The Record of Unusual Creatures

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“Two battlefields… Two objectives…” After hearing Rheia’s analysis, Hao Ren nodded slightly, he had also deduced the possible scenario of the final battle with the Mad Lord, and his conclusion was about the same as Rheia’s. To face that unique enemy, his minions and him were undoubtedly the most important challenges. “The outer defensive line’s main role is to block and weaken the strength of the minions, to prevent the taint of madness from spreading, while the central zone would be fighting against the Mad Lord proper. Huh… seems like those fighting in the central zone would need elites.”

“I will definitely need to go in myself.” Rheia nodded. “And also the Creation’s Engine, that is our greatest weapon.”

“And me.” Hao Ren pointed at himself. “While I’m probably not up to your level, but other than you, the person with the next highest divinity level is me, and probably only the two of us could actually fight in full strength in that sort of environment.”

But just as he finished, Vivian spoke, “I’ll go too.”

Hao Ren gave the latter a slightly worried look. “You…”

“I had regained my strength, and the source of my power is the same as the goddess, and if we fight together we can complement each other.” Vivian said as she looked at Hao Ren in the eye, “And more importantly… I can’t let you go alone.”

Seeing how determined Vivian’s gaze was, Hao Ren would be lying if he said he was not touched, but he still had to run his mouth, “I can resurrect, that’s on the agreement.”

“There’s nothing to do with that,” Vivian said flatly, “I just don’t want to not be by your side when the final battle comes. Plus, I won’t be a burden, when I summon my Crimson Moon you may not even be my match.”

Lily’s gaze jumped between Hao Ren and Vivian before she seethed, “Enough you two, stop being all lovey-dovey in this serious situation, yeah?”

Everyone else then nodded, and even Rheia nodded…

“Ahem, back to business, back to business,” Hao Ren quickly coughed to shift the topic. He looked at Y’zaks at the rest, “We’ll handle the central zone, while the outer defense line we’ll leave it to the droid swarm and the guardians. But there’s another front, and I hope you guys can take it up.”

“Another front?” Nangong Sanba was stunned, “Weren’t we supposed to just stand by the side shouting encouragements?”

Nangong Wuyue’s tail immediately slammed against her brother, “Brother! For crying out loud!”

“I’m just saying the truth,” Nangong Sanba was prepared with his defense, “The Dark Abyss is the playground for the top-end players. Scrubs like us should know where we stand no? One of the fronts is a space battle, and another a fight between gods, we will be practically useless either way…”

“You’re right, but there will be another front aside from the Dark Abyss,” Hao Ren explained after Nangong Sanba finished, “The Prison of the Dark Abyss can be seen as the battlefield of the gods, but all those surviving civilizations too need to prepare.”

“The battlefield of mortals huh…” Rheia nodded as the star map of the Plane of Dreams opened behind her. “Holletta, Tannagost-Zorm, Io, the Executors, and a few other surviving planets that you had found. They are the only surviving mortal civilizations in this era, and we need to ensure that they do not get annihilated in this final battle.”

“Didn’t we just talked about the mental filtration device?” Y’zaks frowned.

“That’s just a defensive measure, but we cannot fully rely on it.” Hao Ren said, his tone serious. “I can be sure as sure that the Mad Lord will try to find some loophole to invade those surviving civilizations. Because those remaining source of intelligent life is like a beacon in this barren space, and the minds of mortals are the easiest thing for the Mad Lord to take notice of.”

“To break out of its bonds, it will first scan the entire universe for any intelligent life and try from tear the defense outside the Dark Abyss using the minds of mortals.” Rheia continued where Hao Ren left off, “So we need to have a team to monitor, intercept and exterminate these ‘seepage’ in the mortal realms. And truthfully, we are already at the limit in the Umbral Realm, and we do not have any spare units to split away…”

“Oh, oh. I get it. A standby firefighting squad right, you do need something like this.” Nangong Sanba nodded in realization, but a frown soon followed, “But that means you are only expecting the few of us to monitor the situation of a number of planets? If there’s one or two ‘seepage’ that’s fine and dandy, and we can just teleport over to kill the adds, but how if a few happen over a couple of planets at the same time?”

“Helcrown does have about ten plus thousand elites, and the Aerymian Elves will definitely answer the call of their Sun King… These troops may not be adept in fighting in space, but they should be able to control the surface no problem. But…”

“They are all in the surface world,” Lily ruffled her hair as her ears and tail twitched. “Sending such a large army through the Wall of Reality is not realistic right… Or has the wall actually strengthened to the point that we can get tens of thousands of men to go through it.”

