The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren was stunned to learn that Y'zaks had a daughter; it was the last thing Hao Ren would have thought about the demon. He was surprised not because Y'zaks was missing his daughter, but because he had a daughter!     

"You have a daughter?" Hao Ren looked at Y'zaks, still a little shocked. He examined him if he was drunk. "Are you serious?"     

"You sound like I can't have a daughter." Y'zaks grinned at him. "You think I shouldn't have a child?"     

"No, that's not what I mean. I just feel that having a daughter doesn't really suit your style." Hao Ren did not mince his words. "I mean, judging from your looks, your child should be 1.2-m tall with 8-feet-wide shoulders. He would have a two-feet-wide, hairy chest and an alloy flail."     

Y'zaks shot Hao Ren a sideways glance and said, "So, by your logic the flail came together since he was born?"     

Hao Ren nodded instinctively but quickly realised that it was ridiculous. "Umm, it would be a little bit challenging, though."     

"...Only you guys talk with me. There was no one I could talk to in the past." Y'zaks paused for a moment, then sighed. "I'm going off topic... Anyway, I'm serious—I really have a daughter. Age wise, she could very well be your great grandmother already. But in our world, she's just a little girl. She's this tall and she's always running around."     

Y'zaks gestured with her height with his hand on top of the table. Hao Ren thought that he had to be drunk and mistaken. At the height Y'zaks was indicating, his daughter would only reach up to his belly button—was there such a demon species?     

He kept mum because he knew that Y'zaks had kept this to himself for at least half a year. He had just found someone to talk to about. It was rare for the great demon to share his past.     

"Let me tell ya, I actually had a family and a career." Suddenly, Y'zaks steered the conversation to his career. "In the demonic world, I'm a king. In the human world, they call me 'the Devil'."     

"What ranking is that?" Hao Ren asked, pursuing the topic further. "It sounds pretty cool."     

Y'zaks laughed, feeling a little flattered. "It's a pretty high ranking, the highest rank of all in the demon world. In our world, war is a constant affair; war between different factions, and within the same faction. We have our own territories. Stronger demons command millions of other lower demons and fight with other similiarly ranked demons. They don't have permament territories; whoever wins the war gets to keep the territories until they are defeated again. These demons are known as 'demon commanders' or 'warlords'. They are just small fries and their tiny forces are more like a bunch of bandits, which can be wiped out anytime by others or their own men.     

"Sometimes, among these demon commanders, some are more capable than others. These more capable demons would seize a larger piece of territory and turn it into their home base. They occupy it for a long time and no one can shake them off their position. At the same time, their forces are more stable. These demons are known as 'seigniors'.     

"Further up the rank are those who can fight well and have the smarts to back it up at the same time. These brainy demons command a large following of seigniors, like a country. They can even occupy an entire independent dimension and have their own system of governance just like humans do with their own countries, armies, people as well as inheritance. These demons are known as 'kings'."     

It was the first time Hao Ren had ever heard of such things from Y'zaks. It seemed that society in Y'zaks' hometown was different from the legends told on Earth. They were definitely not the same "local demons" that Vivian had described. Hence, the same race in different worlds would always develop their own unique civilisation independent from others.     

Hao Ren became interested. "So, you have a country to rule?"     

"I used to. And it was the strongest one since time immemorial; much bigger than the largest empire humans have ever built." Y'zaks nodded then said, "However, it was wiped out."     

Biggie sighed and continued. "So, you must be curious why a demon like me could have thought of world peace—I have done my homework and I know that demons in other worlds are constantly at war with each other. People like me are diamonds in the rough.     

"But, I used to be like the other demons—constantly fighthing among themselves. Those who found a moment of peace would start strategising ways to invade the human world. I was one of them."     

"Then, how did you change?" Hao Ren looked at Y'zaks curiously.     

"Because of one human." Y'zaks looked at the shaojiu bottle in his hand as if he wanted to find the reflection of his long lost friend in the glass. "He was an alchemist, like a scholar in your world."     

"Back then, I had just successfully seized a piece of territory and chased away the rest of the demons from the surroundig areas. Simply said, I was fresh from becoming a siegnior. Like any other young, hot-blooded seignior, I was impatient to prove my capabilities, but there wasno worthy opponent nearby. Therefore, I made a decision other demons would have made—I seduced some human shamans and opened up a gateway in the human world, invading a country in the process.     

"Many demons did what I did." Y'zaks's brows were slightly raised. "The space dimension in our world is very different from yours. Our universe is made up of many seemingly messy but internally organised, independent spatial pockets. And these pockets are connected by an unstable channel. Each pocket may contain a continent or several planets. Such dimensional structure allows various races and kingdoms to exist, but also causes them to go to war with each other. There are many kingdoms in the human world, widely distributed and strong. They became the perfect targets for demons to invade and destroy to show off their own strength. This showed that demons were intelligent enough to open a massive dimensional door and they were strong enough to exterminate any enemy on the other side of the dimensional door.     

"The country I chose to invade was mediocre. I didn't even bother with their frightened people and fragile human soldiers—which I guessed it was a good thing. When we marched into their capital, their king and his officials had long fled into another dimension through a teleportation gateway. My flag was then raised on the castle as the country was officially declared demon territory and humans were demoted as slaves.     

"After that, I started to look through the things that I had taken possession after winning the war. I searched the treasure vaults and shaman towers for alchemical items, which were highly regarded by various races.     

"I soon met this weird fellow—a slender, stooped old man. He was in a rundown shaman tower near the castle, draped in a ragged, human alchemist robe. He was unshaven like a homeless man, but he was conducting experiments in his alchemy lab. I suspected that he had been staying in the tower for many years, because he didn't even realise war had broken out in his country. When my men stormed through the door, he just turned his head and scolded them for messing up his experiment data."     

With a wacky face, Y'zaks said, "I think I should thank the dumb demon guard who didn't kill the old man. He followed my order to the letter, which was to report back any strange items he found; he treated the old man like some strange object and asked me to check him out. As I shrank my body and went through that alchemy lab door, guess what happened?     

Hao Ren noticed that Y'zaks was completely immersed in his own memory, so he played along and asked more leading questions. "What happened next?"     

"That old man ordered me to get out of the lab!" Y'zaks laughed heartily. "After four demon guards stormed into his lab, another hour had passed before I came in. He had been burying his head in the parchments on his table and didn't realise that they weren't his students, but a bunch of demons!"