Chapter 589 – The Giant

Chapter 589 – Giant
Vanna tensed her muscles and nerves at the first opportunity, watching the tall figure that was gradually emerging from the dust and fog with full alertness – ready to do a jumping slash if the situation went slightly wrong.

But what came from the wind and sand and dust and mist was only a mild and sensible voice: “Ah …… a traveler, it seems that I have not seen a stranger appear here for many years.”

Vanna froze slightly, and the next thing she knew, she saw the giant-like figure step out of the dust and mist.

He was four or five meters tall, so that Vanna could only try her best to raise her head to see the giant’s face, and a long, dark-colored robe that looked like rags wrapped around his body, which had once seemed to be a beautifully crafted robe, but was now nothing more than tattered rags that had survived countless vicissitudes of life, and the giant’s body was so thin that it seemed to be worn down by a long journey to the point where he was almost as if he was nearly bone-deep! –Yet that withered hand clutched a knobbed staff so huge as to be somewhat exaggerated.

Even in the giant’s hands, that long staff appeared to be overly heavy and huge, its body resembled a straight and link-bearing tree trunk, while the top of the long staff was puffed up like a swollen rock, carrying a rough outline that was barely carved, and on the surface of the long staff, countless densely-packed, complex and mysterious lines could be seen covering the entire cane.

Vanna’s eyes could not help but be drawn to the cane – it really didn’t look like a booster tool for a journey, but rather more like an amazing weapon, or some sort of ceremonial object with a heavy symbolic meaning, which instinctively gave her …… some sort of almost awe-inspiring pressure.

Still, quickly, her attention shifted from the cane to the giant.

Because the giant is slightly bending down towards her, that pair of weathered face is casting a gentle gaze towards her – the giant’s face does not look like a human being, although it also has clear features, but the lines of those features seem too cold and sharp, and even give a person a kind of rocky texture, and his eyes have a kind of chaotic brownish-yellow color, and the depths of the eyes seem to throb with flames, each of which is like a fire. It was as if there were flames dancing, and every line of sight seemed to bring heavy pressure.

“Traveler, where do you come from?” The giant asked.

When he opened his mouth, even the wind and sand around him seemed to be stirred by an invisible force, and chaotic air currents swirled around Vanna, but not a single grain of sand or dust fell on her.

Vanna struggled to control her heartbeat and expression as she flew deeper into her consciousness to report the amazing situation on her side to the captain, while organizing her words and thinking well before she opened her mouth to reply to the giant, “I’ve come from out of the desert, far away from here, and I don’t know why I’ve come to this place. May I ask …… who you are?”

“Oh, beyond the desert …… it’s a desert now,” the giant nodded slowly but didn’t answer Vanna’s question, only saying with emotion in his tone, “You… . are interesting, traveler, you’re not quite the same as the humans I remember, but I’m not sure if I’m misremembering – after all, I haven’t seen a stranger in a long, long time.”

Not quite like the humans you remember?
Vanna’s heart stirred when she heard the other party’s words, and immediately afterward, she thought of what was “different” about herself compared to ordinary people.

This mysterious giant …… saw that she had been blessed by subspace and “resurrected” qualities?

But not waiting for her to think about it, the giant spoke again: “Traveler, you said you came from a very far place, how far is it? Have you traveled across space, or time?”

Vanna froze instantly.

What does this question …… mean?

She raised her head in dismay and looked into the giant’s cloudy, burning eyes, “I …… don’t quite understand what that question means.”

“…… Then let’s pretend we didn’t hear it, traveler, perhaps the beginning of the journey no longer makes sense, and neither does the end,” the giant shook his head, but right after that he looked at Vanna curiously, as if he had suddenly realized something. “Are you talking to the others?”

Vanna, who was in the depths of her consciousness reporting back to the captain, stopped instantly, and even though she controlled the expression on her face at the first opportunity, she knew that the subconscious change in her eyes had most likely not been hidden from the giant’s eyes.

Yet the giant asked as if it was just a casual question, actually seeming as if he didn’t really care about the question as he shook his head, “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it, everyone has their secrets.”

Vanna settled down, controlling the change of expression on her face while observing every move of this mysterious giant, while cautiously asking again, “Who are you?”

“Are you asking for my name? Let me think ……” This time, the giant finally responded to her question, however, after a moment of thought, the giant shook his head, “It’s been too long, I’ve been unable to remember …… indeed for too long! .”

