It was hard not to feel conflicted.
His steel scales, which should have reflected a silvery-gray luster, were now coated with a shimmering, deep-blue film. It was a thin layer of crystalline growth. At first, the Kushala Daora had tried to scrape it off, but after realizing it grew back faster than he could rub it away, he gave up.
Ordinary life forms that he could have easily slaughtered in the past had, in such a short span of time, gained power far surpassing his own. It had only been a mere fifty years or so; even if that time were doubled to a century, it was nothing but a blink of an eye to an Elder Dragon.
He had lost. He had lost completely, and there might never be a chance to turn the tables.
Why had things turned out this way?
The Kushala Daora closed his eyes.
For the first time, he possessed the potential to evolve to a higher plane. In just a few days, his strength had grown significantly beyond what it once was. Two wonderful things happening together should have brought immense joy, but why did he feel so incredibly miserable?
No dragon understood his situation better than the Kushala Daora himself. Crushed under the weight of absolute power, he should have been mercilessly killed or devoured, his body returning to nature—just like the Kushala Daora of the past, serving as a stepping stone for a rising power.
Survival of the fittest—this law held true even among Elder Dragons. It was the fundamental reason why Asterion had been so determined to climb to the height of a Forbidden Species, no matter what it took.
Yet, when this Kushala Daora awoke from his coma, he discovered he wasn't dead at all. Not only that, but the wounds he had sustained previously were completely healed.
His body felt stronger than ever. With every breath, the gales he summoned grew more powerful. The thickness and hardness of his steel carapace had increased, and even the old, hidden injuries left behind from past turf wars with other dragons seemed to have vanished entirely.
Along with regaining his health, his entire body felt exceptionally light, as though an invisible shackle had been stripped away.
But all this preferential treatment and good fortune ultimately converged into a single, haunting question that lingered in his mind: Why?
Why did you do this? Why didn't you kill me? Why are you helping us become stronger?
Opening his eyes once more, the Kushala Daora gazed toward the source of the deep-blue energy eruption, unable to let it go for a long time. Gradually, his gaze grew increasingly complex, filled with incomprehension and... awe.
Things having come to this, he might as well focus on becoming stronger first.
Dispelling the chaotic thoughts from his mind, the Kushala Daora folded his massive wings and began to focus intently on absorbing this brand-new energy.
Just wait a little longer.
The earth tore open, as if something had ripped the roots of the mountain range right out from the bottom. Immense, blue-and-white crystalline pillars swayed violently amid the tremors of the earth until their entire structures tilted, emitting a loud, crisp cracking sound from their centers.
They collapsed with a thunderous crash!
Carrying immense momentum, the massive crystals smashed into the ground, violently striking the hard bedrock. In an instant, they shattered into dozens of sharp fragments of various sizes, with debris spraying outward like bullets.
But upon closer inspection, one would notice that during those few seconds when the crystalline mountain split apart, a visible, bizarre distortion seemed to ripple through the air. Immediately following that, numerous wisps of milky-white and light-blue smoke slithered out rapidly like snakes, though they did not drift far before completely dissolving into the air and vanishing.
One could only say it was fortunate that the Elder's Recess currently hosted very few ordinary creatures. Otherwise, this intensifying disaster would have claimed countless lives.
Four words could perfectly summarize the current state of the entire New World—in dire straits.
It was quite a miserable sight. Every form of life inhabiting this New World, whether monsters as colossal as mountains or insects as tiny as dust, suddenly discovered a terrifying fact: starting about a week ago, the land beneath their feet—where they had lived for countless years and reproduced for generations—had abruptly become extremely unstable.
Earthquakes, earthquakes, and more goddamn earthquakes.
It was as if time had reverted to the ancient era when the massive landmass of the New World was first forming. Towering mountain ranges could collapse into hollow basins due to Elder Dragon activities and tectonic shifts, while areas that were once lakes could be thrust upward by the surging earth, transforming into tall mountains.
