Chapter 1040: Turning Forward

Gawain stared up at the colossal figure before him—a “God of Nature” towering like a mountain. The deity returned his gaze without a flicker of movement. Those eyes, forged from crystal and glowing with a quiet, shifting light, held no trace of human emotion that Gawain could discern.

They held this silent exchange for a moment. Gawain, convinced the god was serious, pinched his chin thoughtfully and said, “This isn’t a complicated request. I can arrange it for you, but…”

Amon’s tone lifted, “But?”

“You said your perception of the mortal world is limited, usually just vague glimpses of shifting events,” Gawain said earnestly, locking eyes with Amon. “So how do you know about something like a mage-net terminal? I don’t recall anyone ever discussing that with you.”

Amon was silent.

Gawain was silent.

After a brief pause, Gawain looked away and scanned the empty, silent Shadow Realm around them. Only a swirling chaos stretched out in every direction, with distant shards of broken earth and black clouds filling the sky—no one else seemed to be here besides him and Amon.

He turned back, as if brushing off the awkward silence, and without pressing further on how Amon knew about the mage-net terminal, he smiled faintly and said, “I’ll have Veronica or Kamail bring you a set of equipment soon—and they’ll help you set up the network devices.”

“Thank you,” Amon replied calmly.

Gawain nodded, exchanged brief farewells, and then turned away, leaving the dim, empty space behind.

Only after Gawain’s figure vanished into the courtyard of the Rebellion Fortress did Amon withdraw his gaze. His massive crystal eyes narrowed slightly. Beside him, the void and chaos stirred as an invisible magical wind swept through, shimmering dust rising as if born from the earth itself. The particles spun rapidly, coalescing into the towering form of a woman.

She stood as tall as the clock tower, her entire body composed of pure arcane energy and incomprehensible dust, studded with countless twinkling lights and magical runes along her mist-like “skirt.” This was the ancient goddess of magic—Mylmina.

As soon as her form solidified, Mylmina glanced toward the main building of the Rebellion Fortress, then turned her head to look at the giant stag Amon lying nearby. “He really left, didn’t he?”

Amon’s body remained immobile, but his gaze drifted upward. “If I said he didn’t, would you immediately rush like the wind deep into the Shadow Realm? Like before?”

“…Then I suppose he really did leave,” Mylmina sighed in relief, though a trace of displeasure soon appeared on her smoky face as she looked down at Amon. “You exposed me again just now! Was that another careless slip?”

Amon was silent for two seconds before replying indifferently, “Carelessness.”

“I tell you about interesting things in the mortal world, and you expose my whereabouts,” Mylmina scolded, clearly annoyed. “I don’t recall ever offending you!”

“I said it was carelessness,” Amon repeated in his usual calm tone. “By the way, why are you so afraid of Gawain Cecil? Even though you’ve shed your divine office, you’re still a powerful magical being. In this unique Shadow Realm, why fear a mere mortal so much?”

“I told you, I can’t return to the mortal gaze yet—I have to wait until those lingering ‘connections’ fade further,” Mylmina said, narrowing her eyes slightly. “And haven’t you felt it? That so-called ‘mortal’ carries a force that suppresses us… it’s the legacy of the Voyagers. Didn’t you sense it?”

Amon chuckled lowly, then reminded the goddess hiding in the Shadow Realm, “The legacy of the Voyagers… of course I felt it. But look down at all these things on me.”

Mylmina glanced at the crisscrossing scars and embedded shards of wreckage piercing Amon’s flesh, then recoiled with distaste. “Fine, maybe that Voyager aura on Gawain Cecil doesn’t bother you much—but it’s a different story for me. I have no desire to deal with something so dangerous.”

Amon’s tone carried a hint of teasing. “I thought the embodiment of ‘magic’ would be more curious and adventurous. You should be braver facing the legacy of the Voyagers.”

“Curiosity and exploration don’t mean recklessness. Proper caution and reason are just as necessary when seeking truth,” Mylmina said, her eyes suddenly gleaming with interest. “Speaking of which, I’m curious—why did you ask Gawain Cecil for a mage-net terminal? What do you intend to do with it?”

Amon answered coolly, “I told you—to alleviate boredom.”

“You’ve been lying here for three thousand years. You could lie here for another three thousand. For us, ‘boredom’ is a false problem—time spans of less than ten thousand years barely affect us,” Mylmina said, staring at Amon without a trace of humor. “Drop that excuse about boredom. I was the one who told you about the mage-net terminal and the mage-net itself. I know better than you what it is. The mage-net terminal connects to the mage-net, which is the carrier of the neural network. So you’re actually interested in the mental space mortals create using neural networks… What do you want to do with it?”

Amon didn’t answer directly. Instead, he asked, “You seem worried I might harm those mortals.”

“I owe them a debt,” Mylmina said seriously. “I’m a person who repays kindness. This is the first time I can follow my own nature and do what I want, so this matters to me.”

“Then rest assured, I have no intention of causing destruction. On the contrary, I hold high hopes for those humans—that’s why I’m interested in the neural network they created,” Amon said quietly, his gaze fixed on Mylmina. “That neural network washed away your divinity. That process reveals a possibility.”

