The Giant Termite lay on the ground, its massive body slowly convulsing in its final moments. Its eyes flickered, struggling to stay open, as it gazed up at the sky.
It knew its time had come, and it accepted its fate with stoic resignation.
"So, this is where it ends…," the Giant Termite faintly muttered, feeling its life force trickling down like the sand in an hourglass.
Its blazing eyes slowly lost their glow, and its body stopped convulsing. As its eyes slowly closed, a tear fell from them, evaporating even before it could hit the ground.
In its final moments, it found itself in a place he was all too familiar with.
A volcano could be seen spewing lava high up in the air in the distance, and the lands around him were covered in a red tint.
"I'm back," the Giant Termite said as it looked around. "This must be the afterlife…"
Suddenly, a playful voice that he hadn't heard for several months reached his ears.
"Thank you for doing your best, old friend."
The Giant Termite turned around and saw the person that had saved him in the past and given him a new purpose for living.
"Drystan." The Giant Termite looked at his friend fondly. "Have you come to pick me up?"
The former Mayor of Abingdon Town didn't reply right away. Instead, he walked to his friend and hugged the Giant Termite's head, and patted it as if it was the head of a small child.
The Giant Termite didn't resist and even enjoyed the familiar skinship that he shared with the Human, whom he had spent several decades with.
"There's something I'd like you to see, my friend," Drystan said as he backed away. "After that, you will need to make an important decision."
Before the Giant Termite could even process what his friend was talking about, the scenery around them changed, showing a giant planet in the sky.
The Giant Termite gazed at it, similar to how someone from space would gaze at the Earth, admiring the beautiful blue planet.
Unfortunately, the Planet the Giant Termite saw wasn't beautiful.
From its perspective, it looked like a rotting melon which was too gruesome to look at.
"... This is?" the Giant Termite asked as it shifted its attention to its friend, who had his arms crossed over his chest.
"It's a dying world," Drystan replied. "A world that is about to meet its end in a few years."
"Is this the world we were living in?"
"No. It's a different world. It's the world the Foreigners came from."
The Giant Termite nodded its head in understanding. It was all too familiar with the term Foreigners because he had seen thousands of them in the past.
In fact, when he saw Lux, he knew that the Half-Elf was a Foreigner because their kind emitted a certain presence that was very different from the residents of Elysium.
"The name of that world is Solais," Drystan stated. "Its demise is inevitable unless a miracle happens."
"Why are you telling me this?" The Giant Termite inquired. "You know I couldn't care less about these things."
Drystan smiled and nodded his head. He knew that the Giant Termite wasn't a creature who cared about anyone except him, which made him feel both happy and sad at the same time.
If not for his request, the Giant Termite wouldn't have even bothered to protect the residents of Abingdon Town, who had decided to evacuate the Shaufell Plains in order to have a chance of survival.
"Look closer, my friend," Drystan said as he pointed at the Planet of Solais in the sky. "Do you see something else?"
The Giant Termite squinted its eyes as it tried to look farther in order to see what Drystan was talking about.
Its vision then zoomed in toward the planet, which was normally impossible, and saw several men, women, and creatures in various areas of the world, entering a meditative state and channeling their consciousness to wrap the world of Solais in a protective layer.
Outside these protective layers, a black blight, which had already spread across the entire planet, was being kept at bay.
The black blight was pulsing like a living creature, which the Giant Termite found repulsive. However, it didn't end there.
The Giant Termite's vision once again zoomed in, and this time, its vision passed through the exterior of the planet, seeing another world inside the planet it had seen earlier.
The planet was very beautiful, and it made the Giant Termite feel a strong connection to it. Although Drystan didn't tell it anything, the Giant Termite was sure that he was looking at his own world, where it had been born.
However, it noticed something that made it gasp in shock.
In the western region of the Planet, a small patch of black blight could be seen. It was the same black blight that it had seen in Solais, making the world look like a rotting melon from the outside.
"The name of our world is Elysium," Drystan said after seeing the surprised expression on his friend's face. "It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that our world and the world of Solais are joined at the hips.
"Right now, our world is slowing down the death of Solais, but in return, the corruption of the Abyss has also taken root within it. If left unchecked, it will suffer the same fate as the dying world.
"Although it may not happen tomorrow, or not even a year from now, somewhere along the line, our world will suffer the same fate as Solais."
As Drystan explained these things, the Giant Termite saw several people, as well as creatures, who were doing the exact same thing as what the people of Solais were doing.
They were coating the world of Elysium in a protective barrier, keeping the blight from spreading further.
The surprising thing was that, aside from the living creatures on the planet of Elysium, he saw several Spirits of the Dead doing the same thing, which made it come to a realization.
"Drystan, are you perhaps…" The Giant Termite looked at his friend, who looked back at him with a smile.
"It is as you thought," Drystan replied. "I am one of the many that are protecting our world even in Death."
