Time of awakening

The Time of Awakening (目覚めの時) is a major global phenomenon that occurs on Earth every few millions of years. During this event, the Earth is broken apart by the ancient creature known as Dark Gaia, following the beast's return to full maturity, in an attempt to destroy the world. After this cataclysmic break-up has occurred, the world is then put back together by Light Gaia, who awakens at the same time and returns Dark Gaia to dormancy.

Origin
When Dark Gaia and Light Gaia both appeared on Earth when the planet began in the beginning of time, Dark Gaia desired the planet's destruction. As per his job, however, Light Gaia assumed the duty of protecting Earth from his dark counterpart.

While the details about these two deities' first confrontation is unknown, the outcome was that Dark Gaia and Light Gaia began an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth of the planet. In this cycle, Dark Gaia would sleep in the Earth core for millions of years while gathering negative energy for then to emerge from the core as Perfect Dark Gaia, splitting the world apart. Light Gaia would then awaken and return Dark Gaia to sleep, weakened, and restore the Earth to its former state, before going back to sleep as well. The time where Dark Gaia and Light Gaia would then awaken, rising up to their full potential, would become known as the time of awakening. This cycle and the time of awakening have since repeated themselves countless times for eons.

Premature Time of Awakening
In Sonic Unleashed, Dr. Eggman planned to harness Dark Gaia's energies to establish Eggmanland. To do so, the doctor sought to awaken Dark Gaia by initiating the time of awakening himself with his Chaos Energy Cannon. By tricking Super Sonic into his Chaos Energy Cannon, Eggman managed to create a negative Chaos Energy blast that forced Dark Gaia to awaken. This unnatural awakening, however, was not considered a "proper time of awakening" by Light Gaia, as Dark Gaia had not reached full maturity because it had only slept for a few tens of thousands of years and therefore broke apart, and Light Gaia had lost his memories during the same process.

At the time where Sonic the Hedgehog and Light Gaia (called Chip by Sonic) confronted the fully reassembled Dark Gaia in the Earth's core, Light Gaia called the Gaia Temples to form the Gaia Colossus, and pronounced that the time of awakening had now truly arrived. With the help of Super Sonic, Light Gaia defeated Dark Gaia, bringing the time of awakening to an end once more. Dark Gaia and Light Gaia then went to sleep in the Earth's core until the next time of awakening.