Zeke followed the sage deeper into the room.
But the room was completely empty, devoid of anything.
As Zeke wondered about this, the sage raised his hand toward the room, and astonishingly, a magic circle lit up and rose from the floor.
"A portal?"
A portal had been hidden in the floor.
The sage moved his chair onto the magic circle and gestured for Zeke to join him.
Zeke stepped onto the magic circle and stood beside the sage.
Soon, the characteristic hum of a portal vibrated through the air.
Woooong!
A flash of light burst before his eyes, and the surroundings changed entirely.
The ordinary room had transformed into a space enveloped on all sides by trees.
Zeke felt the power of the dragon here, far stronger than before.
"Where is this place?"
At that moment, a message appeared before him.
[The Senior Administrator System detects the Secure Zone "Divine Realm of the Forgotten Forest."]
[The Senior Administrator System attempts to connect.]
[The domain recognizes the Senior Administrator.]
[The Access Code "Forest of Lush Stillness" is verified.]
[The seal of the Secure Zone is released, granting entry.]
As the message appeared, the intertwined trees shifted of their own accord, parting to clear a path ahead.
The sage beside him watched this with a look of surprise.
"Huh, I didn't even have to mention it, and you've already been granted the access code for a true sealed zone. It's been thousands of years since this place last opened." The sage shook his head and beckoned Zeke to follow.
The two proceeded along the tunnel formed by the woven trees.
Zeke asked the sage, "Sir Sage, the system referred to this as the Divine Realm of the
Forgotten Forest. Is this... the domain of a Divine Dragon?"
He recalled that when he had sought out Poseidon before, the place had been called the domain of the Forgotten Sea God until the seal was broken.
The sage nodded at Zeke's words.
"I don't know how you learned about the Divine Dragon, but if you already know, that makes things easier."
As he led the way, the sage spoke slowly.
"You're right. The true body of a sealed Divine Dragon resides here."
Zeke was startled by the sage's words.
"You mean, like Poseidon, the true body of a Divine Dragon sealed by the Spear of the Undying is here?"
This time, the sage seemed even more surprised.
"How in the world do you know that?"
Zeke hesitated, unsure where to begin, then spoke.
"I broke the seal on the Sea God. So I heard the related stories from him." At those words, the sage stopped his chair and turned fully to face Zeke.
"What? You broke Poseidon's seal?" Zeke nodded.
The sage's expression grew complicated, but he soon turned back and continued forward.
After that, he fell deep into thought and said nothing more.
Soon, the long corridor ended, opening into a vast cavern.
The cavern, too, was entirely composed of wood, with a ceiling so high that even craning his neck yielded no sight of its end.
"Wow, it's enormous. Is this inside the roots of that massive tree?" At that moment, the sage extended his hand forward.
In response, the trees of the cavern began to move.
Rumble rumble rumble—
Something soon surged up from the floor.
Zeke stepped back to see it clearly: a massive fossil.
"A dragon?"
It was the fossil of a huge dragon, curled up and connected to the wooden floor.
It seemed as if the trees had sprouted from this dragon fossil.
Seeing this, Zeke recalled the enormous turtle that had hidden the Sea God's seal.
"Could it be that this massive tree is the avatar of the Forest God?" The sage nodded at Zeke's question.
"You know quite a bit about the Divine Dragon. Yes. Before the Forest God's consciousness fully faded, it created this enormous tree and tasked me, its avatar, with guarding this place."
Only then did Zeke realize the sage's true nature. "Like Poseidon, you're an avatar of a Divine Dragon." The sage looked at Zeke and spoke.
"My name is Hermes. I am the lord of the Green Clan and the avatar who inherited the name of the Forest God, a Divine Dragon."
Zeke remembered hearing the name Hermes from Hades before.
In passing, Hades had said that Hermes was one of the longest-lived dragons aside from the Elder Dragons and was revered among them as the wisest.
Hermes pointed to the fossilized seal of the Divine Dragon.
"If Poseidon explained it to you, then you already know what happened without me saying more."
Zeke nodded.
"Yes. I heard that Siemens Apollyon sealed the Divine Dragon's divinity with the Godslayer Stone spear."
"Do you know why Siemens Apollyon did such a thing?"
"I heard that at the request of the Great Sage, the Divine Dragons pooled their power to create the Hero King's homunculus to stop him. When Siemens Apollyon learned of the Divine Dragons' intervention in the war, he sealed their hearts with the Godslayer Stone." Hermes listened silently to Zeke, then finally spoke.
"His attack on the Divine Dragons was revenge for creating the Hero King's homunculus, but there was actually another reason."
Hermes revealed a story Poseidon had not shared.
"At that time, there were three Divine Dragons. Me, the Forest God; Poseidon, the Sea God; and the Earth God. That's how it was." He continued slowly.
"Strictly speaking, the Divine Dragons qualify for divinity and take on the roles of the gods by receiving their powers."
Zeke had a hunch from Hermes's words and cautiously asked, "The Earth God you mentioned—is that the Earth God worshiped by Ishtar's elves?" Hermes nodded.
"Yes, unfortunately, I heard that after communication with the Earth God was severed, they were left only with strict laws. In any case, the Forest God, Sea God, and Earth God who granted power to the Divine Dragons were tasked by the Creator God with maintaining the balance of this Phenomenal World. The Divine Dragons who inherited that role had to fulfill the same duty."
Zeke recalled how, after Poseidon reclaimed his divinity as the former Forgotten Sea God, the turbulent monsters and rough waves of the Sea of Death had stabilized.
"So... does that mean Siemens Apollyon sealed the Divine Dragons' divinities to weaken the gods' power and disrupt the balance of the Phenomenal World?"
