Years later, gazing up the vast starry night sky,
I often ponder.
What does the Permanence truly mean?

The countless souls entrusted by Terravox
Still surged within my chest,
Like an eternally burning furnace.

I once thought about finding them a home,
And tried to communicate with them in my heart.

And yet, the living beings of this world, they are now inseparable from me.
As if from the very beginning,
the were a branch of my own bloodline.^[1]

“Inseparable?”^[2]
After I told everyone,
A heated discussion broke out in the Express car.

“Will you turn into a Little Chimera,
And snuggle up in our arms…?”
March 7th lets her imagination run wild.

“Maybe he'll become a baby seal.”
A magical beast would be fine too… I've always wanted to see that species.“
These are the reassuring words from Himeko and Mr Yang.

“No matter what he becomes, Dan Heng will always be Dan Heng.”
Hmm… Their^[3] words are unusually poetic.

“But if you become a dromas,
You absolutely must let me feed you redsoil!”

”… Don't you even think about it.“

Sometimes I have dreams like this —
Countless beings flee alongside me,
Behind us,
Black floods blot out the sky,
As if to devour all signs of life.

In our darkest hour,
The living beings form a bridge of dragons,
And I lead them limping towards the starry sky.

At the end of the vast procession,
A lone giant dragon comes to a halt,
Watching us depart into the distance.

“The children of Earth will always find their own path…
Thank you for being their bridge.”^[4]

Something stirs within me
At the moment of awakening.
Perhaps the legacy of Permanence
Lies not in recreating flesh,
Nor in the merging of bloodlines.

One day, while browsing through the data bank,
I noticed an update on the universe's animal species —

In an ocean-covered planet,
A new species of seals evolved, with a penchant for bumping into things.

On a barren desert wasteland,
Evolved a herd of redsoil-craving beasts…

Many familiar silhouettes,
Are now active in the cosmic ecosystem,
Yet they are not my old Amphorean friends.

This is their rebirth,
This is life's way forward.

Perhaps, just as Terravox wished,
I've become a bridge bearing the weight of their life?

They once shattered the battle formation of the Mountwain Dwellers,
Tore open Georios's chest,
Swallowed the Coreflame, only to resolutely pass it on.

Creation will always betray its creator.
Just as witnessed at the dawn of civilization —

Frail beings betrayed the dark tides,
Climbing onto land, ascending the branches high,
Finally betraying their home and gazing upon the stars.

The furnace in my chest still pulses.
In the gaps between the heated torrents,
I sometimes find myself in a daze,
Catching glimpses of that colossal figure in the cosmos's cracks —

It was a giant dragon,
named the Permanence.