"Hey! March, Dan Heng, are you two all right?"
As the dust settled, Stelle stood with the Flaming Lance raised high, an amber energy shield formed before her to block the incoming spear.
She turned toward the two behind her.
"We're fine, but why are we getting attacked the moment we land?!"
March 7th waved a hand in front of her face, trying to clear away the dust.
"Perhaps because we descended from the sky."
Dan Heng had already summoned Cloud-Piercer at some point.
He spoke calmly.
"Something native to this world may have mistaken us for a threat and attacked."
"Speaking of that, I just thought of something."
Stelle suddenly asked,
"Ever since Herta Space Station, most intelligent life-forms I've met seem to be humanoid."
"I can understand Belobog and the Xianzhou Luofu, but even on Penacony, I barely saw any intelligent species that weren't humanoid."
"Why is that?"
March 7th immediately became curious as well.
They had certainly encountered a few intelligent species with nonhuman appearances during their previous journeys.
But thinking about it carefully, the overwhelming majority of intelligent life in the universe really did have humanoid forms.
Even among the Denizens of Abundance, whose appearances could become extraordinarily bizarre, most were still fundamentally humanoid.
Dan Heng remained silent for a moment before answering.
"There are many competing theories about why intelligent life across the universe originally tended toward humanoid forms, so I'll leave that aside for now."
"As for why so many nonhumanoid intelligent species later adopted humanoid bodies, there was once a nonhumanoid intelligent life-form that invented a drug capable of forcibly reshaping the body, even down to the genetic level, into a humanoid form."
"After using the drug on itself and becoming humanoid, that individual was mocked and ridiculed by members of many nonhumanoid species."
"So it began distributing the drug widely."
"It deliberately emphasized all the novel experiences that came with possessing a humanoid body while neglecting to mention the agonizing sensation of the entire body being torn apart during the transformation."
"The reason was remarkably simple."
"It wanted everyone who laughed at it to experience the same pain."
"In other words, it was sharing its suffering."
"As the drug spread farther and farther, the end result was that most intelligent species across the universe eventually gained either humanoid bodies or humanoid appearances."
"Why does that sound like someone suffered and decided everyone else should suffer too?"
March 7th turned toward Stelle.
"Isn't that exactly what you do when you secretly eat fruit from the refrigerator?"
"It's so sour you can barely stand it, but you pretend it's delicious just so you can trick Dan Heng and me into eating it too."
"Oh!"
Stelle nodded.
"When you put it that way, it makes a lot more sense!"
"Is that really the important part?!"
March 7th was right.
This was not the time to be discussing such things.
A wet, flowing sound suddenly echoed through the ruins.
The three looked around the place where they had landed.
Behind broken structures, within shadowed passages, and inside the darkest corners of the ruins, twisted monsters began crawling out one after another.
Their bodies were so distorted that it was impossible to tell what they had originally been.
"So we're fighting the moment we land?"
Stelle sighed.
"Looks like this trip is definitely not going to be peaceful."
The Flaming Lance vanished from her hand.
In its place appeared an utterly ordinary-looking baseball bat.
March 7th summoned her bow as well.
Six-Phased Ice condensed into arrows, which she immediately fired at the monsters shambling toward them like creatures from an old zombie film.
The moment the ice arrows struck, the monsters were frozen in place.
But March 7th could feel that the restraint would not last long.
It would only be a matter of time before they broke free.
Naturally, Stelle and Dan Heng were not about to waste the opportunity.
The baseball bat and spear smashed through the ice without hesitation and struck the monsters directly.
Their bodies shattered almost immediately.
They seemed surprisingly easy to kill.
"Are these things some kind of native species?"
Stelle swung her bat once and recalled the sensation of striking them.
It felt somewhat similar to fighting Voidrangers from the Antimatter Legion.
But these creatures were much more fragile.
She had barely used any strength before they broke apart.
"No."
Dan Heng immediately noticed something wrong.
He frowned.
"Their bodies are turning into fluid after being destroyed."
"They're gathering together again."
"It won't be long before they reform."
