The giants were one of the more enigmatic races on the Sia Continent.

  Unlike the witches, the mystery shrouding the giants didn’t stem from their clandestine way of life. Instead, it could be solely attributed to their early extinction.

  The giants were known to be a highly powerful race back in the distant ancient era, but they died out much earlier than the dragons and the angels. That led to a huge gap in knowledge about them.

  Nothing in the world erased glory better than time did. Not even a dominant race once feared by all could withstand the trial of time. With millennia fleeting by, there were no more than a small handful of records left about the giants in the present era, resulting in widespread ignorance and incomprehension about them.

  It was no wonder the giants were often thought to be enigmatic beings.

  For that reason, Roel was surprised when he heard ‘Collector’ Kaldor Arde mention Grandar.

  He was aware that there were records on Grandar out there in the world, but those were highly inaccessible and unreliable. Even the descendants of the Giant Bloodline, despite their ability to peer into the history of objects, had plenty of misgivings about their distant ancestors.

  The Ardes would have to devote a huge amount of resources to researching the giants for them to have even heard about Grandar’s name, and the fact that they did so meant something. While the Ardes had plenty of resources at their disposal, the apocalyptic beings they were up against didn’t allow them the luxury of squandering their resources.

  They wouldn’t put in so much resources into researching the giants for no reason, right?

  Other than that, Roel also discovered that the woman whom Kaldor was conversing with was likely to be a powerful transcendent. He could vaguely sense Flooding Death’s fear of her.

  A transcendent that induced fear in Flooding Death couldn’t possibly be a nobody, and two leaders of the Ardes wouldn’t meet up and mention ‘Grandar’ over mere idle chatter. On top of that, there was a term that kept coming up in their conversation that Roel was unable to ignore—the Savior.

  Grandar, the Savior, and the black-haired, golden-eyed woman…


  Those three figures floated in Roel’s mind as he tried to fit them together like puzzle pieces, but it was to no avail. There was a missing link preventing him from making sense of the situation. He racked his brain to figure out what he was missing, and voila!

  He stumbled upon another key piece of information that had been lying dormant in the dredges of his memory.

  A long time ago, during his very first Witness State, back when he had just sealed a contract with Grandar, the Giant Sovereign had told him that he wasn’t the first descendant of the Kingmaker Bloodline he had come by.

  Awakeners of the Kingmaker Bloodline could contract ancient gods summoned in their Witness State, but they typically couldn’t determine who the summoned ancient god was. However, that problem could be resolved by having the awakener use the relic of the ancient god they wished to contract with as a summoning medium.

  However, that was also a gamble in itself.

  Roel had previously theorized that the summoning of ancient gods in an uncatalyzed Witness State wasn’t completely random. Rather, it was chosen based on the level of temperament compatibility with the awakener. This would have greatly increased the chances of establishing a successful contract.

  Choosing instead to summon a specific ancient god using a divine relic could greatly increase the risks of a personality clash between the awakener and the ancient god, thus decreasing the chances of establishing a successful contract. Without the help of an ancient god, the already hellish difficulty of the Witness State would be further increased to an abysmal level.

  And that was already one of the better outcomes.

  If the awakener accidentally incurred the wrath of the ancient god, the latter might just outright kill them. It was also possible for the awakener to mistake the true origin of the divine relic and end up summoning a malevolent god who sought to sabotage them.

  In a sense, the randomized compatibility-based summoning that Roel had been doing all this while might actually be the safest way to come into contact with ancient gods. The only downside to that was that it was highly luck-dependent. Not all ancient gods possessed great fighting prowess, after all.

  On that aspect, Roel was a three-time lottery winner.

  Be it Giant Sovereign Grandar, Primordial Earth Goddess Peytra, or Witch Queen Artasia, they were all powerhouses who dominated their respective eras. In particular, Grandar turned out to be unusually powerful.

