It was a space of complete darkness.
A place where I couldn't even see my own hand when I looked down.
Yet, even in this seemingly empty space, a faint singing could be heard.
"…Singing?"
Joseph, who was alone in the darkness, wore a confused expression at the sound of the song being sung in front of him.
I don't know where I am now, nor why I'm here, but the voice singing in front of me was undeniably clear.
······Spin, spin. Round and round.
It sounded like a song sung by children.
Joseph, who was drawn toward the faint sound as if enchanted, soon found the light of a small bonfire before him.
Until the song they were singing ended.
Until all who had been called fall.
Spin, spin.
Ahead, small children played beside the bonfire, accompanied by cheerful singing.
Watching the children running joyfully, unaware of who was with them, seemed peaceful, yet it also filled him with a strange discomfort in the current situation.
"…They never rest."
And so, Joseph watched the children from afar for a long time.
In total darkness, he had no idea how much time had passed.
However, it was undoubtedly strange to see the children never stop, even during that incomprehensible span of time.
"…"
They just kept spinning endlessly.
The children, who had stopped because they found no place to move forward, continued to remain in place, turning and turning.
"You can't keep doing that."
Joseph began to walk toward the scene, step by step, feeling that someone needed to make it stop.
Toward the children whom no one had ever come to find.
As Joseph's footsteps drew closer, the heads of the children playing around the bonfire began to turn one by one.
-Someone's coming.
-Who is it?
Although only empty hollows remained where their eyes should have been.
That wounded gaze had also been blocked by the woman in black, telling you not to look at the dark places in the world.
-What's that?
-Is it shining?
Yet, even through their vacant stares, light was visible.
The light was faint, but in this dark place, it shone brighter than anything else.
In a place where only the bonfire lit by Ramashthu had been burning, the new, shining light was enough to pique the children's interest.
-·····It's silver. Pretty.
Where it should be.
For the just price of death.
On Joseph's shoulder, as he walked through the darkness toward the children, shone a faded silver object, something that someone had once struck against him.
***
Crash-!
Vlad ran beneath the brilliant purple sky, mercilessly cutting down the headless knights who stood in his way.
Another false dead fell onto the white bridge that connected life and death.
-Keuuuuuu!
The natural blue flower quivered as if it couldn't believe Vlad was passing by, but life is about moving forward.
Vlad, who had already paid the price in full, simply advanced, leaving death behind him.
"Vlad! Ahead of us!"
The group ran toward death, stepping over the sacrifices of the knights left behind them.
After paying the price to cross the bridge, the tree they were aiming for soon came into view.
"It's bigger than in Moshiam!"
Beyond Nibelun's fingertips pointing skyward, a towering tree rose high above.
Its grotesque roots, writhing as if warning people not to approach, were, as Nibelun said, larger and more imposing than the tree in Moshiam.
"...!"
However, Vlad's eyes could no longer register the grandeur of the tree before him.
Thump!
All he could see was someone pierced by towering roots.
The black hair, recognizable even from a distance, was unmistakably the color Vlad had been searching for.
"Ahhh..."
'Are you here now?'
When I opened the door and entered, there was always a young man with black eyes waiting to greet me.
With his back to the bright sunlight, he always rested his chin on his clasped hands.
'Come and have some tea. I can't drink whiskey anymore.'
Even though his sunken eyes were filled with deep fatigue, he was one of the few people in this world who welcomed me.
His appearance, seemingly unchanged by time, had been one of the few comforts for Vlad.
"Aaaah!"
Now, I will never see him again.
A man with black hair, head hanging low, pierced by roots reaching toward the sky.
Seeing Joseph in such a wretched state, red veins began to form in Vlad's blue eyes.
"Ramashthu—!"
Toward the woman in black who had created this scene.
A mother, shedding black tears.
Children, suffocating as they died.
The unfortunate prostitute whose eyes I had closed myself, and the paladin who showed me the way.
And now the great wall that once confined me.
"I will definitely kill you!"
Thud!
A dragon, unable to protect them all, roared fiercely as it charged toward death.
-Kugh!
-Stop them!
The golden horizon began to speed up from the edge of the bridge.
Today's sun, having stepped over someone's life, crossed the pure white border and now plunged toward death, rising from Ramashthu's world.
"Vlad! Vlad of Soara!"
To erase the world I'm running toward now.
The woman with black tears recognized the light and began to wail beneath the tree.
"It's your fault! All of this! It's because of you!"
It was a bright light, but in the end, it was a light that couldn't shine on everyone in this world.
She, who had struggled in the shadows cast by that light, now threw everything aside and extended her black wolf-like fingers.
Boooom—!
To die, to kill. Thus, two worlds that cannot coexist in the same place.
The black night sky, suppressing the sun that was about to rise, was filled only with sorrowful rain clouds, without a single star or bright moon.
"Leave my children alone!"
"Those damned children! I'm sick of it now!"
Vlad raised his sword toward Ramashthu.
The headless knights who had returned from the bridge charged toward Vlad.
"Why did they drag me to this place?"
Suddenly, red flames erupted from the dragon's left eye.
Radu's world is one filled with inferiority complexes, half-formed.
His world, burning endlessly because it could never be perfect, was now creating a great wall of fire, accompanied by the inquisitor's staff strike.
"Do you know how many people died because of those children you speak of?"
Between the border of life and death that had been created, Vlad cried, clutching the collar of his shirt.
And Ramashthu's eyes, gazing at the weeping Vlad, were also filled with dark moisture.
"You killed him!"
You killed Joseph!
Boom! Bang! Bang!
Even though they cried out in the same grief, the two clashing worlds could never understand each other.
