The gaze returned to the temple.
Fabuti was still hesitating at the entrance.
Meanwhile, Kouta and Guina had already walked up to Robin. Following the direction of Robin's finger, the two looked up at the mural. The mural depicted a fireball crashing from outer space towards a water-blue planet. Inside the fireball was a continuously struggling silver dragon. Judging by its appearance, the silver dragon seemed to be trapped within the fireball.
"This scene..." Kouta's eyes deepened in thought as he stared at the image.
"This looks like how Im first appeared in this world," Robin explained, looking at the text below the mural. "Many years ago, another red sun appeared in the sky. In the sun, people saw a colossal dragon." She then looked at the next panel and continued, "The sun didn't remain in the sky for long before it violently crashed onto the highest point of the world, the Red Line."
"So it really did come from outer space." Kouta, stroking his chin, looked at the Red Line covered by the fireball. He then shifted his gaze to the next painting. "Huh!" The next painting showed a ruined scene, with a sea of red fire surrounding countless shattered buildings and wailing people.
"This is..."
"A kingdom even older than the Great Kingdom?" Kouta looked at Robin uncertainly.
"Yes!" Robin nodded, looking at the text beneath the painting. "It is indeed an older kingdom. The name of that kingdom isn't written, but it records that the sun fell directly into the capital of that kingdom, destroying everything within, including the royal family that ruled the world at the time."
"Then..." As if a thought struck him, Kouta and the others quickly moved to the next painting.
As expected.
Here, they saw what they had been looking for. The kingdom was destroyed, but the world was not. Under the leadership of the strongest race at the time, the giants, humans gradually built another kingdom from the ruins, the "Kingdom of God," also known as the "Great Kingdom." This kingdom comprised many races, including humans, giants, special races, and even fish-men.
"A true 'many kingdoms'?" Guina asked uncertainly, looking at the painting.
At that moment, Robin froze, as if she had discovered something astonishing.
"What's wrong?" Guina noticed Robin's strangeness immediately and asked.
"So that's how 'd' came about!"
"'d'?" Hearing Robin's words, Kouta and Guina looked at her curiously. Robin didn't look at them. Instead, she stepped forward and ran her hand over the text in front of her, as if caressing past history. As she traced the words, she said, "Many races established the Great Kingdom, but the most prominent were humans, giants, and a few special races. Because they saved the humans living on the Red Line and brought them hope and dawn, they were given the title of 'Dawn'."
"And these few races, responding to the expectations of the people, added 'd' to the middle of their names."
"d is for d-d-drea..."
At this point, Robin raised her head and glanced at the mural above. Her gaze was distant, as if she were looking through the mural to that magnificent era and witnessing humanity's greatness. The arrival of extraterrestrial beings, though it destroyed the previous kingdom, led to a period of rapid development for humanity and the world with the efforts of the new kingdom and the help of these alien beings. The explosion of science gradually connected the world, leading humanity towards true happiness.
But all of this changed quietly, one day, at one moment. Greed is a sin. Human greed and desires are never satisfied, especially for those who had gained privileges, the former heroes. They desired more, eternal life, gigantification, power, to break free from the planet, to conquer, to witness more.
And the beginning of all tragedy started with humanity's gigantification experiments. It began with an unwilling heart, in a world that was fundamentally unfair from the start. Because humans were naturally inferior to giants and special races, and even more so to fish-men, humans were essentially at the bottom of the kingdom. The position of king was almost always held by giants and special races. Thus, within the human faction, the idea of making humans as colossal as giants gradually emerged.
However, in the Great Kingdom ruled by giants and special races, no secret was truly a secret. When humanity began its gigantification experiments, racial conflict erupted. Of course, within the human faction, not everyone supported the gigantification experiments. The most vocal opposition came from the humans who were initially bestowed with the 'd' designation.
Later, for unknown reasons, war broke out. Originally, with human strength alone, without the intervention of special powers, they could not have defeated the Divine Kingdom, which possessed Pluton, Poseidon, and the celestial weapon Uranus, built with the world's peak power at the time. But as the war spread across the world, and humanity was on the verge of annihilation, Uranus, which had always been controlled by the giants, disobeyed orders and rebelled at this critical moment.
And on the Red Line, the epicenter of the war, the extraterrestrial being, which had always appeared docile and was embedded beneath the Red Line, suddenly turned its allegiance and revealed its ferocious side. Even the world's strongest at the time, Joy Boy, the Sun God, was no match for this extraterrestrial being and was easily defeated. With their strongest celestial weapon rebelling and their strongest warrior severely wounded by an extraterrestrial being, the Divine Kingdom's side completely lost its advantage. Even with desperate resistance, it was all in vain with the help of Uranus and the extraterrestrial being. Blood stained the entire Divine Kingdom, rivers of blood flowed, making the Red Line even more vibrant under the war.
The war ended with a dramatic outcome. Fish-men retreated, special races retreated, giants retreated... The world truly entered an era of human rule. Following Robin, Kouta and Guina witnessed, from Im's landing to humanity's prosperity, decline, and then renewed prosperity. It truly felt like a cycle. And now, history was about to enter the next era. Looking at the final image, at the dark figure surrounded by the silver dragon, floating above mountains of corpses and seas of blood, Kouta knew that was Im in human form. His true body, however, lay beneath the ruins.