Chapter 1056 — Concerning the Third Story

Hragor quickly sensed the air around him, then raised a hand and swept it through the air. More spheres of light emerged from the air and flew swiftly to every corner of the space, lighting the whole open area completely.

He saw a place fallen in and twisted, and the floor and curving walls in his vision told him at once that this was the circular hall he had once known best. His gaze then fell, almost of its own accord, upon the center of the hall—the raised dais of the sacred throne, where the god had once stood for so long.

For one brief instant he seemed truly to see a familiar figure standing there, watching him with that same calm, indifferent expression as always. But the next instant the vision was gone—there was no familiar figure in his sight at all. There was, however, something... he had never expected.

Hragor froze where he stood. And in that brief moment of stupefaction, two familiar presences came from behind him: Ba Yang'er and An Qian had finally caught up, following the traces Hragor had left, and entered this circular hall, buried in the ruins yet still relatively intact.

The hall was brightly lit by the illumination spheres, its interior laid bare at a glance. Ba Yang'er and An Qian squeezed out through the doorway, now reduced to a small opening. Their first glimpse was of Hragor standing ahead of them, and they were just about to step forward and ask what had happened when they noticed the direction of his gaze—and followed it to the thing at the center of the hall.

"This is..." An Qian felt the corner of his eye twitch involuntarily, a strange and complex feeling surging up in him all at once—wariness, vigilance, tension, and yet utter absurdity. "This is what you sensed?"

Hragor stepped forward to where the sacred throne had once stood. His gaze rested on the pale-golden dragon egg, and for a long while he said nothing. At last he nodded: "...It is indeed this. Now I can be certain."

"What is it?" Ba Yang'er came up behind him and asked instinctively.

An Qian said flatly from the side, "Can you not see? It is a dragon egg."

"Of course I know it is a dragon egg!" Ba Yang'er said at once. "I am asking how it came to be here—this dragon egg, how... how is it in this place?!"

"If my senses and my guess are right, it was probably not here a few minutes ago," Hragor said in a low, heavy voice, his expression complicated. "I saw just now the convergence and flow of a certain... 'thing.' It separated out from every corner of this land and gathered in this great hall to form this dragon egg. All of this truly happened just now."

"...Some kind of arrangement made in advance?" An Qian's mind leapt at once. "Look closely again—is this... 'Him'?"

There was no need for An Qian's reminder; Hragor was already studying the dragon egg closely. He knew that he had received too much immersion at the god's side and that his very essence had changed, which was why he could see certain "information" ordinary dragons could not—and with these special eyes, he observed it earnestly for a long time before shaking his head: "No. 'He' has not returned. At least I can be certain that this is absolutely not 'the god.'"

"This... defies explanation..." Ba Yang'er's brows were tightly knit. As a former researcher, he was now mired in profound bewilderment. "This does not fit the part of the theory we know..."

"Which is why it belongs to the part we have not known for a million years," An Qian said, glancing at Ba Yang'er. And just then, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly noticed something near the pale-golden dragon egg.

It was a metal plate of unknown material, lying quietly among the rubble and shattered stone. It seemed to have been buried here for a very long time, waiting all the while for an outsider to find it. And the instant he saw it, a string of strange thoughts rose in An Qian's mind—even though the temple had collapsed, even though the entire city had been razed to the ground, this metal plate had not been buried deep where no one could find it, as though some inconceivable power had been toying with cause and coincidence, bringing it before him at this very moment.

Hragor noticed the metal plate as well. Following an instinct deep in his heart, he stepped toward the heap of rubble, reached out and pulled it from the broken stones, then fixed his gaze upon the thing, no more than a foot square.

The next second, as his eyes fell upon the metal plate, text appeared on its surface of its own accord, and in the instant he saw those words, the eyes of Hragor, and of Bayangar and Anqian, who had stepped up close behind him, froze at once:

"Article One: 'Gods,' as a natural phenomenon, never truly perish in their essence.

"Article Two: What mortals perceive as 'gods' are merely ripples born of the interplay between the aforementioned natural phenomenon and mortals, that 'community of observers.'

"Article Three: Though gods never perish, the process of interaction between gods and mortals is controllable. It can be terminated, transferred, actively strengthened or weakened, or subjected to further interference.

"Article Four: Gods and mortals alike are but tiny wavelets upon a far greater ripple.

"Article Zero: If you have seen these things, then it proves that all of this is correct. If you—"

Hragor was suddenly seized by a spell of dizziness. In that brief instant, he seemed to see some text surface after "Article Zero" on the metal plate; he even glimpsed the content of those words, comprehended certain knowledge he absolutely could not comprehend, absolutely could not permit to stand—yet the next instant he found that spot blank. He had not seen what he had seen, nor understood what he had understood—he did not know whether the first four articles he had just read had changed, nor whether he himself, or the world in his eyes, had been reorganized. His gaze drifted downward of its own accord, and he no longer remembered that another conclusion had followed Article Zero.

Certain memories dispersed with the wind, leaving in the high dragon priest's mind only a ripple that none could perceive.

Hragor read to the end, where new text surfaced at the bottom of the metal plate:

"Entrust all of this to Gao Yang Cecil—this is the necessary element of the third story."