The black behemoth covered in purple crystals crawled out of the pit.
Its body was even more unsettling than its head. It was not the long, streamlined body of a dragon, built for flight, but a bulky, bloated torso that looked cobbled together from rocks of varying sizes, without any consideration for aesthetics.
Its limbs were short and thick, but the tips of its claws were sharp as knives, leaving deep gouges in the ground with every step.
Its spine extended from its neck to the tip of its tail, each vertebra protruding like a row of misaligned gears, with purple crystals embedded in the raised sections as well.
Its tail was thick and as long as its body, ending in a hollow, bony spike shaped like a needle.
Purple light could be seen flowing inside the hollow spike, as though charging something.
It spread its wings.
Dezi finally understood why its body looked so cumbersome-its wings were made of the same material as its body. They extended from its shoulder blades like two enormous slabs of rock that had been shaved thin.
The wing membranes were not soft biological tissue, but a translucent, quartz-like crystal that refracted purple, blue, and white light in the sun.
The instant its wings spread, a vast shadow fell across the ground. It covered the pit, the ruins, the rock Dezi lay on, and the miners in the distance who had not yet fled far.
Beneath that shadow, they seemed pinned down by an enormous hand, even their breathing turning cautious.
The black behemoth stood at the edge of the pit, slowly turning its head studded with purple crystals. Its right eye-the purple crystal-showed no reaction, merely reflecting everything around it with indifference.
Its left eye-the dark red eyeball devoid of warmth-surveyed its surroundings, from the distant mountains to the nearby ruins, from the sky overhead to the earth beneath its feet, from the trembling humans hiding behind rocks to the animals its presence had frightened into collapsing on the ground.
[None...]
A voice rang out in its consciousness. It was not a human language, nor any known language, but something more primal and ancient: a psychic fluctuation that could be perceived without traveling through sound.
The voice was cold, hollow, and emotionless, as though reading a report written long ago that needed no embellishment.
[There are no gods.]
Its head stopped turning. The dark red light in its left eye flickered slightly, as though it were thinking, or perhaps remembering.
[They... are gone.]
Silence. Not the silence of things growing quiet, but the blank silence that followed a shock, when time was needed to digest it.
Its body leaned forward slightly, as though confirming something. Or as though sniffing for some scent in the air. There were remnants of the gods in the air-or, in other words, the gods had vanished completely.
Yes, they were gone. Those lofty gods who claimed to control the fate of everything in the world-not one remained. Not even a scrap.
The black behemoth slowly crawled away from the edge of the pit and stood on all fours amid the ruins.
Its body had an unhealthy gray-black sheen in the sunlight, and the light of its purple crystals danced through the gaps in its scales like countless tiny, restless eyes.
It twisted its stiff body. Its joints cracked like a rusty iron door being forced open.
Its neck turned forty-five degrees to the left, then forty-five degrees to the right. The movements were small, like a simple warm-up, but each one made the ground tremble slightly.
Its tail swept lightly, sending a pile of rubble and dirt dozens of meters away and leaving a deep furrow in the ground.
It raised its head and looked at the sky.
The sky was very blue. There were no storms, no dark clouds, no traces left by the gods, only a clean, pure expanse of blue belonging to this new age.
It opened its mouth, revealing two rows of sharp teeth glowing purple. It made no sound-not because it did not want to, but because it did not need to. Its voice did not need to travel through the air.
[This body should have slept a while longer.]
It lowered its head and looked at its claws. The purple crystals on their backs glittered in the sunlight like glass beads embedded in black rock.
It glanced at the largest purple crystal on its chest-the crystal was the size of a washbasin, embedded in the very center of its chest, with dozens of hair-thin purple lines radiating outward around it like the blood vessels of a heart.
[But something woke it.]
Its left eye narrowed slightly, a trace of inscrutable emotion flashing through its dark red pupil.
It was a more complex emotion, like finding a stranger's sudden arrival both surprising and entirely natural.
How long had it slept in the darkness? Thousands of years? Tens of thousands? It could no longer remember.
Time had lost its meaning in the darkness, just as water lost its shape in the ocean. It had only slept, slept, and slept, waiting for the preset condition that would awaken it-the disappearance of the gods' presence.
The gods' presence had indeed disappeared, but that was not why, or at least not entirely.
The thing that had touched that stone wall, that little black thing without any sign of life, like some kind of intelligent entity, had strange energy fluctuations. But the energy that "little thing" carried had happened to trigger the awakening mechanism within its body.
It was not much energy, but it was just enough.
It was like digging a small channel in a riverbed that had been dry for a long time. It did not take much water; once the channel was opened, the water would flow in on its own.
It extended its tongue and licked the purple crystal on its chest. After being licked, the crystal shone a little brighter, forming a palm-sized purple halo on its chest.
[Thanks to that little thing's energy. It woke this body and restored some of its strength.]
It did not know what that little thing was, nor did it care. It only knew that it was awake now, this shell was still usable, and some of its strength had returned-though far short of its prime, it should be enough in this age without gods.
[Then, it is time to find the main body.]
It turned its head and looked west. Something there was calling to it-not a sound, not a signal, but a more primal sensation, like being pulled by an invisible rope.
The main body lay somewhere on this continent. The main body needed to recover too. Like this shell, the main body was incomplete and weak, having slept so long that this world had nearly forgotten it.
