Alien creatures destroy homes? Start by killing upright apes!

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George: The transmission of memories across generations may mean that the intelligent brains of hominids could receive information left by their ancestors in some way, and underground remains are the information carriers.

Vito: It will accelerate because the activation of the relics is equivalent to providing Homo erectus with ready-made technological blueprints. They don't need to invent metallurgy, water conservancy, or architecture from scratch; they only need to understand the blueprints left by their ancestors.

Massa replied: Yes.

Reply to Wood: Nothing has been found yet, but the fact that the pre-civilization left traces underground is itself a form of resistance—burying the civilization underground so that the Homo erectus wouldn't be able to find it. It's just that this time the Homo erectus can dig burrows, or rather, the water dragons are helping them dig.

Reply to King William: The system says the last species introduced was the upright ape. The mural of the giant millipede might mean that—in pre-civilization times, the upright apes painted the giant millipede because they had seen it before.

Luke: Yes.

After replying to the telegram, Lu Cheng stood up and walked to the window.

The water dragon beast that had been carved out of the stone wall was lying on the ground sunbathing in the square.

It had no idea what the claw it had dug out today meant.

All it knew was that the sun was shining brightly today, the soil was loose, and the hole it had just dug contained hard rocks, making it difficult to dig. So it changed direction and found it much more comfortable.

Carrie walked up behind him: "Every country is asking the same question—how much time do we have left?"

"According to the system's announcement, the activation of the underground ruins will accelerate the evolution of the Homo erectus. The camouflage phase was previously estimated to last another fifteen to twenty days, but now it may have to be cut in half."

"Ten days?"

"Even shorter."

That evening, in the Water Dragon Beast Cave beneath the Executive Government, Lu Cheng once again squatted in front of that stone wall.

The light from the kerosene lamp shone on the spiral, circular, and square engravings.

These markings are exactly the same as the pattern made by the upright ape in Kyoto, Taro Tanuki Country, using white pebbles.

These symbols were left behind by pre-civilized hominids, and 100,000 years later, newly arrived hominids coincidentally displayed the same symbols.

It's not imitation, it's awakening.

The things etched into the intelligent brain, spanning hundreds of thousands of years, have not been forgotten in the slightest.

"They are not learning from human civilization; they are restoring their own. Human civilization is merely—a reference material—for them."

Carrie's voice was very soft: "Then what are we?"

Lu Cheng did not answer.

Because the answer is already written on the stone wall.

One hundred thousand years ago, upright apes came here.

The previous civilization was destroyed.

Ten thousand years later, the upright apes returned.

He carries ten exotic creatures, black blood, and memories awakened from ancestral relics.

Humanity, on the other hand, is the "pre-civilization" of this time.

……

Meanwhile, in Taro Tanuki Country, Kyoto.

Massa stood outside the courtyard, holding in his hand the photograph of the stone slab that the water dragon had dug out from forty-one meters underground.

Two human figures are carved on the stone slab.

One was squatting down holding a tree branch, while the other was standing empty-handed.

There is an equal sign in the middle.

Professor Yamamoto stood behind him: "We've deciphered it. The crouching humanoid holding the branch is exactly the same as the image of the upright ape in the Advent Canopy. The standing, empty-handed humanoid is in the same proportions as a human. The equal sign in the middle means 'substitution' in the symbol system of the upright ape, so this image means..."

"Squatting instead of standing," Massa said.

He put down the photo and looked at the upright ape in the courtyard.

It was squatting on the ruins of a dry landscape garden, with words arranged in white pebbles in front of it.

A new design has appeared next to the words "substitute for someone" today.

It's not a character.

It is a painting.

The drawing depicts a human figure, squatting down, holding a tree branch in its hand.

Another humanoid figure stood there, holding a stone slab in its hand.

Between the two figures, an arrow is drawn, pointing from the crouching figure to the standing figure.

Upright apes squat, humans stand.

