Vivian's strength was real, Hao Ren had finally experienced it first hand. Getting hit by the vampire's Lightning Strike move at close range was an experience beyond word. As everyone scrambled out of the wreckage, they saw the spacecraft was flashing with lights and a large number of dead fish and shrimp—if other people had learned this fish electrocution ability, they would have been rich by now.
Vivian was the only one back on the surface still in good shape, she was immune to her own power—Lily wasn't. That was why after a fight with the husky, she wasn't any better. But there was another reason Lily was so enraged because she was guilty. The vampire maiden was a good person, but just that her physics teacher died a little too premature.
"Sorry, I didn't realise." Looking at Hao Ren and Lil Pea out doing each other in puffing black smoke, Vivian came up to them, feeling bad. "I used to be on my own all the while and haven't been electrocuted before, so I forgot water's a conductor."
Lily took out a brush out of nowhere, brushing her own tail as she grumbled. "Sooner or later we'll all die because of you."
Hao Ren rubbed his face, thinking. He would have to really watch out for Vivian's move of mass destruction. When Y'zaks summoned a meteorite he had at least given this teammates a heads up, but this vampire maiden summoned her Lightning Strike on a whim without prior warning. She had almost slaughtered five persons, including the enemy, during the very first wreckage exploration.
Lil Pea rested on Hao Ren's collar, coughing and puffing out two more rings of black smoke. Hao Ren looked on, understood—including her, it should be six kills.
After brushing the feather-duster-like tail for like half a day, Lily still couldn't restore it. She gave up. Probably back home hot towel would do the trick, she thought. Tucking back her brush, she glanced with concern at Lil Pea. "Is she OK?"
"She was like shocked." Hao Ren felt incredible. "She's bizarrely healthy, even though she was struck by lightning at close range..."
Vivian looked at Lil Pea whose face black, muttering in fear, "She was born in boiling water, nothing could be more bizarre than that."
Y'zaks guffawed, looking at everyone. He was the one suffered the least injury. His face black, other than that, he was as fit as a fiddle. He dusted the sand off his pant as he came near to the alloy monster. "Anyway, at least this thing's dead now. Vivian's Lightning Strike worked like a charm."
That robot monster which attacked them lay dead not far away. Vivian's Lightning Strike was fatal, coupled with the violent claws' attack of Lily, it's spherical core was punctured and inside was a mess. Looked like it could never move again.
Hao Ren went near the monster, examining its bizarre arms. Its spherical body was less than a metre across, but tens of alloy arms were attached to it which made it a giant. Some of the arms had been chopped off by Lily, he could see the cross section was flexible like muscle glowing in metallic lustre. Some kind of terminal was attached at the end of the arm. From the look of it, Hao Ren could vaguely identify a beam weapon, a visual component and some other sensors. Obviously this thing was a warrior with awesome design, it was in the wreckage under water for two months and it still worked.
Out of curiosity, Hao Ren had dragged it out when he left the wreckage.
In fact he wished to shove the entire spacecraft into the Dimensional Pocket. As letting it stay at the bottom of the blood lake posed a risk to the environment; though the spacecraft itself was shut down, its power furnace risked leakage and coolant—the green jelly substance—had been leaked out slowly polluting the water around the island. But he had to abandon the idea: scan images by the MDT revealed that the front end of the spacecraft had fused together with the rock beneath the lake floor. Probably a side product of spatial incident, it wasn't possible to move the spacecraft without risking sinking of the island.
The MDT knew what was in Hao Ren's mind. It thus suggested. "Next time, you'd bring more specialised equipment, just get the approval from the management bureau. However, it'd be better if you could locate the superior unit of the spacecraft and let them handle the situation."
"How?" Hao Ren hadn't a clue as it was his first time. Though an agent, all his missions were about meeting and bringing in people from various places. He was at his wit's end when dealing with spacecraft crash: handling the situation, relaying messages, writing reports, cleaning-up, contacting the spacecraft's owner-authority, dealing with related organisations and all instantly caused an headache in his head. Such interplanetary diplomatic works were totally beyond his worldview.
"Post a message on the local universe channel." To the MDT, it was a piece of cake. "As The Agent, you've an official message broadcast rights on the universal information links. Post it up and see who has lost a spacecraft, and what category they could assign to this event. If it was deemed a minor incident, it's the responsibility of one of the units of their organisation; if it was deemed a major incident, the head of the civilisation would be the one responsible. It doesn't matter how they categorise it, The Agent's independent of various civilisations, all you've to do is bring the official stamp of the empire. The only problem, if there is, in this incident is the involvement of a Torblec Hivekin, which was among the dead, who was probably hired by some lower-rung civilisation as technical advisor. Metaphorically speaking, it's like a local business has invited the richest man of a country to its factory as advisor, subsequently this richest man is found dead on the floor in the factory canteen from food poisoning. Some civilisation out there might be encountering diplomatic trouble because of this. However, that doesn't concern you."
Hao Ren sighed. "Wait and see. I'm having a headache."
He was thinking about the situation at the control room where no one had been able to enter, Vivian had blown them out of the wreckage before they could do so, leaving the MDT the only one having first hand visit to the control room and bringing images with it. Most of the dead crew, which were greenish little figures and found in the control room, looked horrific.
There was no way to move the spacecraft nor having any idea about what to do with the alien corpses, Hao Ren had to leave them at the lake bottom. But according to SOP, he would still secure the crash site: Nangong Wuyue would create a shield bordering the crash site which would contain the pollution from spreading and slow down the decay of the bodies. Meanwhile, he hoped he could contact all the relevant parties as soon as he could or he would have to find a way to move the wreckage himself.
Maybe The Disciples of Glory of The Plane of Dreams would send a dead squad down here—though such possibility was low considering their religious taboo and the condition of the lake bottom, he couldn't totally dismiss it. After all, the environment at the lake bottom was deadly to ordinary people, probably it was just like a walk in the park for the strong of this world. All they needed was a nod from the pope.
Shaking his head, Hao Ren tried to shake off the creepy images inside the wreckage in his head. "Let's compile every incident in the blood lake then we'll have a sizeable intel."
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Vivian shook Lily off her tail. She started counting her fingers as if she was analysing. "Let's draw a timeline: two months ago, The Disciples of Glory was holding a parade, then the orb went missing mysteriously amid different strange visions; at the same time, a spacecraft from Surface World crashed at the bottom of the blood lake, an explosion ensued, which might be part of the light vision sighted at the orb watchhouse; two months since the disappearance of the orb, unusual events continued to unfold around the blood lake, which according to the bishop were the increased activities of the monster living in the forest; two months later, we were here, bumping into rock monsters of Dragonspine Ridge whose target might be the blood lake while the other four rock monsters were travelling in the direction of the steppe, reason unknown. Basically that's all about it."
"You's left out one thing," reminded Hao Ren. "Hilda arrived at this about seven days ago, two days before we did; this happened within these two months."
"Now let's see whether these events are inter-related." Y'zaks sat on the ground, legs crossed. "The disappearance of the orb and the crash might be related. But Hilda here in The Plane of Dreams... tsk, what could link and explain all these events?"
"There's a possible explanation." Hao Ren gave the MDT a glance, recalling what the device had said while they were at the bottom. "The equilibrium of some kind is failing, passing through to the The Plane of Dreams is becoming easier. Maybe...maybe there's already a hole exists somewhere."