Draconia Offline vol. 2

93.3. The Truth - Part 3

"War," I twitch.

"A global planetary war," he nods. "We were defending Draconia bravely and were holding for ten long years, but we were too divided and uncoordinated. Every race just wanted to protect their territory and people and that was our downfall.

First, the Earthborn fell—the Enemy burned down their rainforests. Clawfangs were next; the Enemy took over the minds of their animal companions who turned against their masters. The Dragonkin held resiliently in the mountains and fortified themselves, but their rations eventually ran out. As proud warriors, they didn't want to die of starvation so they organised one last glorious battle. They were wiped out almost overnight.

Celestials defended for the longest. Their flying cities had protective shields and their elemental magic was nothing to trifle with. However, even flying cities started to fall one by one. After their Emperor, the embodiment of magic, was killed during a fierce battle with the Enemy, the rest of his subjects couldn't hold on for much longer.

As for the Divementis, we had the best protection against the Enemy who was also telepathic. Nevertheless, this advantage soon turned out to be our ruin. The Enemy found a way how to invade our minds and either instantly kill us or make us lose our sanity. After my mother, the previous Divementis Empress, was killed, I was still too young to properly defend my people."

"How did you escape then?" I blurt out. "How did you know about the Earth in the first place?"

"We didn't," he shakes his head. "We were desperate and just miraculously managed to seize one of the Enemy's dimensional transport devices during a raid on one of their strongholds. With other Draconian races completely extinct and the Divementis counting barely ten thousand individuals left, we decided to flee. We evacuated on our remaining ships, opened a rift and jumped."

"Blindly?" Erik tilts his head.

"Partially," my father answers. "There were two dozen coordinates recorded in the dimensional device—worlds which the Enemy had on the lists after Draconia as next targets. So, before you ask—no, we didn't bring the war here. The Enemy would come here sooner or later. The Enemy knew we stole the device and fled, but they didn't know where. We came here in 1924 so it took the Enemy almost two centuries to find us. During that time, we had time to prepare."

"Prepare," Gotrid murmurs. "You mean to resurrect the extinct Draconian races."

"Yes," he confirms. "Humans were too underdeveloped when we came, it was impossible to count on their help. They surprised us with their rapid advancement, but we still needed Draconians. This time, we wouldn't make the same mistake, though. This time, we would make sure that Draconians are eager to cooperate. Sythara, can you take over?"

"Of course, Your Majesty," the Chancellor of Science nods. "We created a game, an exact copy of our home world, in which Draconians were forced to cooperate from the beginning, hoping it would change their mindset, and we were successful. Races of Draconia complemented each other brilliantly during simulated fights as well as in the real world when monsters started appearing here."

"You mentioned once that you were suppressing the rifts," I remember. "How?"

"By studying the dimensional device we stole," Sythara explains. "We found a way how to use it to prevent rifts from opening. Unfortunately, it requires a tremendous amount of energy and it stopped working 100% when the Enemy started to really push entry, finally convinced that we hid here. Still, if it wasn't for our efforts, the Enemy would have invaded this dimension five years ago when we just barely launched the game."

"A game capable of changing one's very DNA," Liana shakes her head in disbelief. "How is such a thing possible in the first place? Don't take me wrong, you're much more advanced than humans, I just don't see how it would be possible even with your amazing tech."