A Sudden Flutter

Strange and contrary to all reason—this was the best description for a certain space.

At first, there had only been darkness. All changes began with the periodic rumbling.

First came a boundless sea of milky white light, appearing in the space overhead. Its range was vast and its density immense, and the light currents, which had already turned into mist-like clouds, filled every corner of the nine places that could be called "voids." Then, as if they had accumulated to a critical point, they split into countless motes of light that fell like raindrops. And then, a miracle occurred.

The dry, barren, icy stone ground rapidly began to turn to soil beneath the patter of those "raindrops." The surface, once covered in hard bare rock, became endless fertile earth in the blink of an eye. Green vegetation appeared patch after patch, swiftly covering it all. In an instant, the nine dead zones became flourishing lands of life.

Strange plants, perhaps classifiable as trees, rose from the ground one after another. Then came the sound of flowing water. Low-lying areas swiftly filled, and rivers, lakes, and waterfalls formed in succession. Within an extremely short time, they had all come into being.

No sooner had the sound of water appeared than roars began to echo through the forests. Countless strange creatures emitting radiance started appearing across the land—ones that crawled on the ground, flew through the sky, and swam in the water. Their numbers grew ever greater. In that instant, the evolution that would have taken tens of millions of years in nature had clearly been completed. Creatures began to fight among themselves, and a complete ecological chain had formed.

Yet the changes did not end there. The nine lands had remained connected for a thousand years, endlessly repeating this process. Now,