The images in Akenothustar's hand changed again. They first showed the Yuthia Desert surrounded by several newcomers of numerous races, with dozens or perhaps even hundreds of dragons teaching them architecture, art and music; and then all those ideas came together in a gigantic city composed of alabaster and onyx, studded with gold and precious gems, built both thanks to the newcomers who extracted many minerals from the ground and stacked them as the dragons told them, and thanks to the powers of the dragons which made everything solid and using special magic made walls and roofs almost indestructible. Other races and other dragons began to converge on the city and learn, and others instead founded other cities and other villages. "We dragons taught the newcomers everything we knew. We taught them how to create blueprints, select materials, place stones in the right way. We taught them math, engineering, law, science, but also other things that weren't immediately 'useful' for us, like music, sculpture, painting and writing.With this knowledge we built huge cities full of colors and golden light, where anyone could express their creativity in the way they deemed best. Any form of art was for us tolerated, indeed encouraged, and the same was true of science and magic, which in fact progressed much further than the newcomers had ever been able to advance them during the millions of years of their existence. Our first city was Tharagum, 'great hope' in the Old Draconian, but soon our expansion began and new cities were built in other parts of the world. The other dragons who survived the catastrophe, who had survived alone and savage up to that point, joined us or were subdued by us, and the same was true for the other newcomers who had been born in other mana veins. Soon, our cities became something that could be considered almost fairytale in your era: streets that never get dirty covered the ground surrounded by gardens where lush trees and cute animals lived, buildings as tall as small hills rose where initially there was nothing, the night sky was illuminated by special lamps fueled by magic, gold and silver studded everything; paintings, frescoes and mosaics covered any wall in any artistic style, sculptures and fountains of all kinds filled the squares, and the notes of ever-changing music resounded throughout the city as everyone gave vent to their creativity. Those who did not immerse themselves in art turned to science, philosophy and magic, rediscovering under our guidance more and more of my people's ancient knowledge, understanding the shape of the world, its place in the universe and how it worked in its components. Elves, humans, beastmen, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, orcs, trolls, ogres, arachnes, nagas, kobolds, and several other races lived in the houses we built together and walked the streets in total harmony with each other, while we dragons we resided in palaces filled with gold and jewels ruling these people with wisdom and intelligence. Together, we achieved goals even higher than those of the ancient dragon civilization, and after rediscovering their knowledge we began to improve it, to the point that even some of us began to think that even the wildest dreams of Belagaberan, who saw our new civilizations that left the limits of this world to venture into the stars, could become reality. As the world continued to heal and the forests filled with animals and creatures of all kinds, and new races arose from the mana veins, we continued to progress and progress; over countless generations from the point of view of the newcomers we have changed built the foundations for a civilization that was to last forever, and where there would never be war or inequality, where no one would go hungry and no one would have to be afraid, and that no disaster could ever sweep away again. Unfortunately, however, a new enemy soon showed up on our doorstep; an enemy that we did not know and that we had no idea where it came from. An enemy who bore the name of gods"
When he said that last word, Akenothustar's face tightened in fury. A growl emerged from his throat, so loud it shook the limbs of everyone within a half kilometer radius. His anger was tangible and seemed to be ready to explode like a volcano. "Those bastards came here without us foreseeing it. They were something completely alien to us, whose properties escaped the laws of this world, and which even with our immense knowledge we were unable to explain. They belonged to a plane of existence other than this, where the laws of physics were different... yet they were often in the form of newcomers, and this made us wonder whether they were actually natives of this world. I spent a lot of time studying them, and though many of the theories that I have formulated have proved correct, many are still the mysteries that permeate these beings that seem to be able to bend even the laws of mathematics at will. Whatever they were, however, it mattered little, because they as soon as they presented themselves to us and demanded our total obedience. They were willing to let the newcomers live, on condition that we dragons were exterminated and that all peoples adored and venerated them without any restrictions. They called us blasphemous beings dedicated only to destruction, when they were the ones who were trying to destroy a civilization that prized order and peace. We refused, of course, and cast out the gods; the clash that occurred was hard, but we dragons emerged victorious and killed all the gods who had challenged us. Unfortunately, however, we didn't know an important characteristic of the gods... their immortality"
