Exploration

It was the mummified corpse of a humanoid with highly conspicuous green skin.

Its ears were pointed, much like an elf's.

Four sharp lower tusks protruded from its mouth, giving it a somewhat ferocious appearance.

Set into its fleshy, rugged face were two eyes that had long since lost their luster.

Judging by its expression, it seemed to have died in immense pain.

So much so that it had been unable to close its eyes in its final moments.

It remained frozen forever in that moment, its face locked in a grimace of agony.

‘A... beastkin?!’

The name of the creature instantly flashed through Irene's mind.

But she immediately dismissed the thought.

Her gaze locked onto the thick black hair tied into small braids at the back of its head.

Beastkin did not have hair.

Perhaps to adapt to the extreme environment and water scarcity of the God-Forsaken Land, those green-skinned giants were entirely bald, regardless of gender.

Yet, the beastkin before her possessed a full head of black hair.

A term that existed only in legend and history involuntarily flashed through Irene's mind.

She subconsciously muttered it aloud.

“Ancient beastkin.”

Along with her words came a faint cracking sound.

To Irene's horror, the mummified corpse, which had existed for who knew how long, suddenly crumbled into a pile of powder.

It collapsed inside the power armor.

At this moment, this power armor had acquired a new name.

An urn.

Irene glanced at the power armor helmet in her hand.

Then she looked back at the expired “canned food” that had turned to ash just because she opened the lid.

Her brain short-circuited for a moment.

“The power armor and the spaceship are creations of the Beastkin Empire?!”

How did those savage, green-skinned giants manage that?!

Irene felt like her entire dragon brain was going numb.

She wasn't just shocked that a bunch of muscleheads could build such highly advanced technological items.

But even more astonished that...

There was absolutely no record of these things in the history of the Arlesk continent!

According to the history Irene knew from her Draconic Inheritance, this world was originally a void of chaos.

Back then, there was no concept of time or space.

Everything was in a state of primal confusion.

Just like the world before Pangu split the heavens and the earth in the myths of her past life.

In the records of this world, there was also a deity similar to the Pangu of Earth's legends.

He was the God-on-High, Ao.

And Ao did something very similar to Pangu.

He split open the embryonic form of the universe.

There were many different accounts of how he did it.

The most widely accepted story was that Lord Ao simply drew a circle.

And thus, the universe was born.

After the birth of the universe, chaos gradually dissipated, and time and space emerged.

Later, as the universe evolved, laws began to manifest.

It was also at this time that the first living beings in the world were born.

Those were the gods.

They were the physical manifestations of the laws.

Supreme beings devoid of selfishness, desire, or want.

After idling away an unknown amount of time, the desireless gods probably eventually grew bored.

So, they decided to make the world a bit more lively.

First, the gods created various planes most suitable for life.

The Arlesk Plane, which they poured the most effort into and created first, was also known as the Prime Plane.

Afterward, the gods intertwined and collided their own laws, giving birth to the first generation of living creatures.

Then, under the guidance of the gods, these first creatures directly created by them began to live and multiply across the various planes.

Gradually, in the Arlesk Plane, the two most powerful races, relying on their naturally peerless physical strength, came to dominate all other races.

They were the ancient dragons and the ancient Titans.

Because both races reached the Legendary Rank upon reaching adulthood, that era was known as—

The Legendary Era.

In the early days of the Legendary Era, the two great races managed to coexist in harmony.

However, as their respective populations swelled day by day, conflicts soon erupted.

To vie for territory on the Arlesk Plane, the two sides began to clash.

Initially, minor disputes could still be resolved through negotiations, but later on, neither side was willing to back down.

And so, war broke out.

It was a cataclysmic conflict that shook the heavens and earth.

Even the very laws of reality were shaken.

The elemental tides within the plane were thrown into utter chaos.

The continent, which was originally a single unified landmass, was shattered into pieces.

In the end, even the plane itself was on the verge of exploding.

The races they enslaved were nearly wiped out entirely in this war.

It wasn't until fifty thousand years ago that the war ended in a pyrrhic victory for the ancient dragons.

The ancient Titans were banished from the Arlesk Plane.

But the ancient dragons were also broken, never to recover their former glory.

Their bloodline power even deteriorated because of this war.

From then on, they fell from being a Legendary race to a Gold-tier race.

Which were the giant dragons of today.

And just when the giant dragons thought they could finally enjoy peaceful times...

The long-eared elves made their move.

Having been enslaved by the giant dragons, they took advantage of the giant dragons' decline, raised their banners, and shouted:

“Are giant dragons born to rule?!”

They rebelled.

Not only did they rebel, but the elves also allied with other oppressed races.

