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At the beginning of the 20th century, the Białowieża Forest begun its steady decline, but when the Anabasis occurred, all the last primeval woodlands of the planet—which the Białowieża was one of the largest of—thrived once more.

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Several millennia-old lindens, oaks and elms stood triumphantly with their crowns of verdant greens, scorching reds and vibrant yellows—a parliament of arboreal nobility. It was dark within the forest as the Sun descended, casting a glossy light of orange and purple over the trees, the grass, the flowers and the beasts as faint mana swirled, spiraled and twirled across down below the forest canopy and between suspended beams of dimming sunlight.

It is 2856, and deep inside this forest, further in where the woodlands were older, untouched, where nymphs and faeries danced, sang, loved and dwelt, there was a large grove and inside this grove, a beast as old as the forest surrounding it, slumbered. The beast looked like a giant, winged saurian endowed with curved horns—its whole frame measuring to approximately thirty-seven meters in length from the nose-tip to the tip of its tail. Its head was framed with sea-green down, glimmering under the light of the falling Sun, and trailing down the neck to viridian scales shimmering and pulsing with primal mana.

The beast was a dragon—forces of nature given life by the power of the Anabasis. The creature curled up on itself, its emerald wings like a green, velvet sheet wrapped around it, and from the shade of an ancient tree, a man shrouded in red robes stepped out and from under the shadows of his cowl, his eyes glowed blue like distant stars. He approached the sleeping beast, lacking any hesitance in his steps, and then he stopped in front of it and knelt. “Awaken, young one,” he whispered, a hand on the beast's snout. “It is time.” The man whistled a brief somber tune, his hand still on the beast, and ending with a haunting trill. He then took some steps back.

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And scaled eyes opened, revealing iridescent gems for eyes, then its jaws opened slightly and a deep susurrus seeped out and though low, it made the nearest trees shiver, terrifying the nearby creatures into fleeing. Białowieża rose up on its four legs and stretched its wings, harassing some of the elderly trees around the clearing. Then, it stood on it hind legs and roared, a terrible echo resounding throughout the forest.

"Anamai,” said the man under the cover of the dragon's shadow, prompting the dragon to roar again, shaking once more the forest and its denizens. And with the beating of its wings, Białowieża flew upwards to the vastness of the blue sky, until it vanished from the man's sight and it was his turn to disappear.

“This world shall be ours, again”, these words echoed through the forest, bringing a certain calmness back into the forest.

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