Alien creatures destroy homes? Start by killing upright apes!

David flipped the iron plate over.

There is also a line of small characters engraved on the back, the handwriting is messy, as if it was engraved in a hurry.

"We tried. It worked. But we still lost."

……

Yakji Kingdom, Licheng.

George crouched at the entrance to the Seine's underground network, in front of him a terracotta slab unearthed by a water dragon.

The pottery slab is decorated with a glazed image of humans and upright apes sitting around a fire where food is roasting.

Humans eat humans, and upright apes eat upright apes.

The fire was shared, but the food was kept separate.

There is a row of upright ape symbols in the lower right corner of the image.

The translation is: We tried eating together. We just couldn't get along. It wasn't that we didn't want to; it was just that our blood wouldn't allow it.

George handed the terracotta board to the Minister of Engineering behind him.

"The previous civilization tried to eat together, but found they couldn't get along, so they fought a war that resulted in mutual destruction."

The engineering manager took the ceramic slab and ran his finger across the glaze:

"Prime Minister, has the food we're eating now... ever been touched by Homo erectus?"

"I don't know for sure, but the system said that the protein toxins in the black blood are allergens for humans on Earth. Food they've touched might cause us to have allergic reactions if we eat it. Food we've touched might kill them if they eat it. It's a mutual incompatibility etched into their blood."

……

Zhu Sailang Kingdom, Luocheng.

Vito stood in the underground chamber of the Colosseum, facing the two upright apes that had been exposed in the testing room.

They were kept in captivity for six days without resistance or attempt to escape.

It just squatted in the corner and used its front paws to draw concentric circles on the ground.

Draw one, erase it, and then draw another.

Vito passed the news of the false Lesotho's construction of the concentric circles through the observation window.

The two upright apes simultaneously raised their heads and looked at the note.

Then they lowered their heads and wrote a word on the ground—"fast".

Vito's back pressed against the cave wall.

"What do you mean, fast?"

The upright apes also wrote: "They are faster than us. While we are still learning to disguise ourselves, they have already learned to be gods."

……

Taro Tanuki Country, Kyoto.

Kerry entered the courtyard for the third time.

This time he brought a bowl of water dragon bone soup and a piece of cloth woven by an upright ape.

He placed the soup and cloth in front of the upright ape, then squatted down.

The upright ape stared at Tang and Bu for a long time.

Then it touched the soup bowl with its front paws, then the cloth, and then it wrote words.

"Soup. Yours. Cloth. Ours."

"The soup is made from the bones of a water dragon beast, a species you brought with you," Kerry said.

The upright ape paused for a moment.

Then it says: "The Water Dragon Beast wasn't brought here by us, but by the system, and we were also brought here by the system. We, like the Water Dragon Beast, were all thrown here."

"But you are different from the Waterdramon. The Waterdramon only digs burrows, while you are learning to replace humans."

The upright ape looked at Kerry, its clear black and white eyes devoid of any emotion.

Then it wrote: "The replacement is not our choice, it's the choice of blood. Our blood is black, your blood is red. We will die if we eat your food, you will die if you eat ours. We can only live by occupying your territory, you can only live by occupying ours. This is not hatred, it's an ecological niche."

Kerry's fingers tightened slightly:

"The previous civilization coexisted with you for three thousand years. Did they ever try sharing a table?"

The upright ape wrote: "We tried it, we tried it for three thousand years, and we found it didn't work."

"Why not?"

The upright ape's hand remained still for a long time.

Then it wrote: "Because there can only be one kind of food on the table, either yours or ours, there is no third kind."

Read the full text for free, Chapter 52: Only one type of food can be placed on the table. Link:

When Kerry came out of the courtyard, the camera operator's hands were no longer shaking.

It's not that I've gotten used to it, it's that I've become numb to it.

Massa took the bowl of soup and the cloth. The soup had cooled down, but the cloth was still warm—warmed by the body heat of the upright ape.

