Dusk gradually descended, and the glow on the horizon slowly retreated into the mountains, leaving only a few dark red afterglows illuminating a small patch of sky in the direction where the giant sun had set. A far broader ink-blue night spread in from the other side, and deep within it, starlight gradually emerged. The stars mortals had gazed upon for countless centuries grew ever clearer against that ink-blue expanse.
How many magnificent fantasies and pastoral fairy tales had those twinkling points in the night sky carried? Perhaps not even the most learned scholars of the Silver Empire could record them all. The stars hung high in the heavens, suspended in a realm mortals could not touch. To peoples bound to the earth by gravity, the distant distance and eternal silver glow themselves carried an almost divine significance. Thus, since ancient times, countless godlike tales had unfolded around the stars and taken root in mortal hearts.
Yet these stories describing the starry sky had nothing at all to do with the true, vast universe of stars.
Amun and Enya had both personally confirmed it—the stars held no realm of the gods. Divine kingdoms were merely Alien Realm Spaces created by mortal thought, and the countless tales pointing toward the sky were nothing more than beautiful empty shells. Mortals had never truly touched the universe beyond those shells, nor had they ever been prepared to do so.
But the vast universe of stars would not cease to shine because mortals ignored it—it was there after all, with all things in the depths of the sea of stars moving without rest. And now, a voice had finally crossed the immense distance between the stars. Whether the races of this world were ready or not, that voice had arrived.
Of course, none of