Interlude 3 - Twilight

From the 12-03-2344 report of the ASU (advanced surveillance unit)

“Good. Can you tell us what happened, this time in a clear fashion?” Asked the man.

“Of course.” The woman was still a bit shocked but, now that she was safe, and far from there, she was slowly starting to gather her wits.

“So, erhm, we were following Twilight as usual. It had destroyed the last Entropic Crystal from the Raüga continent, finishing to turn it into a dust wasteland, and was now floating at a steady pace to start and cross the ocean between Raüga and Vyanirr.

Seeing how Twilight had utterly destroyed the ecosystem of Raüga, the team and I were a bit apprehensive.”

She moved a bit in her chair before speaking again.

“After all, it wasn’t pleasing to see all natural life being turned into dust in front of your eyes, even if it meant destroying Entropy at the same time. Just look at Raüga, its rainforest and extremely complex plant system, all gone.

So me and the team, true to our duty, kept the distance between us and Twilight to a minimum, monitoring its every move and, when it started floating over the ocean, it began. Oh, not directly, not in a flash or something, no. More like a tsunami. The waves started to settle down and, in the sky, clouds covered the sun. I remember it vividly, in particular because it defied the weather forecasting for the day and the place.”

She took a sip from her glass of water.

“Then Twilight stopped. Right there, in the sky. Imagine that: A black, fleshy sphere like a mountain just looking down at a way-too-peaceful ocean. The feeling of hate coming from Twilight was particularly powerful, at the time, it was nearly piercing through the defect in our point-zero shield, and everyone was particularly restless.”

“Yes, being near the Twilight unprotected is known to have adverse side effects on the humanoid psyche. Please, go on.”

She had emptied her water as the man was speaking. “You have another glass?”

“Of course. I’ll ask for one, but please, keep talking.”

“Ah yes, sorry. So the hate was particularly prominent at this time and, suddenly, something started coming out of the water. At first we thought it was some Entropic weapon, but the Twilight was known to scare the shit out of them, and no Entropic movement had been detected in a 300km radius around the Twilight’s zone of activity, so it couldn’t be that.

The Niotek, our dragon mascot and occasional unit captain, nearly pissed his pants. I never saw the captain so scared, but it was for a good reason, as we understood while getting the hell out of there.”

The glass, now filled with water again, was put on the table. She quickly took another sip.

“When the captain had recovered enough to say anything other than ‘FLEE’ or fearfully scream, he finally gave the identity of the now contender away: Leviathan.”

It was the second time the man heard this story from the woman, but he still couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“You’re confident in what you’re saying?”

“Yes. I know, for me too it was a shock to see what we thought was a dragon myth, right there, rising from the sea. But, honestly, I don’t think anything this big could be something else. In most myths, I looked a bit, only her tentacles or a tiny part of her body is described, always fighting monsters or whatnot, protecting settlement from annihilation. But here, I’m talking about her full body. After some time, Captain even ordered us to go back there to see what was happening, as Leviathan using her whole body was unheard of. According to Captain, because she never needed it.”

“Well, mythology has a tendency to turn things bigger than they are…” Said the man, doubtful.

“Here it’s the opposite. Once back there, Twilight and Leviathan hadn’t started fighting yet, they were just looking at each other like cats protecting their territory. At first it was a showdown, I think, Twilight snapping its mouth all around, gathering mana and trying to intimidate Leviathan, while the Dragon-Mother was rising from the sea, her head alone being kilometres long.”

Another sip.

“Frankly, something this big shouldn’t exist. We’re talking about a moving mountain range here. Then the showdown started, and Captain knew he had fucked up by asking us to go back. They started simple. Leviathan’s breath against Twilight’s mana laser. And after that, nothing. All our instruments got fried by the blast, and we survived only because we were all aboard the main vessel, and the point-zero shield was deployed.”

Second glass emptied.

“After that… well, you know better than me what happened. What’s sure is that, once we exited the vessel, Leviathan was going back into the sea, and the Twilight wasn’t flying anymore.”

“...Thanks for your cooperation.”

As an index to this report, it should be noted that the presence of Behemoth was confirmed on-site alongside Leviathan.

None of those legendary dragons has moved alone in recent history, even less together, and the only record we have about the both of them fighting the same threat is from a thousands-old creation myth.

Seeing the degree of devastation this battle created, it is advised to not take rash actions against any of the three parties involved.

End of recording. For the Emperor’s personal usage only.