The arrow points from the upright ape to the human.

Massa looked at it for a long time, then said to Professor Yamamoto:

"It's telling me that the replacement has begun."

……

August, 5914 of the Blue Star Calendar, the thirty-seventh day since the arrival of alien creatures.

The Kingdom of the Boulder, the Golden City.

Louis hadn't slept well for three days.

It wasn't because upright apes invented the automatic loom.

In fact, he had already accepted the loom, and the quality of the cloth woven by the upright apes was so good that his textile minister even suggested ordering cloth from the upright apes.

What truly kept him awake was the border.

To the southwest of Jincheng, in the small country of Wakanda that borders the Kingdom of Burling, there has been no news for ten days.

Wakanda is a small, landlocked country with a population of less than three million, ranking ninety-seventh on Earth.

There were no steam railways, no telegraph network, and the only means of communication was by messengers on horseback.

On the day of the arrival of the alien creatures, although Wakanda did not receive any upright apes, it did not mean that the upright apes would not voluntarily go to Wakanda.

"Still no news?" Louis asked the border patrol captain.

"No, we sent three groups of messengers in, and none of them returned. The border outposts reported that there has been no smoke rising from the Wakanda direction for the past ten days."

A country of three million people, without the smoke of cooking fires.

Louis arrived at the border that afternoon aboard a steam airship.

A country of three million people, without the smoke of cooking fires.

Louis arrived at the border that afternoon aboard a steam airship.

Looking down from the airship's porthole, the land of Wakanda was as quiet as a graveyard.

There was no one moving around in the village, no farmers in the fields, and no fishing boats on the river.

The only thing moving was the upright ape.

Scattered upright apes squat on rooftops, field ridges, and riverbanks, clutching twigs in their hands, motionless.

As the airship landed at the border post, a blood-covered man stumbled and ran towards us from the direction of Wakanda.

He was wearing the uniform of the Wakanda government army, and maggots had infested the wound on his left arm.

As the sentry carried him into the outpost, he kept repeating the same phrase.

"They've learned it! They've learned it!"

Louis squatted down in front of him: "What did you learn?"

The man looked up, and Louis saw his face clearly.

He was no more than twenty years old, and the light in his eyes seemed to have been taken away.

"Poisoning! They've learned to poison!"

The governor of Wakandar was named Kagamo, an old soldier in his fifties.

Three days after Advent, he discovered a group of upright apes that had migrated from the Kingdom of Boulder to the vicinity of the capital.

Unlike other countries, Kagamo did not hesitate, observe, or wait.

Faced with the alien creatures so close at hand, he ordered his troops to open fire.

"Kill them all while they're still weak."

Wakanda had no heavy machine guns, no artillery, only three thousand old-fashioned bolt-action rifles.

But the upright apes were completely unprepared.

In the early days, the Homo erectus were as docile as sheep. When soldiers entered the Homo erectus colony and fired, they didn't even run away.

Two thousand were killed on the first day, three thousand on the second day, and five thousand on the third day.

Within a week, the Wakandan army shot more than 70,000 hominids.

The corpses were piled up in the valley, and the black blood had turned the river water black.

Kagamo stood beside the mountain of corpses and said to his lieutenant:

"See? The upright apes aren't scary at all. Those powerful nations are hesitant because they're afraid to kill them. If they dared, the problem would have been solved long ago."

The adjutant reminded him that a small number of Homo erectus had escaped into the mountains.

"Just a few dozen, what kind of trouble can they cause?"

The waves rose again a month later.

A total of forty-seven upright apes escaped into the mountains.

The Wakandar army searched the mountains several times but found nothing and gave up.

Forty-seven upright apes stayed in the cave for a month.

A month later, they emerged.

They didn't come out carrying tree branches.

They came out carrying a pottery jar.

The earthenware jar contained a dark green liquid—made from the root of a poisonous native plant from the mountains.