After history’s most formidable aberration crossed the river of time.
[Senior Operator] and I parted in silence. To be precise, she left alone and was already gone.
She departed in a manner true to herself, without a single letter or trace of her belongings.
I too, with the dust settling and the vessel growing dark, stepped out aimlessly into the void.
At first, I walked east. My only reason was that the berth was too cold to grant me sleep.
Though no ice chips drifted from the north, the night air was still dominated by bitter cold rather than warmth.
I realized that those ancient sages who boasted of living diligently while commanding others must have been liars, claiming to toil for people yet sponging off them. That was why I headed east.
“Don’t mock those ancient sages for such a petty reason. You just slept badly and grew irritable.”
A sharp voice rang in my head, more human in cadence than [Law]’s calm mechanical timbre, asserting its seniority—and leaning toward a female resonance rather than male.
“Alright, alright. I get that you’re unhappy now, but could you consider the thoughts I’m tied to? You could disconnect me, yet you don’t.”
I ignored the whining voice and resumed my steps. It sighed with detached coolness before shifting the topic to itself.
“Hah, I shouldn’t open my mouth. ‘Law,’ huh? It’s certainly a name that nails the essence. You were calling me that all along?”
Faced with that barely suppressed, catlike chuckle of curiosity, I decided to play a minor prank.
I recalled the first time I spoke with her—yesterday, or at least what should have been two days ago.
“Don’t reminisce. You have control. I can only watch along!”
The weather that day started clear before turning overcast. The deep footprints in the ground were as wide as they were deep, allowing sunlight in, but the walls carved like cliffs were cloaked in shadow and darkness.
No matter how far I walked, the landscape remained unchanged—only the sky shifted slowly above.
Endless wild plains, mountain slopes, colossal rocks, and the sole imprint of [Behemoths]. My curiosity alone led me to step inside those footprints.
The voice first rang in my head after I tried to climb out of one of those deep ruts and tumbled down four times. It echoed like a pang of conscience.
“Do I really have to follow this?”
Shoving that intrusive interrupter aside, I revisited that day, scanning the vast plain. The [Behemoths]’ footprints were as deep as the cliff’s edge beyond the horizon, but several natural ledges remained like rocky steps where one could rest. Those resting spots were too fragile even for lying down fully, so I had to lean against the ledge to catch my breath.
“Hah, fine. You can do it. The kid is still here, after all.”
Her tone was perfunctory and devoid of interest, but the words stood as they were.
After I struggled up onto the footprint, I exchanged a few words with her. She was one of the Preservers, a person assimilated into [Law]. She said she had relinquished her name upon becoming a Preserver and asked me to call her simply that.
“I’ve severed all linked consciousnesses. The old demons have either returned, or maybe they’ve succumbed to sudden solitude and spiraled into depression.”
She spoke as though summoning drifting sand, describing that vague sense of connection. Vaguely understanding what that sensation felt like, I remained silent. As time passed to now, she took to exploring my memories as a nasty hobby. During those moments, I could go days without uttering a word.
“Don’t meddle, you who would watch drifting clouds for four days straight with nothing to do. I thought I’d lose my mind then.”
I let her words wash over me as I walked east. While striding toward the sun, the voice spoke again.
“Hey. I know it’s freezing. But you’ve been walking till the nights started to grow shorter. Do you know how long you’ve been walking? A full half-year! Half a year spent walking. Have you ever wondered why I replay your memories?”
Indeed, I had only taunted or thwarted her cruel pastime, never questioned why myself.
The reason was simpler than any thought could reach: time itself.
Endless hours had gnawed away at my will and curiosity, leaving me only to react passively, never pondering the cause. To offer a small excuse: the world around me remained unchanged, and I’m no philosopher or historian. Dwelling on it might have driven me mad.
“Why, at that point, do you phrase it as a question?”
Did I have to answer that? I thought not.
As I walked eastward again, the voice fell silent. It would speak again only after a very long time had passed.
I then changed course to the north. This time, my decision was more deliberate than it had been for the east.
Transmission gates and satellites in the sky were gradually falling toward the earth, as though wanting to return to the land they had long since abandoned.
Long ago, before she became a Preserver, someone remembered watching a meteor shower paint the night sky in childhood.
They’d said that when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes back. I felt the same.
When she delved into my memories, I read the intermingled fragments of hers. Though I never knew the names she cherished, I felt the warmth they carried.
That warmth shone with a different heat than the objects burning in the sky above.