"Exactly. With the Divine Dragons sealed, greater chaos befell the Phenomenal World. Above all, as conflicts among humans escalated, the entire continent became a battlefield."
Zeke questioned Hermes's words.
"What is the connection between the sealing of the Divine Dragons and the wars among humans?"
Hermes spoke slowly.
"As the balance of the Phenomenal World was disrupted, bringing hardship and chaos, the Fallen Constellations tempted and lured humans in various ways. Over thousands of years of history, how many dynasties changed, and how many people died? All while feeling immense despair, frustration, and fear."
Zeke's face hardened as he listened to Hermes.
"Surely you're not saying that all those wars and conflicts among humans were due to the temptations of the Fallen Constellations?"
"Not all of them, of course, but their influence was present in pivotal moments." Zeke's expression turned confused.
"Interfering with humans to incite wars... Why would they do that...?"
"Don't you know? For the Fallen Constellations, war is nothing less than a grand feast. They can absorb the impure energy spilling from it to grow stronger, and the souls of humans who fall into the abyss of corruption become fine prey for them."
The Fallen Constellations incited their vassals—and everything else—to spark conflicts, struggles, and exposure to despair and madness.
That was how they strengthened their power and gained greater stature.
Zeke finally understood why Narak and Siemens were recklessly inciting wars across the continent and perpetrating massive slaughters.
He had thought it was merely a byproduct of schemes to resurrect the Demon King. But in truth, it was all a process to bolster the Fallen Constellations' power and revive the Demon King.
The sage, seeing Zeke's hardened face as if he had realized something, said, "Hearing that you liberated the Sea God again made me think of many things."
Zeke asked, puzzled by the sage's uneasy tone, "If what you say is true, then freeing the sealed Divine Dragons and restoring the balance of the Phenomenal World should be the way to stop the Fallen Constellations, right?"
The sage replied slowly, "One could see it that way, but in truth, the more important thing is the various signs emerging from behind that."
"Signs...?"
The sage pointed at Zeke.
"The Immortal."
As an avatar of the Divine Dragon, the sage knew Zeke's true nature.
The sage looked at Zeke's stiffened expression and continued, "The existence of an
Immortal is dangerous. The very appearance of an Immortal signals that the Demon King's resurrection is not far off."
In every era when the Demon King emerged, an Immortal always appeared.
In the Hero King's era, there was the Immortal Siemens Apollyon, and during the War of Liberation, there was the Immortal Terakan Draker.
Zeke asked the sage, "The Holy King passed the Holy Spear to me, saying I had inherited the destiny to annihilate the Demon King. He said I must complete the mission that the
Immortal Terakan Draker could not."
At the mention of the Holy Spear, the sage's eyes widened.
"The spear wielded by the first slayer of gods... Is that what you mean?" Instead of answering, Zeke pulled the Holy Spear from his inventory.
Seeing the spear, entirely black from body to blade, the sage said to Zeke, "It seems to have taken form influenced by your soul." "Yes. After I inherited it, its shape changed." The sage nodded at this.
"An Immortal can slay gods or become one themselves." Zeke was shocked by those words.
"I understand being able to slay gods with the Godslayer Stone, but what do you mean by becoming a god?"
The sage pondered before speaking slowly.
"An Immortal is an existence freed from the influence of karma. Who do you think would desire such an Immortal the most?"
Zeke's face hardened at the sage's words.
"Surely...?"
The sage nodded.
"A body that cannot be extinguished is inevitably the vessel the Demon King covets most."
Zeke's mind rang like it had been struck.
The first godslayer, who slew a god, ultimately became the king of the Fallen Constellations.
Siemens Apollyon, who possessed the power of an Immortal, had the Demon King descend into his body.
Terakan Draker did not become the Demon King, but he could not ultimately slay Bahamut, his beloved in whom the Demon King had descended.
Then Zeke realized something and jolted.
"During the War of Liberation, the body the Demon King sought to descend into wasn't the Shadow Dragon Bahamut, but the Immortal Terakan himself!"
Upon learning this, Bahamut may have sacrificed herself to contain the Demon King within her body and asked Terakan, the only one with the power of godslaying, to annihilate both her and the Demon King together.
But Terakan could not bring himself to extinguish his beloved Bahamut, and the Demon
King's soul was sealed within the Book of the Lion, placed in a tower beyond the Dark Sea that no one could reach.
Only now, realizing that an Immortal was both the slayer of the Demon King and the potential vessel for it, did Zeke understand why the fairy of the lake had refused to give him the sacred relic simply because he was an Immortal.
"If I changed my mind and used the sacred relic to summon the Fallen Constellations to the Phenomenal World and released the Book of the Lion containing the Demon King's soul to descend into my body..."
No one could stop a Demon King that had descended into the Phenomenal World.
The sage looked at Zeke and said, "That is why the emergence of someone who can unseal the Divine Dragons can also be seen as an omen of the Demon King's resurrection."
Zeke nodded at the sage's words.
"I understand the implication, but I have no intention of ever letting the Demon King descend into me."
The sage shook his head.
"The descent of the Demon King is not something to think of so simply. Terakan Draker surely never imagined he would discard the chance to annihilate the Demon King in his final moments."
The Demon King peered into the deepest, darkest recesses of the soul and seeped in from the weakest points.
Thus, the Demon King's whispers could not be blocked, and resisting their temptation was impossible.
"The Demon King's temptation..."
Zeke had never considered becoming the Demon King's vessel, so his mind inevitably grew complicated.
At that moment, the sage, who had been silent, spoke to Zeke.
"I have a request for you."
The sage pointed to his own heart.
"Use the Holy Spear to annihilate me."