste couldn't have done this too. This town isn't as simple as a locked dimension. If he were capable of high-level space-time manipulation, Lily wouldn't have defeated his magic by simply digging a hole in the ground. I believe he must have had the help of some ancient artifact or person. If he can summon the King of Blood, there's no guarantee he won't summon other things."     

Lily looked at Vivian and then at Hao Ren. She had her thoughts. "Is this your speculation? You're assuming that the space-time structure of this town must be overlapping exactly like your description. What if you're wrong?"     

"Look at the town and think of a better explanation." Vivian pointed her finger at the Domir ruins under the foothill. "I've seen what a time warp is. Kronos used to demonstrate it in front of me. It looked very similar to the situation here."     

Everyone kept quiet when Vivian mentioned the ancient name. After a while, Hao Ren finally broke the silence. "In any case, Baptiste must know everything. Let's catch him."     

Vivian sighed. "Well, has the probe found the wizard?"     

"Not yet. The gate was too chaotic at that time and flung the probe to somewhere else," Hao Ren replied. "But as long as Baptiste is still in Inferno, we will find him."     

"Then let's hurry up. Inferno isn't a safe place; I hope the wizard doesn't die before we catch him."     

It did not take long before the autonomous robots finished assembling the portal generator. The installation was simple. The most important thing was to analyze the relative coordinates between Inferno and Earth. When Hao Ren connected the MDT to the portal, the MDT suddenly reported an anomaly.     

The probe had sent back the coordinates of Inferno, but the coordinates changed several times within the span of a few minutes.     

"This is probably the so-called 'Inferno instability' phenomenon," the MDT said to Hao Ren telepathically. He immediately thought of something. He carefully observed the changes in Inferno's coordinates and found a huge difference between the last and current coordinates. "It's 'drifting'... drifting on the edge of the universe!"     

"Aren't all alien dimensions drifting this way?" Hessiana sounded indifferent. "An alien dimension is not like a pocket hanging on the wall; it's more like a bubble floating in the water. It's unstable…"     

"There's more to it. Inferno's very different from other dimensions." Hao Ren looked excitedly at the MDT 's analysis results. "The other dimensions drift only relative to the three-dimensional address of Earth. You can imagine them as planets in our universe, and a wormhole connects them to Earth. No matter how these planets move in their galaxies, their relative positions in the universe do not change—because they are in the universe. But not Inferno, which seems to move relative to the universe. Its coordinates aren't drifting; it's the entire reference system that's drifting!"     

Hessiana shot Hao Ren a weird glance. "Who can understand what you just said?"     

"Oh, you don't need to understand," said Hao Ren with an inexplicable excitement in his voice. "This is something we're focusing on right now."     

He looked at Vivian. His meaning was clear.     

There was only one explanation for the drifting Inferno, which was relative to the universe: it was not just the cosmic fragment from the Plane of Dreams, it did not completely integrate with the universe. It was still wandering in the crevice between the Plane of Dreams and the Surface World.     

There was a name for this crevice: the Wall of Reality!     

Hao Ren had found the biggest "gangrene" in the Wall of Reality!