Chapter 313: Truth
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
The giants and the dragons were the two oldest species that still existed.
When the two Goddesses of Chaos and Order were on friendly terms, they hoped that this world wouldn’t be so desolate. Countless species were born thanks to the dual influences of Chaos and Order.
Things from ancient times barely existed today—only countless epics and legends but as tales. At the very least, the Golden Species of gold elves, metal dragons, angels, and titan giants were the four strongest species in the world at the time. They were the victors of the first Holy War.
However, time was forever heartless. The descendants of these former rulers which had lost their crowns typically had it worse off than even commoners.
All of the first generation’s Golden Species had it hard as time passed. The gold elves were overthrown by their relatives, the royal elves. The gold elves could now be considered extinct, unless you counted Harloys. The angels’ descendants became the servants of the Gods, and the titan giants only remained in legends and archaeological records.
Very few would remember them as far too much time had passed. These Golden Species were unable to withstand the eternal warfare, and either disappeared from the pages of history or hid themselves from the world. By the time the second Holy War arrived, the strongest species were the fallen giants and the moon elves from the royal elves.
The moon elves that the gold elves viewed as traitors eventually lost their absolute control over the entire elven species, which also resulted in the entire elven species losing their ruling position as the most dominant species in the world. Their opponents, the giants, didn’t have it easy, either. After the titan giants disappeared, there was no longer one single ruling giant species. The giants split up into two factions during the Holy War, and lost too many of their own from infighting. By now, the giants had lost most of their Intelligence stat and were nothing more than isolated tribes.
There were some legends, old folk tales that said some giant species had decided to hide out in another plane, creating a country with only giants in order to avoid the Intelligence-lowering curse that the God of Intelligence placed on their species.
However, the reality of the situation was that an extreme majority of the giants were now cursed with low Intelligence—most giants now possessed that of a wild beast’s level. Any giants which appeared in highly populated areas would become easy targets for an intelligent species, an army squadron would wipe them out.
It could be said that as a species that formerly ruled the world, the giants were now in a pathetic state.
However, I obtained some information from Ayer about the truth of the giants’ downfall. There was only one reason for the giants’ downfall—the titan giants were gone.
This was just as if a hierarchical empire suddenly lost its ruler. Meanwhile, all the powerful feudal lords under the ruler were unwilling to listen to anyone else, not to mention the skillful manipulation of the giant factions by other species and the giants’ prideful natures and worship of the strong. It was only natural that the giants ended up causing their own ruin.
Now then, the most foundational problem was that in this entire world, the only existences capable of challenging the titan giants from the first generation which themselves challenged the Gods… well, the only ones I could think of were the very same Gods. And, judging from the fact that almost the entire giant species had been cursed with low Intelligence by the God of Intelligence for so long now, the giants were truly disliked by the Gods.
Well, it was too difficult to know what precisely happened as it all occurred far too long ago. Nor was it necessary or meaningful to find out the exact details. After all, the God of Intelligence Kasodia was a Main God from the first generation who had also died off countless generations ago. But even though Kasodia died so long ago, his Intelligence-lowering curse on the giants still remained effective. Kasodia one hundred percent must have been one of the top-level strongest Gods of his time.
If the titan giants finally returned, they would be able to dispel the Intelligence-lowering curse on the giants. That would finally reunite all the separate and isolated giant tribes under their rule, which would be quite “fun” for us.
“They’re traitors, schemers, and attempted God-slayers. They’re the enemies of all the Gods.”
When Ayer discussed the ancient Titan Giant King with me, he even became gravely serious, which was quite rare for him. When I asked where the titan giants were currently slumbering, Ayer said that even he didn’t know. That was because he didn’t participate in the exiling of the titan giants back in that year.
And from what I knew from the game’s information on the “Attack of the Giants” game expansion pack, the titan giants were destined to return. When they returned, the titan giants unhesitatingly declared war on both sides of the Holy War. The titan giants had overwhelming power, making the Holy War even more chaotic.
“They’ll return sooner or later, but I doubt they’ll return in time for this Holy War.”
“No, they’ll definitely return and become a part of this Holy War.”
Ayer was quite confident of his prediction at the time, but I unhesitatingly told him that he was wrong. Even now, three hundred plus years later, I could still remember quite clearly how frustrating it was to fight against the Titan Giant King in the game. I also knew, due to my knowledge of the “Attack of the Giants” expansion pack, that the titan giants were one hundred percent certain to return in time for the Holy War.
