Maurice sighed.
"When those of us who dig through history exhaust every effort to reach this towering wall of the Great Annihilation, spend our lives searching for artifacts and comparing chronicles to catch a glimpse of the landscape beyond that wall, what we face is such bizarre and disconcerting things."
The old man's face was heavy with fatigue and dejection, like a traveler who'd journeyed for most of his life, still unable to see the end at the close of his travels, and now forced to accept reality.
"The history before the Great Annihilation is fragmented and contradictory, the records from different City-States are like a collection of bizarre tales, or unintelligible dreams... There is no definitive evidence to prove which record is correct, or any theory that can integrate these conflicting elements together."