"It said that the Water Dragon Beast, like them, was thrown here by the system, and it categorized itself with the Water Dragon Beast."

Kerry nodded: "It knows what it is, and it knows it has no choice. Its black blood dictates that it can only eat the food of Homo erectus and occupy the ecological niche of Homo erectus. It doesn't hate humans; it just can't survive without replacing humans."

"What about the false people of Naresuda? They're coexisting."

"That's not coexistence; that's turning humans into followers of the apes, eating the food that the apes could eat, and occupying the apes' ecological niche. It's still replacement in essence, just in a different way."

……

That night, dawn broke.

[Day 53 of the Extraordinary Creatures' Arrival - Report on Niche Overlap]

[The ecological niche overlap between ten alien creatures and humans on Earth: Anomalocaris 41%, Giant Nautilus 37%, Tyrannosaurus Rex 52%, Giant Dragonfly 29%, Giant Millipede 18%, Antiodon 44%, Grimodon 39%, Tyrannosaurus Rex 61%, Lystrosaurus 3%, and Homo erectus 94%.]

[System notification: Two species with more than 90% niche overlap cannot coexist for long in the same ecosystem. The inevitable outcome is either one replacing the other, or both perishing.]

[System Update: The ecological niche overlap between pre-civilization humans and Homo erectus was 93%. Coexistence period: 3100 years. Final outcome: Mutual destruction.]

[System final notification: The niche overlap of this Homo erectus release is 94%, an increase of 1% compared to previous civilizations.]

The light curtain went out.

Lu Cheng stood on the balcony of the Executive Government building, looking in the direction where the light screen disappeared.

94%, which is one point higher than in previous civilizations.

The pre-civilization coexisted for 3,100 years, with 93% of its members eventually perishing together.

It's currently at 94%, and the timeframe will only be shorter.

Carrie walked up behind him: "The system says the niche overlap of the Water Dragon Beast is 3%, why is it so low?"

"Because it lives deep underground, eats organic matter from the soil, and secretes mucus to reinforce the cave walls. Its food, habitat, and activity range are all in ecological niches that humans don't need. Humans don't live by eating soil, and humans don't live 60 meters underground. So it can survive. The first nine species and the hominids all compete with humans for food, territory, and resources. The greater the overlap, the more inevitable the conflict."

The water dragon emerged from the cave, covered in mud, with a stone shard hanging from its large fangs.

It spat the stone shards at Lu Cheng's feet, then collapsed on the ground, belly up, its four paws kicking a few times in the air before becoming still.

Today it has dug to 110 meters, and is still 10 meters away from the last stone wall.

The stone tablet is engraved with a single character: “选” (choose).

Lu Cheng connected the stone fragments with the words he had previously pieced together.

"Coexistence, peace, breakdown, war, cost, and divine selection."

The ancient civilization carved a sentence on the last stone wall, which was then broken up and buried in every meter of the earth's strata.

The spelling is now: Coexistence, Peace, Rupture, War, Cost, God's Choice.

One last word is missing.

The water dragon turned over and gently poked Lu Cheng's boots with its large fangs.

It means: We've handed in all the stones today, but what about the soup?

Carrie brought a bowl of soup and placed it on the ground. It buried its face in the soup and drank it with loud slurping noises.

After finishing his soup, he licked the bottom of the bowl clean, looked up at Carrie, and saw no fear of the 94% in his eyes, only anticipation for the next bowl of soup.

"Haha, you're so easy to take care of." Lu Cheng patted its head.

The Water Dragon Beast burped, then flipped itself up and slashed at the plaza floor with its claws.

It decided to work overtime tonight because that bowl of soup was so delicious.

……

The Lesotho mountain area.

Li Wei crouched on the back hill of the seventh refugee camp, his binoculars showing the Stone Whisperers' activities for the evening.

It did not distribute grain, build irrigation canals, or teach writing.

It placed pebbles on the stone platform.

This is where dreams begin, and where dreams come true.