The Record of Unusual Creatures

It surprised everyone when the wizard lunged towards the Infernal Gate. As the gate was not fully open, the powerful magical energy was swirling like a storm at the gate's entrance. Anyone in his right mind would not have jumped into it. In a split second, Lily leaped to stop Baptiste. She was as fast as lightning, and she almost got a hold of Baptiste with her hand in his way. Baptiste, who was about to reach the gate, raised his hand and tried to push hers away. However, Lily's claw was a sharp weapon, and it ended up severing his hand. But due to his body's momentum, Baptiste could not be stopped. He fell into the warped, crimson vortex.     

The rest of them could only watch as the wizard disappeared into the strong magical energy. The vortex kept shredding and reorganizing Baptiste's body as black smoke as well as ashes sprang from the gate. Baptiste's frenzied laughter came out from the vortex. "I've succeeded! I've succeeded! No one—"     

His voice abruptly disappeared in a gust of wind. The magic circle, which sucked power from them crumbled as various magic facilities on the scene stopped working. The Infernal Gate lost its energy supply and dimmed. When the gate collapsed, it produced a whirlwind so strong that no one could come near it. Hao Ren took out a silver gadget from his Dimensional Pocket and stuck it into the heart of the vortex. The tiny device flashed amid a dark-red storm before it disappeared with the vortex.     

The gate to Inferno was finally gone.     

The whirlwind subsided, as though it had never been there in the first place. The spot where the Infernal Gate once opened became a vast, deep crater where stinking black smoke billowed out and mixed with the fog in their surroundings. The mist, which used to flow like liquid began to dissipate slowly. The flowing fog was just the result of magic control.     

Everything happened too fast, and only after Baptiste and the Infernal Gate disappeared did Hessiana burst out and swear, "Sh*t! He got away! That bastard got away!"     

Lily bent over and picked up Baptiste's arm on the ground. Her prey had escaped, and the limb was the only "trophy" left on the scene. She took the ghastly thing, went up to Hao Ren and handed it to him muddleheadedly.     

Hao Ren could not believe what Lily was doing. "Why would I want this?"     

"You can dissect it..." Lily said casually. But before her voice trailed off, the arm suddenly turned into black ashes in her hand and was blown away by the wind.     

Lily shook her head and said in a regretful voice, "Now, it's gone."     

Nangong Wuyue looked at Hao Ren helplessly. "What should we do now?"     

"We can't let him get away just like that of course!" Hao Ren gritted his teeth. He pulled out the MDT and switched on its tracking monitor. "I've thrown in a probe, and I guess it has gone through the gate smoothly. But the dimensional turbulence has prevented it from tracking Baptiste. Anyway, it's arrived in an alien dimension. Vivian, can you tell if this is Inferno?"     

While he spoke, Hao Ren zoomed in on the image that the probe was streaming. It was a barren world where disgusting, decomposing substances covered the black earth. Hot springs dotted the surface with dark liquid surging in them. The polluting gases ejected from the hot springs had dyed the world in chaos. The probe was moving around, so the images changed continuously, but no matter where it went, the scenery was all the same: unpleasant.     

Vivian used to take a peek at the first level of Inferno out of curiosity, though she had never explored deeper. So, she immediately recognized the scenery. "Yes, this is the place. Can you send us in?"     

"It's easy to go in by teleportation, but Inferno is an unstable dimension. It's best to open a gate to ensure we can get back out safely." Hao Ren nodded. "Now we have the coordinates on both sides of the gate and the necessary instrument in my Dimensional Pocket. Just give me time. I'll open up the gate."     

At that point, Hessiana finally took a proper look at Hao Ren. "What a surprise! You're pretty capable during critical moments."     

"He's been capable all this while." Vivian looked at her. "It's just that you've been prejudiced."     

Hao Ren took out a portal and a few autonomous robots from his Dimensional Pocket. The silver-colored portal was two meters in radius and came complete with some auxiliary components, which were similar to the teleporting machines in the basement of his house. However, this was just a little larger. It was a piece of equipment that inspectors commonly used to go deep into desolate spaces of the universe, and deal with unusual spatial phenomena. Such a portal could help him explore unknown areas while doubling as an emergency passage for small-scale evacuation and material transfer.     

Hao Ren never expected to use it to hunt down a "fugitive."     

Turcan and Kassandra looked at the unusual equipment, which Hao Ren pulled out of thin air. This man surprised them although they knew that his team members were a bunch of oddballs. The two curious vampires did not say anything as their two ancestors, Vivian and Hessiana were watching.     

With two years as an inspector under his belt, Hao Ren was more mature now. He did not shy away from letting others see his high-tech equipment; after all, it was just some alien technology, no big deal.     

The short-lived Infernal Gate had formed an energy focal point. It would save him a lot of time if he could use the energy focal point to reactivate a new dimensional door even though it was collapsing. He commanded the autonomous robots to install the equipment in the crater, which Baptiste left behind. With the efficiency of the mechanical squids, it seemed they would be able to open the gate in no time.     

"Frankly, in all the years I've spent on the battlefields, this is the first time I've seen such a boring tactic on the battlefield," Vivian said. She looked at Lily, who was standing on her toes in a daze. "What was she thinking at that time?"     

"It doesn't matter what she was thinking. It worked anyway," Hao Ren said. "I figured that no tactic in this world has a better element of surprise than this. And, only she can do it because no one can dig as quickly as her."     

Lily's ears flickered. She turned her head around. "Are you saying bad things about me?"     

Hao Ren and Vivian replied in unison, "All good things."     

Nangong Sanba stood on a large boulder at the edge of the high ground, looking out in the direction of the town. He could still vaguely see the route they had traveled in even though the dense fog was blocking his line of sight. But soon, the situation took a sudden change. "Look, the fog seems to be dispersing!"     

True enough, the dense fog enveloping the ghost town dissipated little by little. The scenery in the far distance was visible despite the absence of the sun. As time went by, the fog lessened by a significant amount and the silhouette of the town began to appear, albeit faintly.     

"Looks like the fog was also Baptiste's trick. Either his departure caused the fog to dissipate, or the wand that Lily snapped was the prop that controlled the enchantment," Vivian said as she looked in the town's direction. "It appears that the scope of the mysterious realm is bigger than we initially expected. Just look at the layer of 'dark borders' in the distance; that should be the real boundary. The town only covers one-third of the space while the wilderness outside forms the rest."     

Hessiana looked surprised. "Who is Baptiste? He managed to create such a vast alien dimension singlehandedly and keep it in existence for hundreds of years?"     

"Looks like he can erase any city in the world if he wants to. It's hard to imagine that he learned this ability the normal way." Vivian shook her head and continued, "But was his only purpose to go to Inferno? What a waste of talent! What's so good about Inferno?"     

Hao Ren could not care less about Baptiste's ambition. He asked the MDT to check the surrounding spatial parameters, making sure that the place would not collapse so soon. Then he gazed at the town of Domir in the distance. It was at least an authentic medieval town with an extraordinary sight, though it looked a little gloomy.     

Then he saw fire rising in the center of the town.     

"Look! Over there!" Lily shouted. "The town's on fire!"