For now.
It knew that the hunger would return. It always did. But in the moments when it fed, it was content to do nothing else. It hadn’t been truly satisfied since its birth.
Then it caught the scent of something irresistible.
Its stone head snapped up, and one of the cliffs around it snapped off and shattered to dust on its shoulder. This was the smell of the original.
The Titan reached up to the surface and began to haul itself up. It was going to return to the origin of this scent, and maybe it would finally be satisfied.
Or so it thought. Until the golden aura on which it had fed flashed white.
Then, at last, it got a taste of what it meant to feel content.
Everything else it had ever eaten was nothing. It was just a lick, while this was a full meal. The aura streamed into it, accompanied by a nourishing will. Its soul swelled, pushing deeper into its body. Its muscles bulged and its skin hardened. Its eyes glowed brighter.
The Titan felt like it did when it awakened from the long sleep, but now it was awakening even further. Now, it was more awake than it had ever been.
With more agility than it had been capable of a moment before, the Wandering Titan slid out of its chasm. This time, it was conscious of all the lives that were lost as the ground cracked and crumbled for miles around.
Marvelous. It was as though it could see everything.
For the first time, the Wandering Titan considered what it wanted beyond its next meal. And as it thought, it wandered.
The Bleeding Phoenix called a rain of red lightning that blotted out the sky, but its fury accomplished nothing. It was only expressing its rage.
It remembered a human, a tiny man with punches that summoned blood dragons miles long. It remembered another, a titan in purple armor.
Those two were prey, but they had dared to harm it. It wanted revenge. It wanted to devour them.
Its awareness was scattered, so that at times it felt more like a council in its own head, but it vaguely remembered a time when it could have found these humans in a moment and annihilated them. Now, it couldn’t even come to a decision.
Should it split and gather power?
Should it find the humans and head straight for them, no matter the cost?
Should it sleep?
Thinking was hard. It hadn’t always been this hard. After a good sleep and a long session of feeding, then it would know the right thing to do. The many minds and spirits inside of it would be more unified then.
But it couldn’t spare the time for that. It needed a decision now. It continued unleashing power on nothing, its attacks powerful enough to warp reality, but each blow consumed power it would need to restore.
It hated those humans. All humans. At the same time, it had memories from millions of humans. The Phoenix grew very confused.
A moment later, a surge of white power swept through the sky. The Dreadgod’s techniques froze, and it fell into a daze.
This was the presence of the original. The final will of its father, its oldest brother, its original template.
This was a gift.
The Phoenix absorbed the power as easily as thirsty soil absorbed rain. The minds of the many spirits within it merged, fusing into one another, and the Phoenix grew larger. Its will grew stronger. And its consciousness was finally, blessedly clear.
It remembered.
The male human was Northstrider, a Monarch who had stolen power. Some of the Phoenix’s power in particular.
The Dreadgod was irritated at its past self for allowing Northstrider to touch it.
The female human was Malice, Queen of the Akura clan. Her lands were not far.
A moment ago, the Phoenix had plenty of strength, but only instinct controlling it. Now, its increase in power was negligible compared to its clarity.
It knew what to do.
Carefully, the Bleeding Phoenix began to dissolve its body. It melted into droplets that fell like rain, each drop an egg that slipped through a subtle spatial distortion.
It spread itself widely, and quietly. The human would not pierce its veil before it was too late. By then, the Phoenix would have devoured its lands.
Beaks couldn’t usually smile, but the Bleeding Phoenix was made of blood and madra. It twisted its face into a parody of a human grin.
Then even that liquefied, and the droplets teleported away.
On another continent, the Weeping Dragon tossed in its dreams. It floated on a bed of clouds, and it dreamed of what it always did: the past.
When it had wandered freely. When it had done battle. Even longer ago than that, when it had been confined.
Once, it had been less than what it was. But the process of growing, of becoming, had taken something away as well. The Weeping Dragon was technically capable of thinking at a level far beyond the ordinary human, but it had been centuries since it was more than a beast.