Meeting is fate.
There are always countless passersby in life. Some people believe that each encounter requires prayers across several lifetimes to obtain.
A hundred years of cultivation for sharing the same boat.
And each meeting might be the last one in this lifetime.
Elara had once heard the old shamans of her tribe chant this way.
Back then, the grassland night sky was clear, and the songs were desolate yet distant.
Now, this fate, this prayer, had all transformed into this amusement park before her eyes, half-buried by yellow sand and deathly silent.
And she, this last grassland wolf, was here, waiting for what might be the most profound, and possibly the last "fate" of her life.
The sandstorm still howled around the amusement park's perimeter, like invisible walls isolating this place into a bizarre, static stage. Inside the park, the wind seemed much gentler, only occasionally stirring up fine sand dust that wandered like ghosts among the twisted facilities.
Elara, or rather, the existence formed by the fusion of Elara's obsession with calamity's filth, was strolling through these ruins.
Elara really hated her current self.
She was just too ugly.
She remembered... she hadn't been like this before.
She remembered... she once had a big tail pure and silver-bright as fresh snow under moonlight—soft, fluffy, and when it swayed in the grassland's night wind, it would shimmer with a faint, pearl-like luster.
She remembered... her ears were upright and sensitive, covered with delicate pink-white fur on the inside, able to catch the subtlest movements in the grass, able to hear the voices of her tribe calling her from afar.
Elara observed this world hundreds of years later with childlike curiosity. The giant wheel spanning the sky was taller than the tallest poplar trees she'd ever seen. The "steeds" (bumper cars) reflecting moonlight were harder than the sharpest claws of the bravest warriors. The platform of rotating hard horses (carousel) was empty, the paint-peeling horses maintaining their running posture yet forever trapped in place, like those horses forever left on that grassland in her memory.
She remembered... she once ran freely across the vast, boundless grassland, wind howling in her ears, bringing distant scents and the taste of freedom.
She remembered... her howl could summon her tribe, intimidate enemies, pierce the night sky, and resonate with the stars.
She remembered... she was once the princess of the grassland, the hope of the wolf pack, bearing the heavy responsibility of protection and inheritance.
She remembered... that little girl had so abruptly burst into her life. Those golden eyes reflected her own slightly flushed face after running. Those soft hands gently took away the last poplar sapling from the grassland, carrying her longing, her love, her expectations, her obsession, her hope, continuing to walk firmly through the long river of time.
She yearned... to see those eyes again.
Yearned for those eyes to once again reflect her image—whether it was her current ugly appearance or her former, complete self.
As long as those eyes could focus on her again, regardless of what emotion they carried—anger, disgust, even destructive intent... anything was better than this endless forgetting and silence.
A resolute soul could jam the gears of time, crossing a hundred years without falling or perishing.
Hope was the most powerful force.
Elara knew that Pale must also have lived until now.
She must, must also be anticipating and yearning.
Just like herself—even having become like this, hadn't she also relied on that obsession to struggle and "live" through endless filth and darkness, and was waiting here at this moment?
In Elara's palm, those two magic cores emanating gentle light—one pink, one yellow—were being carefully played with by her.
The gems transmitted a gentle, warm touch through her decayed fur, making her feel a trace of warmth.
But this warmth... was too shallow.
What she yearned for... was another kind of more blazing, more familiar, more soul-stirring warmth.
It was from the depths of memory, that night by the campfire on the grassland, when the other person leaned against her silver-bright fur for a brief rest, the body temperature that came through, carrying the scent of evening wind and night dew.
"Pale..."
A low, hoarse voice with a metallic grinding quality slowly emerged from her twisted mouthparts.
This name seemed to carry magic, making the churning filthy aura around her calm down slightly.
Elara slowly closed her giant claws, gently gripping the two cores tight, pressing them against her chest—that was one of the few places on her current body where she could still feel a "heartbeat"-like weak pulsing, though it might just be the wriggling of decayed flesh.
She raised her head, the eye that still retained amber color and the one that was just an empty socket both gazed toward the dusty, gray-yellow sky, as if she could see through time and space to the person heading this way.
"Come find me..." Elara murmured softly, "Look at me... touch me... like before..."
○
Pale followed that faint yet abnormally clear scent mixing familiar wildness with strange filth, like a seasoned hunter, crossing through the violent sandstorm barrier.
The sandstorm couldn't stop the girl's advance. Five centimeters in front of Pale, it hit what seemed like an invisible wall, naturally dividing and flowing around her, not even moving the tassels on her wide hat brim.
Time was urgent, with one newborn magical girl's core and body both in enemy hands. Pale didn't stint on using magic power from the magic stone, accelerating along the trail of "marks."
Though Pale wouldn't admit it, her concern for the newborn magical girls far exceeded her own imagination.
Those girls had vitality and energy—they were the future hope of this world.
Pale constantly encountered different people, different events, intersecting and separating with countless lives.
It was these bonds, these expectations that weighed heavily on Pale's shoulders, giving her the obsession to live on.
'Tsk, leaving such obvious traces—are you afraid I can't find the way? Really stupid. Hundreds of years old and still marking territory like a puppy pissing.'
She traveled rapidly while not forgetting to mutter poison under her breath, as if this could ease the inexplicable restlessness rising in her heart from urgency and familiar scents.
If it were other grassland wolves, the situation wouldn't actually be that serious.
The grassland wolf clan, though powerful and exclusive, wasn't an unreasonably mad race. They usually had strict tribal rules and a sense of honor.
Even if fallen and corrupted, there would be room for negotiation.
They were invaded by "calamity" early on, but still retained the foundation of wolf culture.
But if it was the last batch who witnessed how "calamity" turned the grassland into endless yellow sand with devastating force, watched companions die one by one until they themselves became displaced lone wolves...
Most terrifying of all was Elara.
If it was that woman.
Then all this would no longer be a simple kidnapping or corruption incident.
She could use any means necessary for reproduction and survival, and was both powerful and stubborn.
If it really was Elara...
Combined with calamity corruption.
Her attachment to homeland and obsession with reviving the species might very well become using yellow sand to destroy the civilized world.
And moreover...
Pale subconsciously didn't want to face such a corrupted and fallen "old friend," much less fight with her.
Finally, Pale reached the end marked by the "traces."
An amusement park buried by yellow sand.