Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 2084, Section 2056: Compromise
Like other forces, even excluding the Golden Dynasty's specific restrictions on the power of fire, there are actually different levels of power.

Far away, even in the Shadowlands, the fires of Methmor burned almost the entire land.

Almost every town of the Horned People has been conquered by this serpentine flame.

Messermo shared his flames with everyone in the Holy War, but few were able to control and hold them for long.

As a last resort, they mostly had to use the Fire of Mesmer in the form of prayer spells and weapon ash.

This Messermo's Fire is clearly not on the same level as the flame in Messermo's own hands.

The flames that Messermo can unleash at any time are not on the same level as the essential fire within his body that can burn the sealed tree.

But now, the flames appearing on Lann's greatsword...

"What's this?"

Amidst the spreading hot wind, Melina stared blankly at the [Turbid Stream Annihilation], a form she had seen before but never before witnessed in this way.

"【Combat Skill - Ember】." Lan En, still holding the hilt of his sword, introduced it to Melina.

After he finished speaking, he tapped the broad surface of the greatsword lightly with his fingers.

"It seems we can discuss this in more detail now?"

Melina: “…”
-
"So, that's what happened."

In the dark room where Messermo still habitually hid himself, Lann spoke to him.

Beside the Witcher were Melina and Leilana.

"Even if we unseal the Spiral Tower and return it to the material world, we'll still have to face Malenia and Michaela. If you die trying to unseal the Spiral Tower before that, this battle will be far too difficult."

The Witcher shrugged and offered some words of advice to Messermo.

"So, you came up with this plan?" Messermo's clear yet cold voice echoed in the dark room. He turned to look at his wife. "But how did you know how I was going to burn the Sealed Tree?"

Leilana turned her head away, guiltily avoiding Messermo's gaze.

She was not only Mesmer's wife, but also his knight.

Whether out of familial ties or knightly loyalty, she should have kept Messermo's secret.

Especially since he himself didn't intend to talk about it.

Of course, in Lann's eyes, Leilana's idea was somewhat of a knightly pedantry.

When family members encounter problems, of course we should try to find a solution if we can.

So Leilana went to Lan En and asked him to come up with a solution.
Fortunately, Messermo was also prepared to sacrifice himself soon to burn down the sealed tree. With this mindset, he had no reason to pursue the matter of Laylana any further.

So after glancing at his wife, the piercer turned and looked at Melina, who was shrouded in a cloak, with a strange gaze.

“You said you are also a ‘spark.’ So the two of us can work together to burn the sealed tree. That way, each of us will only consume half of our essential flame at most, but at least we won’t die.”

“No wonder.” Messermo nodded repeatedly to Melina. “From the first time I saw you, I felt… that you were very different. Even Godwin, he didn’t feel as close to me as you, someone I’ve never met before.”

Godwin was Queen Marika's eldest son, and Messermo was cared for by his brother when he was young. Later, he led an army on his own to conquer the Shadowlands.

This might be the only one among the golden demigods in the outer borderlands who he has spent a considerable amount of time with.

In addition to Godwin's own charm and personality, no matter how cold and aloof Mesmer was, he couldn't possibly have a bad impression of his elder brother.

Even so, when he first learned Melina's identity, he immediately felt a greater sense of kinship with the girl than with Godwin.

Before learning Melina's identity, this feeling even made Messermo think that he had never before developed feelings for someone out of nowhere.

But now, he understands the origin of his feelings for Melina.

Both being sparks of fire, they were destined to burn something.

This similarity in fate, as well as the similarity in their physical nature, is what gives this brother and sister, who have never met before, a natural sense of familiarity and closeness.

In this cause-and-effect relationship, their shared Golden Clan bloodline is secondary.

There are many people of the same bloodline in the border areas. But only these two share the same fate of being the 'seed'.

"Ah."

Suddenly, Messermo gave a cold laugh, spun around, and turned to look at the deepest part of the dark room.

Before that, he had locked himself in this dark room, sitting alone on the high platform above.

Behind his seat was a statue of Queen Marika.

The queen, with her arms outstretched, seemed to be embracing everything in the world.

However, Queen Marika's image was mostly obscured by the curtain hanging above the platform, with only a sliver of the statue faintly visible through a gap in the curtain.