A mysterious smile appeared on Hao Ren’s face as he heard that, “With the restrictions of the Wall of Reality, the army of Helcrown or Aerym will definitely not be able to pass through, a couple of hundreds at most, but there’s one army that is not restricted by this.. or rather, the restriction is so minuscule that they can go through the gaps of the wall.”

Everyone looked at each other, and aside from Rollie who was chomping on her dried fish, everyone was confused, and it took even Nangong Sanba a while to finally say something. “Since when have you been hiding an army?”

“I never have. You guys know them.” Hao Ren laughed and dropped the pretense. “The Einherjars.”

Another look of realization appeared on Nangong Sanba as he dragged his tone out, “Ohhh… who are they again?”

“Why are you ooh-ing when you don’t even remember it!” Wuyue smacked her brother with her tail again, and if not for the number of people present she’d probably already started smashing him against the floor. An embarrassed look then appeared on her face as well, “But I actually don’t remember too…”

The moment she said that, she quickly blurted out an excuse, “But you can’t blame me! A fish has poor memory after all…”

“You’re a multi-form elemental being and just because there’s a mermaid princess back on earth you actually took yourself for a fish?” Lily gave the two siblings a scornful look, “The Einherjars! You’ve forgotten about them? Yggdrasil, the Nine Realms, the heroic spirits of Asgard. The Grungnir Mr. Landlord’s using is from there too… and say… Mr. Landlord is the current Lord of the Nine Realms.”

Nangong Sanba facepalmed, “Bloody hell… There are just too many things I’d forgotten about them… There is such a thing, and we actually plucked Odin from there. So the Einherjars have already been restored?”

“They are an army of heroic spirits, but in truth, they are a ‘robotic unit’ created by necromancy and alchemy.” Hao Ren laughed, “It was just that after the demon hunters was down tearing Odin’s old place apart, they had also destroyed all maintenance stations, and that caused the Einherjar to malfunction due to lack of maintenance, but the core of a necromantic being is not so easily destroyed, and as long as we can repair its ‘body’, activating it would just require a simple recharge. I had left the engineering droids back on Asgard to repair all those facilities, and then have the last of the Valkyrie to rebuild the Einherjars, and they were ready a long time ago.”

Even Lily was surprised. “Woah! I never thought of that! Say, Mr. Landlord, when did you pull all that off?”

“Bloody hell I’m busy as heck every day, okay? Unlike you lot lollygagging all the time!”

Lily was confused, “But we’re not gagging anyone with a lollipop?”

Hao Ren, after a short pause, finally understood what she meant, “…Not that sort of lollygagging!”

“That said, the Einherjar’s can ignore the ‘bandwidth restriction’ of the Wall of Reality?” Alas, it was Y’zaks, the most conscientious voice of reason in the team to pull the topic back to its original course.”

“That’s right, as they are not fully ‘intelligent beings’, and while they are infused with a spirit, that spirit had already been cleansed and reprogrammed, and is almost no different than a program, and the Einherjar armor is but an ‘object’ under the control of a program. Before the Wall of Reality, its bandwidth is not much different from a piece of metal with the same volume. And over at the Scarred Nebula… the amount of materials transferred between the two universes is more than enough to send legions of Einherjars through.”

Then, Y’zaks asked a key question, “How many Ein’herjars do we have?”

“Based on the report Valkyrie sent me not too long ago, about sixty thousand is combat-ready, and she is trying to reactivate one of Odin’s ancient armory, and if the system is restored there, there’ll be another twenty thousand Einherjars and a few automatons from the Mythological Era that we can use.”

As they had encountered them before, and with more detailed information, everyone present, regardless if they had been involved in the operation on Yggdrasil before or not had a pretty good understanding of the might of an ‘Einherjar’. With a superalloy armor, beam or superalloy blades in hand, plus their enormous strength without any obvious weak points. They would only stop operating if their energy source runs dry or when they are totally annihilated, and they were the prime example of a perfect robot soldier.

If not for most of the Einherjars had been in a state of disrepair, their energy source lacking, and their commanders maddened, Hao Ren would not have such an easy time against those high fantasy terminators back then.

However, now that they had been properly repaired and maintained, in addition to having their parts strengthened by Hao Ren, they would certainly be of enormous use in the coming “firefighting” operations on the planet’s surface.