Chapter 1677 - 1677: Epilogue 29 - The End of the Beginning (3)

"Our world is not the only world that exists," he continued after a moment of silence, finally giving me another piece of the explanation I had been demanding. "The world we once believed was the only place where people could live has turned out to be merely one among countless other worlds."

I already knew all of that, and honestly, I wouldn't have started researching portals in the first place if I hadn't already known that other worlds existed somewhere beyond our own.

"Then why did you ever think that invading another world and conquering it was a good idea?" I asked him, my frustration becoming harder to hide. "I don't know if this is about resources or territory or whatever else you're after, but I know you're doing all of this for a specific reason."

I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out whether he was finally going to give me an honest answer instead of another vague explanation about saving our world.

"You have some kind of purpose in mind," I continued, "and I want to know what that purpose actually is, because I can't accept being expected to blindly follow you when you refuse to tell me what you're really trying to accomplish."

So that was what he had been trying to tell me this entire time, and somehow, despite all the information I had gathered throughout my life, I still hadn't managed to understand the bigger picture behind everything that was happening around us.

After I said those words, he suddenly started laughing, although there wasn't anything particularly funny about what I had just said, and the sound of his laughter made me feel even more uneasy than I already was.

"You really don't understand a thing, do you?" he said, finally calming himself down as he looked at me through the hologram. "You don't understand this world, and you don't understand our world either. Even after all the research you've done, you still haven't managed to learn everything that you should have learned by now."

For some reason, those words hurt me much more than I expected them to, especially because they came from him rather than from some stranger who simply wanted to insult me.

My father had always praised me whenever I accomplished something, and I had grown used to hearing him tell me that I was doing a good job whenever I managed to impress him with something I had discovered or accomplished.

Hearing him say that I didn't understand anything felt completely different from his usual words, almost as though someone had taken a knife and slowly dragged it straight through my heart.

"Even after everything I've told you, you still don't understand," he said with a tired sigh.

The disappointment in his voice was painfully obvious, and somehow, that disappointment hurt me more than anger probably would have.

"F-Father?"

"The War of the Worlds," he said, his voice suddenly becoming much more serious than it had been moments earlier.

I stared at him through the hologram while he continued speaking, and despite everything I was feeling, I forced myself to listen carefully because I could tell that whatever he was about to explain was something he considered incredibly important.

"The worlds are going to clash whether we like it or not," he said. "I've told you this before, but you never really put it into perspective. The entire universe will continue shrinking until all of the worlds are brought closer and closer together, almost like marbles packed tightly inside a pouch."

He paused briefly, giving me enough time to process what he had just said.

"The only thing keeping those worlds from directly touching one another will be the layers surrounding them, but eventually, portals connecting one world to another will begin appearing. The worlds will then clash against one another until only a single marble remains."

His explanation sounded almost absurd when he compared entire worlds to marbles, but I knew him well enough to understand that he wasn't joking.

"That surviving marble will then be placed into another pouch, where it will become part of another batch of wars. The higher beings holding those marbles will continue putting them through these conflicts until eventually, nothing remains at all."

His expression became more serious as he continued.

"I'm trying to prevent our world from ever experiencing that fate."

I had heard this story before.

Or perhaps I hadn't actually heard it in the way I thought I had.

Something about his explanation felt strangely familiar, almost like a memory buried beneath several layers of other memories that I had forgotten about a long time ago.

It hadn't been my father who first explained it to me, though.

Someone else had told me.

I suddenly gasped when the memory came rushing back into my mind, so quickly that I almost felt dizzy from the sudden realization.

"D-Did you... meet him too?"

"Meet who?"

"T-The dragon?"

The moment I mentioned the dragon, he went silent.

That reaction alone was enough to make my heart beat a little faster.

The dragon.

I had been only a child when I met him, and despite how long ago that encounter had happened, something about it had remained buried deep inside me.

It had been an enormous dragon with brown wings and strange brown-and-golden eyes that seemed almost impossible to forget once you had looked into them.

When I had approached it back then, the first thing I remembered noticing was its smell, which reminded me strongly of iron.

I still remembered that strange scent.

I still remembered those eyes.

Most importantly, I still remembered its voice.

The dragon had spoken directly to me, and it had told me secrets about the worlds that existed beyond our own.

It had explained that our world was only one among countless others, and that there were beings and civilizations scattered throughout those worlds that I couldn't even begin to imagine.

It had also warned me that a collision between those worlds would eventually happen.

When that happened, the living beings within those worlds would inevitably begin fighting one another.

They would fight over resources. They would fight for survival. They would fight for territory, power, and influence.

More importantly, they would fight for superiority because once the worlds began colliding, simply surviving wouldn't be enough for the strongest beings involved.

The dragon had made that very clear to me.

Its voice and the strange sounds it emitted while speaking had remained buried somewhere in my memory for years, and remembering them now was enough to send chills running down my spine.

I had forgotten about the encounter for so long that I had almost convinced myself it had never happened.

The experience had affected me far more severely than I had realized.

Perhaps the trauma had been so overwhelming that my own mind had simply buried the memory somewhere I couldn't reach.

Now that memory had suddenly resurfaced, and I found myself wondering how many other things I had forgotten because they had been too painful to remember.

"The dragon, huh?" my father said, apparently thinking about the creature as well. "What did he call himself again when he appeared before me?"

He seemed to think for a moment before remembering.

"Ah, that's right. He called himself a Great One."