Where was this giant taking her?
Fenna followed the giant with curiosity and confusion, stepping into this endless expanse of yellow sand. The wind-whipped dust in the distance seed to form a hazy barrier, blurring the boundaries between heaven and earth. Unbeknownst to her, the city ruins ford by black rugged boulders had already vanished into the depths of the sandstorm. By the ti Fenna thought to look back, she could see nothing.
The Sky Light was gradually brightening, and the heat in the desert was rising steadily.
Fenna waved her hand and summoned a giant sword made of ice, sheltered by the Storm Goddess to combat the discomfort the desert brought her. She looked up at the sky again.
The giant crack emitting an ominous red glow still covered the whole world. It might have been an illusion, but it seed the blood-like edges of the crack had expanded since she first saw them.
Though she could not see the sun anywhere, the whole sky was still brightening—as if the concept of "sunlight" had been imprinted in so sort of "cycle" between heaven and earth. Even if the sun had vanished, its left behind light and warmth would still appear "on ti" in this world.
The giant was captivated by the ice sword in Fenna’s hands.
He had seen the giant sword in her hands before, but he hadn’t witnessed Fenna summoning the sword—it seed to him a wondrous power.
"Your sword, it is forged from a force not of this world, a marvelous power that can summon miracles amidst the yellow sands—I have not seen ’ice’ in a very long ti."
"This power was bestowed upon by the deity I worship," Fenna quickly explained, "He is the ruler of storms and oceans. The ice is an extension of the storm’s authority."
"The ruler of the oceans?" the giant mused softly, "Storms and oceans... We are very, very far from any coastline, and the so-called seas have long since dried up. However, I still rember, they once built a glorious city by the sea. That city had pure white outer walls and many blue roofs. They nad the city after a gemstone and constructed the first ship that could cross the oceans there..."
Fenna quietly listened to the giant recount these ancient forgotten tales, relaying the information she heard to others in Dreamscape, still engaged elsewhere. As the surrounding heat continued to rise, she picked up her giant sword, took a bite from the tip, and chewed the ice while asking curiously, "And then?"
"Then, that city vanished inside a bubble when the Corrosion occurred. Many things changed in ways I cannot comprehend," the giant said, unable to help but glance again at Fenna, observing the bitten edge of the ice sword. "...So that’s what it’s used for?"
"It’s a bit hot here," Fenna said sowhat embarrassedly, "I... am not very good with heat."
"Fear of heat, that’s good. Feeling discomfort in one’s environnt is a proof of being alive," the giant responded, then halted his steps, "We have arrived, traveler."
Fenna stopped as well, following the giant’s gaze with a suddenly dazed expression.
Ahead of them lay a massive... sinkhole, like an astonishing scar embedded in the earth, and unbeknownst to her, she and the giant had reached the edge of the great pit, only steps from the crater wall.
After a brief mont of astonishnt, she cautiously took a step forward to survey the pit. She noticed that the pit walls looked like glazed glass, the black rocks displaying the sa lted and solidified state as the ruins they’d seen earlier. She saw that the surrounding sands had receded, exposing the terribly cracked ground. The scale of the pit was imnse, seemingly large enough to accommodate a City-State as vast as Prand...
At the center of the pit, one could vaguely discern sothing tall and towering. It resembled an astonishingly large tower, but now only its twisted and grim exterior remained. Around this "tower," the remains of lted roads and various scattered stones were barely visible.
"What is that?" Fenna asked, pointing at the tower in surprise.
The giant did not answer directly but slowly made his way to the edge of the pit and sat down, placing his massive staff beside him, lost in thought.
After how long, he finally broke the silence.
"I can’t rember many things, but I do rember this place... Realizing that the whole world was gradually collapsing beyond human salvation, they built a massive archive here. This pit you see is the ruins of the archive—they tried to leave behind every evidence of their existence in a single building.
"Everything you can imagine, culture, art, history, countless scrolls and artifacts, as well as a seed bank and large sculptures, all were stored within a securely protected sturdy warehouse. They even produced huge stone slabs, carved with the most stable materials, inscribing simple introductions about the world and civilization on the stones.