“You want to try it too?” Mylmina’s tone was skeptical. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you’ll succeed. What I did required immense magical skill and… talent. Your talents clearly lie elsewhere. Besides, the non-directional unconscious thoughts in the neural network aren’t a ‘safe tool’—they’re a dangerous poison. In some ways, facing that danger is as suicidal as when you first collided with the Voyager legacy. And one more thing—the neural network isn’t some public square you can come and go as you please. It’s guarded. Though the guardian is inexperienced, the neural network is her domain.”

She paused, then spoke sincerely, “You don’t need to take that risk. You’ve already succeeded in your own way—though it took a long time, there’s no need to start down another path.”

“Don’t worry, I never planned to do that,” Amon broke the silence after Mylmina’s words. “I know the risks, and I know that dangerous guardian. Honestly, I don’t want to face her—she nearly caught you, and I’ve been lying here for three thousand years, even less skilled at running. I’m just curious—I want to understand that neural network better, how it really works. I have a feeling the third path humans seek lies deep within it.”

The courtyard fell silent. Mylmina seemed lost in thought for a moment before breaking the quiet. “So, you decided to take a step after hearing Gawain Cecil talk about that ‘ideal’—do you really believe he can find a way for mortals and gods to coexist safely, without hidden dangers?”

“Safe coexistence without hidden dangers? It’s too soon to say… Even Gawain himself only believes a third path exists. With his optimism, he wouldn’t make a conclusion like yours,” Amon said with a faint smile. “But I do believe he’ll work hard to produce results. Until then, observing more isn’t a bad idea, right?”

“I can agree with that. But do you really have no other motives?”

“Other motives? There are some,” Amon said softly, letting out a long sigh. “Honestly, after learning about all the changes in the mortal world, staying here… it’s pretty boring.”

Is it really boredom?

Mylmina watched Amon, bound to the shattered earth, quietly. Perhaps he was telling the truth, but she couldn’t understand it—she couldn’t truly grasp what it felt like to be sealed in one place by the Voyager legacy for three thousand years.

Freed from divine constraints, she could run freely across this endless expanse, sprinting from the Rebellion Courtyard to the deepest reaches of the Shadow Realm, sometimes wandering the Shadow World. She was never bored.

With that thought, the shimmering dust around her flickered again. Suddenly, she turned and dashed away like a gust of wind.

Amon watched her vanish without moving.

“(Gods damn it)…”

…

On the continent of Loren, ruled by humans and other intelligent races, the wheels of history rolled steadily forward. Civilization was advancing along an unprecedented path.

But on a distant northern continent, progress had been frozen for 1.87 million years. Now, at last, its stalled wheels began to turn again—or rather, were given the chance to turn.

The gods had vanished.

The Cradle was gone.

The chains that had bound this land for millions of years, the eternal shelter, had all disappeared.

This land was free. Yet in the first seventy-two hours of freedom, Talrond lay dormant—victors crouched in the scorching dust, the howling winds blowing in from distant seas. No one cheered this victory, and no one stepped forward to record this historic turning point.

Along the shattered eastern coast, in the utterly destroyed Argondor, and across the continent’s blazing rift valleys, surviving dragons and countless ruined war machines lay still, scattered like lifeless stones amid Talrond’s ruins.

With no new orders and no tasks to fulfill, most of the Omega terminals stopped moving. Occasionally, a dragon would take flight, or a few remaining transport machines would fly through dust-filled skies, delivering scarce supplies to sustain the last survivors on this continent.

The stillness lingered for a long time—until the fierce winds from the sea finally swept away the dust clouds high above, until the elemental rift at the continent’s heart slowly sealed shut, until the great fire in the City of Gods was extinguished. Only then, from deep beneath the ruins of Argondor, did a new sound stir.

One rumble after another echoed from the earth’s depths. The remnants of the power system were driving some crucial armored defenses. A faint tremor spread through the ruins as buried machinery thundered, pushing aside heavy soil and collapsed structures. A corner of Argondor’s ruins caved in, while the central area oddly bulged upward. This commotion lasted a full minute before finally tearing open a gap in the debris.

A massive claw, forged from metal, pushed aside shattered temple columns. The claw climbed outward, gradually revealing a thick, powerful limb, a grotesquely shaped torso, and a head that flickered with red light.

After a grueling climb, a colossal “dragon” nearly two hundred meters long—unlike any ever seen on Talrond’s land—emerged from the ruins and ascended to the heights of Argondor.

Even in a dragon realm where implant modification technology was widespread, this creature was beyond anything the dragons could have imagined—

Its body was almost entirely inorganic, made of metal and other materials. Layers of heavy alloy armor and high-strength polymers served as its scales and skin. Between the plates, shifting lights flickered, as if countless tiny machines inside were constantly at work. Yet this dragon was not purely mechanical. Part of its chest armor was an irregular transparent structure, revealing unmistakable flesh, organs, and organic fluids within the polymer shell. The living tissue and metal components were fused together—not like the implant tech once common in Talrond, but as if these organs had grown naturally into this form.

This dragon’s strange shape was not the result of implants—it was born this way.

With heavy steps, the bizarre dragon crossed over the roof of the former High Council, passed the plaza of the Upper Sanctuary and the wreckage of the elevators, and came to a “cliff” formed from half-melted rubble. There, it slowly crouched down.

Nearby, the still-functioning combat machines and surviving dragons gathered around, assembling before it as if awaiting the next command.

But Omega merely lifted its head, awkwardly controlling this unfamiliar body pieced together from steel and living matter, and quietly gazed into the distance.

It observed this world, filled with curiosity.

(End of chapter)