But Voraksa was now so tightly wound that he was on the verge of snapping at any moment. In his perception, that slight brush was magnified countless times, becoming an impact powerful enough to throw him off balance.
His body lurched to the right, and his right wing instinctively beat downward to steady him, but the small patch of newly grown membrane on his left wing was too soft to provide any lift at all.
He rolled once in the air, then traced a parabola like a hurled stone, plummeting toward the murky lake below.
Boom.
Water sprayed dozens of meters into the air. A huge crater formed in the murky lake, and waves spread outward, crashing against the distant, barren hills.
Voraksa sank beneath the water, then surfaced, floundering several times before steadying himself.
His four eyes emerged above the surface, dripping wet. His dark red scales were covered in weeds and mud, leaving him looking utterly bedraggled.
King Ghidorah slowly descended. He was too large to land directly on the water, so he landed on a relatively dry rise beside the lake that had not been completely submerged.
His massive feet planted themselves in the mud with a dull squelch. Muddy water squeezed out between his toes, splattering his legs.
He looked down at the black figure floundering in the lake.
This was much gentler than last time. Last time, Voraksa had fallen from the sky and hit the ground hard enough to leave a crater.
This time, he had fallen into water and broken nothing, just thrown up a lot of spray. Good. At least there was no need to wait for him to recover again.
Voraksa crawled out of the lake, water dripping from his entire body. Mud streamed down through the gaps in his scales, leaving a long, wet trail across the ground behind him.
He shook his head, shaking the water out of his ears, then cautiously turned his four eyes toward King Ghidorah.
King Ghidorah had not lost his temper. At least, he did not seem to have. All three of his heads were calm, his golden slit pupils devoid of emotion.
There was neither anger nor impatience. He simply watched Voraksa calmly, as though waiting for an explanation.
"Get up," King Ghidorah said.
Voraksa hurriedly got to his feet, moving so quickly that he hardly resembled a dragon who had just been dragged out of the water, covered in wounds and still missing half a wing.
He stood ramrod straight on all fours, his head slightly lowered. His four eyes dared not look at King Ghidorah, instead staring at the ground beneath his feet, softened by muddy water.
"I have some questions for you."
"Please, ask away." Voraksa's voice carried the relief of having survived a disaster. King Ghidorah had not lost his temper, discharged electricity, or slapped him into the mud.
He could still speak, still think, still live. That was already an incredible stroke of luck.
"You said the gods defeated you." King Ghidorah's middle head tilted slightly. "When was that?"
Voraksa fell silent for a moment. It was not that he did not want to answer; he was choosing his words.
He did not want King Ghidorah to think he was too weak, but he did not want to lie either-lying to someone who could cripple you with a single slap was not courage. It was stupidity.
"Roughly tens of thousands of years ago... during the age of the gods." His voice grew a little quieter, as though he were recalling a distant past he was reluctant to mention.
"Then wasn't some giant octopus chimera supposed to crawl out of the ocean and finish you all off?" King Ghidorah sounded casual, as though discussing something everyone knew that required no explanation.
Voraksa looked bewildered.
A giant octopus? A chimera? He had lived so long and seen countless sea monsters, enormous octopuses, squids, whales, and sea serpents, but he had never seen a giant octopus capable of "finishing off" the gods.
Were the gods that easy to finish off? Those beings had needed decades of fighting just to barely seal him away, and a giant octopus could finish them off?
"Apekus," King Ghidorah said. "Never heard of him?"
Voraksa searched his memory. Apekus. It was not the name of a god, a dragon, or any being he knew.
Perhaps he had only appeared after Voraksa was sealed? Or risen during the tens of thousands of years he had slept? He did not know.
"No," Voraksa answered honestly.
Watching his bewildered eyes, King Ghidorah more or less understood.
Apekus had said that the War of the Gods had lasted a long time. Hundreds of gods had fought for over a thousand years before shattering the continent. Voraksa had already been out of the picture before Apekus was sealed.
