Ah, I'd gone and shown off a little too much. Yu Lian looked at the bear-man bowing before him, then at the awestruck soldiers around them. He felt like a clown being loaded into a cannon—mortified beyond words.
"No kneeling!" Yu Lian fired a shot into the air. When that didn't seem to do a damn thing, he went over and kicked the bear-man in the backside.
After a round of scolding and kicking, the soldiers were still a little wary, but at least they no longer looked at him as if he were some kind of saint. The only exception was the bear-man sergeant, who remained utterly deferential. He even volunteered to scout ahead, setting off first with his battle axe in hand. Youyou put on her prized powered armor and followed.
There really wasn't anything dangerous here, but Yu Lian didn't want to dampen their enthusiasm, so he let them go ahead and scout.
Yu Lian took one last look at the magnificent glowing gate, climbed onto the stitched-together tank's turret, and set off second.
In fact, he knew that the gate was made of the legendary Misa crystal, commonly called "moonstone." It was one of the mysterious substances known as the "Gifts of the Gods," or "zero elements"—the second of the three great culprits responsible for throwing this universe's technological development off course and making its style so strange.
These so-called "zero elements" came in many forms: crystals, metals, liquids, even dust and gases. Naturally, they had different physical, chemical, and even "mystical" properties. But they all shared one defining trait: even the most advanced instruments couldn't determine their molecular structure.
So they could be mined, but not manufactured. Their properties could be put to use, but the principles behind them couldn't be analyzed. As a result, technologies built around them were less like science and more like alchemy.
More importantly, the things made through "alchemy" were often absurdly powerful. How could anyone not be driven to superstition by that?
Yu Lian knew that if they pried all the moonstone off the gate, melted it down at high temperatures, recast it, and found a reliable technical expert—in other words, some eccentric "alchemist"—they could make a psionic artifact.
...But it felt a little like burning a fine instrument to cook a crane, like melting down Rhodes Island's Sun God statue to make bullets. Besides, they really didn't have time for that now.
After stepping through the gate, they found themselves in a wide passageway clearly carved by hand. Its walls were made of a strange material, warm in color yet sturdy. When Yu Lian touched it, it wasn't cold like stone; instead, it felt pleasantly warm, as if a brazier had been built into the walls. Even with so many people—and the heavy tanks and armored vehicles—rolling over the floor, it showed no sign of cracking. The stitched-together tanks and Panther vehicles could hover over flat ground, shallow water, and beaches, but they had to use their wheels to climb.
Faint lights flickered along the passage like stars occasionally twinkling in the sky. Though their source was nowhere to be seen, they cast a hazy, soothing glow over the whole corridor.
The surroundings made it hard to stay tense, and everyone relaxed a little. But Yu Lian knew Ina, who had stayed in the tank the whole time, wouldn't have let her guard down. She was probably glued to the ion cannon's targeting scope, her hand never leaving the controls.
After another ten minutes or so, the passage opened up before them. Facing them stood a statue more than ten meters tall, made from an unknown material that was neither metal, jade, stone, nor wood. It had the weathered, ancient hue of bronze.
The statue depicted a seated figure, elegant and relaxed, wearing a long robe adorned with patterns. It looked like an ancient scholar straight out of legend. A smile played across his face, his features finely detailed and lifelike. More importantly, he looked at least ninety percent human...or perhaps, if humanity's ancestors had all been handsome men and beautiful women for eight generations, and each generation had somehow avoided inheriting a single flaw, they might have looked like this.
"E-Enlighteners..." Uncle Karl murmured.
Thud! Baka dropped to his knees and continued muttering like a zealot. "Great Enlighteners, emissaries of the spirit of the universe, guide me, my..."
Yu Lian wanted to kick him again, but given the bear-people's universally superstitious nature, he decided not to say anything. Besides, although this was his second time here, the sight of the statue still left him awestruck. Any intelligent being with a normal worldview and sense of beauty couldn't help but admire such pure magnificence.
"People from the Empire and the Alliance believe that all humans are direct descendants of the Enlighteners," Ina said quietly. "That we're all seeds of life scattered throughout the galaxy by the Enlighteners, brothers and sisters."
"Maybe. But the Drians, the Empire's main ethnic group, and the Gebeians, the Alliance's main ethnic group, don't lack love for their fellow humans. There are very deep political reasons for it. If we're all supposed to be loving brothers and sisters, why should we form separate countries? That's one reason there are so many collaborators. And human supremacy might be all right in the martial Empire or the Alliance, whose wealth and technology are unrivaled across the galaxy. But in the hopelessly weak Commonwealth, it would only tear society apart." Yu Lian sneered.
Ina blinked, looking a little confused.
"Wow, humans really are the greatest species!" Youyou exclaimed without thinking as she gazed at the statue.
Baka, still prostrate on the ground, shot Youyou a fierce glare. She jumped and hurriedly added with an ingratiating smile, "Hey, buddy, bear-people are humans too, of course."
The bear-man sergeant sighed, seemingly reminded of something, and his expression darkened.
Only then did the female sergeant major begin to understand, and she suddenly felt a little annoyed.
"Then where should we go, sir?"
She was referring to the two passages branching off behind the statue. The one on the right led to a hall, whose interior they could see from the entrance. The one on the left stretched farther away, and they had no idea where it led.
Yu Lian hesitated. He knew exactly where to go. If he led them left, they could leave the mountain in half a day or so without encountering any danger. If they went right, they would reach the ruins proper—and the greater the rewards, the greater the risks. A nicely balanced setup, wasn't it?
"Going by how things went in Treasure Alliance, every Enlightener ruin is bound to have a final boss."
"...That's a TV show!" Not every ruin had a guardian, or archaeology would be a high-risk profession. This one did, though. Of course, if his memory served, its guardian was generally friendly—as long as you didn't go looking for trouble. Judging by the many clues the Enlighteners had left behind, at least so far, they hoped their successors would inherit what they had left behind. They wouldn't leave a killing machine that guaranteed everyone's death. Besides, if the things in the ruins were the same as he remembered, they would be a big help in the upcoming Battle of Tulong.
But I have no reason to make everyone take risks with me. Maybe I should lead them out of the ruins first, find somewhere safe to camp north of the mountain, and then come back to investigate on my own.
As Yu Lian pondered this, he suddenly heard Ina's puzzled voice from nearby. "Um...sir, do you hear something?"
"A sound? In here...wait, Ina, you aren't—"
By then, Ina's expression had gone completely vacant and dazed. Like a walking corpse, she took a step forward and nearly fell off the tank. Yu Lian caught her just in time.
"Ina, Ina? Hey, wake up. How many fingers am I holding up? Look at me and tell me."
"I-I heard..."
Yu Lian was just about to ask, "What did you hear?" and follow up with a Concentration-and-Soul-Calling Palm, when Ina shuddered and her eyes refocused. A second later, she was alert again, raising her gun.
"Something's wrong over there!"
No kidding. Every Enlightener ruin looked strange to ordinary people! Yu Lian thought.
"Some sound is trying to lure me...I felt like I was falling...Ugh, you know what I mean!"
The sergeant major was a poor student who hadn't read much and mostly just watched dramas. She had no literary talent and didn't know how to describe what she'd just experienced.
Yu Lian was about to ask her for more details when he heard a metallic scraping and rolling sound from inside the hall. A huge sphere, well over three meters in diameter, rolled out.
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