Suddenly, two eyes slowly opened in the hall, their gaze fixed on the ceiling above. Lying there, the man placed his left hand over his right side, expecting pain, but it was gone. The wound had healed. Yet his right arm was still missing, nowhere to be seen.
Groaning, he forced himself up, his groans echoing through the empty hall filled with ancient graves. Outside, the heavy downpour created a constant pitter-patter against the stone, blending with the silence within.
He turned his head to the right.At the grave of the first ancestor, a box rested quietly, identical to the one he had seen in his memory. A realization struck him.The first memory he had witnessed belonged to the first emperor and the child who would one day become the second.But that wasn't all.He had seen more.Memories of other ancestors also surfaced within his mind, including his dead father.
He felt lonely…The blue liquid he had seen before… it was now empty.A thought struck him.That liquid was no ordinary substance but was a relic of the highest order. Something capable of preserving not just an origin-level artifact but also the memories of those who had continuously poured their blood into the transparent soil across generations in hope of supplying help to future generations in their absence.
He opened the box and approached the golden origin pearl, which had not been passed through the generations but had been kept buried in the ground for a long time.
But as soon as he approached the shiny pearls, his hands started to feel itchy, and a burning sensation started to appear.
"Ahrr… As always, my luck is shit."
The man spoke in an annoyed tone, knowing from his ancestors' memory that the relic, unlike his predecessor, displayed only half-synchronization, and that was also due to the blood that flowed through his veins.
Still knowing that he had the chance to obtain the spirit core, he pushed beyond his limits, his half-body exposing burn marks, but no change was shown on his clothes.
He clenched his fist and sat in a meditative position, giving his all to resonate his spirit energy with the natural energy contained in the origin pearl.
The golden energy dissipating from the pearl entered the man's spirit core through the left arm channels, cleansing their linings and removing even an inkling of impurity in them.
The pain was even greater than he had anticipated; his whole body was just on the brink of being fully burned. His groans were being echoed throughout the empty hall as the shiny pearl fully dissipated, and the radiance that was being emitted was gone.
The man collapsed to the ground once more, on the brink of unconsciousness. Suddenly, he could feel that his energy had surged, his hearing had sharpened, and his senses had heightened. The burns on his body vanished instantly, yet his severed hand remained unchanged.
He knew the reason; it was due to his low-level Spirit Core, which had now transformed into a Sun Origin Core. However, its color had not changed; for an Origin Core to reveal its true color, it must reach its highest level. His spirit core advanced from the awakening stage to the middle stage of reformation.
He got up with no signs of exhaustion and saw the contents in the box, about which he had already learned in the memories he encountered through the relic (blue liquid), and kept the box with him.
He gave his final prayers at the tombs and left by the same trail he had come through.
On his way to descend, he remembered the lovely memories he had with his people.
…
He couldn't remember what the festival was called anymore or why they even celebrated it. The details he remembered were just fragments that were still etched deep into his heart.
It was truly loud.
The whole event was filled with fun and enjoyment, constantly filled with laughter and footsteps that were crowded by people. It seemed as if there was an entirely new world built around them.
Lights were hanging on the houses across the entire street, some dimmer and others brighter. The wind's flow made the lights move gently, sometimes casting shadows of objects on the ground.
Someone called his name at some point; he didn't remember whose voice it was. The voice was familiar enough for him to move toward it without hesitation.
There was food everywhere, as if it were not made for humans but for hundreds of hungry beasts.
There was too much of it.
Things being cooked out in the open; the smell of roasted grain; sweet candies he never knew the names of, and something frying somewhere that crackled now and then; people moving in and out of it, carrying something in either their hands or their mouths.
Abruptly, a hand pressed something into his palm.
It was certainly warm.
He looked down and saw a small piece of something freshly made, still steaming slightly.
"Eat before it gets cold," the shrill yet soft voice said.
He nodded without looking up, taking a bite too quickly, the heat catching him off guard, making him pause for a second, and somewhere nearby, someone laughed, not loudly, not in a way that drew attention, just close enough that he noticed…
He walked without really choosing a direction, weaving between people, brushing past familiar shoulders, and hearing bits of conversations that didn't belong to him but still felt like they did, someone arguing over something small, someone else telling a story they had probably told before, voices rising, falling, and overlapping in a way that should have been confusing.
But it wasn't.
It felt… full.
That was the only way to describe it.