As days passed, the sky transformed into ever more complicated hues and shapes. Whether by antigravitational fields or the spasms of a coordinate fixation system, the falling objects maintained speed as they plummeted.
Even amid this, as I walked north, I pondered my reason. Whenever I forced myself to find one, time itself offered a half-answer: they were falling because time had come.
Yet I knew that the Priestess had disrupted their descent above.
An undefined tension and suspicion lingered, an urge to pluck feathers rising in my grip.
If they were merely falling, it would be early but harmless. But if it were anything else…
I quickened my pace, yet the distance remained as unconquered as the time I had left.
One day, the first meteor slashed the sky and fell, leaving a stark white trail as it struck the earth.
I was miles away when it landed; only dust and a thunderous roar grazed my ears.
The next day, the second and third meteors tore through the land, shaking everything.
This time, one exploded nearby in a repulsive blast, hurling me into the air and sending me tumbling across the soil, coated in dust.
After several more days, I finally reached the northern point I had awaited: one of the two [Stargate] sites.
North.
The perpetual frost of the far-northern glacier is not merely a weather phenomenon.
Since humanity abandoned its old homes, many have claimed this empty land as their own.
Most of them are demons, or fragile lives that migrated from Talos.
Occasionally a formidable lifeform takes root—and this was one such case.
*
The ice-and-snow [Behemoths], Sa-
Stop. A voice bursting into my mind halted my thought.
With a simple act of will, he stopped me. In a weighty voice, he both pressed down on me and guided me, striving to carry on the conversation. He gazed calmly at me and unleashed a gale of frost to brush the dust away.
I was bundled up like a snowman, but after flapping my wings twice, the frost fell away cleanly.
“You came because you were worried about what falls from the sky, child who holds the fragments yet refuses to act in their stead.”
He spoke in the tone of a gentle elder; his eyes instantly radiated a tender compassion and an almost unbelievable warmth.
“See how snow can hold warmth, surprising, isn’t it? The young always think their own world is all there is.”
He rose to his immense height and looked up at the sky.
“Those small objects won’t cause much noise themselves. Rather, it’s what follows them that’s the problem.”
After he spoke, he showed me something: a screen displaying a familiar city.
Unlike the research annex where I had been, the skyline was unmistakably familiar, its skyscrapers melting into spikes like bell stones, then crumpling and liquefying at the swipe of a colossal blade.
The lava-wreathed behemoth wielding that blade charged, seeing those falling from the sky.
The view he showed ended with the charred scars of a melting land.
“They’re coming.”
“Yes, they’re coming. Slower than you, but faster than you—so they’ll be here soon.”
I widened my eyes in surprise that he spoke like a person.
“I told you, child who does not act in their stead. Then there must be someone who acts on my behalf. Of course, that one prefers headbutting to words.”
The creature speaking for him was a deer—no, a reindeer by its thick fur.
“I can’t chat at length, but feel free to ask something curious—like who holds your fragments, for instance.”
I hesitated at his offer, then shook my head. He withdrew with a faint satisfaction at my refusal.
After he stepped back, I climbed higher to watch the falling objects in the sky, when a massive presence lifted itself into view.
He was [Surtur].
He declared he was the great [Surtur], entitled to rule, to be worshipped, and to be remembered in legend.
He laughed exuberantly, grandly, and charged forth.
He melted the ground, raced across the boundless icefields, and swung his colossal fiery blade.
Then a colossal object fell from the sky. Even amidst the crushing blast and howling snowstorm, I felt a lingering cold that guarded me.
My ears rang, and upon returning my gaze, I heard the crunch of snow beneath furious steps and turned around.
His proxy regarded me with predatory eyes.
Following his guidance, I found small creatures sheltering beneath an old tree and apologized to them.
[Sami] used the fallen object as a shield and fearlessly blocked [Surtur]’s great blade.
His blood and severed limbs scattered across the ground and buried deep into the white snow.
Once he realized his blade was useless, the fire creature hesitated in fear and was quickly seized by the enemy.
In an instant, his body was torn apart and trampled beneath their feet. The ice-and-snow [Behemoths] sealed the fire within their own bodies.
His muscles turned to stone, his bones to colossal trunks. Everything was buried in the blizzard.
Even as the fire creature was buried in snow, it bellowed with malice:
“Do it now! Otherwise, you will never regain yourself!”
In time, the ice-and-snow [Behemoths] stood as the highest peak in this frozen expanse, holding that place—and they would hold it for a thousand centuries to come.
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