Silence.
A long silence.
The patriarch stared blankly at the Star Gazer before it, suddenly gripped by an overwhelming sense of impending death.
The smooth skin covering its body contracted sharply. As its rounded body shrank, layers upon layers of wrinkles appeared.
[Wh-why...]
[Since the last World-Ending Punishment, through countless standard days and nights, we have never stopped praying!]
[Why? Why would the god send down another World-Ending Punishment?!]
Faced with the patriarch's repeated questions, the Star Gazer fell silent for a moment before explaining again.
[I do not know the reason.]
[But...]
[Three hundred standard days ago, strange changes appeared in the stars once more.]
[Stars began disappearing from the night sky without any warning.]
[At first, only one or two stars showed anything unusual.]
[But as time passed, the stars began disappearing faster and faster.]
[As of today, thousands of stars have vanished from the night sky.]
At this point, the Star Gazer paused in thought, as though recalling something. [Such a phenomenon has occurred before in our civilization's history.]
[After that, the second World-Ending Punishment occurred.]
The patriarch's body trembled slightly as it asked the Star Gazer in a low voice, [You mean... the Great Dissolution?]
The Great Dissolution.
It had occurred thirty-five thousand standard days ago.
While observing the night sky, a Star Gazer had suddenly discovered that the number of stars in one region of the sky had dropped sharply.
What followed was a wave of unexplained deaths among their kind.
The bodies of those who died spontaneously dissolved into the seawater.
Only those who hid in the deepest reaches of the Inner Sea had escaped the disaster by sheer luck.
[Yes.]
The Star Gazer gave an affirmative answer.
[The abnormalities in the stars, the steadily shrinking waters of the outer sea...]
[All of this