What place was this giant taking her?

Vanna curiously and bewilderedly followed the giant's footsteps, stepping into the endless expanse of yellow sand. The dust whipped up by the wind formed a hazy barrier in the distance, blurring the boundaries between heaven and earth. The ruins of the city piled with black, jagged rocks had disappeared into the depths of the dust storm. When Vanna tried to look back, she couldn't see anything.

The sky was gradually brightening, and the heat in the desert was slowly rising.

Vanna waved her hand and summoned a giant sword made of ice. She used the protection of the Goddess of Storms to resist the discomfort the desert brought her, while also looking up at the sky.

The massive crack emitting an ominous red light still covered the entire world. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but the blood vessels spreading from the edge of the crack seemed to have expanded a bit since the first time she saw it.

As far as her eyes could see, she still couldn't see the sun, but the entire sky was still getting brighter and brighter. This gave Vanna the feeling that the concept of "sunlight" had been imprinted into some kind of "cycle" between heaven and earth. Even if the sun had disappeared, the light and heat it left behind would still appear in this world "on time."

The giant's attention was drawn to the ice giant sword in Vanna's hand.

He had seen the giant sword in her hand before, but he hadn't seen Vanna summon the sword. He seemed to find this power quite amazing.

"Your sword is shaped by a power that doesn't belong to this world. This power is incredible. It can summon miracles in the yellow sand. It's been a long time since I've seen 'ice.'"

"This is the ability granted to me by the god I believe in," Vanna said immediately. "He is the master of storms and oceans, and ice is an extension of the storm's power."

"A god who rules the sea?" the giant murmured thoughtfully. "Storms and oceans… This place is very, very far from the coastline, and the so-called sea is now dry. But I remember they once built a magnificent city by the sea. That city had pure white walls and many blue roofs. They named the city after a gemstone and built the first ship in the city that could cross the ocean…"

Vanna quietly listened to the giant telling her about the forgotten ancient things, and relayed the information she heard to the others who were active in the dream. The heat around her was still gradually rising, so she picked up the giant sword in her hand and took a bite, chewing on the ice while curiously asking, "And then?"

"Then, the city disappeared in a bubble. When the corrosion happened, many things changed in ways I couldn't understand," the giant said, and couldn't help but look at Vanna twice, watching the ice sword that had been bitten off by her. "...So that's how it's used?"

"It's a bit hot here," Vanna said a little embarrassedly. "I… am afraid of the heat."

"Afraid of the heat, that's good. Being able to feel discomfort in the environment is proof of being alive," the giant said, then he stopped. "We're here, traveler."

Vanna stopped. She looked in the direction of the giant's gaze, and her expression suddenly became a little dazed.

There was a huge… sinkhole in front of them, embedded in the earth like a shocking scar. She and the giant had unknowingly come to the edge of the pit, only a few steps away from the pit wall.

After a brief moment of astonishment, she cautiously took a step forward, observing the situation in the pit. She saw that the pit wall was like glass, and the black rock presented the same molten, solidified state as the city ruins before. She also saw that the yellow sand around the pit had receded, and the exposed ground showed a terrifying cracked appearance. The scale of the pit was extremely large, as if it could accommodate a huge city-state like Pland…

In the center of the pit, she could vaguely see a towering object. It looked like a tower of staggering size, but now only a twisted and ferocious exterior remained. Around the "tower" she could vaguely see melted roads and scattered… stones.

"What is that thing?" Vanna asked in surprise, pointing at the tower.

The giant didn't answer her directly, but slowly came to the edge of the pit, sat down on the ground, put his huge staff beside him, and quietly pondered.

After an unknown amount of time, he broke the silence.

"I can't remember many things, but I remember this place… After realizing that the whole world was gradually collapsing and that human power couldn't save it, they built a huge archive here. This big pit you see is the ruins of the archive. They tried to leave evidence that they once existed in this world in a building.

"Everything you can think of, culture, art, history, countless books and crafts, as well as seed banks and huge sculptures, were all piled up in heavily guarded, sturdy warehouses. They also made huge stone slabs, using the most stable materials, to engrave simple introductions to the world and civilization on the stones.

