Anxiety in Black Stone City

The sun set in the west, outside Black Stone City.

Beneath the massive divine statue, atop the sacrificial high platform, the Dinosaur Elder had sat here for many consecutive days.

Whether in rain or wind, it remained peacefully seated here.

Its eyes were slightly closed, its body trembling faintly, yet it never moved.

Accompanying the Dinosaur Elder were several priests.

These days, neither the Dinosaur Elder nor these priests had consumed even a single morsel of food.

Given the physique of the Dinosaur race, eating once to fullness meant it was fine to go without food for a month.

However, unlike the robust adult Dinosaurs, the Dinosaur Elder was very old.

Having gone without food for so many days, battered by violent rain and occasional strong winds, its body naturally grew weaker and weaker.

Why did the Dinosaur Elder sit here?

First, it wanted to pray for its expeditionary kin, seeking that subjective psychological comfort through devout faith.

Second, the Dinosaur Elder already felt the approach of death's footsteps. Rather than dying in the empty hall of Black Stone City, it preferred to die under the gaze of the gods.

It no longer struggled, nor did it cling to the hope of seeing its Father God's majestic form again in its remaining short days.

Thus, it intended to end its life here before the Father God's statue.

The successor had already been chosen. Whatever the Children of Lava would face next could only be fought for and grasped by themselves.

If, after passing, it could enter the gods' realm, it would pray for the Children of Lava and bless them—roughly so.

The Dinosaur Elder, as a devout believer, planned to sit in meditation and pass away before the divine statue. The priests of the Sacrificial Order did not stop this.

Because for a devout believer, such an act was precisely what best matched the Lava Populace's understanding of faith in this era.

This was glory, the optimal choice for a believer to return to the gods' embrace and realm.

As a race of universal believers, this truly counted as a dignified way to die.

The elder, who had devoted its life to the race's development and growth, was now about to return to the gods' embrace. The Dinosaurs in Black Stone City had felt sorrow and unease these past days.

With tens of thousands of Dinosaur warriors marching to war ahead, and the elder departing behind, the emotions stirred were inevitably intense anxiety.

The Dinosaur Elder had always been the most solid spiritual pillar of the Dinosaurs in the mortal world. Suddenly losing this pillar, even with a successor, left the people filled with restless unease.

Many Dinosaurs wanted to see the elder off on its final journey, but because the Sacrificial Order informed them that the elder sought quiet, a moment of peace in its last moments of life, most ordinary Dinosaurs could only stand on Black Stone City's towering walls and gaze into the distance.

At the same time, they silently prayed in their hearts, praying that the elder would gain eternal life and happiness in the gods' divine realm.

"Ah Father, is the Elder really going to die?"

On Black Stone City's high wall, a young Dinosaur child held its father's hand, looking up with some confusion.

"No, the Elder won't die; it's just returning to the gods' embrace. It will go to our Father God, the great Lava and Earth's divine realm. There, the Elder will serve the Father God forever and enjoy eternal peace."

The tall Dinosaur picked up the child and placed it on its broad shoulder.

"Oh, then Ah Father, have you seen the Father God's realm? Is it fun there?" The child's naive eyes lit up.

Soon, the child's crying came from the wall.

Is the divine realm a place for you to play in? Blasphemy against the gods—deserving of a spanking!

Dinosaurs educated their young very directly, and their children had thick hides and could take a beating, so young Dinosaurs beaten from childhood became a hallmark of this era.

After disciplining the child, under its aggrieved expression of not daring to sob further, the adult Dinosaur soon turned its gaze back to the distant plain, where a few faint specks were barely visible on the high platform.

"Without the Elder, what will life in Black Stone City and the race's future look like? It truly worries the heart!"

"Who says otherwise? But now we can only hope that Lord Dunba is truly a priest full of wisdom, as the Elder said." A Dinosaur on one side of the crowd sighed and chimed in.

"Yes, that's all we can hope for. But the clansmen are very uneasy now! I wonder how the warriors on the expedition are doing. Those Children of Wind are unreliable too—no news for several days, truly worrying."

"Sigh, the coastal area is still a bit far from here, and the Alliance's warriors just arrived; they might need to discuss war matters. Let's be patient and wait a bit longer!"

"By the way, Goro, how are things on the Eternal Frozen Ice Land side? Has that restless 'Great Worm' caused any trouble at the border?" The Dinosaur beside him suddenly shifted the topic and asked the Dinosaur named Goro.

"For now, it's relatively calm. But that drowsy Evil God always moves toward our Pastoral Land's border every time it wakes. The temperature there has dropped a lot, and we've even had to control the Black Ox's grazing areas. I actually came back this time to report this to the Sacrificial Order. If possible, I hope the Order's elders can send the most elite warriors to try and drive away that Evil God."

"Sigh, I just didn't expect to come back and run into the Children of Water asking for our help. Though we all anticipated it before, it all happened too suddenly."

Goro sighed, looking at the distant horizon with a deep worry in his eyes.

Seeing Goro like this, the Dinosaur beside him also looked concerned, but then it suddenly seemed to think of something and said:

"Sending elite warriors will be hard, since only the final defensive force remains in the Holy City now. But this time, many of our Blood Kin didn't join the expedition. Haven't the Order's elders considered transferring some of our brothers to you?"

"Blood Kin?" Goro smiled bitterly.

"Our Blood Kin can't be moved casually. Right now, at the Holy Mountain of the Great Volcano, we rely entirely on those brothers to guard the unhatched young. You should know, those eggs are the future of us Children of Lava—we can't slack off at all! And the Earth-Drilling Demon Worms underground are getting more restless too. Sigh, in short, the situation in this era gives me a very uneasy feeling. Maybe this is a new trial from the world for us, the subjects of the Four Gods of Order."

At this, the Dinosaur beside Goro fell silent, sinking into deep worry.

Yes, the peace that had lasted for thousands of years was finally about to be broken.

Whether order could continue to stand in this chaotic world was becoming increasingly unclear.

If only our Father God were still here and had awakened—but where is our Father God now?

As a newly born generation of Dinosaur People, almost none of them had ever seen the face of their own Father God; all they could know came from the records of the Sacrificial Order and the distant statues.

On the walls of Black Stone City, the large crowds watching the elder's figure from afar were mostly discussing the future of their race with visible worry, while the other three races, merely spectating, appeared relatively calm.

Yet, at some moment amid this worry, unease, or clamor, a sudden and violent rumbling erupted from deep beneath the earth.

This rumbling caused the entire ground to tremble, shaking buildings and people left and right like an earthquake of magnitude five or six.

For a time, all members of the Four Races were seized by terror and confusion, frantically searching for the dreadful source of the rumbling.