"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."
"You're right, it wouldn't be possible using conventional science," Sythara admits. "However, Divementis tech works differently. You might have noticed already that we don't use buttons or voice commands. That's because we send these commands telepathically."
"Your tech is telepathic?!" Erik widens his eyes. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that to them. When I was forced to sit in that special chair on Aurora, the ship's interface popped directly into my mind.
"That's right, Royal Consort," Sythara nods. "I know it's a difficult concept to grasp for anyone who isn't a Divementis. You can imagine it like this: Humans store data online, but it's still on a physical server somewhere. We store data in the telepathic matrix—in the consciousness of our entire species."
"That doesn't explain how Draconia Online managed to change us," Gotrid purses his lips.
"Mind is much more powerful than you think," Sythara explains patiently. "I know that it might sound esoteric, but the principle behind it was to convince a player's brain that they are the race they play as. For that, we needed to make the game as realistic as possible—to convincingly simulate that one has extra limbs, scales or fur. We made players eat in VR, we made them clean their avatars, change clothes and, most importantly, we made them feel pain. And not just any pain, we made them feel pain in body parts they didn't have in real life."
"But there are many games similar to Dragonia on the market," Liana opposes. "Maybe not as gore when it comes to pain, but similarly detailed."
"True, but hidden in the game's code, there was Divementis telepathic architecture and hundreds of Divementis powering it each day," Sythara reveals. "We were carefully instilling belief systems in the form of lore and DNA sequences of extinct Draconian races. We gave you the input, but the rest is the job of your own brains."
"Son, I said that humans were underdeveloped when we came here, but I didn't mean it as an insult," my father sets the record straight. "In fact, we were extremely lucky that humans, as a species, were still developing.
Human brains have amazing plasticity and, unlike Draconian races, they aren't that closely adjusted for a single biotope. Human brains are ready to embrace any beneficial change and their plain humanoid bodies are the best neutral canvas we could hope for. It's difficult to get rid of something, but quite easy to grow new body parts."
"How come everybody changed at the same time? Each player had a different starting point," Gotrid points out. "My beloved started the game with its launch while I jumped in much later."
"A year of intense gameplay is actually quite enough," Sythara says. "What we needed was to reach a critical mass. The VR world needed to be as vibrant as real life. Six years after launch, we finally had 15 million active players who were logging in almost every day and spending at least four hours in the game on average. We were confident that if we gave your brains the final push at that peak, we could hope for 10 million transformed players. In the end, we got 12 million—a huge success."
"That is quite an esoteric explanation," Erik frowns.
"Is it really?" my father shrugs. "For us, telepathy is as natural as breathing, it's the power of our brains. It only seems esoteric to you because it's beyond human comprehension. Ask your husband if he considers Celestial magic to be esoteric."
"What? Of course, it's not," I shake my head and Erik gives me a raised eyebrow. "Magic is just a fancy term for the power of Celestial brains to harness the energy our bodies naturally produce and project it outwards. We call it spells for simplicity, but it's a manipulation of elements. We use mana as a power source and manipulate matter with our minds. It's more science than actual magic."
"See?" the corners of my father's lips twitch into a smile. "Admittedly, it's difficult even for the Divementis to understand. Celestials were always mysterious to us just as we were to them. My son is the first person in the Draconian history who can understand both."
Ryuu, you never mentioned that magic isn't really magic, Erik pulls my sleeve and pouts. I must have looked stupid just now.
I haven't thought about it in this way either, Gotrid notes. As always, our beloved is in a different league.
Sorry, I didn't realise you didn't realise, I apologise and chew my lip. I thought it became obvious ever since we started creating magical technology and using crystals. Rina and our research department are aware of it. They've been calling it Celestial Science for quite a while now.
Guiltily, I look at Liana. I'm afraid to be scolded by her for keeping important information, but my Viceroy doesn't act surprised at all. Phew, at least she knew.
"Now then," my father claps his hands to catch my attention because he can tell that I'm lost in thoughts with my partners. "I guess now's the time for the big reveal."
I frown. What can be possibly bigger than this?
"It's time to introduce the Enemy," he says solemnly.