The light was still flickering.
Dark red light poured endlessly from the fissure at the center of the altar, like a river held back for tens of thousands of years finally finding a breach and surging madly through it. The light dyed the entire underground space blood-red.
The murals on the walls looked especially hideous in the light. Those ancient lines seemed to come alive, writhing, twisting, and howling across the stone walls.
The leader of the black-robed figures knelt before the altar, his forehead pressed against the cold ground, his hands spread with his palms facing up. His body trembled slightly, not from fear, but from excitement.
Dark red light shone in his gray-white eyes, like two flames burning in dried-up wells.
How many years had it been?
How many years had he waited?
From discovering the first clue in that ancient manuscript riddled with wormholes, to traveling every corner of the continent, searching every ruin, deciphering every inscription, and finally identifying this place, finding these helpers, and opening this door sealed for tens of thousands of years.
Decades of his life, thousands of days and nights, countless failures, setbacks, and brushes with despair-all of it had become this expanse of dark red light before him.
Behind him stood Duke Desolation, his arms folded across his chest, his dark brown eyes fixed on the widening fissure at the center of the altar.
His expression still held that indifference that came from seeing through the ways of the world, but his clenched fists betrayed his tension. Having lived for over a thousand years, he had seen far too many incredible things, but all of them combined could not make his heart tremble as this light did now.
Marquis Darkblood stood a little farther away, his pale face taking on an unhealthy redness beneath the dark red light. His lips moved slightly, as though he were silently reciting something, or savoring the increasingly intense presence in the air, so ancient that it provoked instinctive unease.
A vampire's instincts were far sharper than a human's. He could feel it-something was awakening in the abyss. Not with the irritation of being disturbed from sleep, but with the savagery of something that had slept too long, ravenously hungry and desperate to devour everything.
No one spoke. No one moved. Every gaze focused on the fissure at the center of the altar, on the thing slowly rising from within.
Then-
Nothing happened.
The light still flickered, and the fissure still widened, but that "thing"-that being they had awakened with all their strength, which had slept for tens of thousands of years and which even the gods feared-did not emerge.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty seconds.
One minute.
The dark red light still pulsed, and the fissure still widened, but nothing happened besides the light and the tremors.
No roar, no oppressive presence, none of the terrifying aura that would make every powerful figure present go weak at the knees and kneel to beg for mercy. Nothing.
Someone frowned.
"Kid." Duke Desolation spoke, his voice quiet but echoing through the cavernous underground space, carrying impatience long held in check. "Did you get something wrong?"
The black-robed leader did not answer. He remained kneeling before the altar, his forehead against the ground, his gray-white eyes fixed on the fissure. The fervor in his eyes had turned into an almost obsessive stubbornness that refused to admit failure.
"Hey." Duke Desolation raised his voice, his brow furrowing even deeper. "I-"
Boom.
The ground shook violently.
It was not the rhythmic, heartbeat-like trembling from before, but a brutally violent shaking from deep underground, as though something were slamming against the rock strata.
The rock beneath their feet trembled, the vaulted ceiling overhead swayed, and loose stones cascaded from the cracks, striking the ground in clouds of dust.
"It's coming..." the black-robed leader murmured, his voice filled with the wild joy of surviving a brush with death.
Purple light appeared in the cracks in the ground. Not dark red, but purple-so deep it was almost black, with a hint of ominous fluorescence. The purple light spread from the base of the altar, following the runes across the ground like flailing, menacing tentacles, shrouding the entire underground space in an eerie purple glow.
The black-robed leader laughed. It was laughter rising from the bottom of his heart, suppressed for too long and finally free to escape.
His mouth stretched open, revealing two rows of yellowed teeth. Laughter squeezed from deep in his throat, hoarse and grating, like the creak of a rusted iron door being forced open.
Then his smile froze.
Because the purple vanished.
It did not fade slowly or give way to another color. It vanished abruptly and completely, as though someone had slapped it out.
In its place came dark red-a dark red light a hundred, a thousand times more intense than before, thick as liquid, erupting from the fissure at the center of the altar.
Wha-
He never finished.
An enormous pillar of dark red light shot upward, swallowing everything in an instant.
Aboveground.
Beneath the gray sky, the ruins of the abandoned mine lay silent in the morning light. Piles of rubble, collapsed headframes, rusted mine carts-everything was just as it had been, unchanged. Wind swept through the ruins, stirring a few dead leaves into a faint rustle.
Then the ground split open.
It did not crack slowly, with fissures widening bit by bit. It was as though something had slammed upward from underground, tearing the entire stretch of ground apart like paper.
Rock, soil, rubble, mine carts, the remains of headframes-everything was hurled into the air by an irresistible force, then swallowed in midair by dark red light.
The pillar of light erupted from underground, over a hundred meters in diameter, piercing straight into the sky. Dark red light dyed the entire sky blood-red, and the pillar punched through the clouds, forming an enormous, swirling hole.
The light lasted for a dozen or so seconds, then slowly dissipated, like a great dragon finally releasing its last breath after spewing flames accumulated over tens of thousands of years.
