After reading through the letter in his hands, Lucian could not help but furrow his brows.
There was something strange about this letter...
When this woman named Nanaya wrote it, she must already have been in a very abnormal state.
The final few sentences in particular were so twisted that Lucian found them difficult to even look at directly.
Although the handwriting was no different from the rest of the letter, it somehow carried an unmistakable air of madness.
Could those words have been written by the "other her" that Nanaya had mentioned in the letter?
Lucian once again looked toward the spine-shaped torch held in Nanaya's corpse.
He had no idea where that torch had come from, but it possessed an aura remarkably similar to that of the Lord of Frenzied Flame, so much so that even Liliana had mistaken it for his presence.
Clearly, it was an item of extremely high standing within the forces of the Frenzied Flame.
In another setting, it would hardly be strange for some cult to regard it as a sacred artifact.
The Light of Hope...
For a Lord of Frenzied Flame who had been sealed away, encountering something like this could hardly lead to a good outcome.
Had Nanaya truly wanted Midra to be freed?
Freed from the agonizing torture and punishment, only to step into madness and take on the identity of the Lord of Frenzied Flame?
The letter mentioned that she had died and returned to life, giving birth to another existence within herself that she did not recognize.
Perhaps those final, incoherent words were the thoughts of that other "her."
But then, what exactly had happened when she supposedly died and returned to life...?
Just as Lucian was holding the letter and pondering this, his entire field of vision was suddenly occupied by the back of a green fairy.
"Let me see! Let me see!"
At the same time, two heads poked in from Lucian's left and right, both looking toward the contents of the letter.
Lucian sighed helplessly and handed the letter over so that the two humans and one fairy could read it more easily. He himself began thinking through everything he remembered.
Then, Lucian suddenly turned his head toward Irina.
An idea came to him.
Dying and returning to life...
Could that not be the Frenzied Flame's method of possessing a corpse and returning to the world?
Surely this kind of possession was not limited to a few isolated cases like Shabriri and the others.
There had always been legends in the Lands Between about maidens being reborn.
Lucian could even recall a shield that had been specifically created for the sake of rituals related to this matter.
The Shield of the Guilty, which could be found on the Weeping Peninsula.
It was a shield used to soothe souls, increasing the wielder's focus.
A maiden who had touched the Frenzied Flame was naturally guilty.
And Focus happened to help people resist the Frenzied Flame.
Lucian looked toward Nanaya's corpse. Her eyes were covered by strips of cloth, making it impossible to determine whether they were still intact.
And in the painting he had seen along the way depicting Midra and Nanaya, her eyes had not been painted either.
If that was the case, then everything made sense.
The grotesque Omen horns growing from a newborn's body could cause a difficult childbirth, ultimately taking the mother's life.
As Hornsent, Midra and Nanaya were naturally not exempt from this fate.
Nanaya had therefore died during childbirth.
And that had been the turning point in the fate of everyone within this manor.
Nanaya, who had died during childbirth, was subsequently occupied by the Frenzied Flame, creating a situation that appeared almost like a resurrection.
Afterward, she, or rather, "she," had manipulated everything from the shadows.
Bit by bit, she had lured Midra toward the Frenzied Flame, encouraging him to approach it and study it, until the entire manor eventually sank into despair.
Her ultimate goal was probably to bring about the birth of the Lord of Frenzied Flame.
However, unlike Shabriri and Hyetta, who seemed to know nothing about the origins of the entities inhabiting their bodies...
For some reason, Nanaya had retained her memories of the past and could continue living normally alongside Midra.
Had Nanaya herself been changed by the Frenzied Flame?
Or had the maiden of the Frenzied Flame been influenced by Nanaya's love?
Perhaps it was because the Hornsent's Crucible-afflicted horns possessed the ability to house souls, allowing part of Nanaya's soul to remain behind.
......
Lucian lowered the letter and turned his gaze toward Nanaya's corpse, as well as the "Nanaya's Torch" held in her arms.
Regardless of the circumstances, there was no way he was going to fulfill her wishes and deliver this torch to Midra.
If he could directly transfer Midra from his current unstable seal into something more reliable and secure, it would undoubtedly save them a great deal of trouble.
And if communication was possible, Midra was probably the relatively reasonable type.
There was even a possibility that Midra himself had given up resisting and accepted his imprisonment. Otherwise, those Inquisitors certainly would not have been his match.
As for an object capable of touching Midra's nerves like this...
It was better not to let him see it.
If it triggered him and caused him to go berserk, that would only make things worse.
