A myriad of messages popped up in front of Alex''s gaze after he dealt the final blow to the Lux, but he dismissed them without much interest.

    Yes, he knew he had finally met all the requirements to become a B tier, but now was not the right time to advance.

    He still had to find out where he was, and how this place had somehow managed to evade his Spatial Perception''s detection despite it being able to encompass nearly 60% of the entire planet''s diameter.

    He closed his eyes and let his heart settle for a few moments, as it still stirred and thumped chaotically from his battle with the Lux. It had taken quite a toll on his body, so he wanted to take this rare moment of peace to recover a little bit of his energy before something else came along and decided to mess with him.

    He stood amidst the still form of the dead Lux, glancing at the ground beneath his feet. This was only a form of directing his gaze randomly without any purpose, but when he did so he noticed quite an odd irregularity.

    As one would expect with a battle between two B tier or equivalent powerhouses, the resulting destruction of their fight could rock even countries. Yet, the surface beneath Alex''s feet was untouched... still in pristine condition as if the fight had never even happened.

    "What the...?" Alex muttered under his breath, scanning his surroundings with a heightened sense of unease.

    The terrain stretched endlessly and Alex was only able to detect the space within a few kilometres of himself, which was already abnormal enough. But this wasn''t what alarmed him — the fact that there were no signs of damage or destruction from their battle anywhere across the ground was what alarmed him.

    Even when he threw out his dozens of Phoenix Flame fireballs and exploded them directly on the ground, there was nothing! The ground was still in pristine condition everywhere he looked!

    Now that he had eyes to see, he summoned a small amount of Phoenix Flame, enveloping Virtue''s Edge in it and hovered it close to the ground, hoping to get a close up, detailed look at just what this place was.

    He turned his gaze upward, hoping for some answers above. But even that was a fruitless endevour. It was normal to assume that since he fell down into this place thanks to a hole made on the surface thanks to his battle with the Lux, but there was no light that filtered in.

    He''d understand if he were just a normal unawakened mortal as even if there were such a hole filtering light in, he was so deep underground that they wouldn''t even see it. But his eyesight was far past the level of an unawakened, yet there was nothing when he looked up.

    Alex stood in place, unwilling to move as his instincts told him that this place was... out of the ordinary.

    The unnatural stillness, the pristine ground, and the lack of even the slightest tremor were unlike any other planet he had encountered. Even when encountering a sentient planet these odd phenomena didn''t occur.

    This wasn''t just a cave system or a subterranean anomaly – this was something else entirely.

    ''Now that I think about it, I''m not able to detect a single thing above me, even at the outer reaches of where my spatial perception can reach! It''s all just empty air...''

    For there to be such a huge empty space hundreds or thousands of kilometres below the surface was strange, since the pressure and weight of the surface above should have collapsed in on itself at some point.

    Since he was stuck in this situation against his well, Alex was determined to at least find out more about this mysterious planet. For all he knew, planets could just work differently or follow different laws of physics in the Andromeda Galaxy. How could he know? He was just a layman in scientific terms after all.

    But even finding this out would be a big help to the Federation''s efforts. If they could learn about such things early, it could help their preparation and planning for later pushes deeper into Andromeda.

    With this in mind, he began walking. Each step he took echoed across the expanse endlessly until they eventually died out, and it was quite an eerie feeling considering his own steps were the only thing that accompanied him down in this vast, lonely darkness.