They cried out to the other races:

“Let us unite to overthrow the tyranny of the giant dragons! The world belongs to all living beings!”

Thus, the Anti-Dragon Alliance was formed.

Sharpening their blades, they delivered a vicious backstab to the recuperating giant dragons.

After a thousand years of bloody war, the giant dragon race was still licking its wounds; they never expected these slaves to suddenly backstab them.

Caught completely off guard, they failed to react in time. They had been too careless.

They were forced to yield their position as the continent's overlords and step down from the stage of history.

In this way, the elves ascended to become the rulers of the continent.

Afterward, they established the Elven Royal Court to govern the entire plane.

And because elves were a Silver-tier race...

This era was historically known as the Silver Age.

Compared to the proud giant dragons and Titans, the elves were not only peace-loving but also deeply devout believers in the gods.

They built temples for the gods, established priesthoods, and offered worship.

Under their leadership, a wave of worshiping the gods swept through almost all planes.

Influenced by the power of faith, it was also from that time onward that the gods gradually transformed from emotionless laws into divine beings with genuine emotions.

Developing selfish desires, they began to divide their authority and select their most loyal believers to become their subordinate gods...

Theology developed rapidly during that period, and the entire world entered its most glorious era.

All of this finally came to an end over thirty thousand years ago.

That year, a civil war broke out within the elven race over the slots to become subordinate gods to the Elven Chief Deity.

It was historically known as the Crown Wars.

At the end of the war, although the victors successfully ascended to godhood, the elven race entered an unprecedented period of weakness due to the conflict.

At this time, the beastkin, who had always been obscure, suddenly rose to prominence.

They overthrew elven rule with extreme speed, forcing the elves to flee to the Western Continent.

From then on, they isolated themselves and withdrew from the affairs of the world.

After their rise, the beastkin initially developed quietly. However, ten thousand years ago, they conceived an incredibly preposterous idea.

They wanted to slay the gods and take their place.

Over the years, they gathered the resources of the entire continent, allied with the half-beastkin, and trained countless powerful mages and warriors.

They launched an incredibly chaotic war against the gods.

That war was known as the Twilight of the Gods.

A vast number of deities fell in that war. With the loss of the gods, the laws of reality fell into chaos.

The entire world was plunged into turmoil and panic as a result.

Fortunately, in the end, the wicked beastkin and half-beastkin were still defeated by the gods.

Peace returned to the continent once more.

Humans thus stepped onto the stage of history to become the current overlords of the continent.

To punish the beastkin and half-beastkin, the gods banished them to the absolute edges of the continent.

And they rained down curses and natural disasters upon them.

Making it extremely difficult for them to ever return to the embrace of the continent.

Over time, this region became known as the God-Forsaken Land.

But here was the question: hadn't the beastkin used magic and battle qi to slay the gods back then?

What on earth was with this high technology?!

Casting aside the confusion in her mind for the moment, Irene first placed the lid back on the “urn.”

Then, she continued to explore deeper into the spaceship.

Perhaps there was something inside this vessel that could unravel her doubts.

As she ventured further in, perhaps because the humans had not explored this deeply yet, most of the newly discovered rooms had their alloy doors tightly shut.

After prying open these alloy doors by force, Irene encountered even more power armor.

Beneath these suits of armor, without exception, lay the remains of ancient beastkin.

This further confirmed her suspicions.

The ancient war against the gods was likely quite different from what was recorded in history.

Stopping and starting along the way.

Before long, by prying open door after door, Irene successively located what appeared to be a library, a cafeteria, and even a restroom.

Unfortunately, this spaceship was from an era too far removed from the present. Most of what remained were steel fabrications.

Any paper books that might have recorded information had long since crumbled into ash.

Let alone books, even the toilet paper in the restrooms was gone.

This was truly a sad story.

“Clack, clack, clack, clack—”

As Irene, with a heavy heart, forced open yet another alloy door, a red light suddenly flashed from inside the room, scanning across her body.

The little dragon girl instantly went on high alert. Her relaxed mood vanished in a flash as she quickly took a step back, summoning a magic shield before her.

Her muscles tensed as she prepared to face any unexpected threat.

But after the red light passed, nothing happened.

No traps appeared on the floor, and no crossbow bolts shot out from the walls.

Just as she was feeling bewildered, a mechanical voice abruptly sounded from within the room.

“Bzz... wel... wel...”

The voice sounded as if it were jammed, filled with static and interference.

It wasn't until a dozen seconds later that the mechanical voice suddenly became clear and smooth, like a person constipated for ten years who had just downed a whole bottle of laxatives.

“Welcome, Supreme Commander.”