October 9, just after midnight.
Amid a deep humming, a pillar of purple light shot into the dark gray night sky, where torrential rain was falling.
It gradually contracted until only a sliver of light remained, then vanished.
Four figures emerged from the light. They quickly stood up beside the Teleport Lantern, drenched by the downpour as they warily surveyed their surroundings.
At midnight on October 9, Gelman had witnessed the Crimson Light shooting out of the Teleport Lantern's projection and received some fragmentary information about the colonial expedition fleet.
He rang the bronze bell, summoned everyone to the tower, and explained what had happened.
They quickly agreed that they should head to this suddenly appearing Teleport Lantern Location and investigate.
In every sense, they couldn't simply ignore the Hunter Association exploration team's situation.
The team was still the original four: Gelman, Ging, Biscuit, and Shizuku. The others swiftly made all the necessary preparations for them.
Medicine, food, flashlights, binoculars, and so on—their supplies were the same as those they took whenever they set out to explore Disaster and Hope.
At 12:33 a.m., the Gelman Squad traveled through space and arrived directly in this unfamiliar place.
Gelman looked down at the Teleport Lantern planted there. It lay in a deep crater that looked as if it had been blasted by a bomb.
Centered on the crater were patterns resembling those on the floor of the Ancient Labyrinth Tower's top level, except that the marble slabs bearing the carvings had cracked into more than a dozen pieces.
Each pattern ended at a mechanical-looking hibernation pod.
All the pods were of the same design. Some had their transparent lids pushed open, some were completely shattered, and others had been overturned.
But they all had one thing in common: they were empty.
The