Chat group, if you have anything to say to my Holy Sword,

"You haven't thought about it, have you?"

"Your 'freedom,' your 'liberation,' is a bloody path paved with the bones of millions!"

"You only see the constraints, but you don't see that order itself is also a protective shell upon which countless living beings depend for survival!"

"You only see the empty 'freedom' at the end, but you ignore the mountains of corpses that will inevitably pile up on the road to that end!"

Because you don't care.

"Let living beings choose for themselves?"

"But have you ever truly asked them about their choices?"

Remian's voice suddenly rose: "Did you ever give them a choice? When you arbitrarily decided to smash the foundations of this world, did you ever bow your head and ask those who were crawling in the storm's corner? Those who were struggling to survive? Those who were praying beneath the walls of Rodel? Those whose lives had been sustained for years under the protection of the Golden Tree?!"

"Have you ever given them the right to choose?"

"The Elden French Ring is not your private property! It's not a tea set in your cupboard that you can just throw away or break!"

Remian pointed a finger at Lani's shattered body: "What noble mission do you think you're carrying out? No!"

Remian coldly declared: "You are simply using your self-righteous 'ideals' to indiscriminately slaughter the entire border region!"

"Your 'liberation' is an extermination order more cruel than any other form of rule!"

Remian's final question was like a sharp blade, precisely piercing the core of Lani's path... the price she had to pay.

Radagan closed his eyes in anguish, knowing that Remian was telling the truth—the price of forcibly uprooting the laws that are rooted in all things in the world would be unimaginably terrible.

He couldn't understand how his intelligent yet naive daughter, who once gazed at the stars in the royal gardens of Kalia, had gradually drifted towards such utter nothingness.

He knew Lani must be hiding other secrets, but he didn't know she was hiding them so deeply.

Radagan wanted to question Lani: Didn't she know the consequences? Or... had she already given up on things?

With her back to her father, who was filled with pain and confusion, and her mother, whose eyes were full of worry, Lani's broken doll body still stubbornly floated.

Her dim eyes looked at Remy Anna's silvery pupils.

After a brief silence, Lani's voice rang out, carrying a calm as if the dust had settled, yet containing a cold, bone-chilling resolve:

"...Even so, I have never regretted it."

Remian's tone calmed down as well. "Then I don't need to say anything more."

Because—you don't deserve to hear it.

The Elden Beast hovering behind her suddenly erupted with an unbearable silver-white light! The wing-like structures on its massive body suddenly opened, and unimaginable destructive energy frantically gathered within them, causing the space itself to groan as if it were on the verge of collapse!

The next second—

Light—descends!

The silvery light was no longer light, but a torrent of light that devoured everything, instantly engulfing everything in sight! The last thing Lani saw was an endless, pure, and despair-inducing paleness.

She closed her eyes silently, almost calmly. The end was near.

She didn't make it to the end, she couldn't touch that cold starry sky... but at least, she chose to fight to the last moment, to face the end of divine punishment with her broken body.

To die at the last step on the path to one's goal, to die on the battlefield defying the will of the gods—perhaps that would be enough to live up to Blaze's loyalty and not betray the expectations of those who follow the Dark Moon.

"It's over..." The thought rose in Lani's mind, carrying a sense of relief, but also an unfathomable sense of resentment.

However, the anticipated complete annihilation did not occur.

Just before that ultimate white light, powerful enough to completely evaporate the soul and obliterate existence itself, was about to engulf her—

Two figures stood in front of her without hesitation!

The all-consuming paleness in her vision was obscured by two familiar silhouettes that made her soul tremble!

Lani suddenly opened her eyes!

In her pupils, which contracted violently in shock, two soul-stirring images were reflected:

Ahead! Her father, Radagan! Brilliant golden light surged forth from his body, forming a precarious yet incredibly solid golden barrier in front of Lani!

Radagan faced the destructive white light head-on, his body becoming the last shield before his daughter! Blood flowed from his body, instantly evaporated by the light, but his back remained motionless!

Closer still! Her mother, Lena La! Icy magic poured out relentlessly and frantically! Azure moonlight intertwined and swirled with intricate Kalia magic, rapidly weaving a massive, magnificent, yet equally cracked, full moon barrier before her and Lani!

Starlight streamed across the barrier, illuminating her pale yet resolute face. She shielded Lani's cold, doll-like body behind her, using her own back to face the destructive torrent!

"Why...?" Lani's broken voice was stuck in her throat, like a rusty gear being forced to turn, filled with disbelief and trembling.

Why are you blocking my way?!

Her question, though faint amidst the devastating roar of energy, was so sharp!

Her heart had never pounded so violently, as if it wanted to break free of its cold restraints and leap out of her chest! She had betrayed the Golden Law; she had denied everything that Rdagan believed in!

She chose a path that destined her to be at odds with the world!

She's a disruptor!

He's a rebel!

She is a cold doll who pursues her own will even after severing blood ties!

She sought out these two people simply because she valued their immense strength and wanted to use their power to achieve her own ideals.

They were the last people who should have stood in front of her!

The light poured down, relentlessly washing everything away.

Radagan, standing at the very front,

He could feel his body gradually disappearing.

Excruciating pain? No, it's more like a sense of emptiness, as if existence itself has been stripped away.

The senses are fading away, and strength is dwindling.