In other words, this fellow had not even lasted until Apekus appeared. Some group among the gods had defeated him, eliminating him early in the war.
Voraksa might never even have seen the truly top-tier gods who had fought to the very end and forced Apekus to deal with them personally.
An early exit.
"Then roughly how strong are you?" King Ghidorah changed the question. "In terms of the human magic system."
Voraksa thought for a moment. He did not think much of the human magic system-those tiny, short-lived creatures who could not even properly control the magic within their own bodies actually dared to assign ranks to power?
But he had to admit that their ranking system was useful, simple, and clear. No complicated descriptions were needed; a single number could give others a rough idea of your strength.
"Using the human rankings... I would be roughly at the eleventh tier."
"Eleventh?" All three of King Ghidorah's heads rose slightly at once.
"The eleventh tier," Voraksa repeated, a barely perceptible trace of pride in his voice.
In the human system, the eleventh tier was already far beyond legendary. Not a single tenth-tier being could be found in the entirety of human civilization in the seventeenth era. In this age, he was invincible.
Except, of course, for the one before him.
"So you're weaker than that God King." King Ghidorah made a statement, not a question.
Voraksa's expression soured a little. He was not angry; he was unwilling to accept it.
"I was just careless that time, and they ganged up on me." His voice carried an old-fashioned, defiant stubbornness.
"Dozens of gods surrounded me alone, taking turns fighting me for decades before they finally wore me down. If we did it again, one-on-one, I wouldn't necessarily lose."
King Ghidorah did not respond. He did some calculations in his head.
"Wait." King Ghidorah's middle head narrowed its golden slit pupils slightly. "Wasn't that God King at the twelfth tier?"
"Twelfth tier?" Voraksa froze. "Wasn't he at the eleventh?"
King Ghidorah stared at him.
Three heads, six eyes, all stared at Voraksa at once. Being locked in the sights of six golden gazes blazing with electricity sent a chill down Voraksa's back. Even his breathing grew cautious.
"How long after the war began were you eliminated?" King Ghidorah asked.
Voraksa opened his mouth, then closed it again. He did not want to answer that question, because the answer would not sound very good. But King Ghidorah was waiting for his answer, and he did not have the courage to refuse.
"...A few decades." His voice was very quiet.
King Ghidorah fell silent.
A few decades. The War of the Gods had lasted over a thousand years, with hundreds of gods fighting until heaven and earth crumbled. This fellow had been eliminated within a few decades of its beginning. In other words, he had not even survived the first wave.
He had been among the first to be eliminated, already out of the picture before the real war, the one capable of shaking the foundations of the world, had even begun.
What could someone eliminated right at the start possibly know?
"What could you possibly know, then?" A trace of disdain colored King Ghidorah's voice. It was slight, but enough to make Voraksa lower his head even further.
"Now." King Ghidorah took a deep breath, suppressing his speechlessness, and all three heads turned toward Voraksa at once.
His golden slit pupils held an unquestionable command. "Go find me a palace. If you can't, don't bother staying alive."
Voraksa's body stiffened for a moment. He raised his head, his four dark red eyes looking at King Ghidorah. His mouth opened, then closed again.
He wanted to say, "The terrain has changed; the palaces I remember might no longer exist." He wanted to say, "I need time to search." He wanted to say, "Could you give me a few days?"
But looking into King Ghidorah's golden eyes, which held no warmth at all, he swallowed every excuse.
"Yes," he said.
He turned around, his four eyes looking into the distance. There were rolling mountain ranges, dry riverbeds, flooded plains, and, farther still, unknown lands he had yet to explore.
A palace.
He had to find a palace.
His life now hinged on whether there was a palace.
Voraksa took a deep breath, spread his right wing, released a magical lifting field, and slowly rose into the air.
His figure grew smaller and smaller in the sky, farther and farther away, until it finally became a blurry black speck and disappeared beyond the horizon.