History had many nodes and turning points. Once, Earth had been nothing more than a cooling mass of primordial matter, floating alone in the universe, with no atmosphere and no life.
This was a fact many people knew.
But once, Earth had also been a dish-shaped world sunken in the middle, like a black pill, ruled by those ancient, Forgotten Deities. That was also a fact.
People today still occasionally dreamed of them. In dreams, they might be amorphous, writhing black mist; tumbling, decayed stumps of limbs; a familiar or unfamiliar person; or even parts of one's own body, along with the acts those body parts performed.
Yet without exception, people had forgotten their names upon waking. Or rather, their names had been replaced by something that came later.
Reality, rules, laws, and morality could all make people forget those things from their dreams. That was the Material World.
Just as the ancient Lizard Imperium had lost its crown, then lost its life, countless forces had risen and fallen. Before everything began, and before it had yet begun, in stories that had never been written, the names of the Gods of Oblivion had been the main theme of that era's tale.
Like silent land submerged beneath a black sea and lost amid the waves, Dark Mythology battered the borders of the ancient creatures' minds.
Where shadows shrouded all was also where Civilization began—a forgotten place of perfection that nevertheless existed forever.
There were no paths, no winding roads, yet omnipresent Chaos and The Void formed this boundless maze. In truth, the Forgotten Deities had been born within it as well.
Batwoman, Deadpool, and the others had already spotted the enormous cave in the rain. Piles of white bones lay outside its entrance, most of them belonging to the ape-men's own