Chapter 1056: Chapter 1055: About the Third Story

Thirty minutes later, Calador completed his surveillance of the entire camp and returned to the high platform where the three leaders were waiting.

"How’s the situation?" Andar looked at the red dragon landing on the platform. "Is there any dragon in the camp praying or doing something similar?"

"No, no dragons are praying," Calador shook his head, his expression somewhat peculiar. "Logically, it’s impossible for anyone to pray... We have paid such a huge price to break free from the shackles and mental pollution, to rebuild the gods now would be to render all that sacrifice futile."

Andar still frowned, while Balogar said in a deep voice: "...However, not all dragons have clear minds. Under severe pressure and the mental haze brought on by Enhancer backlash, those with weaker willpower might still pray for supernatural power to save themselves... Moreover, this kind of prayer has been their ’instinct’ for a long time."

"But normally... the shackles can’t be rebuilt in a short time, at least not within a species’ memory cycle," Andar shook his head. "Even if the shackles and seal returned, it would require massive faith support, which cannot be achieved by a few survivors’ pressure-driven ’conversion’ — moreover, Calador has patrolled, and there isn’t even a single dragon praying in the camp."

"But the range of Talronde is large; we can’t be sure of the situation in other areas," Balogar instinctively looked into the distance, seeming to search for something on the wilderness. "What if... a region has a large number of survivors, and they choose to rebuild the church upon waking, surpassing that threshold..."

"The likelihood is too low," Andar immediately said, and then he noticed Heragor maintaining silence since the beginning, and he couldn’t help but say, "Heragor, did you think of something?"

"I think you’re all making sense," Heragor finally lifted his head from contemplation, his gaze slowly sweeping over his two old friends. "We’ve paid a huge price performing the Coming of Age ceremony, and its effects are irreversible for at least a species memory cycle—moreover, I don’t think the Dragonkin’s will is so weak to bow in such a short time. Even if some cannot withstand the pressure and start praying again, the surviving number in Talronde is far from enough, time is far from enough... He can’t return, this doesn’t fit the theory."

Andar and Balogar exchanged glances, heavy expressions visible in each other’s eyes. Andar first looked at Heragor: "But you did feel something, right?"

"I did feel something... But don’t you think it’s strange?" Heragor’s expression was extraordinarily serious. "Why only I felt it, but there’s no echo in your minds?"

Andar and Balogar showed thoughtful expressions; they listened as the other continued speaking: "If ’He’ truly returned, then ’His’ voice should be everywhere, this is a fundamental authority of God, and cannot be resisted by any personal will... Since you can’t hear it, it means what I heard is not belonged to ’God’s voice..."

Balogar frowned: "You mean..."

Heragor didn’t immediately answer; instead, he looked towards the direction of the Ruins of Argondale, slightly squinting as if to carefully sense a subtle connection in the atmosphere. This sensing lasted several minutes before he withdrew his gaze: "...I felt something again, but you probably still didn’t hear anything, right?"

Balogar and Andar glanced at each other and simultaneously shook their heads.

"I vaguely saw," Heragor gently sighed, walking towards the edge of the high platform, gradually emanating a soft golden glow around him. The dragon’s massive silhouette slowly emerged from the glow. "I must go there to confirm the situation."

With his words, the hundred-meter-long golden dragon had already spread its enormous wings in the twilight, accompanied by the whistling sound as Magic Power stirred the air, Heragor soared into the sky, quickly flying towards the depths of the Ruins of Argondale.

Balogar and Andar stood on the high platform, perhaps the leader had left too decisively, making them momentarily unresponsive. Balogar watched the distance, only after a few seconds he couldn’t help but say: "I’m somewhat worried about his state—Andar, the leader’s condition seems off."

"...For over a million years, he served as a high-ranked Dragon Priest for the gods, I also suspect the long ’immersion’ has deeply altered him," Andar spoke in a low voice. "This change might not affect his mind but might impact his ’essence’... Calador, you and Duke More take care of the camp’s situation, Balogar and I will follow up to see the situation."

...

The thick, murky clouds once again gathered, shrouding the not-so-bright sky of Talronde. The remnants of the giant sun’s glow were obscured by the clouds, plunging the Ruins of Argondale into darkness as if cloaked by midnight.

Heragor flew over the ruins, the golden dragon resembling a meteor in the darkness. His gaze slowly swept over the city below, now drastically changed in appearance. His line of sight extended forward along the undulating ruins, reaching the collapsed districts, crumbled mountains, and those former golden palaces and luxurious roofs buried amid the mountain remains.

All were enveloped in darkness due to the dim twilight, yet within Heragor’s view, a clear pale golden path appeared. He clearly saw something unrecognizable by mortal eyes emerging from some ruins and converging like trickling streams behind a distant mound.

With a vigilant and guarded mind, he circled around the mound, where completely collapsed building roofs appeared in his view—though they were already distorted, Heragor immediately recognized some familiar structures within those ruins.

This was the former construction atop the highest peak of Argondale, a part of the "Upper Sanctum" structure. Those trickling pale golden streams ultimately gathered at this place, and this gathering process seemed to be reaching its conclusion.

Heragor immediately lowered his altitude, flying towards the heap of broken bricks and rubble. A layer of golden radiance surrounded him, turning into a human form upon landing—such a smaller form allowed him to better explore the collapsed ruins because the once grand and magnificent structures had now completely fallen apart. The corridors and doors where dragons could once walk with heads held high now only left narrow gaps.

After searching around, Heragor finally found a crack along the collapsed roof that seemed to lead deeper inside. He squinted, confirming the pale golden glow in his view, and then indiscriminately squeezed through the aperture.

