"Yes! Hahahaha... Let me tell you about this small but interesting world," Elder Genbu laughed, a sound like grinding stones.
The serpentine head swayed closer, its golden eyes reflecting the flicker of the blue barrier light from the distant arena.
"The start of this new age was called the Modern Era. It was a time when your race truly believed they were the masters of the world.
They didn't just rule, they enslaved every other living thing.
They conducted experiments on us—and when they ran out of beasts, they turned those cruel tools to their own kind."
Dreleon felt a chill that had nothing to do with the dampness of the cave.
"What? Are you saying my race became... animals?"
He pictured it in his mind: humans like himself, stripped of their reason, hunting each other through the brush and eating raw flesh in the dark.
"Yes! You people were worse than the animals of that era," the Elder said, his mouth curling into a predatory smile.
"But heaven is not as cruel as the human heart. Something unknown—a heart from the stars—crashed into the sea. Through that heart, the Primordial Era returned.
The world woke up."
"What's a 'sea'?" Dreleon asked, the word tasting strange on his tongue.
"Hahahaha! See? Even you humans are nothing from birth, yet you were once so proud of your knowledge," Genbu mocked.
He sighed, his voice softening into the habit of a gentle teacher.
"A sea is just a massive pond, little one. But the difference is that we are but ants before that pond. It is water that touches the sky, vast enough to swallow a thousand jungles."
Dreleon tried to imagine a pond that large, but his mind couldn't hold the scale.
"After the Primordial Return, your race fled toward the center of the lands, thinking the deep forests would save them," Genbu continued, his voice growing heavy with a sudden, thick sadness.
"But in the middle of that chaos, a foreign race found us. They came from the void between stars."
The Elder's head lowered. "They attacked indiscriminately.
They didn't care for borders or kings; they killed anyone they saw.
The situation grew so dire that we—the beasts of the earth—were forced to make a pact with those detestable humans."
"What's a 'pact'?" Dreleon interrupted, his curiosity overriding his caution.
"Everyone says I made one with the Princess. Is it that same thing?"
"Hah..." The Elder exhaled a cloud of mist. "Little one, if you want to learn from me, stay silent when I speak.
Your race has a weird, hungry curiosity for knowledge.
But I suppose that is why you stood at the pinnacle even without power, and why they now own half the earth."
The Elder's eyes grew moist, shimmering with an ancient grief. "The pact at that time was merely an agreement made on paper by the kings of both races.
They poured their blood onto the scrolls to bless their people, vowing to stand together.
On that detestable day, the humans sent their most powerful ships and we sent our beast Kings into space to meet the threat.
A month later, only a single, injured King returned."
Genbu stopped, his eyes watery.
He took a long, shaky breath before continuing. "We tried to celebrate his return, but the King told us the truth.
The ship that had reached us was just scouts.
They weren't even the main army, and we had suffered that much just to stop them.
Seeing the darkness of the future, both races decided to split the earth into two halves—to live apart, yet continue the pact and practice for the day the common enemy returned."
Dreleon felt the weight of history pressing down on his chest.
"As time passed," the Elder said, beginning to chew on a piece of glowing moss, "we discovered that humans and beasts under a special bond—a Soul Pact—gained strange, reality-bending abilities.
Eventually, it became the only way to fight the foreigners.
It was no longer an agreement on paper; it became a fusion of spirits."
The Elder looked at Dreleon, his chewing slowing. "And now, here you are. A slave in a kingdom of lions, carrying the power that was meant to save the world, hahahaha." he laughed while teasing dreleon.
But seeing the serious face of dreleon which was lost somewhere he stopped.