The next day, when Aaron opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a pair of furry gray animal ears.
"Baizi?" The girl was crouching right in front of him. When she saw Aaron wake up, her ears immediately perked up. "You're awake, Guardian?!"
"The god wants to see you!"
In the early morning, Ana, Dorn's reincarnation, stood at the entrance to an ancient ruin.
The ruins looked very much like the Mayan pyramids from Aaron's previous life. Columns stood all around, wreathed in lightning, and tall flights of steps led to the building's summit. Morning dew occasionally dripped from the cracks between moss-covered stone slabs.
"You're here?" Ana turned around. "This is the source of the curse."
"The source of the curse?" Aaron studied the little pyramid. Charlotte immediately confirmed that this was where they had been lured into fighting the Chaos Creatures.
"That's right. Right here." Less than a meter tall, Ana carried his two-meter Chainsword over his shoulder, his expression as stern as ever. "You know the history of the Old Ones, don't you, Ra?"
"I do." Aaron nodded.
"The reason I came here was that this island had an Old Ones ruin. It seems the Old Ones once reached the Forgotten Realms and established an outpost here." Ana slowly walked past the steps on either side of the pyramid. "They built a portal, but abandoned it for some reason. I once tried to activate the portal here. Not only did I fail, I also attracted the Four Gods' attention."
"According to my investigations, the people here don't seem to know about the Old Ones either. They simply call them the 'Coast Wizards' and consider them one of many foreign civilizations," Ana continued.
Dorn's reincarnation revealed everything he knew to Aaron.
The Old Ones had once