Because I lost, you must lose, and because I suffered, you too must suffer.
"Save me!"
Thus, Vlad's world and Ramashthu's world collided.
Vlad's fist, striking Ramashthu as though even the sword he wielded was unnecessary, was filled with the black blood that poured from her.
"Save me!"
But no matter how hard they tried, the two people now facing each other could not let go of what they had lost.
Their empty hearts were now filled with the fury they exchanged between them.
"I wish everyone would die."
"Aaaah!"
The branches of the black, wolf-like tree began to twist between the two worlds, which broke further with each clash.
Upon seeing the signal that only she could recognize, Ramashthu knew the moment had come.
"So I'll kill them all."
[······!]
Her smile, unseen by the enraged Vlad.
But as soon as Kihano sensed her suspicious presence, it began to darken, along with her sinister, twisting fingers.
[I told you not to give her time!]
Wham!
The leader of the warlocks of this era.
A great tremor began to rise from the beast that Ramashthu, weeping black tears, had secretly pointed to.
"What is this?*
"…Legs!"
Behind Radu, who was startled by the sudden quake, the bridge he had been crossing began to collapse.
Countless white bridges had spanned a small circle.
As the bridges connecting the border of life and death crumbled, the place where Vlad stood became a world filled only with death.
"Agh!"
Vlad, realizing too late what was happening, drove his sword into Ramashthu's chest, but she was already gone.
As if she had never existed in the first place.
"Did you really think I didn't know?"
Though she seemed a bit weary, Ramashthu smiled.
For the dragon, who was now right before her, had fallen into her trap, just as she intended.
And the bait for that trap was none other than Joseph Bayezid.
"Is that Joseph Bayezid the spy you sent?"
Vlad began to feel a creeping unease as he stared at Ramashthu, who stood there smiling serenely, as if nothing had happened.
The woman who had been weeping before him just moments ago was now grinning so brightly.
The deep instincts of the dragon told him that this sudden change in demeanor was not a mere hallucination brought on by madness.
"…Though I never thought I'd burn my precious children."
Beneath the floating island, now stripped of its supports, lay a black-toned lake that he had never seen before.
The lake, seemingly so deep that once you entered, you couldn't leave, was filled with the black tears Ramashthu had shed.
"But now that we've gathered three, it's enough."
"…What?"
Ramashthu chuckled for a moment as she glanced at the young dragon who knew nothing, then raised her black finger and pointed toward the turbulent purple sky.
One towards the top.
Two behind.
And three toward Vlad, standing right in front of her.
"Even though there were only two pieces promised."
The most perfect piece, able to become anything, to be whatever you wished.
The three pieces gathered here were visible in her eyes, now smiling through black tears.
"At this rate, my children will breathe again."
Ramashthu's world, shedding black tears, was a world of death, devoid of any suffering.
Ramashthu, having lifted her world to the sky, gazed at the dragons ensnared in her trap through a madness that had already quieted.
***
Achiuk, a town now in ruins.
An army was rushing towards it.
"The banner of the Northern Union Army is just ahead!"
"It looks like we're locked in a long battle now!"
The golden dragon's banner led the emperor's standard.
Now, Sarnus, the Dragon Blood Duke, smiled beneath the flag of the dragon with its fully spread wings.
"...It was worth running fast."
In front of him, smiling, were the soldiers of the Northern Union Army, who had been fighting for a long time.
They had been battling the undead army for over a full day and seemed utterly baffled when Sarnus's army suddenly appeared.
"There's all sorts of things here."
Communication wasn't easy between completely divided worlds.
The same goes for time.
Although little time had passed for the group that had entered, the Northern Union Army outside had been at a standstill for over half a day.
"It would be difficult if this ended too quickly."
Sarnus's army had gained a full day's time through a grueling forced march.
Of course, the number of soldiers who had deserted was as large as the time gained, but Sarnus didn't care, for winning or losing the war wasn't important to him.
"From now on, we attack the Northern Union Army."
The only thing that mattered was that many people die.
The banner of the oldest dragon, which had transcended the era of the empire and was now once again pointing toward the era of the dragons, slowly began to tilt forward.
"You're a little late. Sarnus."
"...!"
However, the dragon's banner, which had begun to lower, couldn't point to where it intended in the end.
"Well, you were always late to your appointments."
"...Frausen?"
A man whose colors had faded.
He, standing among the central forces unnoticed by anyone, slowly began to remove the hood he wore.
"Yes. I'm back. You, stupid dragon."
His face, now visible through the hood he had taken off.
His face, recognizable only to the oldest dragon, was unmistakably Frausen's, the first emperor who had slain the most perfect dragon.
"A foolish dragon who broke his oath to the Emperor. Sarnus Dragulia."
Rumbleee—
The earth began to tremble at the calm words of the founding king.
Amidst the tremendous shaking, which shocked both the living and the dead, the only person who remained calm was the returning emperor.
"Today, you die with me."
Kurrrrr—
The Army of the Dead and the Northern Union Army.
And even the central army that had arrived late.
There was an enormous tree root trying to trap them all.
It emerged from the roots, not the branches, burrowing into the ground without anyone noticing, and soon began to reveal itself, enclosing a vast battlefield.
"With the fragments of the dragon that we carry."
A tree began to grow, destroying the dark, wolf-like church.
The Inverted Sky Tree, which had awoken from the world of Ramashthu and finally appeared in this world.
It began to manifest, overshadowing everything on the battlefield.
"...Frausen."
To devour the death of everyone here.
The name of the new world that would rise with their deaths was the World of Black Tears.
For a world where no children would die, grotesque roots began to move like tongues.