The Eclipsed Order

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: The World Beyond Ares

After explaining everything, the three of us remained on the mountain for a while, with the conversation gradually shifting away from the Eclipse itself and toward the world I had once lived in.

Draven was the first to break the silence.

"So Earth is a world where magic doesn’t exist?"

"That’s right."

He looked genuinely fascinated.

"That’s difficult to imagine. A world inhabited by humans who have no magic at all, yet somehow managed to develop an entire civilization without it."

He paused, glancing toward the distant horizon.

"Just thinking about the existence of another world inhabited by humans is already strange enough. I have lived for thousands of years, Master, and I’ve never heard of anything like that."

I smiled faintly.

"Don’t make it sound too peaceful. Earth may not have magic, but that doesn’t mean it was peaceful."

Draven looked at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Crime was common. Wars happened. There were corrupt governments, criminal organizations, people who abused their authority, and plenty of individuals willing to kill others for money or power."

I looked toward the mountains below.

"Earth was simply dangerous in a different way. You didn’t have monsters or magic destroying cities, but humans were more than capable of creating their own disasters."

Cedric, who had remained quiet until then, finally spoke.

"That explains why Master became an assassin."

I glanced toward him.

"Good observation."

Draven’s expression became curious.

"So you were really an assassin?"

"Yes."

"What kind?"

I thought about it for a moment before answering.

"Back then, I was known by the name Phantom."

Draven raised an eyebrow.

"Phantom?"

"It was the name people gave me because I specialized in appearing and disappearing without leaving much evidence behind. I infiltrated places that ordinary soldiers couldn’t reach, eliminated targets that were considered impossible to reach, and completed assignments before anyone even realized I had arrived."

I smiled faintly.

"Most of my targets were criminals, corrupt officials, people who abused their positions, members of dangerous organizations, or individuals who had become too difficult for ordinary authorities to deal with."

Draven looked impressed.

"So even in your previous world, you were already one of the strongest people."

I shook my head.

"You’re only half right."

I could certainly kill that guy.

But back then, I wasn’t in a condition where I could do anything about him. Compared to what I can do now, my old body was practically powerless.

I kept that thought to myself.

There was no reason to explain every detail of my previous life.

Draven, however, still seemed interested.

"Then how did you die, Master?"

I sighed.

"That’s a long story."

I looked toward the sky.

"My final mission involved a target who was far more dangerous than the information we had been given. The operation went wrong, my team was eliminated, and I was badly injured. I still managed to complete the mission, but I didn’t survive the aftermath."

I paused for a moment.

"That’s how my previous life ended."

Draven became quiet.

"I see..."

His expression changed slightly.

"Even so, Master was apparently impressive even before coming here."

I laughed softly.

"You’re making it sound more dramatic than it was."

"Oh, right."

I suddenly remembered something.

"There were dinosaurs on Earth."

Draven blinked.

"Dinosaurs?"

"Yeah."

"What are dinosaurs?"

I looked at him.

"Think of them as ancient creatures that lived on Earth long before humans existed."

I gestured vaguely toward the mountains.

"Some were enormous, some were relatively small, some walked on two legs, others on four, and there were countless different species. Some were predators, while others were herbivores."

Draven’s expression became increasingly curious.

"So they were like dragons?"

"Not exactly."

I shook my head.

"They weren’t magical creatures, and they couldn’t fly around breathing fire or anything like that. They were animals that lived on Earth millions of years before humans appeared."

"Millions?"

"Yes."

Draven stared at me.

"How long ago?"

"The dinosaurs lived during an era called the Mesozoic Era, which began more than two hundred million years ago. The non-avian dinosaurs eventually disappeared around sixty-six million years ago."

Draven’s expression became blank.

"Sixty-six million years..."

He looked toward the sky.

"That’s absurd."

"Well if you two were that surprise, Earth itself is much older."

"Really, how old?"

I answered casually.

"About 4.6 billion years."

Draven and Cedric both became silent.

For several seconds, neither seemed capable of responding.

"Four..."

Draven slowly turned toward me.

"Point six billion?"

"Approximately."

Cedric’s expression became unusually serious.

"I have never encountered a historical record describing an existence that old."

"That’s because most of the history of Earth happened long before humans existed."

I leaned against a nearby rock.

"Humans couldn’t have simply appeared at the beginning. The planet went through countless geological periods, climates changed, oceans formed and disappeared, and life evolved over enormous stretches of time."

I paused.

"Humans are actually extremely recent compared to Earth’s age."

Draven frowned.

"So what lived during those billions of years?"

"Many different forms of life. Some appeared, evolved, dominated the planet for millions of years, and eventually disappeared. Dinosaurs were only one part of that history."

"And humans?"

"Modern humans appeared much later. There simply wasn’t a suitable human civilization during those ancient eras."

Draven slowly shook his head.

"To think an entire world could have existed for that long..."

He looked genuinely amazed.

"Four billion years is difficult to comprehend."

"Yeah."

I smiled.

"Earth is old."

Draven folded his arms.

"Then I suppose I should stop complaining about sleeping for a few thousand years."

"Probably."

Cedric quietly looked toward the horizon.

"I wonder how many civilizations could have existed during that amount of time."

"That’s impossible to know."

I shrugged.

"Most of Earth’s ancient history has nothing to do with humans at all."

The conversation continued for nearly an hour, with Draven asking increasingly strange questions about Earth while Cedric occasionally joined in whenever something caught his interest.

Eventually, the three of us began making our way back toward the academy.

The mountain was quiet again, and the sky had already begun changing as the day gradually moved toward evening.

Draven walked beside me with his hands behind his head.

"So Earth had no magic, ancient creatures that lived millions of years ago, and a history stretching back billions of years."

"That’s the general idea."

He sighed.

"Every time I learn something about your old world, it becomes more difficult to believe that it actually existed."

"I felt the same way when I first came here."

Cedric glanced toward me.

"Master."

"Hmm?"

"You truly have memories of another world?"

"Yes."

He nodded slowly.

"Then perhaps that explains why you have always seemed different from everyone else."

I smiled.

"Maybe."

Eventually, the three of us returned to the academy and entered the dormitory.

The room looked exactly as we had left it.

Draven immediately dropped into a chair.

"That was a long conversation."

"You were the one asking most of the questions."

"Because your world is interesting."

Cedric quietly returned to his book.

I looked toward the two of them.

For some reason, the conversation had left me feeling strangely nostalgic.

Earth had been a dangerous place.

It had been violent, complicated, and far from peaceful.

But it had still been my first home.

I had never expected to speak about it again.

Yet now, standing inside a completely different world with an ancient dragon and an evolved undead at my side, I found myself wondering just how much more there was to discover.

Perhaps one day, if I could somehow figure out a way to cross the boundary between worlds, I would take them there myself.

Until then, however, Earth would remain a distant memory.

And this world...

This was the place where my second life had truly begun.

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