Nightfall shrouded the dim Barren Land.
The piercing howls of a pack of Beaked Dogs echoed above the Kana Plain. The bizarre sound resembled a mix of a wolf’s howl, a dog’s bark, and a bird’s hoarse screech.
Slime Monsters squirmed in the shadows. Rot Root Balls, resembling plant rhizomes, marched in a loose formation through the darkness. Shouldering little rakes and spears made from withered Bloodthorn branches, they wobbled back and forth.
Two moons hung high above the vast Kana Plain—one large, one small. The larger moon was a pale white, while the smaller one glowed with a cyan-tinged bronze hue. Like two twisted, monstrous eyes, they stared down at the dark world.
Under the twin moons’ gaze, two figures trekked through the wasteland. Standing tall like giant trees, they used the cover of night to advance toward the Adventurer’s Alliance stronghold of Luojie City.
"So this world has two moons," Samael said, gazing up at the Bronze Moon with great interest. "And one even has a trendy metallic paint job..."
The bronze moonlight returned his gaze with a coppery stare.
"What do you mean? Did your previous world only have one moon?" Talia glanced at Samael.
"Yeah, just one big, pale white moon. It had some blurry, potholed dark spots on it, just like the big one you have here," Samael said, gesturing with his hands.
"Then after the people in your world die, what guides their souls?" Talia asked in confusion. "Wouldn’t your world be overrun by ghosts?"
"Guide their souls?" Samael scratched his helmet. "Overrun by ghosts?"
"My father told me that of these two moons, one is the moon of the living, and the other is the moon of the dead." Talia pointed at the twin moons overhead. "The white one shines upon the living, while the bronze one shines upon the dead. After death, the Bronze Moon acts like a beacon, guiding departed souls into the dark starry sky.
"But the Bronze Moon is actually a trap. Because the starry sky is too far away and far too vast, the souls attracted and lured into space by the Bronze Moon end up getting lost in the dark expanse, eventually turning into stars." Talia pointed at the night sky. "This way, the dead won’t remain in the mortal realm. The world won’t be overrun by ghosts."
"Uh... is this some kind of local mythological legend with otherworldly characteristics?" Samael asked. "It sounds like the premise of a children’s bedtime story."
Frankly, as an absolute STEM geek who had been steeped in scientific education since childhood, the otherworldly visitor Xia Mo’an didn’t have much interest in these bizarre myths. It was just like how ancient people used to imagine the dark spots on the moon as rabbits or toads.
"It is not! Samael, it’s a fact!" Talia argued stubbornly. "You’d understand if you had ever seen Undead Creatures! When Skeleton Warriors and Corpse Demons aren’t disturbed by the living, they quietly stare up at the sky. They are looking at the location of their own departed souls. Because their souls are lost in the stars, leaving behind only dead, hollow bodies driven by Spiritual Energy to shamble across the world."
"Uh... what I’m about to say might be a bit of a buzzkill." Samael hesitated. "I know I shouldn’t say it, but I have a big mouth, so I’ve decided to spit it out anyway. Stars aren’t lost souls; they are giant balls of flaming gas burning in the endless, zero-gravity, dark, and freezing void, just like the sun. It’s just that because they’re so incredibly far away, their light is very faint, making them look like mere specks of light."
"What bizarre nonsense are you spouting now? How could the stars and the sun be the same thing?" Talia stopped in her tracks, planting one hand on her hip while indignantly poking Samael’s chest plate with the other. "You should respect the dead! Those stars include my late parents—perhaps they are watching me from deep within the dark starry sky right now!"
"Oh, oh, I’m sorry." Samael snapped back to reality, realizing his words had been too cold.
Reality was always cold. It was like telling a child that Santa Claus was fake and that Christmas was a commercialized, consumerist lie. Like telling them Harry Potter, Hogwarts, the Dragon Race, and Kassel Academy were all fictional, and that they could only study tirelessly from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. in a terrifying, first-rate high school for years, just to get into a second-rate university, find a third-rate job, and harbor low-class dreams while living a completely muddled life.
People always needed to believe in something, even if it was believing that sacrificing the second baby born in autumn to the gods would make fruits grow larger and sweeter... At least it gave the soul some sustenance.
"Come on, aren’t you a departed soul summoned from the stars by the Magic Array in the Divine Era Ruins? You’re a living example!" Talia tried to convince Samael to believe that the stars were souls lured astray by the Bronze Moon. "You must have been tricked into the starry sky by the Bronze Moon after your death, and then dragged into that armor by the ruins’ Magic Array, right?"
"Uh... no." Samael threw his hands up. "I just remember being at my computer desk... Never mind, whatever. As long as you’re happy."
He sighed softly, swallowing the rest of his sentence.
"Aren’t you a star that fell into this world?" Talia asked.
This question made Samael freeze for a moment. He looked up, gazing at Talia.
"That sounds so romantic... very poetic." Samael rubbed his helmet’s faceplate with his gauntlets. Staring at the sky, his focus landed on a very strange point. "It would be nice if I could become a star. But I’d want to be a planet, not a fixed star... A planet spinning day and night, covering up others’ silhouettes everywhere~ letting the wind scatter my chaotic breaths..."