When the pillar faded, the ruins were gone. In their place was an enormous, bottomless pit with jagged edges.
Something moved inside the pit.
Dozens of kilometers away.
King Ghidorah was flying leisurely through the sky.
He was not moving fast-not by his standards. Storm clouds churned around him, golden lightning weaving through them and illuminating his silhouette in intermittent flashes. His middle head drooped slightly, its golden slit-pupiled eyes half closed, as though he were dozing.
His left head occasionally tilted to glance at the ground below. His right head kept watching the distant horizon, as though searching for something.
Suddenly, his right head snapped up. Its golden pupils contracted sharply, a keen glint flashing in their depths.
That direction.
"Hmm?"
King Ghidorah's middle head also turned in that direction, all three heads looking into the distance at once. The storm clouds began moving faster, not accelerating gradually, but switching from a "stroll" to a "sprint" in an instant.
"Seems like quite a commotion."
A trace of interest flashed in his golden eyes.
Let's take a look.
At the bottom of the pit.
After the dark red pillar of light dissipated, the underground space fell into deathly silence.
No, not deathly silence. It was the absolute, vacuum-like quiet after a storm had destroyed everything, swallowing even sound.
The black-robed leader lay sprawled on the ground, covered in dust. A large section of his robe's hem had burned away, exposing scorched, dark red skin beneath. His fingers trembled as he struggled to push himself up and raise his head.
Then he saw it.
The altar had shattered. Black stones covered in runes lay scattered across the ground, some reduced to powder, some broken into pieces, and some retaining their original shape. But the runes on their surfaces had gone utterly dark, like bodies stripped of their souls.
A larger pit had appeared where the altar once stood. Its edges were jagged, as though something had forcibly torn it open from within. The pit was pitch-black, revealing nothing. Only gusts of warm, sulfur-scented air rose from its depths, blowing hot against their cheeks.
Then a hand-no, a claw-reached out of the pit.
The claw was enormous and black, covered in rough scales that looked as though magma had scorched them over and over. Its tips were sharp as blades, gleaming coldly in the darkness.
The claw hooked onto the rock at the edge of the pit and gripped hard. The rock shattered, and the claw tips sank deep into the ground.
Then came a second claw.
Both claws braced against the edge of the pit and pulled upward. An enormous, hideous black head slowly rose from within.
It was a dragon's head.
But not a golden, slender, elegant dragon's head like King Ghidorah's. This head was black, like charred coal, or obsidian dug from deep within the earth.
Horns covered the head-not streamlined horns sweeping backward like King Ghidorah's, but thick, twisted horns like those of a bull, jutting menacingly in every direction. The horns were dark red, their surfaces covered in cracks through which magma-like light flowed.
Four eyes.
Dark red eyes, like congealed blood. The four eyes sat on either side of his head, the front pair somewhat larger and the rear pair smaller. All of them moved, observed, and surveyed this unfamiliar, brand-new world.
The presence of the gods... was gone.
Voraksa drew a deep breath. There was no trace of the gods in the air anymore. That lofty presence, which disgusted him, enraged him, and made him want to tear everything apart, had vanished completely.
In its place were sulfur, dust, rusted metal, rotting wood, and the lowly, insignificant scents of those tiny creatures.
Humans.
This age was the age of humans.
A low, stifled laugh rumbled deep in Voraksa's throat. It squeezed out like magma churning underground, dull and heavy, carrying a pressure that made scalps prickle.
Then he laughed.
Not a stifled laugh, not a low laugh, but earth-shaking, wild laughter surging from the depths of his soul, suppressed for tens of thousands of years and finally free to escape.
"Haha... hahahahaha!!!"
His laughter echoed through the underground space, shaking loose stones from the walls in clattering showers. It passed through the pit, reaching the surface, the sky, and dozens of li away.
There was no joy in that laughter, only a nearly deranged declaration of war against this world from one who had survived calamity.
"I won in the end!"
Voraksa climbed out of the pit. His body was enormous, larger than any known dragon of this age. From the tip of his snout to the tip of his tail, he measured over a hundred meters, and even standing on all fours, his shoulders rose dozens of meters high.
Thick black scales armored his body, with dark red, magma-like patterns flowing through the gaps. His tail was long and powerful, ending in a bony spike as sharp as a spear.
"Those gods... that god king... nothing but dust and ashes in the end!"
His voice echoed through the underground space, carrying an overbearing arrogance that looked down on all living beings. He opened his mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth gleaming coldly. Dark red light kindled deep in his throat, as though it might erupt at any moment.
"I! The Dragon of Destruction! The Lord of the Old World! The Silencer of the Gods!"
All four of his eyes lit up at once, dark red light burning in his pupils like four inextinguishable flames.
"Voraksa!"
He abruptly spread his wings.
Their span exceeded a hundred meters. The dark red wing membranes resembled blood-soaked canvas, whipping up a gale the instant they spread.
The gale raged through the underground space, sweeping up rubble, dust, and broken support timbers and hurling them against the walls, against the vaulted ceiling, and against the tiny humans still standing at the edge of the pit.
"I survived!"