According to the sprawling timeline he had just absorbed, the fragmented core of the Purple Dragon had spent countless years suspended in the void, completely inert, just waiting in the dark.
It had only descended upon the mortal world relatively recently, a few decades ago.
Did it awaken on its own, its internal clock finally ticking over? Or had it responded to a specific catalyst generated in the world during that exact timeframe?
Perhaps something fundamental in the world's ether had shifted just enough to reactivate the core. Ren didn't know what that trigger was. But if he meticulously analyzed the chronology of the last century, there might be a hidden piece of intelligence buried in the timeline.
Regardless of the why, the ultimate conclusion was glaringly obvious: Humanity absolutely could not afford to be the sacrificial cattle fed to a resurrecting purple god.
