The Mind Dragon before them was about as enormous as a mountain range. It lay stretched across the void, its closed eyelids trembling slightly, as if it wanted to open its eyes but lacked the strength to complete even this simple movement.
The Mind Dragon's life was nearing its end. Or perhaps it had already died, and what remained here was merely the final image it had left behind before its death.
Once these motes of memory completely dissipated as well, there would no longer be any trace of its existence in this world.
"Woof." Susie leaped up and stretched out both front paws, clasping them around a mote of memory. However, the mote passed straight through her paws and slipped away, leaving Susie grasping at nothing.
"Are these memories illusory too?" Audrey murmured and beckoned to Susie, signaling for her to calm down and not disturb the slumber of the Mind Dragon before them.
An air of approaching death permeated everything, like the lifeless stillness of autumn leaves after they had yellowed and withered.
In an instant, Audrey seemed to see herself in her old age. Her hair was completely white, dry and brittle, far from the smooth and dazzling locks of her youth.
Her face was covered in wrinkles, her hands and feet could no longer move freely, and even her jewel-like eyes had gradually turned cloudy and yellow.
Old and faded, lonely and desolate. Was this what her twilight years would look like?
Susie seemed to see what she would look like when she grew old as well. By the time she aged, Audrey would be in the most radiant years of her life.
Lying in her dog bed, she wanted to open her eyes and lick the hand Audrey had extended to her mouth, but she couldn't even manage that.
She had grown so old that she couldn't even open her mouth. Her teeth had nearly all fallen out, and the golden fur covering her body had become dry and yellow, shedding severely. Her tail in particular had gone bald.
"Whimper, whimper..." Susie whimpered sadly.
Hastur also saw his own old age for an instant, but he didn't care. That was the old age of an ordinary person, not his own. Nor would it be Audrey's or Susie's.
As one advanced to higher Sequences, the passage of time and the limits of lifespan would gradually lose their significance.
If one advanced to Sequence 0 and became a true god, then as long as one didn't perish due to some accident, the passage of time would be nothing more than a gentle breeze that caused no ripples.
Hastur withdrew his gaze from the Mind Dragon and instead looked toward Audrey and Susie.
Audrey, who was always elegant and noble, now displayed a rare fragility, as delicate as crystal glass. Her brows were tightly knitted, tears faintly shimmering in her eyes, while her thin lips were lightly bitten as if she were experiencing something painfully heartbreaking.
Susie, meanwhile, lay on the ground with both front paws covering her eyes, occasionally wiping away the tears that flowed from her overwhelming sadness. Her suppressed whimpers made the scene even more sorrowful.
Hastur watched them carefully for a while and didn't disturb Audrey and Susie as they immersed themselves in their miserable twilight years. After all, this was a rare experience in its own way.
Only after quite some time did Audrey and Susie finally emerge from that state of approaching old age.
Susie stared blankly at her damp front paws. Then, as if she suddenly realized something, she sprang to her feet and secretly glanced at Hastur and Audrey.
Seeing that Hastur wasn't looking her way and Audrey was still in a daze, she hurriedly turned around and rapidly rubbed her tear-soaked front paws together, trying to erase all traces left by her tears.
Audrey reacted in much the same way. First she stared blankly, then abruptly came to her senses. She similarly stole a glance at Hastur and Susie before turning around, wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes, and doing her best to appear natural and composed.
However, the layer of crimson coloring her small ears had already betrayed her true feelings.
"Um, well, Mr. Hastur, did... did something happen just now?" Audrey turned around with a calm and curious expression.
"Don't worry. I didn't see anything just now," Hastur deliberately remarked.
"..." Audrey's cheeks instantly turned bright red, like rosy clouds sweeping across the sky.
Susie silently turned her back as well, then lay down and closed her eyes, pretending to sleep.
"Mr. Hastur, you're obviously doing that on purpose!" Audrey struggled to overcome the embarrassment and panic in her heart before lightly glaring at Hastur.
What did he mean by saying he hadn't seen anything? If he truly hadn't seen anything, he wouldn't have said that in the first place.
Mr. Hastur must have seen the pitiful sight of her shedding tears just now...
After another long while, Audrey gradually regained her usual composure and elegance, her curious gaze settling on the Mind Dragon before her.
Its eyelid barely lifted at one corner, revealing an eyeball that seemed carved from white crystal.
Following its gaze, Audrey discovered that it was staring directly at Susie, who was lying there pretending to sleep.
It couldn't have taken a liking to Susie, could it?
Not long after that thought arose in Audrey's mind, two motes of memory, clearly several times larger than the others, flew out from the Mind Dragon's eyes. They moved slowly but resolutely before merging into Susie's body.
