"At last, I'm out. Just how many meters underground did I burrow before I fell asleep?"
Breathing in the planet's unique air, Kangqiao felt completely at ease.
Although the underground lava had felt rather pleasant too, being constantly squeezed had left him feeling somewhat stifled.
It was nighttime now, and the surroundings should originally have been dim and dark.
Yet Kangqiao's emergence had dyed the entire sky a brilliant, blazing red.
After letting out a long roar to vent the oppressive discomfort he had endured underground, Kangqiao finally had time to inspect his surroundings.
"Looks like I was right. Digging straight upward finally brought me to the right place. But why does this city feel so much smaller than the one I built last time?"
Kangqiao saw the city not far below him, as well as the densely packed little figures within it.
It was not merely that the city had become smaller. Even the Dinosaur People looked much smaller in Kangqiao's eyes.
No, that was not right.
The city had not become smaller, nor had the Dinosaur People.
Kangqiao himself had grown larger.
In that instant, Kangqiao understood.
Well, he had slept for an unknown number of years this time. It was only natural that he had grown bigger.
The once-empty city was now packed with stone houses, while numerous more homes had been built outside the city walls.
It was easy to imagine that during the years of his slumber, the Dinosaur People—and perhaps the other members of the Four Races as well—had flourished.
After studying the distant city with interest for a moment, Kangqiao turned his attention to himself.
Overall, his appearance had not changed much. However, his body, which had always been covered in flames, now bore many more mysterious patterns.
There was even a ring of runes resembling Star Radiance upon his chest.
The Star Radiance was circular, filled with twisted lines and patterns. There were even symbols Kangqiao could not understand, or markings resembling tadpole script.
Seeing these changes in himself, Kangqiao found the world he inhabited even harder to comprehend.
But so be it if he could not understand it. Since he was here, he would make the best of it.
He would explore slowly and grow slowly. One day, every secret of this world would reveal itself to him.
Kangqiao felt an inexplicable confidence, one born entirely from his unbelievably powerful body.
This awakening was vastly different from his last.
The difference included his Divine Kingdom, but it also included his control over energy.
It was a sensation of perfect control, of being able to release and withdraw it at will, requiring only a thought.
In an instant, the heat from the lava spread across dozens of miles in every direction began to converge ceaselessly toward Kangqiao's body.
Without the support of the scorching heat, the land melted by the high temperatures quickly began to dim, from far away to nearby.
All the heat—even the lava Kangqiao had drawn up to the surface—was absorbed into his body.
The absorbed energy gathered at Kangqiao's chest, then continuously seemed to vanish into some unknown space.
The strange phenomenon should have ended there, but just as it was about to end—
Before Kangqiao's eyes, while his entire body still shone with lava's radiance, a tiny white ball of light slowly emerged along his body and floated before him.
The speck was incredibly small, small enough to be ignored.
Yet for some reason, Kangqiao noticed this utterly inconspicuous point of light immediately, and he could not look away.
Perhaps acting instinctively in his daze, Kangqiao extended one of his thick little arms.
His enormous finger, wreathed in blazing flames, touched the speck of light.
At that very moment, the tiny point of light seemed to ignite instantly, transforming into an expanding fireball that was not small at all in Kangqiao's eyes.
The fireball floated before Kangqiao, blazing fiercely, blazing without end, even trembling constantly.
In a daze, Kangqiao saw the figure of a Dinosaur Person within the sphere of flame.
Its eyes were gently closed, and its entire body trembled beneath the searing heat. Yet even so, its face remained calm and peaceful.
The high-temperature flames continuously scorched the devout soul, as though subjecting it to the harshest possible trial.
However, the devout soul ultimately endured the entire ordeal.
And at that very moment, the Old Seal of Star Radiance on Kangqiao's chest instantly absorbed the fireball and the soul within it.
This truly startled Kangqiao.
With a slight movement of his consciousness, he saw the scene within his Divine Kingdom in the next moment.
The Divine Kingdom remained a scene of apocalypse, but within its lava sea of fire, a massive egg-shaped object formed of flames floated upon the surface.
This was the beginning of a new species, the birth of a new extraordinary life-form.
Yet this newborn species was simply too bizarre, far beyond Kangqiao's understanding.
For within that flaming egg, the embryo was actually an eyeball.
It was a fiery-red eyeball, its eye temporarily closed.
Around the crimson eyeball, three rotating halos of flame even circled it.
The information fed back by the Divine Kingdom left Kangqiao somewhat dazed, filling him with incredulous speechlessness.
Why had the soul of a Dinosaur Person ultimately turned into this?
A flaming Eyeball Creature?
What exactly was all this?
The changes in his body had ultimately exceeded Kangqiao's expectations by far.
What was the meaning of this bizarre style of life, filled with such a horrifying appearance?
The surprises brought by this awakening left Kangqiao somewhat at a loss.
It was from this moment onward that Kangqiao inexplicably began to feel awe toward this world once more.
The confidence he had just gained also made way for caution again.
"In such a bizarre world, I really cannot afford to be too arrogant. There are still far too many things I don't know."
As for this flaming eyeball creature, Kangqiao could only regard it for now as a different kind of life born from his radiation.
No matter how strange the eyeball was, the soul that had formed it had truly belonged to a Dinosaur Person—a believer of his and a transformed member of his radiation-born kin.
Although he still did not know what abilities this eyeball-shaped creature possessed or how useful it would be to him, it could be observed and explored over time.
After all, in this barren world, no one could teach Kangqiao any occult knowledge concerning Giant Beasts.
He had to explore everything himself, and after the Eyeball Creature hatched, he would have to rely on its own exploration as well.
Although the Eyeball Creature was newborn, its soul belonged to a Dinosaur Person. Since Dinosaur People retained the knowledge of their former minds, it would likely understand its own situation quickly after hatching.
With that thought, Kangqiao inspected it several more times before temporarily withdrawing his consciousness from the Divine Kingdom.
The Eyeball Creature's hatching would not happen overnight. Kangqiao merely needed to wait. Once it hatched, he would naturally know at once.
(Note: For readers who do not understand, this draws on the angel imagery from the Old Testament. These will also be the protagonist's future angels; the picture has been posted in the comments.)
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