Haku shivered slightly hearing so much hate in Akenothustar's voice; as he spoke like that, chewing each word as if it were iron, the great dragon appeared as what he really was, a being of unlimited power that could flatten anything in an instant. His grudge against the gods was palpable. And then... immortality? Were the gods really immortal? Was there really immortality in the world? "I have studied this characteristic of them for a long time. The conclusion I have come to is that their immortality in fact... doesn't really exist. The reason these beings could not die was that they had hidden their real bodies in another plane of existence. Just as you use avatars to fight too dangerous battles while keeping your real bodies safe, so the gods created shells called 'incarnations' with which they descended into this world, while their real body remained in the safe in their divine realm. Therefore we could kill them indefinitely... but it would never be a real death for them" Akenothustar explained briefly. "We didn't know this characteristic of theirs, and this was the lack that was fatal to us. The gods in fact took advantage of the fact that we believed we had defeated them to act in the shadows, and poisoned the hearts of the newcomers by convincing them to follow them. In fact, you must know that, for reasons still unclear to me, the gods are able to convert the faith of their followers into energy, with which they increase their divine power and therefore their strength. Although a lot of newcomers already lived in our utopian cities, at that time still many lived outside of them, fearing our presence, but we were patient and slowly assimilated them over the centuries, but the gods took advantage of these tribes who lived outside our jurisdiction by convincing them to worship them. adoration, the greater the powers of the gods became, and soon they were able to increase the strength of their followers by creating the so-called legendary levels; to further increase the resentment towards us and the influx of people towards them, sometimes through a subterfuge would drive a dragon insane and cause it to wreak havoc, to make us look like the bad guys in the situation. Once they had enough followers, the gods sent them inside our cities to break them from within; Without our realizing it, rumors started circulating that we were actually monsters and that our kindness was false, and that we were just raising the newcomers as if they were beasts for slaughter, and sadly they were very convincing. Different cults began to arise and thanks to the powers provided by the gods they provoked riots and armed clashes, often forcing us to intervene even with violence, thus weakening even more the newcomers' trust in us. Soon, even in our cities, newcomers began openly worshiping the gods and attacking all those who didn't, calling them heretics who didn't deserve to live, and killing them in the public square even if they were children. Thousands of innocents were slaughtered in the fanatical madness that the gods had unleashed in their followers. It was then that we realized what was happening and understood that the gods had not been defeated at all, but by then it was too late: the gods, having now obtained enough power from their followers, unleashed their might on our splendid Tharagum; with their followers massacring the newcomers who remained loyal to us and them killing the dragons, in less than a day the city was completely razed to the ground. The gods proclaimed that this was only a warning, and that the dragons were doomed to be heavily punished for their blasphemy of calling themselves the lords of the world, a title that could only be theirs; they said that anyone who would betray us and become loyal to them would be saved, while all others would be punished no less than dragons. Their voice was united across the globe, and in all cities riots and cults escalated, tearing our perfect society apart from within. In the end, what everyone had by now understood to be inevitable happened: the newcomers who wanted to side with the gods abandoned our cities, and only those who remained faithful to us and who weren't willing to believe their lies remained. It was the beginning of a war that lasted over two thousand years"
Akenothustar lifted his head and roared, and his voice rang like the roar of thousands of volcanoes erupting simultaneously, followed by the most violent earthquake that can exist and the most devastating storm that can break loose on earth. "Those filthy usurper bastards never fought! They always sent their followers to do so. They didn't care about their lives! They just wanted the faith that their followers could give them! The war broke so many families and ties, but they didn't care. They let entire peoples get slaughtered or commit atrocities in their name. They only went into the field when they had to fight with us, and even in those cases only ever sent their incarnations. They were terribly weak despite all the faith they received... but even if we killed them, we couldn't kill their real body. Sometimes a god made the mistake of opening a door to this world to better unleash their power, and then we could eliminate them, but the gods were rarely so stupid. While we couldn't kill them, they were rarely able to kill us, but over the course of two thousand years, battle after battle, they managed to reduce our armies more and more. I led the resistance, a huge army called the Nine Armies, made up of dragons, arachnes, kobolds, nagas, medusas, vayemniris, halflings, lamias and harpies. For two thousand years we fought hard, always looking for a way to be able to reach the dimensional plane where the gods hid, but we never succeeded; and as we died more and more, the gods instead gained strength, since they had discovered a way to keep the souls of their followers in their divine kingdoms and turn them into soldiers in the form of angels, spirits, demons or ghosts. It was carnage and then slow genocide, and even I saw no way out of that nightmare. At least until..." and his face suddenly relaxed, and his eyes seemed to light up. "... I met someone with whose help I rekindled a new hope within me. Someone I met as my enemy, but who later became my best friend. The God of Knowledge, Henochar!"
Both Haku and Rhaegal almost jumped when they heard Akenothustar say that name.