  To be honest, Roel wasn’t too surprised that Grandar had met a member of the Ardes. Had he been in their place, he would have probably tried summoning Grandar too for the slim possibility that the latter might just lend him his overwhelming strength.

  However, reality had shown that ancient gods preferred someone they were fated with.

  Roel remembered Grandar telling him that a woman had visited him with one of his relics to request his help for an urgent matter, but he turned her down. Now that he thought about it, the rejection was only inevitable given Grandar’s aversion toward calculative individuals with strong intentions.

  Putting that together with what he had seen in Flooding Death’s memories, he was able to come up with a few conjectures.

  First and foremost, by taking into account ‘Collector’ Kaldor Arde’s time period and the fear displayed by Flooding Death, Roel already had a good idea as to who that woman was.

  Carolyn Ascart, the first matriarch of the Ascart House.

  Astrid had told him that the Twilight Sages Assembly had become fragmented near the end of the Second Epoch, but there were many smaller teams carrying out their missions individually. Of them, there were two teams that wielded the greatest power.

  One of them was the team seeking to resolve the threat of the Six Calamities. It was led ‘Collector’ Kaldor Arde.

  The other one was the alliance between Carolyn Ascart and the Ackermann Imperial Family.

  Such a background put Kaldor and Carolyn on equal standing with each other. This equal relationship was reflected in how the two of them interacted with each other, be it their gestures, choices of words, or willingness to exchange classified information regarding the Savior.

  It was not to say that the Ardes would put on airs when conversing with fellow clan members, but the Ancient Austine Empire was a highly hierarchical society and the Ardes were a high noble house. This environment naturally led to those of lower stature to be conscious of their decorum when interacting with those of a higher stature, even within the clan itself.

  Taking these into account, Roel couldn’t think of anyone else other than Carolyn Ascart who fit the bill here.

  Besides, the mention of the Savior in their conversation reminded him of something too.

  A few years back, during Saint Freya Academy’s ‘Night of the Demons’, Roel learned from Ro Ascart’s projection that the final emperor of the Ancient Austine Empire, Charles Ackermann, had tried to re-establish relations with the Ardes’ main lineage in hopes of dealing with the Savior’s awakening and His worshipers.

  That was aligned with the goal of the woman in Flooding Death’s memories, assuming that this piece of information was credible.

  While the downfall of the Ancient Austine Empire and the ensuing mass migration westward indicated the tragic defeat of humankind, they did manage to put the Savior back into deep sleep. It was only several years ago that He began showing signs of reawakening once more.

  With that, Roel had managed to figure out the relationship between the woman and the Savior, but he still had no clue what kind of role Grandar played in the grand scale of things.

  He had been very curious about Grandar’s past for the longest of time, but the Giant Sovereign had lost most of his memories after his death. Asking him about his past was as futile as trying to question a patient suffering from dementia.

  However, just a year ago, Grandar appeared to have remembered something.

  Roel didn’t know what Grandar had recalled, but he intuitively understood that it wasn’t anything good, which was why he had refrained from asking about it. The reticent Giant Sovereign wasn’t the type of person to proactively talk about it either. It was as if the two of them had implicitly chosen to sweep the matter under the rug.

  Unfortunately, humankind’s circumstances only worsened as time went by.

  The Savior’s worshipers had set their eyes on Roel. The Six Calamities entered their active phase. The Mother Goddess had awakened from her sleep. With all that was happening, Roel couldn’t turn his eyes away from the important clue that was Grandar’s memories anymore.

  “I’ll have to ask him about it since he wouldn’t talk about it on his own accord,” Roel gazed at the starry sky above as he mtutered under his breath.

  He carried Charlotte to the bed and laid down with her. Feeling her warmth in his arms, he closed his eyes and felt for the reinstating window of connection between him and the ancient gods. He clenched his fists and affirmed his determination.

  Fatigue soon settled in.

  He gently kissed Charlotte on her forehead before succumbing to his drowsiness.