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"They never developed technology, but their mastery of the occult has clearly outpaced us by generations."
Inside the Iwi stone chamber, Dr. Vivienne Graham studied the prophetic murals and breathed out in wonder.
These people still lived by some of their most primitive customs , but the path they'd walked was nothing like the one surface humanity had taken. Two entirely different directions.
"So... according to the Iwi's original prophecy, Jia would awaken Mothra here, and then Godzilla and Kong would join forces to defeat Skar King?" Dr. Ishiro Serizawa frowned as he listened to Dr. Ilene Andrews translate the text carved into the stone wall.
The Iwi had abandoned spoken language long ago, but writing had survived. Their ancestors' words lived on in these murals, and Dr. Andrews, who had spent years studying the Iwi, could read them.
The prophecy, as written: after Jia descended into the Hollow Earth, she would awaken Mothra's egg among the crystal pyramids of the great hall. Mothra would then bridge the rift between Godzilla and Kong, uniting them against Skar King and Shimo.
But the prophecy had sprung more than a few leaks. For one, Mothra hadn't died in the battle with King Ghidorah , she'd left an egg here in advance, yes, but there was no "resurrection" to complete. For another, Godzilla showed no intention of coming to the Hollow Earth at all. He was almost certainly still asleep in his temple.
"Then what does this one mean?"
Serizawa turned to the final mural. "What is that darkness?"
The image was strange , Titans scattering in every direction, fleeing. He couldn't picture any enemy capable of driving all of them to run. The mural carried no text, as if the Iwi ancestor who'd carved it had found the words impossible. Whatever that darkness truly was, language couldn't hold it.
No text meant Dr. Andrews had nothing to translate. She looked at Jia instead , the girl whose hand she was holding , and let her eyes carry the question.
'We don't know what it represents either.'
'But... we can feel it.' Jia relayed the priestess's words through Telepathy, her voice landing quietly in each of their minds. 'The land beneath our feet. This planet. It fears the darkness coming. The only thing that can stand against it is that light.'
Serizawa went still.
In recent years , especially since the San Francisco battle between Godzilla and the MUTOs , natural disasters around the globe had spiked sharply. He'd assumed it was the planet warning humanity. A signal. Prepare yourselves for the apocalypse the Titans will bring. He'd expected King Ghidorah to be the trigger.
But what the priestess was describing was different. Those disasters weren't just warnings for humanity. They were the Earth itself recoiling in dread. The real apocalypse had nothing to do with King Ghidorah. His scale wasn't sufficient. Not for something planet-wide.
The real crisis hadn't arrived yet.
"Light..." Serizawa looked at the faint streak of radiance painted across the mural. His eyes didn't move from it. "It truly does represent hope."
Meeting that light was the luckiest thing that could have happened to them. Whatever was coming, they weren't facing it alone.
They needed to be ready. Once they returned to the surface, preparations had to begin in earnest. Every resource they had. Nothing wasted on infighting.
The priestess turned to Jia then, her gaze soft and unhurried.
'Child from the surface , will you come back to us? To the embrace of your people?'
The Iwi on the surface were gone. Jia was all that remained. Down here in the Hollow Earth, her kin still lived, bound to her by blood. Even with the prophecy running off its rails , even with that light stepping in to face Skar King in their place , Jia's identity as the prophesied child still mattered deeply. If she stayed, she would know what home felt like.
'I...'
Jia hesitated.
During the years of disasters above, storms had battered the seas around Skull Island too. A Titan that commanded storms had used the chaos to attack. Kong had driven it back , but Jia's people hadn't survived. The storm had taken all of them.
Staying here meant belonging somewhere again. Returning to her tribe.
But she looked at the hand holding hers. Dr. Andrews. This woman from Monarch who had poured love into her after she had no one left, who had held her like she was her own.
If Jia stayed, Dr. Andrews would be sad.
"I'm stronger than you think, Jia." Dr. Andrews had already read her face. She crouched down, pressed a hand gently to the girl's head. "If you want to return to your people, I won't stand in your way. Whatever you decide, I'm with you."
She meant it. Even with the ache sitting behind her ribs, she meant it.
'No.'
'I just... want to visit sometimes.' Young Jia looked up at her. She knew what Dr. Andrews felt. She felt the same , Dr. Andrews was the person closest to her in the world, and she didn't want to leave. She only hoped she could come back down here now and then.
"Oh..."
"Well — yes. Yes, of course you can." Dr. Andrews blinked. She hadn't expected that. Hadn't realized how completely she'd become Jia's home.
She pulled the girl into her arms and held her, promising that once the technology was there, she'd bring Jia back to visit her people as often as she wanted.
The priestess watched Jia choose the surface world. A small sadness passed through her. But she understood.
She turned back to the murals. Her eyes settled on Skar King , rendered in stone, surrounded by hundreds of enslaved Titan great apes. The worry didn't leave her face.
She hoped the light would come through the battle unbroken. The prophecy had not meant for that light to fight this war. And she was afraid , when the true darkness finally arrived, that the light might already be spent.
...
Meanwhile.
The Temple of the Titan Great Apes.
VWOOM——!!!
The giant slammed his wrists together. The Specium Ray erupted.
The temperature in the hall had already plunged from Shimo's frost breath , now it rocketed in an instant. Three hundred thousand degrees Celsius of concentrated light carved through the air and hit the leading wave of Titan great apes dead on.
HRAAUGH! ROAR!!
The apes at the front had just enough time to see the beam reflected in their own eyes. That was all. The heat and the impact arrived together, hammering into their bodies and launching them backward. Their chests scorched black on contact , like targets torn apart by machine-gun fire.
➤ Next: Kong: This Is My Ally!
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