However, this was obviously a late-game-scenario expansion pack. After all, with how powerful the titan giants were, no beginner-level players would be able to defeat them.
Even though I knew that the titan giants were destined to arrive, I never expected it to be so quick. However, if I analyzed everything that happened, it seemed likely that their early arrival had to do with me.
“Due to what happened to the Earth Elemental Plane, the Seal of the Four Elements on the titan giants has begun collapsing earlier than scheduled. It’s only a matter of time before the titan giants break free!”
The elements complemented and countered each other. That was the very basic foundation of this world. And the strongest possible seal in this world was the Seal of the Four Elements, which imitated the elements’ natural laws. As long as the Seal of the Four Elements was active, the four elements would cycle naturally within it and create a mini dimension with no exit.
The fundamental workings of this seal imitated how the Goddess Eich created the world. Theoretically speaking, since it was an existence that drew from the power of Creation itself, there was no other seal in existence that could possibly be more powerful.
Not to mention, this real Seal of the Four Elements was obviously of far higher quality than my imitation. The power of the four elements that it drew from was the four Elemental Planes themselves. The mini dimension it created became a real sealed-off dimension of its own. No matter how many eons passed, or how often the Elemental Gods changed, as long as the four Elemental Planes still existed, the Seal of the Four Elements would remain in effect.
However, not long ago, I went ahead and broke the very foundation of any Elemental Plane—the Elemental Throne. This was all in order to kill off that Emordilorcan. To make an analogy of the seriousness of my actions, I basically killed off a group of hens all in order to destroy one egg, which directly caused one-fourth of the Seal of the Four Elements to collapse.
If this was a normal, peaceful time period, this imbalance could be fixed by itself. However, it just happened to be that two of the Elemental Gods, Camdian and Aylos, were still out and about doing as they pleased, their whereabouts unknown. The wind and water elements were increasing at a furious pace, while the Earth Elemental Plane was absorbing the earth element back into it to rebuild its Elemental Throne. Balancing the elements was practically impossible.
“So the titan giants’ return is only a question of time? But what does this have to do with the dragons? Why does that memory crystal have dragons in it?”
I asked Halent quite directly when I saw this, and he directly answered my question.
Long eons of time were capable of wiping away anything. Very few noticed how the Gold and Sulfur Species from the ancient eras hadn’t all left the mortal plane. The only species one could still commonly see in the mortal plane was the dragons.
Of course, the fact that dragons had been able to survive and maintain a chain of descendants for so long was solely due to the fact that at one point in time, the dragons got tired of the entire Holy War. The entire dragon species managed to secretly come to an accord with themselves and withdrew all dragons and dragon descendants from both sides. This was how the dragons were basically the only species that survived intact all the way from the first generation.
As a whole, dragons were a species that typically had fixed personalities based on their specific species. There were many different types of dragons, and even more countless semi- and half-dragon species. However, the most active dragons in the mortal plane were only two major types: the color dragons and the metal dragons. The third major type of dragons, the gem dragons, were rarely found in the mortal plane. Gem dragons also had incredibly unique abilities and personalities. Although gem dragons physically resembled other dragons on the outside, there were huge internal differences. Not to mention, dragons were one of the few species capable of traveling across dimensions and surviving in other planes. It wasn’t strange that there were dragon species living in other planes.
The metal dragons were representatives of Order, with the gold and silver dragons being the most well-known. Since these dragons were the creations of Order, they typically had their own desires and self-discipline and were the easiest dragon species to interact with.
Color dragons were the favored children of the Chaos Goddess Cynthia. Obviously, the color dragons received their names due to the color of their scales. In comparison to the metal dragons, the color dragons were far more difficult to interact with. Their representatives included the Underworld black and red dragons, as well as the blue dragon before me. White dragons were notoriously stupid, no better than beasts. Black dragons were sly and liked to use underhanded tricks. Red dragons were combat maniacs and also loved to scheme. Blue dragons had incredibly high attack power, while green dragons enjoyed preying on intelligent creatures, especially the elves. Green dragons and elves were species that considered each other mortal enemies. If I had to try and find a common point about all the color dragons, it would be that they were all immensely recalcitrant and super greedy. They also all loathed humans and loved to stir up trouble.
