- Mild Profanity Warning -
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Late Morning - Early Summer : Southwestern Holy Kingdom
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*crackle* The distant noise of the huge slab of rock hitting the ground echoed up the mountainside as I flew out into the dense cloud. -How.. big is this mountain?-
Assuming I had plenty of room below me, I slowly started gliding down away from the slope and eventually poked through the bottom of the cloud.
But there was nothing that could have prepared me for the sight that would meet my eyes. -W..oah...-
Below me was a vast snowy and icy mountainside that could only barely be considered steep but was so large that the seemingly small cliffs all along the ridges were easily a few kilometers tall, with almost no level areas.
If I were to have fallen with the stone slab I sheared off, I would have rolled nearly 250 kilometers to the calm, icy bay at the base of the slope, as it was the only flat area around.
The area in front of the bay honestly looked like a good place for a port settlement at first, but to either side of it, the mountain had formed what could only be described as miniature mountain ranges that even I couldn't see over even at my altitude. -That 'ridgeline' has to be at least 30 kilometers high...-
But while I marveled at the view, I turned to look at the several-kilometer-tall spikes of ice around the base of the mountain that poked through the ground like the tips of arrowheads.
With how much ice and snow there was, even in the bay, the spikes didn't seem that out of place, especially if you wanted to say they were remnants of old glaciers, but there was something odd about them that didn't exactly make sense.
Toward the top, they were a familiar bright blue color, but as you looked down, the ice became darker and darker until it was such a deep blue it was almost black.
The deep blue color of the spikes was incredibly beautiful to look at, but at the same time, I couldn't help but begin to question how they formed. -How much pressure is needed for the ice to be that dark...-
But while I struggled to withhold my curiosity to go and investigate it, I finally turned around and felt the innumerable questions in my mind vanish.
At that moment, I wasn't more than a few kilometers off the mountainside, but it was more than enough for me to finally realize the scale of everything. -How the hell am I going to find anything...-
Massive, dark clouds covered nearly everything but the ridgelines of outcrops above around fifteen kilometers in altitude, and while they began to thin out about halfway up, once they reached where I was, they leveled out and formed a simply unfathomable, outstretching cloud that covered everything down to the bay in a dark, storm-like shade with only a handful of god rays shining through. -Where would I even start...-
Several more moments ended up passing by as I started coming up with ideas and strategies to look for the wreckage, but eventually, I grew sick of the feeling that I was barely moving and decided to use some light thruster magic. *psh-FWOOOOSH*
But even at Mach 5, I felt like a snail. With some extra contemplation, I finally switched to antimatter thrusters and simply tuned them to not throw me to the horizon instantly.
But it's not like tuning them back did much, since I just had to continue increasing their strength till I nearly reached Mach 20. *FWOWOWOOOOOSH* -I never thought it'd be possible to feel so slow when covering nearly 7 kilometers a second...-
Looking around the base of the mountain one more time, I tried to shake off all my distracting thoughts and finally get to looking for the wreckage. -If it isn't an obvious structure, I'll come back and check in those clouds... Unless...- Looking more closely at the massive ice spikes again, I noticed the several dozen massive wyverns flying about and even a handful of drakes and other monsters, but couldn't see anything that could be described as a wreckage. -Maybe those are somehow natural...-
Finally shaking off the distractions, I continued across the side of the mountain and eventually made it over the largest mountain-range-sized outcrop that stretched along the bay to see a similar terrain to before, just with fewer clouds and a bit more fauna and wildlife. -But.. how big is this thing?-
The mountainside I looked over was easily 300 kilometers long from its base to the clouds, but the slope itself stretched all the way to the horizon and barely had any curvature at all. -That.. can't be right...-
Based on the slope and height of the other mountainside, I expected this mountain to be about 90 kilometers tall.
But that peak was far too close for the mountainside I was looking at to wrap around it. -Th..there's no way...-
Immediately turning up into the overhanging cloud, I hastily climbed in altitude until the clouds abruptly ceased.
My thoughts quickly followed...
In front of me was the mountainside from below, as I expected, but it didn't climb up to a simple, clearly defined peak, even at nearly 80, 90, or 100 kilometers above sea level... Instead, it continued to stretch on and on.
-That mountain.. was just a part of an outcrop?- I almost forgot to flap my wings as I looked up at the unfathomable mountain peak standing over the horizon nearly 1500 kilometers away. -What.. the.. fuck...-
The whole thing I assumed was a mountain range within the void, was actually just the profile of the edge a single mountain nearly 500 kilometers tall and likely upwards of 3 or 4,000 kilometers wide. At the least, it was a mountain I couldn't even begin to grasp the scale of even at nearly 100 kilometers in the air. -I can't even see opposite edges...-
Looking below myself again, I saw the puffy, outstretching cloud I had just flown through. It generally ended right around 75 kilometers, with only a handful of formations going higher, but as if it were a boundary, everything above the clouds was simply lifeless, leaving only sparse snow and ice to color the plain rocky mountainside.
It was a mountain so large it essentially stretched into space and simply couldn't have been formed by tectonic plates colliding with how circular it was. -But it couldn't be a volcano either...-
I tilted my head slightly as I looked around, but there was nothing even remotely volcanic looking about the mountain besides some deep fissures that all pointed to the peak.
But it was those fissures that made a crazy idea come to mind.. -It kind of looks like the back of a dent...-
It wasn't until a few minutes later that two dots seemed to connect. -The western.. deep section of Death's Gape is right on the other side of the planet, isn't it?- My eyes slowly widened as I looked down.
-Could this mountain.. have formed from a meteor impact?-
For any sort of formation to form from on the opposite side of the planet, the impact would have had to of been colossal, and for it to form such a large mountain, saying it would be a planet-destroying collision would not be an exaggeration. -But if mana exists inside the planet as well.. wouldn't it be able to hold itself together?-
Attempting to apply what I knew about mana to the innumerable theories on planet formation and meteor impacts on Earth, things actually managed to somewhat line up. -If the meteor wasn't heavily mana strengthened but the plates were, the impact might not obliterate the surface, and instead send the energy from the shockwave straight into the planet...-
But while it was a very convincing theory, it was far from perfect. The biggest issue being the depth of Deaths Gape. -It would have to be way deeper than 200 kilometers to form this...-
But I didn't let it debunk my theory. -Maybe that's just as deep as dragons have gone.. and they assumed it to be the bottom...- I paused before looking around, across the desolate mountain again. -Regardless.. I don't know whether to be happy that I can look over such a huge area so quickly for the wreckage or be upset that if it's not up here... I'm fucked...-
Looking to the right, I saw several smaller, more spaced-out peaks that just barely poked through the clouds leading to the horizon, and suddenly I remembered something. -Wait a minute... Holcyon said they found the fusion artifacts in the mountains north of the wreckage... In the mountains...-
Immediately looking north, where the clouds were far more sparse, I couldn't really see any sort of mountain range compared to what I saw to the southeast. -Could that be the mountain range the wreckage is south of?-
It was a definite shot in the dark, but if I didn't try to narrow down where I had to look, I'd be trying to find a grain of rice in a desert. -But if I'm lucky and there isn't another mountain range to the north.. I might have a chance of finding it still...-