The very foundation upon which all terrestrial life depended seemed to be undergoing a complete remodeling. Within just a few days, dozens of earthquakes of varying magnitudes had broken out across the New World.
The intensity of these tremors varied; mild ones merely caused leaves to rustle and water surfaces to ripple, while the most severe ones tore open bottomless, meters-wide chasms right through previously flat ground.
Many unfortunate creatures that failed to dodge in time or reacted too slowly fell straight into these fissures, never to climb out again.
Of course, surface-dwelling creatures still stood a decent chance of survival if they were cautious and lucky. The truly unfortunate ones were the life forms inhabiting underground caves or subterranean river ecosystems.
For these creatures accustomed to darkness and silence, the violent upheaval of the earth was nothing short of an apocalyptic disaster. The powerful tremors and deafening noise left them unable to even find a direction to escape, forcing them to repeatedly bash into the surrounding rocks like headless flies.
Yet, amid such violent geological shifts, the subterranean world was ultimately the most unsafe place to be. When the tremors triggered structural collapses of cave ceilings, thousands of tons of heavy boulders mixed with soil rained down like a torrential downpour, leaving them with absolutely no room to escape.
Many creatures didn't even know how they died until the very moment they were completely crushed by the rocks. The enclosed underground spaces that originally served as safe havens and nests instantly became massive tombs burying their flesh and blood after the thunderous collapses.
Compared to this instantaneous release into an unconscious, eternal sleep, was it actually easier for surface creatures to survive...?
Hard to say.
While the wild outdoors lacked the brick-and-steel skyscrapers of human society that cause massive casualties upon collapsing, danger was equally omnipresent in the primitive ecosystem.
When a violent earthquake triggered a landslide on a mountainside, hundreds of thousands of tons of mud and rock would instantly engulf all vegetation and life below. And when towering, centuries-old trees came crashing down due to the cracking of the soil around their roots, their massive trunks and python-like branches were more than enough to deal a fatal blow to any creature underneath that failed to dodge in time.
Not to mention those creatures driven into dead ends by sudden environmental disruptions. Some predators had already cornered their prey, only to lose their impending meal to a sudden fissure in the ground, perhaps even breaking their own legs in the process.
Conversely, some prey had already found a safe hiding spot, only for the tremors to collapse their cover, exposing them to the gaze of hungry predators and stripping away their final chance of escape, turning them into a sumptuous meal.
Et cetera, et cetera. Such cases were simply too numerous to count. In a catastrophe of this scale, there was certainly no shortage of novel ways to die.
In any case, under the constant threat of unknown forces endangering their lives at any given second, the ecological order of the entire New World had completely broken down.
Even the apex predators standing at the top of the food chain, who usually acted without restraint, could no longer sleep peacefully in their nests due to these sudden earthquakes that struck indiscriminately, day or night.
At the slightest disturbance, they would instantly bolt awake. The wildlife of the entire New World was currently trapped in an extremely anxious state. In more extreme areas, a faint scent of blood even lingered permanently in the air.
Yet, such dense earthquakes were merely the triggers for a multitude of other disasters. Landslides, mudslides, diverted rivers, bursting lakes, and even plagues brought about by rotting carcasses—this continent-wide catastrophe across the New World was merely just the beginning.
The big one is coming. It's really coming.
As time passed, the creatures living in the New World suddenly realized that their familiar environment was becoming increasingly foreign.
This sense of unfamiliarity wasn't an intuitive or superficial change like altered terrain or diverted rivers. Instead, it was an invisible, subtle sensation where you could clearly feel something was different, yet no matter how hard you looked, you couldn't put your finger on it.
The ducks are the first to know when the spring river warms.
Take a basic element like water, for instance. Water is an absolute necessity for the survival of any living creature... But now, when parched animals approached water sources to drink, they suddenly found that the water they had grown accustomed to tasted a bit off.
The ordinary water sources, which used to be crisp and sweet or carry an earthy, fishy scent, now brought an indescribable, slight numbness to the tongue when gulped down. As it traveled down the throat and into the stomach, it left a fiery sensation all the way through.
