Chapter 966 — Those Things Missed
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
What had drawn the Pathfinders from the depths of the cosmos to this planet was something called the "disordered background pulse"—very likely a piece of technical jargon that only the Pathfinders themselves understood, but Gaoyang quickly worked out where it came from.
It was the massive descent of gods and the wars and conflicts that had erupted on this very planet.
"By the time they arrived at this planet, the whole world was already all but beyond saving. Bloodthirsty gods, with the fanatical Church in their grip, had turned the entire planet into a vast sacrificial ground, and ordinary people in that sacrificial ground were like livestock awaiting slaughter. Talund seemed the only 'pure land,' yet even it managed to protect itself only by sealing its borders and the gods' fixation.
"Faced with this, the Pathfinders chose the most drastic form of intervention... to 'demolish' the already失控—no, the already out-of-control system of gods on this planet."
At this point the Dragon God shook her head slightly.
"As for the Pathfinders, I actually know very little, so I don't know what methods they would adopt on other planets facing different circumstances, nor whether they had other ways to guide a civilization into breaking free of the 'shackles of the gods.' All I know is that on this planet they used the most effective method of all... direct attack.
"In those days, because the gods interfered in the mortal world so frequently, divine power repeatedly pierced the barrier between the mortal world and the divine realms, blurring the boundary between the world of the gods and the world of mortals. Everywhere above the planet hung 'deep-realm cavities' and fissures that had not fully closed, and through these passages the Pathfinders launched a fierce assault on every divine realm.
"To this day, many scenes from that time still linger in my memory... It was terrible fighting. The impression the Pathfinders left on me, apart from their power, was their resolve and their coldness. As though fulfilling some lofty mission, they swiftly destroyed every being on this planet that called itself a 'god,' and left behind a great many monitoring and protective installations—they hid these installations away or set them in places far from where civilizations lived. At first we thought they were preparing to seize this planet outright, but they did not... After all that was done, they departed without the slightest regret.
"And departing with them were the surviving races of this planet, their populations already sharply reduced—all except the dragons of Talund."
The Dragon God paused there, and Gaoyang immediately asked, "They didn't move against the dragons' gods either... and the reason is what you mentioned before—that the dragons and their gods were already 'bound together,' leaving them no way to intervene?"
"...That is actually only our own conjecture," the Dragon God said softly after two seconds of silence. "The Pathfinders left no explanation. Perhaps they held back out of consideration for the firm bond between the dragons and their gods; perhaps by some calculation they judged the dragons unworthy of joining their 'fleet'; or perhaps... they in fact only destroyed those gods that had fallen into madness or developed a bloodthirsty bent, and in their criteria the dragons of Talund were a target that 'needed no intervention.'
"But whatever the reason, the result was the same...
"The Pathfinders left, taking no dragons with them. The civilization of Talund was left on this already ravaged planet, and the dragons became its sole 'rulers'—like a king locked upon his throne, gazing in loneliness and misery upon this wasteland. One million eight hundred and seventy thousand years have passed; what the dragons gained, what they lost... it can no longer be said clearly."