The crack inside was narrow—yet it allowed free movement for him in human form. The road ahead was dark, winding like a deep cave. Heragor had to summon a light orb to assist in seeing: having lost the god’s protection, he had forfeited most divine powers, including true vision, spatial insight, immortality, and now relied only on mortal spells to act.

In this manner, he wriggled through the winding, collapsed interior of the structure for an unknown duration before noticing the surrounding space slightly open up. Continuing forward, he suddenly found the light in his vision dimming—

This means the illumination spell orb has flown into a wider space, and the surrounding emptiness causes the illumination effect of the orb to diminish.

Heragor quickly sensed the aura around him, then raised his hand and waved, more illumination spell orbs appeared in the air and swiftly flew to every corner of the space, completely lighting up the entire empty area.

He saw a toppled and twisted place; the ground and curved walls within his field of vision quickly led him to judge that this was indeed the circular hall he was once most familiar with. Then, his gaze involuntarily fell on the center of the hall — the once grand platform of the popes, and also the place where the gods had stood for a long time.

In a fleeting moment, it seemed he truly saw a familiar figure standing there, gazing at him with the same calm and indifferent expression as always. Yet in the next instant, the vision vanished; there was no familiar figure in his sight, but there was... something unexpected.

Heragor stood stunned for a moment, and during this brief daze, he sensed two familiar presences behind him: Balogar and Andar had finally caught up, following the traces Heragor left into this circular hall, buried in the ruins yet still relatively intact.

The hall was brightly lit by the illumination orbs, its internal scenery fully exposed. Balogar and Andar squeezed through the now tiny doorway, first seeing Heragor standing in front of them. Just as they were about to step forward to greet him and inquire about the situation, they immediately noticed the direction of Heragor’s gaze, and following it, they saw the object at the center of the hall.

"This is..." Andar felt an involuntary twitch at the corner of his eye, a complex mix of alertness, vigilance, tension, yet completely absurd feelings surged through him, "Is this the thing you sensed?"

Heragor stepped forward, coming to the ancient platform’s position, his gaze fell on the light gold dragon egg. Only after a long while did he nod: "...Indeed, it is this. Now I can confirm it."

"What is this?" Balogar came from behind and asked subconsciously.

Andar said expressionlessly from the side: "Can’t you see? It’s a dragon egg."

"Of course, I know it’s a dragon egg!" Balogar immediately said, "I’m asking how this thing came here—how did this dragon egg... end up in this place?!"

"If my sensing and guessing are correct, it most likely wasn’t here a few minutes ago," Heragor said in a low voice with a complex expression, "I just saw some kind of... ’thing’ converging and flowing, it exuded from every corner of this land, then gathered into this hall forming this dragon egg. All of this indeed just occurred."

"...Some kind of prior arrangement?" Andar instantly had an association, "Look carefully, is this... ’God’?"

Without Andar’s reminder, Heragor was already carefully observing the dragon egg. He knew he had long been imbued by the gods, having changed in the essence of life and thus could see some "information" that ordinary dragons could not, and with the aid of these special eyes, he observed for a long time before shaking his head: "No, ’God’ hasn’t returned, at least I can be sure this is definitely not the ’gods’."

"This... is inexplicable..." Balogar frowned deeply, as a former researcher, he was currently deeply puzzled, "This doesn’t align with the part of the theory we know..."

"So this is the part unknown to us for a million years." Andar glanced at Balogar, and at that moment, his peripheral vision suddenly caught onto something near the light gold dragon egg.

It was a metal plate of unknown material, lying quietly amid the debris and rubble. It seemed to have been buried here for a long time, awaiting an outsider’s discovery, and upon seeing it, a string of bizarre thoughts popped into Andar’s mind—even if the temple collapsed, even if the whole city had been flattened, this metal plate was not deeply buried in a place impossible to uncover, as though some inexplicable force was twisting causality and coincidence, making it appear right before him at this moment.

Heragor also noticed the metal plate, following his intuition, he stepped towards the pile of rubble, stretched his hand and picked it up from the stones, then directed his gaze to this one-foot square object.

The next instant, as his gaze landed on the metal plate, words surfaced on its surface by themselves, and seeing the words, Heragor and Balogar, who was approaching behind him, and Andar’s eyes immediately froze:

"Article One: ’God’ as a natural phenomenon, in essence, never perishes.

"Article Two: In a mortal’s eye, ’God’ is merely the ripples produced by the aforementioned natural phenomenon interacting with the ’observer group’ of mortals.

"Article Three: Although God never perishes, the interaction process between God and mortals is controllable; it can be terminated, transferred, actively enhanced, or weakened, or more interference can be done.

"Article Four: Whether God or mortals, both are minor ripples in a much larger wave.

"Article Zero: If you see this, then it proves all this is correct, if you..."

Heragor suddenly felt a bout of dizziness; in this brief instant, he saw what seemed like some words appearing behind "Article Zero" on the metal plate, he even saw the content of those words, comprehending knowledge he absolutely should not understand, knowledge that should not exist. Yet the next moment, he found there was only a blank space there; he did not see what he once saw, nor understood what he once understood—he did not know whether the first four articles he just saw had changed, nor whether he or the world he saw underwent reconstruction, his gaze naturally shifted downward, and he no longer remembered there was another conclusion after Article Zero.

Some memories drifted away like the wind, leaving only unperceivable ripples in the mind of the high-ranked Dragon Priest.

Heragor saw finally, at the end of the metal plate, new words appeared:

"Deliver all this to Gawain Cecil—this is the necessary element for the third story."

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