He lowered his eyes to look at Vanna, wrinkles like engravings gradually piled up on his withered face, “You know, traveler, when there is no other voice in the whole world anymore, ‘name’ will become a meaningless concept, there will be no more other people who need to remember you, and you won’t need to introduce yourself to other people yourself anymore, you will slowly forget it, just as you are slowly forgotten by the world ……”

He paused, seeming to suddenly fall into some long ago memory, and after a long while he awoke with a general start, his voice low, “But I do remember something else besides my name, if that makes sense to you …… A long, long time ago, they said I was the the god of this world, and it wasn’t like that here at that time.”

The chaotic and disorderly winds subsided, and the turbulent floating dust around them slowly ceased at some point, as the giant and the lost traveler stared at each other in this endless sea of sand.

He said he had been a god. Vanna’s eyes widened, not knowing how to react to this “answer”, which was not included in any of her speculations about the mysterious giant, and then she felt an absurd contradiction–

As a follower of the storm goddess Gemona, as a saint of the Church of the Deep Sea, one of the four orthodox churches of the gods, in the depths of the enigmatic Dream of the Nameless One, she even encountered a self-proclaimed god giant, theoretically,……, she should have risen up to fight, and destroyed this self-proclaimed god to fulfill the mission of the Judge.

But she is no longer the reckless person who dared to see Captain Duncan with a jumping chop, on the Lost Country ship, she learned to face those incredible things with a more rational attitude.

“You’re a god?” Vanna spoke cautiously as she tensed, “Who are ‘they’ you speak of? And what exactly is this place?”

“They used to live here,” the giant, however, seemed as if he didn’t realize Vanna’s instantly wary attitude as he simply raised his hand and pointed his long staff towards this infinite sea of sand, “but that seems to have been a long, long time ago …… also Perhaps not so long ago?”

The giant paused in some confusion, he looked at the long staff in his hand, and after a while he slowly shook his head, “Time …… had taken on a form I don’t recognize, it was stretched to near infinity for a moment, and then re-compressed, I can no longer be sure when that happened, I only I remember that this was once the most prosperous hinterland of the kingdom, this yellow sand beneath your feet was once a forest and fertile land that stretched for thousands of miles, huge aqueducts spanning the wilderness and drawing the rivers of the highlands across the hills, I watched as they built pure white cities here, high walls connecting the hills and mountains, high towers rising up from the jungle, bright flames illuminating the night sky… . it was beautiful, I remember.”

The giant spoke slowly, as if he hadn’t talked to anyone for so long that he was no longer used to organizing his logic when he spoke, so that his words seemed more or less upside down, as if he were talking to himself in a dream – Vanna could only barely keep up with the other side’s narration, trying to comprehend and guess the information conveyed by the other side’s words, and imagining the other side describing Vanna could only try to follow the other’s words, to understand and guess what they conveyed, to imagine what the other described the desert to have looked like in some long ago past.

And then, the giant suddenly stopped and looked down at Vanna again, asking curiously, “And you? And who are you, traveler? Do you have a name?”

Vanna subconsciously pursed her lips, and she restrained the urge to answer for the first time.

One could not rashly reveal one’s name to an unknown being-especially if that being called himself a “god”, most likely an upper-level transcendent with great power.

He may not have meant any harm, but some transcendent beings of a certain level of power often did not need any subjective malice in order to interfere with the destinies of mortals, and after becoming a follower of the Captain, Vanna understood this more deeply than ever before.

After a moment’s hesitation, she spoke cautiously, “My name is Vanessa, and I don’t have any great status, I’m just a person who accidentally got lost here.”

“Vanessa ……” the giant cooed softly before shaking his head, “That’s not your name.”

Vanna felt her heart beat instantly faster.

Immediately after that however the giant waved his hand, “But that’s okay, like I said earlier, everyone has secrets, and you don’t want to reveal your name, so I’ll just keep calling you ‘Traveler’ – and anyway, there’s no anyone else, and neither of us will get the other wrong.”

Vanna was silent for a moment, and after a brief moment of embarrassment, she nodded.

“Traveler,” the giant continued instead, “where are you going?”

Vanna hesitated, looking up at the distant silhouette that looked like the ruins of a city.

“Let’s walk together,” the giant noticed Vanna’s gaze and offered a friendly invitation, “I don’t remember much of those long ago, but we can take a walk together, and I still have more or less an …… impression of this world. some impressions.”

Vanna did not speak for a moment, as if waiting for something.

A few moments later, deep within her consciousness came the Captain’s command-

“Accept this invitation.”

“Good,” Vanna nodded, looking up at the giant who called himself a god, “It would be an honor to join you on your journey.”

(End of chapter)