"So they can't be killed normally?"
Stelle's interest was immediately piqued.
"Then let's see just how hard they are to put down."
The baseball bat disappeared.
The Flaming Lance returned to her hand.
She drove it directly into the black semi-fluid mass that was trying to gather itself back together.
Scorching flames erupted.
Under the intense heat, the black substance gradually diminished until it disappeared completely.
"Looks like fire destroys them more thoroughly."
Stelle pulled the lance back.
"Though this stuff doesn't seem particularly easy to ignite."
"We should focus on finding Amphoreus's native civilization."
March 7th froze the remaining masses that were still trying to reform, ensuring they would stay immobilized for a while.
"Judging by these ruins, intelligent life definitely exists here."
The trio followed the only path leading deeper into the ruins.
After passing through several damaged corridors and sealed gates, they realized they seemed to have entered from one side of a much larger complex.
Eventually, they arrived before a bridge leading toward something resembling a central temple.
Clouds and mist churned beneath the bridge, making it impossible to tell how deep the drop was.
Above them stretched a pitch-black night sky.
"Where exactly are we?"
The three originally intended to cross the stone bridge and enter the structure on the other side.
But countless masses of writhing black sludge blocked the way ahead.
There was no way through.
Based on what they had already seen, those masses of sludge were most likely the monsters' original form.
"Don't tell me this place is like Belobog and already trapped in some kind of apocalypse?"
Stelle guessed.
"I don't know what Belobog is, but Amphoreus is indeed facing an apocalypse."
A voice suddenly came from behind them.
All three immediately jumped.
March 7th nearly leaped out of her skin.
When they turned around, they found an Intellitron standing behind them.
Its appearance was unusual.
On its chest was an emblem or engraving resembling two arms wrapped around one another.
At the center of its torso was a large hollow opening that passed completely through its body, allowing them to see directly through to the other side.
The upper half of its head appeared to be covered by a strip of black material, concealing everything except its mouth.
"Could the three of you perhaps be Nameless from the Astral Express?"
The Intellitron asked.
"Huh?!"
March 7th stared at him in surprise.
"You know who we are?"
"Wasn't this place supposed to be completely cut off from the outside?"
"Of course."
"The people of Amphoreus may not recognize you, but I am an outsider who does not belong to Amphoreus."
"So naturally, I know of the Astral Express."
"My name is Lycurgus."
"You may call me Lygus."
"Due to certain circumstances, I discovered the existence of a planet hidden from the rest of the universe."
"Out of curiosity, I came here to investigate."
"And as a result, I became trapped inside Amphoreus."
Lygus spoke with complete openness.
"I've been trapped here for a very long time."
"According to my calculations, at least ten thousand years have passed."
"Ten thousand years?!"
"Yes."
"Across the land known as Amphoreus, an apocalyptic disaster called the Black Tide is currently spreading."
"Fewer than one in ten of the world's inhabitants remain alive."
"The survivors are barely clinging to existence within the final city, Okhema, the City of Dawn."
"In order to escape the apocalypse and reach a true dawn, the people believe in a divine prophecy."
"They believe that if they gather the Coreflames of all Twelve Titans, they can carry out Recreation and restore the world to prosperity."
"But according to my observations, that prophecy is nothing more than an elaborate deception."
"A complete lie."
"Because whenever Recreation is carried out, the entire timeline of Amphoreus resets to more than a thousand years in the past, back to the era of the first Golden War."
"Then the same tragedy repeats itself."
"Nothing truly changes."
"All of this was engineered by a selfish individual for the sake of achieving their own objective."
"Perhaps because I am an outsider, I retain my complete memories and consciousness through every cycle."
"But time itself has become my greatest enemy."
"If you had not arrived, I fear the erosion of time would have eventually brought even me to death."
Lygus raised his voice, speaking with intense emotion.
"Nameless of the Astral Express!"
"Saviors who have come from beyond the stars!"
"I beg you."
"Save this world."
"Break the cycle that has brought endless suffering and torment to all who live here!"
(To be continued.)