"Woof!" Susie, who had been pretending to sleep with her eyes closed, instantly sprang up, jumping a foot into the air. Her panicked eyes darted around her surroundings as if she had just awakened from a terrifying nightmare.
After sending out those two motes of memory, the Mind Dragon closed its eyes once more.
This time, even its eyelids could no longer tremble. The Mind Dragon, now utterly spent, suddenly released an enormous surge of memory motes. In an instant, the entire pure-white world before them was enveloped by them.
Amid the memory motes fluttering like rain, Audrey and Hastur each received a fragment of memory sent by the Mind Dragon.
They involuntarily closed their eyes and entered those fragments of memory.
"Woof?" Susie curiously circled Audrey and Hastur, but she soon began yawning. Unable to resist her drowsiness, she lay down on the deck and fell asleep.
At the final moment before her eyes closed, she saw the Mind Dragon flying toward her.
...
It was a descendant of Ankewelt, the Dragon of Imagination, separated by several generations. Unlike some of its kin, it had not become a means for its ancestor, the Dragon of Imagination Ankewelt, to resurrect.
By the time it was born, the Dragon of Imagination Ankewelt had long since fallen. It had only once seen His child, Alzuhod, from afar.
Later, as divine wars erupted and epochs changed, the age belonging to the Mind Dragons faded away. To avoid being hunted, it carefully hid itself within the collective subconscious of the villagers in an almost completely isolated village.
It successfully survived the Third Epoch, the Cataclysm Epoch, and it wasn't until the end of the Fourth Epoch, the Epoch of the Gods, that it finally perished within this small village.
Following its death, the village that had existed with it at its center rapidly declined due to natural disasters and human calamities, eventually becoming an abandoned wilderness that no one cared about.
After it perished, its mental world gradually began emerging from the sea of collective subconscious.
Audrey's accidental intrusion the previous time had been caused by the leaking power of its mental world as it approached collapse.
It had truly died of old age, reaching the end of its lifespan because it had been unable to advance to a higher Sequence.
Even at the time of its death, it had only been a Sequence 3 Dream Weaver. Thus, it used the last remnants of its power to arrange this pure-white space.
It waited for a suitable successor to enter this place. The successor it had originally hoped for was another Mind Dragon, but long years passed.
No other Mind Dragon ever entered this place, and it began to think that perhaps it had been the last living Mind Dragon in the world.
Its consciousness had originally vanished long ago, but Hastur's arrival suddenly caused its final sliver of consciousness to awaken in one last flash before death.
To avoid missing the opportunity it was bestowed, it exhausted the last of its consciousness to guide Audrey and Susie here.
In the end, it chose Susie as its successor, leaving all the knowledge related to the lineage of the Mind Dragons, as well as every memory from its entire life, to Susie.
When Hastur reached this part, his expression became slightly strange, and he glanced discreetly at Audrey.
Audrey probably still didn't know that she had lost to Susie in this competition to become the successor.
But after thinking about it carefully, if Hastur himself had been this Mind Dragon and had to choose between Audrey and Susie, he probably would have chosen Susie as his successor too.
After all, most Mind Dragons didn't have particularly favorable impressions of the humans who had later risen to prominence.
On humanity's path toward the rise of Beyonders, there had undoubtedly been no shortage of Mind Dragon blood and brains spilled along the way.
In the final memory the Mind Dragon had left for him, it bequeathed two Beyonder items it had collected over the course of many years to Hastur.
Audrey should have received part of the Mind Dragon's gift as well, although her gains were far inferior to Susie's.
Seeing that Audrey was still immersed in the memories left behind by the Mind Dragon, Hastur reached out to touch the two Beyonder items that had already floated before him.
One was a palm-sized grayish-white scale. It should have been a scale shed by some Mind Dragon and might even have been its most crucial reverse scale.
The other Beyonder item was a mercury badge. Hastur carefully examined the patterns engraved on it and realized that it should be a holy emblem symbolizing knowledge and wisdom.
Could this be an item left behind by Herabergen, the Dragon of Wisdom?
For this Mind Dragon to have been able to collect such a Beyonder item, its origins definitely weren't simple. Unfortunately, it seemed to have deliberately erased all traces of its existence, unwilling to leave behind even a name.
Hastur stored the two Beyonder items away. Since the Mind Dragon had already sealed each of them, there was no need to worry about their negative effects as long as the seals weren't broken.
After waiting patiently for a while, Audrey also awakened from the memories left behind by the Mind Dragon.
Her face was filled with joy, and even the corners of her brows couldn't help but rise slightly.