Bigwigs are best at speaking one way to people and another to ghosts, and the Great Finger was no exception.
Even Three Fingers, mad as it was, knew how to talk to a man blinded by love.
So in just a few short minutes, the Great One painted plenty of grand promises, saying that if he obediently gave up his pointless stubbornness, it would let the pitiful man remain with his wife forever.
Inseparable for all eternity.
Your wife did not want that? It would not go so far as to force a corpse to give an opinion, but the agony of parting forever in life and death was certain enough.
For a powerful, untamed Lord like Godfrey, personally losing a wife was still bearable. After all, a bold and straightforward barbarian Warrior never lacked comfort for the heart.
But for a Sage like Midra, who held such an earnest view of love, losing Nanaya was as if the sky itself had collapsed. She was someone no one else could replace.
Many mocked this frail Lord, but none ever doubted his love for his wife. If not for his wife's words, the Lord of Frenzied Flame would never have hidden away in this little valley.
He was indeed frail, but he was also truly the Lord of Frenzied Flame. On this land, only a handful of people could kill him, and chaotic madness could spread all too easily through a world of suffering.
"I know you want me to do something, but why now?"
The Sage tried to gather his thoughts through the pain and chaos.
"You never appeared once in all these centuries. Why come to me now?"
"Poor child, I should have come long ago, but I could not. The Goddess of Sin and her foolish cursed son refused to let the world return to the Great Embrace."
"The Great Embrace?"
"Chaos was the Great Deity's original form. Colorless, soundless, without sorrow or joy. Until one day, this world had light and dark, life and death, and all things became distinct..."
The voice seemed to drift in from some distant, insubstantial place, but Midra felt no peace or serenity from it. Instead, his head throbbed as if it were about to split open.
"Endless sorrow and suffering began from there, and thus this pitiful world was born. That is wrong, is it not? We were born from Chaos, and so we should return to Chaos."
"But now you've come?"
"I have been freed, and so I have come to find you, my child."
"I am not your child. I am Midra." Midra thought for a moment, barely suppressing those frenzied thoughts. "Then where are you? I can't see you."
"That despicable Golden Goddess would never let me go so easily." After its brief surge of fervor, the god's voice weakened again.
"In the Bright World, beneath the Royal Capital Leyndell. That is where I am."
"One guard may be gone, but Marika has more than one loyal hound, so I have not yet been fully freed."
"My child, I believe you will come to my side one day. When that time comes, you will become the true Lord."
Midra pondered for a moment. "I don't want to become Lord. You shouldn't have chosen me."
"..."
Faced with this stubborn man who refused to be swayed, Three Fingers ought to have been tearing at its hair in frustration, if it had a head.
"But your beloved needs you. Look, in the little room next door. How cold she is now!"
Three Fingers played its trump card. "Become Lord. Ascend the throne. In that beautiful world, she will exist with you forever."
At that moment, Midra fell silent. He still remembered his wife's words, yet he wanted to agree. He knew it was wrong, but he could not help it.
What seemed like a conversation of words was, in truth, a clash of minds.
That voice's influence over him had already grown stronger and stronger.
This had nothing to do with willpower. An ant could never topple a dragon through will alone.
The moment that god's voice appeared in his mind, his defeat had already been decided. The exchange that seemed to go back and forth was only his final struggle.
He had always been a weak Sage. All his power came from that terrifying existence, and he had no right to decide his own fate.
After Three Fingers forced him into that conversation of the mind, Midra felt even more powerless. He had lost even the only thing that still belonged to him, his body.
His utterly dispossessed thoughts cleared slightly. He realized that he had lost, but there was nothing he could do.
Now the pitiful Sage only knew that some monster had begun moving on its own. He had no power to stop it, and no one else came to stop it. Nothing was more hopeless than being completely powerless.
"Forgive me, Nanaya."
...
In the Abyssal Woods, Nolan pulled his Claymore from the head of an Aging Untouchable. Its heavy body crashed to the ground, and fire-yellow blood flowed from the wound.
Melina held a Dagger in her right hand and advanced through the thin mist. The golden short blade spun in her grasp, cutting an Aging Untouchable that lunged at her cleanly in half.
The girl was like a machine born for slaughter, or rather, a killer made specifically for these things. Her strikes were sharp and swift, without the slightest hesitation.
She was practically a human weapon created to slaughter madmen. For these Frenzied Flame Messengers who had come to greet the Lord, meeting her meant certain death.
Florissax held the destructive Red Lightning in her hand. She roared as she strode forward, as if venting something, crushing several Aging Untouchables with every step.
Dark yellow corpses piled up beneath their feet. If not for the waves of violent power constantly scouring and obliterating them, the monsters' bodies would have already formed mountains.
Beneath their feet, the Forbidden Zone might as well have become a joke.
At first, the Flying Dragons had shown astonishing combat strength by relying on their control of the air, but their problems were soon exposed.
Flight, combined with powerful Dragonfire, was undeniably a threat to ground units, but the Aging Untouchables were not targets that could only stand there and take a beating.
They could breathe fire too.
Whenever their glowing heads brightened, yellow Frenzied Flame shot out like laser beams.
The Scale Armor of ordinary Flying Dragons could not block it at all, and even a graze was enough to make the Flying Dragons suffer for a long while.
Worse yet, some had their minds thrown into chaos by the Frenzied Flame's corruption and began attacking their own companions in a frenzy.
The Flying Dragons were forced to pull back, but the Aging Untouchables did not care. They continued pressing in toward Nolan.
They had not come to fight the Flying Dragon horde. They only needed to buy time, until the one who was meant to arrive arrived, and destroyed what had to be destroyed.
A dark yellow tide crashed down from all directions, at times nearly dragging the Flying Dragons from the sky.
The whole dragon flock was terrified. The Flying Dragons collided with one another, letting out disgraceful roars.
They should never have been reduced to such a sorry state, but the Old Lord's defeat had stripped them of everything, including tougher Scale Armor and the thunder that all dragons took pride in.
Dragonfire had once been their least significant power. Now, it was the only power they could rely on. Aside from that, they had only their bodies left.
The Aging Untouchables surrounded them from every direction as they moved toward the center of the forest. Some leaned on canes, while one simply crawled across the ground on all fours.
There were also a few unusual ones. Their bodies rubbed and pressed against one another, the yellow grapes swelling larger as they merged into small giants.
Nolan raised an eyebrow slightly, not because he was surprised by the monsters' power, but because he could not help finding it strange.