The dragons weren’t that peaceful as a species even amongst themselves. After all, just like humans, even dragon families had individuals with differing personalities that would cause huge conflicts. Not to mention, each dragon species had vastly different personality types. Red dragons and silver dragons were mortal enemies. Gold dragons and black dragons were mortal enemies as well. There had been plenty of internal wars amongst the dragons. In fact, the losers of those wars, the black and red dragons, had their entire species be exiled to the Underground.
Since dragons each had immense personal power levels and lacked any natural predators, most living on the surface lived by themselves. One dragon would typically have just some hounds, griffins, and other such underling species, which was enough for their own territory. At the very most, dragons would only live together in small groups of three to five. Due to the fact that some dragons from Ayer’s generation were still alive, the Dragon City of the surface still had a certain degree of control over the entire dragon species. However, this control basically amounted to zero unless there was a situation that threatened the entire dragon species.
“We dragons made an agreement with the Main Gods of Chaos and Order from that generation that allowed our entire species to bow out of the Holy War. The condition was that we dragons would forever keep guard on the titan giants, over the world, ‘Alidashya,’ where they were trapped.”
“So what you’re saying is that the dragons have now lost control?”
“Although there were already signs of it collapsing before this, starting two months ago, the Seal of the Four Elements suddenly started decaying at a much faster rate. It’s only a matter of time before the titan giants reawaken. I’m not sure on the specific time they’ll return, but it will definitely take less than ten years. However, the giants will soon return to their original Intelligence levels.”
Two months ago? That coincided exactly with my little excursion in the Earth Elemental Plane. Well, it was probably best not to tell that to Halent.
“Don’t you dragons have any backup plans? Have you dragons never prepared for the worst?”
“…Originally, with my power level, I never could have learned such information to begin with. However, an ancient dragon I met recently told me that she and Emperor Orloss had intended to connect the Undead Planes to the titan giants’ sealed dimension Alidashya so that the Undead Emperors and titan giants would get stuck fighting each other, weakening both their factions and killing two birds with one stone. This was an agreement that the Bardi Emperor made with the dragons. However, this is evidently no longer possible.”
Halent’s tone wasn’t a complaining one. Still, this was obviously connected to me… which was why I did my best to not understand what he implied and glanced at the sky.
“What about the Bardi Empire fortress destroyed by that forbidden spell? And what’s going on in the Mage Country?”
“That fortress was actually the base of operations for another Undead Emperor. A large amount of undead were already appearing there, and the necessary human sacrifices had almost reached the required amount for a Dimensional Descent. If not dealt with, that fortress would have become a second Port Victoria. That was why Emperor Orloss requested a forbidden spell mage from the Truth Symposium to wipe out the entire fortress.”
“So,you’re telling me that the highest levels of both countries have actually been in secret contact with each other.”
“No, Emperor Orloss only had contact with a single specific archmage from the Truth Symposium. The only other existence that knows all this is the surface Dragon City’s representative in the Bardi Empire: Lady Evelyn. It’s also due to Lady Evelyn’s orders that I’m telling you all of this. Yep, this is only one-third of Lady Evelyn’s orders.”
“Evelyn?”
“Yes. Lady Evelyn said you wouldn’t dare to ever forget about her. Do you remember now?”
“…My memory isn’t that bad. Isn’t she Cher’s adopted mother?”
Judging by how Halent’s expression suddenly became strange, I seemed to have missed the mark. He suddenly tightened his grip on the letter he was holding, burning it to ashes with a lightning strike.
“…Lady Evelyn said that if you truly forgot about her, apart from forbidding me to give you this letter, I absolutely must inform you of one thing.”
“What is it?”
Could Evelyn truly be one of my old acquaintances, to the extent where she even knew that I might intentionally forget about her? Which was why she was even prepared for this situation?
“Lady Evelyn’s exact words are as so: ‘Cher is your daughter, which is why you’re banned from doing anything to her…'”
“Teehee! Now you have your confirmation.” The silly cat was rolling around on the table, evilly making her presence suddenly known.
[Congratulations for receiving additional glorious titles… Would you prefer to receive one from the ‘Oni Chichi’ series or the ‘Jinxed’ series? I have a title called ‘Cher has such an excellent father’ under the Oni Chichi series, while I have one called ‘I’m really impressed with you—by Pele’ under the Jinxed series. Forget it, I’ll give you a huge discount today and give you both titles at once. Your title shall be ‘Cher has such an excellent father, named Roland Pele.’] [1]
Note:
[1] TL/N: Pele is a famous soccer player who is notorious for jinxing whichever soccer/football team he picks in the World Cup.