It would be safer to keep it in storage and prevent him from coming into contact with it.
Having made up his mind, Lucian turned to Irina and instructed her:
"Irina, can you seal this thing away?"
"If you can't seal it securely, extinguishing it directly is fine too."
Irina looked at the faintly burning Frenzied Flame twice before nodding.
"Mm."
"I'll try."
Irina spread both hands and aimed them at the Frenzied Flame burning upon the spine.
As her spiritual power poured forth, rippling lakelight slowly spread over it.
Yet the moment the lakelight touched the Frenzied Flame, an unexpected reaction occurred.
The spine-shaped Frenzied Flame torch suddenly erupted into a violent blaze.
Before the sealing power could completely envelop it, the torch burned itself away entirely.
Although the final result was still the extinguishing of the flame, the process was completely beyond their expectations.
Even Irina was startled by the sudden turn of events.
"T-this..."
"I didn't even do anything yet..."
Everyone present could naturally see that this was not something Irina had caused.
It had been planned from the very beginning.
Nanaya had never expected some later visitor to carry the torch to Midra.
Lucian's eyes sharpened as he looked toward the walls of the room.
More precisely, toward what lay behind those walls.
The instant the last traces of the torch's flame disappeared, that faint remaining aura seemed to be drawn toward something.
It instantly drifted in that direction.
Toward...
Midra's place of imprisonment!
Everything within this manor was still part of Nanaya's plan!
Boom!
Lucian charged straight through the wall, immediately stepping into the room beyond.
Just as the letter had said, Midra and Nanaya were separated by only a single wall.
Melina followed closely behind, entering alongside him and warily looking ahead.
Behind the wall of this room was a vast, completely empty hall.
There was only one person imprisoned here.
A sage.
And a prisoner.
Midra.
He was an extraordinarily gaunt old man whose body had been twisted out of shape by the cruel instruments of torture.
When Lucian saw the torture device piercing through Midra's body, even he could not help sucking in a breath of cold air, phantom pain shooting through him.
It was a fan-shaped torture device resembling the roots of a tree.
A central shaft, shaped like a leaf vein, entered through the top of Midra's head, while countless golden barbs spread wildly from its lower portion.
Its enormous size made it almost impossible for Lucian and the others to imagine how such a thing had been driven into the man's body.
The grotesque torture device pierced straight through Midra from the crown of his head, forcing his head to remain tilted upward at an unnatural angle.
The countless golden barbs on the lower half, resembling tree roots, tore through his chest, thrusting haphazardly out from between his ribs.
Midra had not been left with even the slightest shred of human dignity.
He looked like some corpse hung upon a religious symbol.
At this moment, Midra's head was tilted upward as he stared blankly at the faint flame.
His scalp had been torn open by the torture device, while the flesh on one side of his face had been crushed together, leaving him unable to see through that eye.
From the one eye that remained intact, cloudy tears slowly flowed.
His mouth produced a faint, indistinct murmur.
"Nanaya..."
"Was all of this a lie?"
"Then why... why reveal the truth to me now...?"
"Was everything that happened in the past merely a falsehood you wanted me to see?"
"Me, immersed in that false happiness..."
"How laughable..."
Lucian did not interfere with Midra.
He merely prepared himself for battle.
There was nothing they could do now that could change anything.
Midra's heart had already died completely.
"Forgive me, Dearest Nanaya..."
"It was all because of my selfish desires that you became like this."
"All of this is my sin..."
Midra slowly yet firmly grasped the torture device that pierced through his head and body.
Even as the barbs pierced through his palms, he showed no intention of stopping.
"AAAAAAAGH!"
Right before Lucian and the others, Midra pulled out the greatsword that had pierced through his body and become completely fused with him.
Along with his own head.
——
Pain.
Torture.
Curses.
Despair.
Throughout the endless punishment, Midra had countless times found himself on the verge of collapse.
If he had never touched the Frenzied Flame in the first place, such punishment would never have fallen upon someone of his lofty status.
And if he had refused to surrender, slaughtering every Inquisitor instead of voluntarily accepting his punishment, he would never have ended up in such a state.
But Midra also knew that this was impossible.
No matter how many times he was presented with the choice, he would ultimately arrive at the same ending.
As a husband, as a lover, he could not accept Nanaya's death.
Because of this, even though he knew there was something unnatural about Nanaya returning from death, he deliberately ignored it and immersed himself in that false happiness.
But as a sage, as a scholar, he also understood what kind of sin he had committed.
Because of this, even knowing how painful the punishment would be, he acknowledged his sins and willingly accepted eternal condemnation.
