Above the Swirl of the Root, there was absolute silence.
Alaya, in the form of a young boy, floated there, calmly watching the object at its summit, her eyes filled with intense vigilance.
Gaia, in the form of a brown bear, made no attempt to conceal her killing intent.
Or rather, she wanted to [exclude] this thing.
No matter what, they could not deny the sense of threat this thing gave them.
It was not a sense of [threat] to the world, the Earth, or humanity.
It was a sense of [threat] to the two Counter Forces themselves.
It was strange, and made no sense. After all, the Counter Forces were Earth and humanity themselves. Logically, unless humanity or Earth faced a crisis of survival, they should not have been capable of feeling threatened.
Yet the feeling now gave them a faint sense of separation from the very entities they existed as.
A separation they could not ignore.
There was no doubt that this was unprecedented—and terrifying beyond measure to the Counter Forces.
And the thing that had caused the two Counter Forces to experience such abnormal, human-like emotions was naturally the object about to enter the Swirl of the Root.
It was a fragment.
A fragment of the Thread of the Root.
Gaia had recovered the Thread of the Root from the gaps beyond the world. To cleanse it of the aura from beyond the world, it had already undergone several reincarnations.
Different times, different regions, different eras, different identities.
Britain's White Knight, Florence's Jewel Doctor, Japan's Eagles of Restoration, Greece's Wave of Resistance, London's Mad Beast, the Central Plains' King Yama of Northern Chu.
But—
"Not enough."
"Why is it still not enough?"
The brown bear spoke calmly, yet it was a question.
".I don't know."
There was