"Books decay quickly, advanced recording devices are prone to malfunction, intricate storage dia cannot be read directly, but words carved in stone can last thousands, even millions of years. Thus, those stones were placed at the very heart of the archive, considered its ’heart.’
"They could find no more secure and enduring way to record than this."
"Then... what happened next?" Fenna asked, even though she already knew the answer before she spoke.
"The stones turned into bubbles," the giant lowered his head, looking into Fenna’s eyes. "In one second."
A feeling of suffocation suddenly overwheld Fenna.
"The artworks lted, flowed like water, and seeped into every crack. Scrolls turned into shadows, branded onto the walls, while sculptures sublid into the air, transforming into pale mists. Then, the entire building began to sink, crumble, and the ground itself caved in," the giant lifted his hand, pointing towards the deep pit, "People gathered there, the last survivors. They were there to mourn their civilization and had prepared to die with dignity. But in truth, mourning and dying with dignity were also a luxury.
"Just before their eyes, everything they had docunted transford into... indescribable things.
"This is the reality: when the world itself steps towards destruction, nothing docunted ’on the world’ will survive."
"But..." Fenna opened her mouth, and after a long ti, she hesitatedly lifted her hand and asked again, "That tower..."
"When the entire building began to collapse, that was the last safe place," the giant spoke softly, "They ran towards it, just like many, many years ago when the first great fire spread to their dwellings in the forest, they ca down from the trees and ran to the safe plains. Only this ti, the ’great fire’ was not just going to burn the forest...
"Only one person made it there. I don’t rember what he looked like or whether he was a man, a woman, an old person, or a child.
"He stopped there, then stood and died.
"In his last minute of death, he grew swiftly tall like a mountain, seemingly reaching towards the sky, that scene... it was as if the scale was all wrong, because their ’science’ told that the human body structure could not possibly support that size..."
The giant lifted his head, looking at the "tower" in the center of the pit, as if that ancient confusion still lingered in his heart after such a long ti.
Fenna finally understood what it was.
It was the last person in this world.
She slowly widened her eyes, in shock, she stared fixedly at the center of the "huge pit."
Even from such a distant distance, she could see the astonishing scale of that "high tower," taller than the tallest tower in Prand City and even more magnificent than the cathedral of the City-State, how could it... be a person?
However, gradually, Fenna could make out the chilling details in the bizarre, grotesque appearance of the far-off "high tower." She saw the lted, deford structures raised like arms and the twisted torsos. For a mont, she even thought she saw a part of the high tower embedded with a terrifying... face.
But she knew it was an illusion, at such a distance, even if there were such details on the tower, she would not be able to see them clearly.
Moreover, it was already so distorted that it was impossible to make out its original form.
Fenna found it hard to describe her current feelings; she only knew that her heart had been struck, and a massive question nearly overwheld her mind. She gazed long at the black "tower," watching the last monunt left by the destroyed ancient civilization, then slowly lifted her head, gazing for a long ti at the sky covered with red cracks, where the sun could not be seen.
After who knows how long, perhaps in an attempt to shift the heavy feeling in her heart, she suddenly asked, "The sun... did it disappear at that ti too?"
"The sun?"
Fenna raised her hand, pointing at the sky, "Wasn’t it used to be different, the sun that illuminated this world?"
"Oh, yes, the sun, I almost forgot; it was the sun..."
The giant murmured softly, his tone containing a kind of wistfulness that Fenna couldn’t understand. Then he lifted his hand, rummaging through his tattered robe for a while, appearing to finally find sothing from deep within his clothes, and then brought it out, placing it in front of Fenna.
"The sun is here."
The giant said softly.
Fenna stared dumbfounded at him, at the object he was showing her, at the small, bright luminous sphere quietly lying in the giant’s palm...
It glowed brightly, radiating a bit of warmth as if floating there, in a dinsion parallel to reality.
So... small, yet calm.
"It fell down," the giant looked at Fenna calmly and continued, "I picked it up."
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