Looking at Raven 12345's calm expression, Hao Ren realized that a Goddess like her did not need to purposely tell a bare faced lie to a entry level staff like him and he decided to just take her word for it. He nodded solemnly and dropped the topic about the 'Goddess of Destruction', he instead brought up the topic of the Letta runes. "What's with the runes?"
"Ah, seems that you have noticed as well." Raven 12345 somehow had already managed to foresee the situation. "The runes used by the demon hunters in the Superficial World exists in the Dream Plane, same goes for the Werewolves and Vampires. This is not a coincidence. In fact, most of the supernatural stuff that appears in the Superficial World... had come from the Dream Plane."
"F*ck me! Why didn't you tell me about this?!" Hao Ren exclaimed.
Raven 12345 waved her hand all too casually that it pissed off Hao Ren a bit. "I warned you before. I said that the Superficial World and the Dream World are very closely linked. Remember when you managed to bring a tuft of wolf fur out from the Dream Plane the other time? I did not tell you the deeper truth as I wanted you to use your eyes to see for yourself, the truth of things. Alas, you are still too inexperience, and to have you take on such task requires proper nurturing.
Hao Ren stared hard at Raven12345, hoping to try to pry any insidious trickery that hid behind her doe-eyed features. Then again, the Goddess had developed a skin so thick that it rivals composite armor, Hao Ren's puny gaze meant nothing to her. Raven 12345 let Hao Ren stare at her for a good while before she continued casually. "Hmm.. just to satisfy your curiosity, the supernaturals on Earth, at least a good 90% of them came from the Dream Plane. The demon hunters also started that way, but I'm still investigating this. Their sudden appearance had also caught me off-guard. You should know, I'm not only in charge of Earth alone, the proliferation of demon hunters and supernaturals happened when I wasn't around for a good millennia or two. As they did not cause any overly big ruckus, I did not send anyone to investigate, so whatever information I have is also sketchy.
It took a while for Hao Ren to digest the revelation. He came to realise that the unknown parts of Earth's history itself were monumental, and could possibly be earth-shattering. The coming of the supernaturals and the demon hunters could be traced all the way back to the Dream Plane, and what was their intention to come here in droves?
"Could it be the catastrophe ten thousand years ago?!" Hao Ren suddenly recalled. "The Empire of
Magic in the Dream Plane was destroyed ten thousand years ago, and Vivian's earliest memories seems to only stretch back that far. Is it because of the apocalypse in the Dream Plane that had many of the supernaturals coming into Earth as refugees?"
"Hah, you seemed to have caught on a bit, but sadly, missed the mark." Raven12345 shook a head. "Did you think that ten thousand years ago The Plane of Dreams and Earth were aligned? Who told you that it is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year over there?"
Hao Ren was stunned. He had messed up the most basic of things.
"If both supernaturals and demon hunters had came to Earth from the Dream Plane, it would have been a history defining moment." Hao Ren looked on at Raven 12345 in anticipation. "You see.. someone who can connect to the Dream Plane are very uncommon, like one in hundreds of years. Given the number of arrivals, it is clearly unnatural. How did they arrive from the Dream Plane?"
"You really want to know the truth behind the Dream Plane?" Raven 12345 demurred for a moment and gave Hao Ren a piercing cold hard stare.
Hao Ren swallowed his saliva, as he felt things were about to come to a climax.
"Not telling you."
"..."
"Have patience, young man. You will know when you need to." Raven12345 grinned as she patted Hao Ren on the shoulder. "With your capabilities now, what you can do even if you were to know the secrets of the supernaturals and the demon hunters? Can you broker peace between them? Can you pacify all of the supernaturals? Or can you ensure that there will not be any further incursion between the Dream Plane and the Superficial World? You simply can't. So it's best if you were to focus on what you CAN do. Listen, you'd better be off home resting for your next foray into the Dream Plane. My words alone won't be enough to describe what is going on. Better that you see it for yourself."
Raven 12345 then crossed her arms with a forlorn look on her face. "My child, the blessing of the goddess is with you. I'll try to be there before you get killed...well, even if you do get killed, I'll do my best to get there and resurrect you."
Hao Ren was just about to respond to that when Raven 12345 broke his attention with a wave of her hand. "I'll be out for work these few days. Do things as you see fit. Maybe there will be a stand-in, but don't put your hopes on that."
Hao Ren could sense that something was very urgent if Raven 12345 needed to leave in a jiffy. He was curious on what was going on but figured that there would not be answers to his questions. After finishing the afternoon tea with Raven 12345, the goddess tossed him off the Heavens back to his house. (There's a goddess here, so it's considered Heaven?)
All was quiet as he got home. Wuyue was napping still, and Y'zaks had not came home. He saw Lily's pouch on the sofa, and realized that the werehusky was home. He wasn't sure if Vivian had also came back though. Hao Ren was still fretting about the egg and he went straight to the aquarium.
His heart dropped at the scene before him.
The aquarium was there, but the egg was not.
At that very moment, Hao Ren feared for the worst. He had earlier thought the little mermaid had hatched and flopped it's way into a corner, but there were no egg shells around the aquarium. He turned the room upside down to look for it and could only come to a sad conclusion: An egg that he so laboured so hard to bring to Earth, and his promise this afternoon to Raven 12345 to take care of it. He even wondered when would the egg hatch. That, is now all gone...
He suddenly remembered that Lily was home, and by chance could have seen the egg in the aquarium. He yelled at the top of voice to call for her. "Lily!!!!"
She responded almost immediately from the kitchen. "I'm here!!!"
Hao Ren almost ran towards the kitchen and saw the werehusky was squatting while staring at the stove. As all of them were part of the 'family' now, Lily could tell if a stranger had come in. So she was in her semi-canine form, with her eyes and tail out. The sight of her squatting and wagging her tail looked like a real house dog. As she saw Hao Ren appeared by the doorway, she turned over excitedly. "Oh you're back Mr Landlord? Is the alien planet fun? Did you get anything nice for me to eat?"
"...Not sure what to get you in that jungle of a planet." Hao Ren couldn't help himself as he pressed Lily's ears. "Did you see the egg in the room... Uh.. what are you cooking?"
Hao Ren only then realized that there was a pot on the stove, and something was boiling in it. Lily was staring at it all while squatting earlier. Cold sweat started pouring out of Hao Ren's forehead. He swore that this idiot of a husky had probably outdone herself again, the thing inside the pot is most likely...
"I'm hungry!" Lily growled pathetically as she continued squatting. Her tail sweeping the floor back and forth. "Battie said she is going to find some wild herbs for tonight's stewed pork, but she's not back yet. I was starving... And I saw a big goose egg in the aquarium so I put it to boil. Why are you sitting on the floor too Mr. Landlord?"
Hao Ren fell straight on his butt and almost asphyxiate himself from his disbelief. He clutched his chest as he looked at the husky, her face all too innocent. He really saw the true essence of an idiot in her and did not know what to say towards the husky who was still wagging her tail. He could only get up and opened the pot cover as quickly as he can, not knowing what to expect.
The next scene was forever etched in his memory.
In the pot, was a half an inch long little mermaid swimming in the water, clutching a broken eggshell as it swam. Hao Ren's opening of the pot cover seemed to had startled the little thing. It's eyes widened as it saw Hao Ren's face, and then cheekily shot out a jet of water at him.
Boiling water.