The First Age—a radiant, glorious Mythological Era.
Hundreds of thousands of years were simply too distant. Relics from the First Age were exceedingly rare, no ruins from that era remained, and written history was non-existent. People could only glimpse those hazy times through myths and legends.
It was an age when mortals walked alongside the gods, living and working in peace under divine guidance. Giant airships soared through the sky, towering colossi strode across the land, and magnificent temples lined the cities. Generation after generation lived in peace and abundance.
All pain, fear, and despair were negligible in the face of faith. The power of belief allowed people to swiftly cast off the anguish and terror in their hearts, filling their minds with light once more. As for the darkness they discarded... who cared? Let it remain buried forever in the depths of the Dreamlands.
Even back then, legends of the Dreamlands existed, yet the world knew no filth. That pollution was permanently shut out from the mortal world by the will of the gods. The treacherous and twisted nature of the Dreamlands could only hover beyond the barrier, greedily eyeing the brilliant mortal world while humans freely explored the laws of mystery and wielded mystical powers.
Everything was wonderfully ideal, and this bliss lasted for tens of thousands of years—until one day, the long accumulation finally tipped the scales.
Disaster struck.
The Four Horsemen of Divine Revelation descended one after another, bringing destruction upon the world.
No meteors fell from the heavens to strike some distant bay, nor did temperatures plummet into a global ice age, yet the ruin that arrived was far more despair-inducing.
The barrier separating the mortal world from the Dreamlands collapsed. The dream realm bled into reality, and horrors that once existed solely in the Dreamlands fell upon the entire world.
Living beings were virtually wiped out, and civilization was nearly destroyed, reducing the entire world back to a primitive, chaotic genesis.
What ultimately transpired remains impossible to verify. However, before the mortal world could be swallowed whole, the boundary between it and the Dreamlands was inexplicably restored, sealing the Dreamlands away once more. The price, however, was the fall of the gods, plunging the world into the brutal, chaotic Second Age—the Savage Age.
Though the world regained its stability, certain things were altered forever.
The abominations hidden deep in the Dreamlands stole the authority of the fallen gods and ran rampant. Deprived of divine protection, mysterious filth constantly seeped through the barrier into the mortal world, triggering disaster after disaster. The barbarism and disorder of the Second Age dragged on for hundreds of thousands of years as humanity struggled in despair.
There was no clear watershed between the Second Age and the Third Age. As civilization gradually pulled itself out of chaos and returned to order, the end of the Second Age arrived.
How that era ended remains a mystery. Rumor has it that it, too, suffered the erosion of the Dreamlands, yet for some reason, the erosion was mild and lasted only a century before things normalized. The civilization rebuilding itself in the dark did not suffer a complete break like the First Age; it quickly weathered the chaotic period, giving rise to the Third Age—the Dark Age—where order slowly began to recover.
In their confusion, people sought to rebuild their faith, even desperately offering worship to the sinister evil gods of the Dreamlands who had stolen divine authority. Dark and bloody, this era ran rampant with cultists, ubiquitous evil god sacrifices, and relentless wars—the darkest hour right before dawn.
After the Dark Age persisted for thirty thousand years, the third end-of-age catastrophe arrived right on schedule.
The same recipe, the same taste: the dream realm bled into reality.
The evil gods cared nothing for the lives of their worshipers. The population that had just begun to recover suffered another massive plunge, pushing humanity back to the brink of despair.
On that day, people finally recalled the terror of being dominated by the Dreamlands, and remembered the gods forgotten for over a hundred thousand years.
On that day, people chanted the names of the Lord once more, their desperate cries awakening the gods slumbering in memory.
Gaia, the Lord of the Earth; Nyx, the Lord of the Black Night; and Fiona, the Lord of Suffering.
These three goddesses were the first to step out of memory and return to this devastated world. Using what little power they possessed, they temporarily shored up the precarious barrier. Over time, the remaining nine Supreme entities awakened one after another. Together, the twelve gods repelled the Dreamlands' onslaught, initiating the world's fourth era—the Dawn Age.
The glory of the First Age could never be recovered, yet the future still held promise. Civilization flourished once more, and the blueprint of a modern world order gradually emerged. Humanity reclaimed control over the world, expanding from Middle Earth back to the Old Continent, and finally establishing dominion over the New Continent once again. Yet, just as everything was improving, the catastrophe at the end of the Fourth Age struck without warning.
A sudden outbreak of plague was followed by a global conflict known as the First World War. Over a decade of severe drought caused a worldwide famine, and a deluge of geological disasters brought endless death.
“Over a thousand years ago, these four major disasters broke out in succession, reawakening the deep-seated fear in the hearts of mortals,” President Olei explained. “Subsequently, the power of the Dreamlands surged once more. The barrier grew increasingly unstable, and mystical phenomena multiplied. All of these were classic signs of a great catastrophe. Based on the experience of the previous three times, by that point, the arrival of a great catastrophe could no longer be stopped.”
“And the result?”
“As a result, it couldn't be completely prevented either,” President Olei sighed. “The chaos and destruction caused by the Dreamlands' descent set technological advancement back by over a century. Contact between the three continents was severed for four hundred years, the newly established world order nearly collapsed across the board, and the global population dropped sharply. But it must be admitted that compared to the earlier catastrophes, the fourth one was far milder. Not only did civilization avoid a total breakdown, but the regression was relatively minor, allowing a quick recovery.”
Lynch shook his head. “A disaster is still a disaster, and death is still death. Such 'mildness' is hardly something to look forward to.”
“No one looks forward to it, but you've misunderstood a key point—there is a fundamental difference between the fourth catastrophe and the previous three,” the president corrected solemnly. “At the end of the Fourth Age, what truly caused those consequences and technological regressions were the four disasters themselves. By contrast, the fallout from dreams bleeding into reality was far less severe, which is the exact opposite of the first three catastrophes.”
“Was that change brought about by the protection of the gods?”
“Religious circles and occultists generally hold that view, and as history researchers, we have yet to find evidence to disprove it,” the president replied rigorously. “That's why I said earlier that, theoretically, the outcome won't be as severe as the First Age. As long as nothing goes wrong with the gods, everything will turn out fine.”
Hss, that condition...
The president made it sound easy, but Lynch felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He had never forgotten the entity behind Black Spider of the Shadow Alliance—that was one of the Twelve Major Gods.
This made him realize the sheer gravity of the problem.
“What if something does go wrong with the gods?”
“...”
The president offered a subtle smile.
“I study history, I don't make it. So I can't give you an answer. All I can say is... wish us good luck.”
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