"Where am I...?"
Having just woken up, Yang Yi's awareness of his surroundings and himself was hazy, as though he had slept for a very long time. He had no idea what was going on.
But his resilient mind and will allowed him to quickly recall everything.
"Right, the operation on Burning Island. Heitanba set me on fire, and then..."
Yang Yi's thoughts gradually cleared. Suddenly, he heard a powerful, thunderous heartbeat behind him. It made him feel as though the thing was right beside him-and that it was unimaginably huge.
He could not help looking back, and saw a sight he would struggle to erase from his memory for the rest of his life.
An enormous white egg stood far behind him, its surface covered in cracks, with energy faintly surging inside.
Two enormous hands with eight fingers between them had pierced through the shell and reached out, gripping a towering black tree.
The tree soared into the sky. Beneath it lay charred, cracked earth, but that earth strangely turned into an ice field where it reached the enormous egg, and the heat was kept on the other side.
The enormous egg's hands gripped the black tree's branches, continuously drawing away heat to awaken and hatch whatever was inside. That was where the heartbeat came from. Even the parts of the shell closest to the tree had been blackened.
Yet the enormous black tree seemed unaware of the egg's existence. It burned on, igniting and sublimating everything around it except the hatching egg. The two remained pressed close together, locked in a stalemate.
[Fa̵cing a Gr҈eat Be҉ing,҈ yo҉ur Sanity҉...]
Yang Yi instantly averted his gaze, but discovered to his surprise that he had neither frozen nor caught fire. He was gradually adapting and regaining his ability to