Chapter 282

The Cosmic War (I)

Green pastures stretched everywhere, spanning horizons all around and bleeding into the tall, lush mountains that pierced the clouds. Sounds of rushing rivers and tiding oceans adjoined the natural symphony, wherein the wind would occasionally join with its own voice. All seemed ethereal, all seemed calm.

Cain walked a winding path up a mountain, the surrounding trees stretching up like green giants, blocking the sun. There were no chirps of the birds or the songs of the crickets, and there were no hushes of the rushing critters anywhere to be heard. The only sound, beyond those of nature, were his own boots stomping on the unthreaded path.

He continued walking, unfazed. His goal was the tip of the mountain, the tallest in the surrounding range, and he wasn’t going to stop. It felt as though he was in kind of a trance, as though there was a hand beyond guiding him… and he gave himself over and let it. It was halfway up the mountain when he heard the first sound beyond those of his own—it was a low growl, an attempt at a majestic roar, and it barely registered in Cain’s ears. He paused, glancing sideways.

Beyond a tall bush and the surrounding trees, there was a wide and spacious clearing in the middle of the mountain, hosting a rather small lake. Its waters were remarkably tranquil and clear, its bottom barely a ten or so feet deep. It was empty of life, however, but it aided life beside it. There, just north of him, was a tall cave boring into the mountain. Cain carved out a path toward it and walked in, entering the complete darkness unafraid still.

He followed the low growl that led him deeper in through the curving paths, some wider and some narrower, until he likely reached the heart of the mountain. There, the space opened up further, the tall ceiling rising like a skyscraper, over a thousand feet tall altogether. Embedded in the stone walls were shining gems and crystals that formed a small constellation of their own within here, illuminating the massive cave grandly.

At the far edge of the cave, cradled near the dripping droplets of water that formed a tiny pond, Cain spotted an equally tiny figure, its scales ebony-black, eyes like galaxies, shining. He can’t have been larger than a cow, Cain mused, seeing the figure. Just then, the tall man appeared next to him, cradled in a skin-dyed shawl.

“That was me,” he said. “Two hundred years of age.”

“You were alone?” Cain asked.

“Yes,” the Dragon nodded. “That was our practice, before the Cosmic War. Newborn babes were left on a new world with enough Mana to feed on for over three hundred years, just enough for our Springrowth. It taught us independence, self-sustainability, strength, among other things. Eventually, though, once the Cosmic War was in full swing, we didn’t dare leave our babes alone. Not like this, anyway.”

The scenery shifted as though guided by the Dragon voice—which, admittedly, it likely was—and Cain was now staring at a tiny formation of Dragons. Despite the fact that there were only four, they spanned a sea worth of coverage, and they were all staring at the structure that was taller than the sky itself—the Tower. The behemoth shone in resplendent cosmic radiance, outshining even the star in the sky during the midday.

Hovering near the Tower were over a hundred figures, all humanoid shaped, but clearly of very diverse backgrounds. There were a few that weren’t all that different than humans, a few that were just remarkably taller than normal humans, and most that clearly had nothing to do with the humans. Many-limbed, many-eyed, many-mouthed, and many-all-else creatures spanned the horizon, the mana surging within them causing Cain’s heart to pause.

“This was it,” the Dragon chimed in at that point, appearing once again next to him. “For all the Cycles and the innumerable dead, this was where it all began. On the plain fields underneath the clear skies, when my kind was told to behave… or expire. And… we chose to expire, I suppose.”

“Foolish beasts!!” a voice in the sky spoke, shaking the world in the process. “You would dare disobey the One’s Decree?! Do you wish for your head to fall clean near your dead body?!”

“They are animals, Kur,” another voice spoke, though this one was far softer, far more feminine. “It is a miracle we can even communicate with them.”

“Exactly. What do they know of the Light and the Holiness of the One? We should just wipe them out and move on.”

“For someone so tiny,” it was a Dragon that spoke this time, a voice clearly distinguished with dignity beyond reprieve and pride unbent and unbroken. One of the four, silver-scaled and golden-eyed, stood up on its hind legs and spread out its wings until they became a shade against the cosmic rays. “You sure do flash forth grand ideas. I suggest you take your toy over there and disappear from this place—you are no longer welcome.”

