"I do appreciate you trusting me this much, but even I'm not confident. After all, the Unalloyed Gold Needle's effect against corruption is plain to see," Miquella reminded him.
"If you don't trust yourself, then trust me," Nolan said softly.
Miquella tossed the Unalloyed Gold Needle to Nolan, and Trina reached out to catch it for him.
She lifted her small hand and waved it before Nolan's eyes. The long golden needle gleamed in the sunlight. The Goddess looked serious, and the frenzied power below seemed to have been driven back.
Almost at the same moment, the Aging Untouchables trailing the dragon flock stopped in their tracks and raised their heads toward the sky, red-yellow light burning inside their minds.
They paid no attention to any Flying Dragon except the white one.
Under the great deity's command, they had charged straight toward the new Flying Dragon Lord, undistracted even by living beings nearby.
But now, all of them had stopped. The white six-winged dragon circled slowly in the air, like a Lord surveying his own domain.
They turned their heads in perfect unison, like sunflowers following the sun.
Unlike sunflowers, however, these creatures' heads were not delicate little blossoms.
They were enormous, swollen heads, like bunches of overripe grapes crammed together at random.
As those huge heads turned, countless pairs of eerie yellow eyes turned with them, staring fixedly at their target.
Being watched by so many eyes at once felt as if countless strange yellow beams were piercing straight through the body. It was enough to make one's skin crawl.
For anyone with trypophobia, it would be nothing short of a nightmare, a hellish torment.
Nolan narrowed his eyes, clearly displeased by those repulsive stares, but that did nothing to help.
He could still feel the presence of those eyes, and the discomfort they brought.
The Flying Dragons seemed to feel afraid as well. Instinctively, they wanted to retreat and get away from these terrifying creatures.
The Aging Untouchables that had already been waiting farther ahead also crowded over. They silently gazed up at the sky, like pilgrims on a sacred journey.
Trina remembered. This was not the first time they had seen such a sight. Back at the Haligtree, when they stood on the city walls, everyone had looked at them in the same way.
The difference was that the people of the Haligtree had worshiped them with, at most, longing and reverence. Nolan's existence, however, seemed to possess an attraction that demanded either possession or destruction.
"Nolan, those giant grapes look like they're lusting after your body..." Trina could hardly believe her eyes.
Nolan's fleshly form was certainly pleasing to look at, perfect in every way.
But these monsters looked like clusters of yellow grapes. From the standpoint of their species, shouldn't they be attracted to grapes?
Besides, Nolan was in dragon form right now. Why were these monsters chasing after him?
"Yes. Just as I dislike Three Fingers and its Frenzied Flame, it clearly dislikes me as well."
Nolan sensed it more clearly than Trina did. What radiated from those things was naked malice.
It was as if they wanted to crush him and knead him into a lump of mud, or a ball of flesh.
"Is this the Struggle of the Great Way you mentioned?" Melina said. "Fine, you've definitely caught their attention. What do we do now?"
"Devour them before they go mad!"
Nolan's body rapidly shrank, and his slender half-human, half-dragon figure plunged straight down.
His descent fully ignited the Aging Untouchables' hunger. Their ghostly, wailing shrieks drowned out the beating of dragon wings.
Hundreds upon hundreds of giant grapes pressed against one another, swaying their tumor-swollen heads as they surged forward without regard for anything else.
Melina gripped the short dagger gleaming with golden light. Facing those yellow eyes drawing ever closer, the mad, twisted aura made her head spin.
Her heart pounded violently, as if she could barely restrain herself from killing every last one of them.
Florissax held Dragon Lightning in her hand and aimed it at the swarming Aging Untouchables, saying nothing.
In that moment, her pride as an Ancient Dragon was laid bare. Fearless, unshaken. The Aging Untouchables had already entered her attack range.
Yet she was in no hurry to let lightning shatter the thick fog. The protagonist of this spectacle had yet to begin his performance.
Nolan hovered in the sky, beating his dragon wings, his gaze sweeping across the horde of Aging Untouchables. Mercy had never been a word used to describe him. He was considering how many to kill with the first strike.
"Did the Lords and champions of old feel like this when they looked at those endless undead, swarming like locusts and all coming for their lives?" Nolan thought.
"No wonder you hate the Frenzied Flame. I feel awful just being near them," Trina murmured. "I can't even imagine what kind of world these things would create if they ruled it."
She and Miquella could choose a path to godhood that embraced all things, but if that flame kneaded the world into one mass, then the very concept of "all things" would be reduced to "one."
The silence lasted only an instant. Nolan and Trina exchanged a glance. Even Melina, that little block of wood, was boiling with killing intent, and Miquella also nodded.
Yes. Things like this should not exist. Love could not be given to that sealed finger and fire, just as tenderness could never be given to that scarlet flower.
Nolan slowly drew the Dark Moon Greatsword. When the first magical blade shot from the sword, the Golden Order and Ancient Dragon Lightning also erupted with dazzling radiance.
A brutally overwhelming force instantly engulfed the horde of Aging Untouchables, and countless giant grapes were blasted into the air by the shockwave.
...
South of the Abyssal Woods, north of Jagged Peak, the Sage's Manse.
"Nanaya, look... I... I... I am Midra," the Lord of Frenzied Flame, Midra, murmured softly.
It was a withered figure. The once-Sage had been pierced through by a barbed golden Greatsword and knelt on the ground like a penitent sinner receiving punishment.
"She will see," an ethereal voice echoed inside the Lord of Frenzied Flame's mind.
"But my beloved, where are you..."
"She is waiting for you. Accept it. Embrace the beautiful fire, and the two of you will cling to each other forever."
Ever since he had come into contact with that mad, twisted power, the chaotic, disordered voice had echoed in his mind many times.
But Midra had never seen that supremely noble being step forward and speak to him face-to-face.
The voice said it was in a dark place, a corner forgotten by the world, exiled beyond the world by hypocrites who had stolen divine authority.
Yet the upheaval of the age had not granted it freedom. The child likewise rejected by the world stood against it, and the abandoned Omen still upheld the hypocrites' authority.
In the end, it turned its gaze toward a world farther away.
Midra had been enduring all this time. As a powerless Lord, that was all he could do.
He had refused that voice many times. He clearly remembered Nanaya saying to him, "Please endure!"
Midra had kept his beloved's words firmly in his heart.
People said those words were a curse, but he knew only that they were his beloved's final wish.
He knew very well that he was nearing the limit of his endurance. His love had not diminished in the slightest, yet at some point, that voice had grown more and more terrifying.