“This is our mother, Melina. The great and eternal Queen Marika. She is great, powerful, and wise, and her Golden Law benefits all beings. But precisely because she is so great, powerful, and wise, she always has a reason for doing things.” “We are the two ‘sparks’ she gave birth to, which means she plans to burn two things. How… meticulously planned! Isn’t that so?”

No one could say for sure how many emotions were hidden in Messermo's tone at that moment.

But everyone could tell that he was in a bad mood.

Logically, he should be given time and space to calm down on his own. But now that Michaela's situation is urgent, there's no time to waste.

Therefore, Lann did not signal everyone to go out together, leaving Messermo with space to think and process his emotions on his own.

Instead, he stepped forward and asked directly: "Whether Queen Marika gave birth to her own child out of love or to create a tool for herself is a family matter of the Golden Family, and outsiders should not say too much."

"But from what I've seen, she smashed the Elden Ring entirely of her own volition. It's almost as if she smashed her own very essence."

The deities of the borderlands are called gods because the phantom of the Elden Ring resides within their bodies.

If even the magic ring itself is smashed, the illusory image will naturally cease to exist, the divine position will also shatter, and the deity on the divine position will have no chance of escaping unscathed.

The Dharma circle is the root of everything.

A person who can destroy themselves can be almost certainly not motivated by self-interest.

As a deity, Marika's greatest and most efficient benefit is to maintain the Law Circle and uphold the Golden Age.

But she smashed it all with her own hands.

When Messermo was on his expedition to the Shadowlands, Queen Marika sealed him here along with her, and who knows how many years have passed since then.

The Shadowlands are filled with dangers that even demigods find terrifying, and the absence of the Golden Law leads to the loss of life and endless killing.

Life was cut into mud, yet only after Torina's arrival could it find a substitute release by falling into a deep sleep.

In this place that was practically a living hell, after being imprisoned for so long, even though Messermo respected his mother's orders to the utmost, and even now, he didn't hesitate to unleash his own primal flames to burn the sealed tree, deep down, he still couldn't help but hate his mother.

This hatred made him re-examine his mother and find another way to explain all her past behavior.

Lan En wasn't sure if this explanation was correct, as he said: this was a family matter of the Golden Clan.

However, they have more pressing issues to address right now.

Do you think it's feasible?

Lann asked Messermo seriously.

The two of them, Messermo and Melina, will use their 'fire' to burn down the sealed tree.

The two of them share the burden of burning the fire, so at least there's no need to worry about one of them being completely exhausted.

This was the suggestion that Lann made to persuade Melina.

In Marika's hometown, the "Ember" that Lann showed Melina truly shocked the young girl.

However, she immediately realized that while the essence of [Ember] was advanced, its quantity was far too small. It simply couldn't possibly burn down the Golden Tree.

But that's enough.

Lan En revealed [Ember] not to prove that his sword could burn down the Golden Tree, that's too unrealistic.

He wanted Melina to understand that even with Queen Marika's insight and knowledge, her self-planned scheme was not unique or unchangeable.

There is still room and possibility for Lan En to burn down the Golden Tree.

Self-sacrifice can be put on the back burner.

The two argued and persuaded each other on the hillside in Marika's hometown, and finally reached a compromise, proposing the current plan.

Messermo and Melina consumed their essence flames together, preventing one from being completely depleted and leaving each with some leeway.

Lan En will try to make [Ember] even stronger.

In this way, even if Lan En's [Ember] is still ineffective, the two of them will still have roughly the same power to ignite the Golden Tree in the Flame Cauldron on the snow mountain.

Messermo did not turn around while Lann was speaking, but kept looking up at the statue of his mother that was partially visible through the curtain.

His hand unconsciously reached out and massaged around his right eye socket for a long time before he finally responded in a low voice.

"Of course, let's do it this way. It'll also give me a chance to see... what kind of demigods the so-called Golden Dynasty really are."

His voice was still echoing in the dark room when Lelana excitedly left and immediately began making arrangements.

The next morning, Melina and Messermo appeared together in the ruins of Laufgu, which had been cleared away by the veteran Gaius.

The ultimate crystallization of the spirit summoning system of the Horned People—[Spiral Tower] Enil Ilim.

Today, we will return to the real world.

(End of this chapter)