“Huh? The beast dares talk back to me?! Kill them! Fucking kill the sons of bitches!” Cain sighed, shaking his head. At least, he mused, it was good to know that it wasn’t just humans of Earth that were deeply fucked on virtually every conceivable level—that seemed to be the case for all species bearing ego.

“Ennan, burn them.”

Among the four Dragons, it wasn’t the silver-scaled one or the largest one or even the four-eyed one that was the most unique, it was the one that flapped its wings and arose above the others. The Dragon had two heads and eight tails altogether, and though it appeared neither the mightiest nor the wisest, the quantity of Mana begin displaced with each flap of those wings was… beyond terrifying.

“That is—was Ennan,” the tall Dragon spoke once again. “Twin-headed Terror, they used to call him. He would be the first adult Dragon that fell—I believe it was eighteen Cycles into the war, when he was old and beyond worn out from fighting. He’d hidden himself on his home planet… and they found him. We still aren’t certain of their numbers, but considering we found millions of skeletons lying about… they must have been many.”

The humanoid creatures began firing off dazzling skills and spells, each more resplendent than the last, each one dazing Cain’s experienced eyes. Yet… they all were like tiny droplets of water being tossed against the stone, expecting to chisel it. The Dragon ignored them and merely gaped its two maws, swallowing the world’s worth of Mana and blowing out a cone-shaped blast of fire that swallowed everything and everyone. It was an inferno akin to nothing Cain had ever seen before. It was as though an ocean spawned in midair and the tallest waves imaginable surged forward, swallowing everything.

This was no fight—not even a skirmish, really. It was just a brutal beating, an unimpeded slaughter against which neither the majestic Tower nor those who fought for its namesake could do much. Cain sighed at the sight; he very much lacked the perspective to truly understand the monumental reality that he was witnessing, but at least he was aware that this was likely the genesis of… everything that he knew and lived.

“It doesn’t seem it, does it?” the Dragon asked abruptly.

“What?” Cain asked back.

“Like the beginning of the greatest war in the history of cosmos.” He said. “It doesn’t, huh?”

“Every war is always started with a single shot,” Cain said. “Or a single swing of a blade. No matter how big they end up becoming, they all begin with a tiny moment.”

“That is true indeed,” the Dragon said. “Nonetheless, the brutal conflict began. And it lasted all my adult life and it shaped me.”

“So far, in your story, the Dragons seem like innocent rabbits,” Cain said. “In my experience, especially in long-lasting conflicts, that’s never the case.”

“Innocent to you is killing over a hundred souls who had no means of fighting back?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Dragons weren’t—aren’t innocent. I’ve already said, but going by the raw numbers, we are the monsters. All the same, we were not the ones to fire the first shot. Nor the second. We have never actively invaded the Towers or their systems and have only ever retaliated. We have sought peace on numerous occasions, but all of that fell on deaf ears. And that is how we ended up… expiring.”

“Why didn’t you?” Cain asked. “I mean, why didn’t you invade their systems and take the fight to them?”

“Because for every Divine, there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of souls that have nothing to do with our conflict,” the Dragon replied. “That is how they usually survived—running away and hiding among the populous worlds, knowing we won’t attack them.”

“... I think I was much better off not knowing anything,” Cain sighed, slumping down. “In that blissful ignorance, all I had to do was keep defeating floor bosses, keep climbing, keep getting stronger, all the way until I hit at wall... and then just retire. Now? Now I’ve got all this useless info scrambling my brain, telling me to feel stuff. Ugh.”

“I am not asking anything, really, of you,” the Dragon said. “Whoever urged you here clearly wanted us to meet. And you... you just happen to pique my interest, is all. I hardly expect much from you, little one. If even the Dragons were unable to alter the course of their fate, I very much doubt that you can exact revenge in our name or such. I have merely afforded you some knowledge so that you are not being led blindly by your ears and eyes. Things are hardly ever as they seem within the cosmos. It will do you well to keep your eyes and ears sharp and hard on the manipulation and lies. Now it’s time for you to see how my epoch was made.”

“...”

“This is how I’ve slain the third strongest creature of the Divine Hall and earned my name...”