I only saw such a thing just before the war started, back at my second Earth. I got that this world was special, void of any fight and struggle.

But these Hectors were enjoying such a life in the middle of the apocalypse. Why did they feel like this? Was it because they trusted their leaders and armies? Or because their race was mighty and strong to make them feel secure and safe?

I didn’t know the answer, but I craved to see such life in my kingdom. Such security and confidence in their race was something I wanted my people to feel towards my kingdom.

I would build such a kingdom, where my humans would feel secured even if there was such a war drawing closer to them.

“They look happy,” the first to speak was Sara, and her tone didn’t carry any of her aggressiveness or brutality.

“Yes… I have never seen such happy faces since that damn thing happened!” The spearhead seemed to be taken also by the atmosphere here.

“Our lives as humans are cursed,” the jumper briefed it in such a bitter and honest way, “we are seen as the losers in this apocalypse. It’s not our fault, but it’s our duty to change it.”

“Finally you said something worthy,” I patted him on the shoulder, making him stagger for a few steps before glaring back at me..

“You are getting stronger! Damn!”

“It’s you who is lacking and neglecting your cultivation.”

“It’s you who is pressuring me to have no time to do that!”

“Who wants to be better will find a way to do it!”

“Boss!” Just before the two of us would continue fighting again, the spearhead suddenly shouted.

“What?” the two of us shouted back at him, and he pointed at certain direction as he added:

“There is something out there! Perhaps the grand army of the Hectors.”

I looked at the direction he pointed at. What I saw was a weird depression in the ground, seemingly like a grand pit or hole or something.

“What is that?” Sara asked as I slowly drew the chariot closer. As we got near this place, it appeared in its huge size.

We were flying fast, and still we managed to see a big portion of it. So when we drew closer, we saw a large extended hole, spreading all over the world up front, with such a deep bottom that appeared pitch black from our spot.

“I… Frankly dunno,” I honestly said, while trying to get any clues about what it was.

The hole looked all deep and unfathomed in my eyes. “Look at the edges,” the jumper pointed at the seemingly endless circular edge of this hole, “it gushes out from the inside out.”

“What does this mean?” Sara asked, and I got to answer her.

“It means something created this hold from deep within the ground,” I paused… “Do you recall the tunnels we had all over our kingdom?”

“The ones that brought us monsters and mercenaries? The ones that caused us lots of trouble?” the jumper asked, in such an aggressive tone as he was the one to suffer a lot from these tunnels back then.

“But this doesn’t look like any tunnel,” the spearhead moved his eyes around, and I started to lead my chariot higher in the air to get a better look over this hole.

For tens of miles it stretched around. When we rose higher than a couple thousand metres in the air, we finally got to see the final shape of this hole.

“It isn’t just a hole, it extends towards that direction,” Sara pointed at the direction where a long and narrow groove was there, extending from this hole over to the horizon.

“Hye, I don’t like this,” the jumper said in such a deep and serious tone.

“Neither do I,” having such a weird thing here, and without any clue about its nature, made me also wary of it.

“Should we go down there and explore it?” the spearhead proposed, but I shook my head in refusal.

“It’s more risky to go down there,” the jumper had the same thought as me, “and we can’t send anything to scout this area right now.”

“Will we just leave it like this?” The spearhead looked at me asking for help.

“He is right,” but I already had the same mind as the jumper, “but that doesn’t mean we will leave this thing untouched.”

“We should also look around,” Sara added, “who knows, we might spot other things like this.”

“Good point,” I nodded, and this time I didn’t risk flying on top of this big hole. I surrounded it, and the more I looked at it, the more ugly I felt.

“Do you think both are connected?” After flying around for half a day, we found the second hole.

Weirdly enough, the two looked similar in size and shape. I looked at the long groove that extended from this hole and thought about the one that extended from the other one.

“I believe they are connected, perhaps through underground tunnels or something.”

“Don’t we have a Hector girl on our side?” the spearhead asked, “why not send her a message?”

“She… Isn’t here,” I said, while knowing that these three weren’t aware of the second Earth, or perhaps the news spread and they wouldn’t get how unique that world was.

“She is in your second world?” the jumper asked, telling me the news already spread over.

“She is training our forces there,” I nodded.

“I want to visit that world one day,” he said, “I heard time runs differently there.”

“It does,” I acknowledged this point, “but now let’s focus on what we have here. These holes must be some sort of a weapon, directed at our forces if they ever reached this deep.”

“I agree with that,” the jumper nodded, “I believe it aims at annihilating most of our forces in a single attack.”

“Or perhaps it’s used to create a shield to separate that part of their continent from us,” Sara added what she thought, and I couldn’t tell which one was right.