[Valeria.]
The name rang out in its consciousness. No one else had called it that; it had remembered the name itself.
That was its name-no, not its own, but the name of this shell's main body. It was merely a part split off from the main body, a puppet meant to scout ahead, test the waters, and draw fire.
But it had its own consciousness. It could not quite remember when it had begun to develop self-awareness. Perhaps during one of its slumbers, perhaps at the instant it was separated from the main body on some occasion, or perhaps it had emerged little by little, from nothing, over the long, lonely years spent cut off from the main body.
It neither hated nor felt grateful to the main body. It simply knew it should return, merge with the main body, and restore it to its peak.
That was the meaning of its existence.
It spread its wings and gave a powerful beat. Its stony wing membranes whipped up a gale, sweeping rubble and dust off the ground into a gray-black, spinning column of cloud.
Its body slowly rose from the ground, unsteady at first like a child just learning to walk, but it soon stabilized. Its wingbeats grew faster and faster, and it ascended more and more quickly.
It took flight.
In this new age without gods, it finally no longer needed to hide itself away.
It no longer needed to bury itself deep in remote mountain forests, wait underground in the darkness, or fearfully watch out for something every time it flew across the sky. It could fly in the sunlight, above the clouds, anywhere it wanted to go.
[I wonder if those others are still alive.]
It murmured inwardly. Those others, puppets like itself, were avatars deployed across the continent to scout and divert attention.
Most of them had probably exhausted their energy over the long years and turned to dust. Perhaps a few fortunate ones had found suitable environments and survived, waiting for the main body's summons.
Hopefully, the main body was still intact.
Valeria picked up speed, the wind whistling past its ears. It was so enormous that, in this age without gods, it should be among the beings at the very top.
No need to dodge, no need to hide, no need to be as timid as before-hmm? What was that?
Although its perception had declined after its long slumber, it could still see a black storm that huge flying toward it.
A storm. Black, moving rapidly from the east, flying this way at tremendous speed.
The cloud bank looked at least a dozen kilometers across, dense golden lightning weaving through it. Its thunder could be heard from far away, making Valeria's chest tingle slightly.
It was a little bewildered. Was the climate of this age so bizarre? Before it went to sleep, there had occasionally been storms casually stirred up by gods in bad moods.
Now that the gods were gone, who was controlling the weather? Or were the laws of nature in this age simply such that storms could grow legs-wings-and run around on their own?
Forget it. None of its business.
Valeria turned its enormous body, preparing to fly around it. Its judgment was simple: the long slumber had made it much more cautious than before.
There was no need to take risks. It had endured all those years; a little more time made no difference. Finding the main body was more important.
It banked, tilting its wings slightly, its body tracing an arc through the air as it flew south.
Roar!!!
An enormous sound came from behind. It was not thunder, but some creature's roar, so loud that it formed a shock wave visible to the naked eye.
The shock wave swept past Valeria's left side, shaking loose several stone scales on its wing. They tumbled a few times in midair before falling toward the ground.
Valeria's left eyeball shifted, glancing behind it.
An enormous golden creature with three heads was emerging from the storm.
[What the hell?] Valeria's mind went blank for an instant.
It thought it was dreaming. No, it did not dream. That figure was far too enormous-Valeria considered itself a behemoth among behemoths.
But compared with the golden, three-headed creature behind it, its body was like a dried-out lizard encountering a prehistoric giant crocodile that had just crawled out of the sea. The shadow of just one of that creature's wings could envelop its entire dragon body.
Valeria beat its wings faster.
Roar! The roar behind it sounded again.
[What are you roaring for? I can't understand you!]
Valeria cursed inwardly and flew on without looking back. It did not know why that golden three-headed monster was chasing it, nor could it remember ever offending such a being.
Even in the age of gods, it had rarely gone out. Most of the time, it had been sealed somewhere, sent out on missions after awakening, then sealed away again once its tasks were complete.
It knew few beings, and even fewer knew it. The creature behind it was something it had never seen or heard of, something it had no recollection of whatsoever.
Ignore it. Fly faster.
Valeria beat its wings fiercely, the purple crystals on its wing membranes blazing with dazzling light. Its speed surged in an instant as it streaked across the sky like a purple meteor.
But it did not shake off the storm behind it. The storm was faster, that mass of black clouds following on its heels as though it had eyes. Whichever direction it flew, the clouds followed.
[Damn it, why is it still chasing me?]
Valeria no longer had its earlier composure. Its speed had already reached its limit, the purple crystals on its wing membranes flashing wildly as though overloaded.
Yet the storm behind it kept drawing closer and closer, close enough that it could feel the pressure of the wind blowing from behind and smell the scorching scent of lightning in the clouds.
It could not help looking back.
An enormous opening was suddenly torn in the black storm, and a golden dragon head larger than its entire body emerged from the clouds.
Six golden slit pupils locked onto it at once.
The pupil of Valeria's left eye contracted sharply.
It wanted to shout something. To ask who the other party was, to explain that it was merely passing through, to say that if it had caused any offense, they could talk it over.
But before it could speak, a bolt of golden lightning erupted from the golden behemoth's throat, rapidly growing larger and larger and larger in its vision-
Then there was nothing.