The taste had changed. Uh, it seemed to have a lot more kick to it?
This change was quite pronounced. After drinking this water, bodies that were exhausted from days of panic and running around felt as though they had been injected with a burst of vitality out of thin air, filling them with strength from head to toe.
The mutation of the water sources was only a small part of this massive environmental upheaval; the New World's air was also beginning to lose its purity.
Under the illumination of sunlight, extremely slender, deep-blue lines would occasionally drift through the air. These lines swam through the sky like living threads, but the moment any creature tried to touch them, they would quickly dissipate like phantoms, impossible to catch with physical limbs.
The environmental alienation was still intensifying. One morning, when a thick fog rolled into the forest as usual, all the creatures leaving their nests noticed that the mist had been dyed a faint shade of blue.
Unlike any previous time he had released the power within his body, Asterion, who was currently pouring Safi attribute energy into the veins of the earth with all his might, gave this energy a single, absolute command: Evolution.
The excitement and arrogance of having just evolved into a Forbidden Species had gradually faded from him. Once the novelty wore off, Asterion's rationality regained the upper hand.
He had played enough, and even toyed with an old dragon acquaintance of his, which was satisfying enough as a celebration for his rebirth. With a long life still ahead of him, it was time to... get back to business.
It wasn't an illusion. Asterion could clearly perceive that a being whose life level was not inferior to his own had landed on the New World. The Safi energy network that now blanketed the entire New World served as Asterion's eyes, an extension of his sensory organs.
He was exceptionally sensitive to bio-energy, so he clearly realized the other party was at least a Forbidden Species. He just didn't know whether it was a Fatalis, an Alatreon, or some other Forbidden Species.
This was a bit startling for a dragon. How did a true veteran actually show up? And it wasn't just any ordinary entity—
Safi'jiiva—Asterion could feel the presence of Safi'jiiva, since there was somewhat of a connection between them after all.
What puzzled Asterion, however, was that although this unknown entity had arrived in the New World, it wasn't heading straight for him. Instead, it moved in fits and starts, doing who-knows-what, occasionally veering off toward other locations.
A complete mystery.
But it was a good thing regardless, as long as it wasn't here to interfere with him.
Breathing a slight sigh of relief, Asterion didn't rest; instead, he accelerated his pace... Who knew if that strange entity might suddenly go wild?
As time marched on, the creatures of the New World found that their dire straits had intensified yet again—there was no food left to eat.
Naturally, the first to feel this were the pure carnivores and predatory monsters. Everything else was secondary; the hunger gnawing at their bellies was the only reality, and a very stark one at that.
They couldn't catch any prey.
These carnivorous predators were shocked to find that the prey in their hunting grounds had all become incredibly smart. Not only had their stealth skills improved drastically, but they had even learned to craft simple traps to sabotage them.
For instance, they would dig a pit in the ground, cover it with broad leaves and soil, and when a predator stepped on it while giving chase, it would tumble into the pit and become trapped for a short while, buying the prey time to escape.
It was hard to imagine that such actions were carried out by a bunch of Pilot Hares. These agile rabbits, which originally relied solely on their powerful hearing to avoid predators from afar, were now capable of actively setting traps to sabotage them.
They would even gather around the edge of the pit after a predator fell in, making strange, mocking noises. For targets they particularly hated, they would even toss rotten fruit or decayed leaves into the hole. Their vengeful spirit was remarkably strong.
Yes, they had also grown much bolder.
The sudden intelligence of the prey forced the predators to smarten up as well. They were rapidly and spontaneously developing more advanced hunting techniques, including but not limited to identifying or dismantling traps.
An absolute rat race.
With days becoming increasingly difficult, the life forms of the New World had entered a hyper-competitive rat race of rapid, upward evolution. The carnivorous predators were forced into it, and what they themselves failed to notice was that their cognitive speeds were accelerating, and the thoughts they processed were becoming far more complex.