No one could ever completely forget the experience.
At some point, he drifted closer to the center, where a few people had gathered, someone trying to play music and failing badly, missing notes, stopping halfway, and starting again like nothing happened and no one told him to stop; instead, they joined in, clapping, laughing, and worsening it on purpose until it didn't even matter what it sounded like anymore.
It wasn't about the music.
It never was.
He laughed.
He remembered that clearly.
Not because something was especially funny, but because everyone else was laughing too, and it felt strange not to, like holding it in would've been unnatural.
And so he didn't and laughed his heart out without caring about anything else.
Later, he found his father standing a little away from the crowd, not far, just enough to see everything without being pulled into it, arms crossed, watching in that quiet way he always had.
He walked over without saying anything at first, just standing beside him.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
They didn't need to.
The noise carried on around them, laughter, music, footsteps, and the soft hum of something alive, something shared.
Then his father glanced at him.
Just once.
A small nod followed, barely noticeable.
He didn't respond.
Didn't say anything.
But he stayed there a little longer.
That was enough.
He didn't realize it at the time, but that moment, just standing quietly beside him while everything else went on, stayed with him longer than anything else.
Longer than the sounds, longer than the lights, even longer than the faces he could no longer clearly remember.
Now, when he tries to think back, it doesn't come in full, just fragments, light shifting in the dark, the warmth of something in his hands, the feeling of brushing past people without needing to look, and laughter that doesn't belong to anyone specific anymore.
But the feeling is still there.
That strange, simple certainty that he was a part of something, not watching from the outside but inside it, without effort.
And maybe that's why it still lingers in his heart.
Because now, even when everything is quiet, he can still feel how loud it used to be.
And how it never felt too much.
…
His throat became numb as he soon reached the end of the kingdom, where the walls and fences were nearly half broken.
He stood at the gate, his gaze fixed on the ruined state of his territory. What once stood proud was now fractured, scarred by the catastrophe.
From the box, he took out a single red seed, the last one remaining. The other two had been used by the First Ancestor to build a magnificent nation, now half-destroyed, yet still filled with treasures wealthy enough to lure the greed of countless people.
He could not take it with him and would never allow it to fall into the hands of such pathetic, lowly humans.
He got to the ground and buried the pill gently inside the soft and wet soil, which was mixed with some granite.
He then half-knelt, placing his soft palm on the soil, and started resonating with the seed.
Energy from his sun-origin core started to rumble as the spirit energy in it was being circulated to the left hand that was connected through his limb channel.
The light pink energy flowed from his palm into the earth, entering the soil where the seed was placed and mixing with the elemental energy present in the seed. Even though he had not learned it, he saw the process in one of the memories.
The seed was rumbling in the ground as it was being filled with the spirit energy, which was enhanced by the radiant sun pearl containing a tiny mix of the sun's natural energy.
For the seed to bloom, it requires natural energy from rain, sunlight, and the earth. Spirit energy alone was not enough; it could only act as a catalyst. With careful control, he used spirit energy to create small openings within the seed, allowing natural and elemental energies to flow inside.
Suddenly, a sprout appeared. In an instant, it burst into massive vines that surged outward, engulfing the land. Within seconds, it spread across the whole kingdom, reaching even the castle's flag.
The flag no longer fluttered; it hung heavy and soaked under the relentless rain. He stepped aside, taking one last look at his kingdom. Then he turned and walked away, never to return.
Behind him, the vines thickened and bloomed with red and white flowers, drinking endlessly from the rain. It pulsed, as if something within them was building, tightening, waiting.
Then a low, suffocating rumble tore through the earth. For a brief moment, everything stood still. And then it broke. The ground split apart as a violent shockwave erupted outward. The air seemed to shatter, bursting into a deafening roar that crushed everything in its path. The walls didn't just fall; they were ripped apart, stone turning to dust mid-air.
The force tore through the kingdom like a living thing, hurling debris and uprooting the earth, leaving nothing untouched. The shockwave raced outward, flattening everything and devouring sound, light, and structure alike. If anyone had stood there, they would have ceased to exist in that moment, no body, no bone, nothing left behind. Then, just as suddenly as it began, silence. Where a kingdom once stood, there was only a vast, broken hollow in the earth. No walls. No streets. No trace of life.
Only the hill remained covered with mountains, as the last remnant of the once-glorious kingdom.
.