Amid the everlasting agony brought by the golden barbs, Nanaya's words had been Midra's pillar of support.
Please endure.
Those words...
Were themselves a curse.
The instruments of eternal punishment were not pure golden needles. They had no way of suppressing the surging Frenzied Flame.
From beginning to end, it had been Midra himself who endured the punishment while simultaneously suppressing the Frenzied Flame.
Punishment and happiness had become indistinguishable to him.
Yet today, everything Midra had clung to was completely shattered.
When he saw the Frenzied Flame carrying Nanaya's presence appear before him, Midra was finally forced to acknowledge the truth he had always been unable to face.
What he had seen was never the Light of Hope.
It was bottomless despair.
"Nanaya" understood him far too well.
Had even his punishment been part of her plan?
Everything that had happened in the past was merely a puppet show controlled by the existence lurking behind the scenes.
For Midra, this was despair in its purest form.
Lies did not hurt.
The truth was the sharpest blade.
Everything had been false.
Midra had known it for a long time.
He had simply refused to face it.
As both a scholar and a sage, he was not so blind that he could fail to recognize something this obvious.
Not to mention that throughout the endless torment, he had repeatedly looked back upon the past.
That blatant resurrection from death had been far too naked to hide.
The moment he saw that Frenzied Flame, Midra had already understood everything.
His reason told him that the person before him was no longer Nanaya.
Yet the prison woven from love was the strongest prison Sage Midra was destined to never escape.
The dead should have been allowed to rest.
But because of his own selfish desires, he had defiled Nanaya's very existence.
Only a single wall stood between them, an insurmountable barrier that completely separated the two.
Not merely their bodies.
Their hearts as well.
From beginning to end, nothing had ever escaped "Nanaya's" control.
The love was real.
But so was the Frenzied Flame.
The Frenzied Flame that had stolen another's nest twisted the love between the two, ultimately creating the tragedy known as the Lord of Frenzied Flame.
——
When Midra's corpse rose to its feet, a Frenzied Flame sun ignited above his headless remains.
He casually twisted the golden torture device in his hands.
The golden barbs contracted toward the center, warping and twisting until they became a grotesque greatsword.
Within that violently burning Frenzied Flame sun, Lucian could see fragments of Midra's past continuously emerging.
His entire life appeared before Lucian like a fading illusion, only to be gradually burned away into nothingness.
All of his love and hatred, all of his joys and sorrows, were burned away by the Frenzied Flame.
The moment Midra pulled out the Greatsword of Damnation, he abandoned his struggle.
He had endured too much despair and suffering for far too long.
The being now standing before them was no longer Midra.
Just as "Nanaya" had hoped, the Frenzied Flame burned violently within the depths of despair.
The Lord of Frenzied Flame had been born.
Throughout the entire valley, traces of the Frenzied Flame immediately reignited.
The Frenzied Flame creatures that had yet to be eliminated raised their heads high, praising the arrival of their lord.
——
Standing before the Lord of Frenzied Flame, Lucian became intensely vigilant.
This time, he dared not hold anything back.
As for enjoying the thrill of battle...
That could wait until he was dealing with a normal opponent.
Lucian took a deep breath and activated the power of his Great Rune, switching states.
In an instant, an overwhelming aura erupted from him.
Lucian's presence surged.
Then surged again.
Then exploded upward with terrifying force.
The Frenzied Flame creatures that had just been bowing in worship were instantly crushed beneath that violent, overwhelming presence, unable to even raise their heads.
At this moment, every living creature within the valley could only lie prostrate upon the ground, trembling.
The pressure of a king caused fear to emerge from the very depths of their lives.
This was the realm of a lord.
After his close encounter with Melina two days ago, Lucian had also taken the opportunity to have her help him expend all of his stored Runes, converting every last one of them into his own strength.
Vigor.
Strength.
Dexterity.
All three attributes had broken through their limits, reaching a level of inhuman power.
And with that came a tremendous increase in his overall strength.
Lucian had officially stepped into the realm of gods and lords.
He rolled his shoulders and casually summoned the Sword of Night and Flame.
At this point, the Sword of Night and Flame had also expanded several times in size, becoming properly proportioned for him.
During its previous reinforcement, Lucian had also asked Master Hewg to modify it.
Now, the weapon could finally be wielded in battle at his current size.
Lucian raised the sword in his hand, its tip pointing directly at the Lord of Frenzied Flame.
"As a sign of my respect for Midra, I'll erase you from this world without holding anything back."