The Final Echo opened the door.
Countless aberrant beasts surrounded Him as He crossed streets that existed only in memory, streets He had not seen for a thousand years.
The researchers' buildings along the road had not changed in the slightest. The twelve High Towers piercing the clouds in the distance stood as they always had. The towering bones of a giant dragon thrust into the heavens, their hollow eye sockets gazing down at the land, as though meeting His eyes from afar.
Within the True Dragon's eyes had once been reflected the last, most elite and brilliant generation of an entire civilization.
At the end of their lives, what accompanied the True Dragons had not been death throes filled with despair, but a hopeful and spirited goal—a trial that even the True Dragons had willingly cooperated with.
But now, these streets and these researchers had all vanished into the wind.
They had become memories less substantial than echoes.
They and the True Dragons had all died. It was simply unbelievable. They had clearly been the civilization's hope, yet they had failed... By every history, story, and epic legend, shouldn't this have been the moment of success?
But failure was failure.
Because the Star Gods had failed, because the True Dragons had failed, because Terra Civilization had failed... everything had become what it was now.
As "Echo" recalled this, He could not help shaking His head. The sturdy, majestic metal dragon head, impossibly solid, merely shifted slightly—and unleashed an unimaginable gale, stirring Origin Matter and psionics in layer upon layer like ripples spreading from a stone dropped into a lake.
But fortunately, there was still a chance. The last chance.
They had all failed.
So "we" had to succeed.
Even if He was only an echo.
Even if only memories