"Books will decay quickly, advanced recording devices are prone to failure, and sophisticated storage media cannot be read directly, but words engraved on stone can be preserved for thousands of years, or even longer, so those stones were placed in the very center of the archive, and regarded as the 'heart' of this place.

"They couldn't find a safer or more lasting way to record things."

"Then… what happened then?" Vanna couldn't help but ask, even though she already knew the answer before she opened her mouth.

"The stones turned into bubbles," the giant lowered his head and looked into Vanna's eyes, "in a second."

Vanna suddenly felt a sense of suffocation.

"Art melted, flowing like water, seeping into all the cracks, books turned into shadows and were imprinted on the walls, sculptures sublimated in the air, turning into pale mist, and then the entire building began to sink and shatter, and the entire earth caved in," the giant raised his hand and pointed to the deep pit. "People gathered there, the last survivors. They were going to mourn their civilization there, and were prepared to die peacefully, but the fact is, mourning and dying peacefully were also a luxury.

"Right in front of them, everything they had recorded turned into… unspeakable things.

"This is the reality: when the world itself enters destruction, things recorded in the 'world' will not be preserved."

"Then…" Vanna opened her mouth, and after a long time, she hesitantly raised her hand again and asked, "That tower…"

"When the entire building began to collapse, that was the last safe place," the giant said softly. "They ran there, just like many, many years ago, when the first fire spread to the settlements in the forest, they ran down from the trees and ran to the safe open plains. Only this time, the 'fire' was not just burning the forest…

"In the end, only one person ran there. I don't remember what he looked like, nor do I remember if he was a man, a woman, an old person, or a child.

"He stopped there, and then died standing up.

"In the last minute of his death, he grew rapidly like a mountain, even as if he was about to touch the sky. That scene was like… the scale was wrong, because their 'science' told me that the human body structure couldn't support a body of that size…"

The giant raised his head, looking at the "tower" in the center of the pit, as if after so many long years, that long-standing confusion still lingered in his heart.

Vanna finally knew what it was.

It was the last person in this world.

Her eyes slowly widened, and in shock, she stared at the center of the "big pit."

Even from such a distant distance, she could see the astonishing scale of the "tower." It was taller than the tallest tower in the city of Pland, and even more magnificent than the city-state's cathedral. How could it… be a person?

However, gradually, Vanna finally saw the chilling details in the strange and ferocious appearance of the "tower." She saw the molten, deformed structure that was raised like an arm, and the rotating, twisting torso. For a moment, she even thought she saw a horrifying… face embedded in a certain part of the tower.

But she knew it was an illusion. At such a distant distance, even if there were such details on the tower, she wouldn't be able to see them clearly.

What's more, it had been twisted to the point where she couldn't recognize its original appearance at all.

Vanna couldn't describe exactly how she felt at the moment. She only knew that her heart was shocked, and huge questions almost overwhelmed her mind. She stared at the black "tower" for a long time, staring at the last tombstone left by the last person of that destroyed ancient civilization, and then slowly raised her head, staring for a long time at the sky covered with red cracks, where she couldn't see the sun.

After an unknown amount of time, perhaps to divert the heavy feeling in her heart, she suddenly asked, "Did the sun… did the sun also disappear at that time?"

"The sun?"

Vanna raised her hand and pointed to the sky. "It shouldn't have been like this. What about the sun that originally shone on this world?"

"Oh, yes, the sun, I almost forgot. It is the sun…"

The giant murmured softly, with a kind of emotion that Vanna couldn't understand. Then he raised his hand and groped in his tattered robe for a while, and finally seemed to find something from the deepest part of his clothes. Then he took it out and placed it in front of Vanna.

"The sun is here."

The giant said gently.

Vanna stared at him in stunned silence, looking at the thing he showed her, looking at the glowing sphere that was quietly lying in the giant's palm, as if it was only the size of her fist…

It emitted a bright glow and a little bit of warmth. It seemed to float there, floating in a dimension parallel to reality.

So… small, and peaceful.

"It fell," the giant looked at Vanna calmly and continued, "I picked it up."

Chapter End