...That's fine too.

In that case, he would no longer need to consider the Golden Law versus the Silver Law, or his daughter Lani's choice.

He was tired, so very tired.

Perhaps falling into slumber here, letting the soul merge with this ethereal light, is also a kind of destiny...

But... an instinct from the depths of the soul, far older than any law, like the final eruption of a dying volcano, suddenly dispelled that moment of weakness!

His wife was still behind him! His daughter was still behind him!

But he can't just collapse like this. As a husband and a father, he can't fall down at a time like this!

"Uhhhhhh-!!!"

The power of Radagan's roar surged into that body once more!

However, from Rena La's perspective, behind him, this struggle of burning life transformed into a deeper picture of despair.

Starting from the edges, Radagan's imposing body was gradually "disintegrated" by the silvery light.

It wasn't shattering, nor burning, but a more complete "vanishing." Golden fragments of light, particles representing his flesh and divinity, were gently and irrevocably peeled away from him, drifting and merging into the all-consuming white light of nothingness.

His body is heading towards death.

Rena La shifted her gaze from Radagan to Lani.

That look in his eyes was incredibly complex!

Overwhelmed by a grief that seemed to drown him; overwhelmed by deep worry for his daughter as she faced a cruel future alone...

She carried a hint of confusion about the path Lani had chosen, a confusion that perhaps even she herself couldn't understand.

But in the end, all the emotions settled down and transformed into a pure love that transcended all understanding, all disagreement, and all right and wrong.

"Live well from now on, Lani..." Her voice was as soft as a sigh, so faint that it was almost swallowed up by the annihilating storm, yet it carried a strange power, like the sharpest carving knife, fiercely chiseling into the deepest part of Lani's consciousness.

There were no questions, no accusations, only a mother at the end of her life, using her last strength to convey the most humble and heaviest plea—to live!

The moment the words left her lips, Renara moved.

She resolutely and without hesitation crossed the full moon barrier she had built with her own magic, a barrier already cracked and on the verge of collapse—her last, fragile refuge for her daughter.

Without the slightest hesitation, like a moth drawn to a flame, she moved lightly yet with a resolute determination to defy fate, arriving behind Radagan.

There are no words, nor are there any words needed.

His hands were placed on Radagana's back, which was radiating light and burning hot.

Om-!

The cold, profound magic of the full moon, like the last spring of sweet water, poured into Rdagan's body without reservation, attempting to light a faint lamp of protection once more before the destructive torrent!

However, even so...

This resonance fueled by life itself is as insignificant as a candle flame in a raging storm before the Beast of Elden!

The golden barrier shone for only a moment after being injected, then quickly dimmed and collapsed, like a final burst of light before death! Renara's magic was swallowed up by the merciless white light in an instant, as if a stone had sunk into the sea!

The chasm of power is despair itself. Radagan and Renara's souls had burned to their limits, their bodies trembling and becoming transparent in the light.

They have given their all, until they are completely exhausted.

The rest of the road... can only be walked by those who survive...

“…………No…………” For the first time, Lani’s icy tone underwent a dramatic change.

"No..." The voice was filled with the terror of having one's understanding completely overturned.

She watched her father turn into scattered light fragments, watched her mother transform her last life force into magic and infuse it into her father's body, watched those two figures, clinging to each other, swaying like candles in the wind amidst the destructive white light, about to be completely erased in the next second...

The foundations of the world crumbled beneath her feet! Cold logic, grand ideals, and the unwavering pursuit of freedom... were crushed to dust in that instant!

"No!!!" A roar that tore through space.

Just as the all-consuming silver torrent was about to completely engulf Rdagan and Renara, utterly erasing the last trace of their existence—

Lani's body moved!

No thought, no hesitation! Only an instinct that transcends all calculations, all paths, and all sacrifices, originating from the deepest part of one's blood!

Her doll-like body stood in front of her parents without hesitation!

With her battered body, so small in comparison to the behemoth, she forcefully separated her parents from that extinguishing light!

"Stop it!!!"

Magic instantly condensed, compressed, and solidified in front of her! A magic circle formed in an instant!

Boom——! ! !

Silver light poured onto the magic circle, and the moment it touched it, cracks began to appear on Lani's doll body, as if it would completely disintegrate at any moment!

but--

She blocked it!

Lani actually managed to hold back that all-consuming torrent of light! Although she was teetering on the brink of collapse, although she was riddled with cracks, and although every second was consuming Lani's very being... she truly did provide a lifeline for her parents who were about to disappear behind her!

But what's the cost?

The price, of course, was the demise of Lani herself.

I felt my body slowly disappearing.

Lani thought she must be going crazy.

She, Lani, the Moon Princess who abandoned her divine status, betrayed the Golden Law, and plotted for many years, actually used her own body to shield others like the most foolish knight!

Her intellect was screaming a warning: This is the most foolish sacrifice! It runs counter to her pursuit of a cold, detached freedom!

Her "brain" told her a thousand things she shouldn't do, but her "body"—this cold doll that carried her will—had already obeyed the desperate roar from the depths of her soul and rushed forward before she could even think!

Want to run away?

There's no way they can escape, right?

She was already standing in front of the flood, so how could she possibly escape?

and......

He felt the two incredibly weak, heavy soul pulses behind him, like panting breaths.