He haphazardly hummed the theme song to Rainbow Sea, an animated show he had watched as a kid. He forgot the lyrics halfway through, just as he had forgotten the ending of his childhood.
Talia stared at him.
"I wish I were like the stars and you like the moon; night after night, our bright lights would shine upon each other," Samael sighed, suddenly speaking in a soft voice.
"What?" Talia heard his voice. "Is that some kind of ballad? It sounds like a rhyming ballad a Minstrel would chant."
"It’s a poem from my homeland. The author is Fan Chengda, who was from ancient times in my world... I guess you could barely call him a Minstrel, but he was more of a writer, or a high-ranking official who was often bullied by the emperor," Samael explained. "The full poem goes like this:
"Carriages roll far, horses trot in throngs; you travel east, ever farther east of the mountains. How can I take flight and chase the western wind to you?
"I wish I were like the stars and you like the moon; night after night, our bright lights would shine upon each other. The moon may briefly wane, but the stars are always bright. I will keep my light shining while waiting for the moon to return, so we can be full and brilliant together."
After arriving in this world, possessing the armor had allowed Xia Mo’an to quickly master the common tongue. However, translating and expressing Chinese poetry into this world’s common tongue was still incredibly difficult. Samael did his best to organize his phrasing, striving to convey the rhymes and imagery of the poem.
"Such elegant verses," Talia marveled. "To think you actually had the leisure and refinement to study culture and art. Were you perhaps a young noble or a member of royalty in your homeland?"
"Yeah... I wish I was..." Samael scratched his helmet. "Unfortunately, you guessed wrong. My background is quite ordinary. It’s just that my homeland had very high expectations for its youth. They believed that young people should understand and be capable of everything, including culture and art... Honestly, it was pretty exhausting."
"Then do you have a natural love for culture and art?" Talia asked.
"It’s just okay, I guess." Samael hesitated. "The reason I can recite these poems is because when I was little, something called a classical poetry competition was really popular. It was constantly broadcast on the science and education channel on TV. My primary school followed the trend and held a school-wide poetry recitation contest. Every class had to send at least one person to participate. My teachers and my parents all thought I had a great memory, so—very unfortunately—I was dragged off to compete."
Samael explained awkwardly, "Because one of the competition rules was a game called Flying Flower, which required you to know a lot of classical poetry to play. So, during that time, I was memorizing classical poems every single day. This is one that left a deeper impression on me since it truly is beautifully written."
"What is a TV?" Talia asked. "Are these competitions used to weed out inferior offspring? Are the losers executed or abandoned?"
"What... No! Of course not! Why would you think that?" Samael asked in shock.
Talia fell silent for a moment.
"...Because... the heirs to the Demon Race’s Monarch must undergo such competitions when they turn twelve," she said dryly. "My older sister was abandoned because of it. Because... because I didn’t want to be abandoned, I could only... I..."
Her voice gradually trailed off, eventually fading into nothingness. The two fell into silence.
"I’m a little tired," Talia finally broke the silence.
"We can rest here for a while. You must be running low on stamina, right?" Samael asked gently. "My body doesn’t get fatigued, so my stamina is practically limitless. I’ll take the night watch."
There was a massive white boulder by the roadside. It provided perfect shelter from the wind and shielded them from the sight of other creatures on the wasteland. Talia remained silent, slowly leaning against the boulder to sit down. However, she didn’t take off her helmet.
"Get some sleep," Samael said, leaning against the boulder next to her. "We’ll head out once you’ve rested enough."
"I can’t sleep," she said.
"..." Samael changed the subject. "Do you want to hear some... mythological stories from my world? We believe there’s a rabbit on the moon."
"...A rabbit? Why would there be a rabbit? Your world is so strange." Talia seemed very interested. "You also mentioned some incredibly powerful monkey earlier."
"They’re actually just fairy tales. They’re very famous in my homeland; almost everyone has heard them—I’ll tell you a bedtime story!" Samael’s face lit up with enthusiasm. "Legend has it that a long, long time ago, on a high mountain covered in blooming flowers and abundant fruit, there was a stone brimming with Spiritual Energy..."
The twin moons shone upon the wasteland. By the massive white boulder beneath the starry sky, a suit of Cursed Armor recounted mythological tales from a distant world—tales of how a monkey born from a magic stone crashed the gods’ banquet in the heavenly courts, and how a devout monk followed his emperor’s orders to journey to the far west in search of knowledge and truth.
At first, she listened with keen interest, interjecting to ask a few questions. But gradually, exhaustion finally washed over her. Amidst the myths of another world, she fell into a deep sleep.
Samael sat down carefully, avoiding any metallic clanking from his armored body that might wake her.
Listening to the soft, rhythmic breathing coming from Talia’s helmet, he pulled up the illusory, cyan-blue UI panel and continued analyzing the tech tree and equipment functions of his armored body.
He pondered how this world seemed to hold so many secrets.