The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns Chapter 262: Visiting Mars Once Again

Author's Note: Oops sorry, forgot to post this chapter yesterday!

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As I landed with everyone over Mars’ surface, they quickly dispersed, beginning to wander around close by.

The stone formations, the ash-colored sky with a redder tint to it, the red sand, the large mountains in the distance, and the desolate feeling of it all, which also carries a great familiarity…

I guess this is Mars, the home of Martians, an ancient, almost extinct race of people.

I wonder what could have been of us if they had remained alive until now? Would Martians have allied humans? Would they have helped them fight the Tower? Would the Tower have appeared here as well?

“Despite being on another planet… It feels like we’re on Earth somehow…” Yanisse commented. “Don’t you think? I don’t know… It’s like we’re on one of Earth’s deserts.”

“I agree… It does have that feeling,” I nodded. “It doesn’t help that it is a rocky planet and that there was once water and life here…”

“I suppose this is how Earth would look years after every living being went extinct, and it returned to a desertic world, rocky landscape?” She wondered, walking around, then grabbing one of the stones lying around. “Can I keep this Martian Stone?”

“Ah, yeah, sure,” I smiled. “Well, I have already been here; it doesn’t feel quite… unique to be back, though. I almost ended up destroying this planet by accident when I fought Orion… I’m glad we were able to get things back together.”

“Yeah, I saw the news; NASA had taken photos of what happened to the planet,” Yanisse said. “But it’s fixed, so there’s not really any problem, I guess.”

“Hmm…”

I saw my children playing on the sands, then climbing a small hill and throwing themselves down as if it were a slide.

“Are there no beasts to hunt here?” Fiery Hair wondered, looking around with her huntress eyes. “Perhaps a big, alien monster to eat!”

“I don’t think so; this planet is as empty of life as the Moon is… Or, well, it should, but I believe there are some… unwanted visitors,” I said.

“Huh? Unwanted visitors?” Fiery Hair asked.

“Yeah, I came here for another reason as well…”

I explained to my family one of the reasons why I was here, the Saurians, as briefly as I could, while we wandered around the surface.

“We have to find them then!” Said Urbosa. “What if they end up coming back to your planet and try to destroy the cities again? Their forces were really huge as well… It’s too dangerous to leave them alive.”

“I do agree to an extent with your words,” I nodded. “But we also need to be a bit careful. From what I learned, they have the technology to manipulate Timeline Gates. If they weaponize it, they could use it to send us to different timelines. Then what happens in such a situation? I wouldn’t be able to easily go after you… that’s why we’ll need to be careful.”

“Ah, I see…” Urbosa nodded. “That’s… not wrong. If they were to use portals as weapons, it would be extremely dangerous…”

“But I believe they’re limited… I don’t think they had enough resources to weaponize Timeline Gates… yet,” I explained. “For now though, I know of a route that should lead us where Karel found them.”

“Did he tell you about them?” Merkite asked. “I thought he lost his memories? What’s up with that? or only selected memories?”

“Ah, no, I learned a lot of info by extracting memories and information from the souls of the Saurians that died. Some knew barely anything, but a few others a lot,” I said. “There was a wandering soul, of someone called Lady Bloodclaw; she was some sort of leader to them. I secured the soul and extracted all the info I could.”

I showed them a little soul in my hands, which had the shape of a small green-colored lizard with red feathers on top of her head.

“I-I’ve told you everything I know! P-Please forgive me! Don’t eat my soul! I regret all my actions!” Bloodclaw cried.

She didn’t really do much herself, mostly commanding and sitting on her spaceship, but she died from my son’s attack on the mothership, alongside Karel, who was being possessed by the Saurian God in that moment.

She was a Queen or something, perhaps a Matriarch? I didn’t really research that much into her memories, but she was part of a family of Saurians known as “High Saurians” who had psychic abilities and governed above the rest.

“I will be good from now on! E-Even as a little soul… I could probably pass away peacefully?”

“Hmm, I wonder.”

I actually didn’t want to destroy her soul or anything, and I also don’t plan to wipe out all the Saurians from existence either.

They’re still a sentient race with enough sapience to learn and coexist with others; they just need… to learn a bit.

Perhaps I’m being too merciful here… But I don’t want to wipe out an entire race of sentient people, even less when there are innocents that are simply forced to do things by the higher-ups.

What about their citizens? Their workers? Their children and mothers?

They have no fault in what their leaders commanded them to do or what their soldiers did against humans.

Maybe they might have a cruel culture… But that doesn’t mean their children are born evil either.

Or perhaps I am too idealistic… but that’s just how I am.

Well, she did something awful to Karel by manipulating his mind and invading it, but she was being commanded to do that by the Saurian God…

And I need someone, a mediator that I can trust, who could help me mediate and reach some peace with the Saurians; as stupid as that might sound to some, I don’t want senseless slaughter anymore.

I explained these things to my family, as Bloodclaw’s little reptile face changed from fear to hope, her little eyes shining brightly.

“Y-You’ll forgive me?!”

“Not really, but I’ll need your help, Bloodclaw. I can sense within your soul that you genuinely regret a lot of things, and that you’re also just very afraid.”

“I-I… I suppose you can read through my entire being, huh? You’re… an absolute being, someone even greater than the Saurian God… Perhaps you’re a new Goddess!”

Wait, new Goddess?

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