Chaos had returned.
Or, to be precise, she had been pulled back by Alice.
Though Alice always complained about having too many children to manage and no desire to deal with them, if she were truly irresponsible, why would she have marked Metyr's location for Lloyd? Why would she have cast both Metyr and the Elden Beast into the Lands Between, ensuring their survival as a safeguard?
One could only say this: though her true form was an immense void and her actions often seemed indifferent, as a Creator, she did indeed love her children.
It was just that her love was not the kind mortals could comprehend. It was the kind of divine love—the love of a god for the world.
It might sound arrogant, but she had the right to such arrogance.
...
When Chaos was pulled out, Alice didn't linger. Without another word, she vanished again—off to work overtime fixing bugs.
As for Chaos, after that journey through darkness, both her soul and spirit had suffered severe erosion. She had nearly been lost within it forever. Yet, there was not a trace of fear or disgust on her face. Instead, it was filled with joy—satisfaction, even.
As for why?
As mentioned before, the fusion of souls was something far deeper—and far worse—than filling cream puffs.
Though the act itself might sound solemn, considering the essence of the Frenzied Flame revealed what truly happened: Lloyd had forcibly poured his own pain and despair into her body. It was a violent, brutal act that had nearly killed her.
Take Elizabeth's battle, for example. Though the field had run red with blood, the sight awe-inspiring enough to stun even the Blood Dynasty, it had been measured. Elizabeth knew Lloyd wouldn't truly harm her, and Lloyd knew Elizabeth was helping him. However brutal it looked, both had held back.
Chaos, on the other hand, had no such restraint. What she had just done was reckless—playing with her life, without even setting a safe word.
Even Elizabeth, upon seeing it, would've been forced to admit—Chaos took things to the extreme.
For her, the pleasure didn't just come from despair being forced into her; even her own death was part of her "play."
Simply put, although she was a god whose essence was despair itself, as a rule-born deity of nature, the Frenzied Flame could never truly die—and thus had never experienced true despair.
But just now, wrapped in that darkness, the Frenzied Flame's essence had truly felt it—pain, despair, and something beyond.
When that darkness corroded the very core of her being, bringing her to the brink of dissolution and distortion, the sensation reached its peak. It made her tremble and scream, the sound echoing through the void. And once she screamed, all resistance was gone. That was why the corruption had so easily taken hold of her.
Now, in the aftermath of that experience—her soul and spirit shattered like a torn rag doll—Lloyd's minimal treatment was barely enough to help her move. Even so, Chaos forced herself outside, placing her hand against the wall covered in Frenzied Flame.
Then, resonance began.
Through that despair that made even her divine essence tremble, Chaos awakened a power that had slumbered for who knew how long.
The Frenzied Flame ignited.
From her fingertips, faint sparks dripped down her palm. The moment they touched the rock wall, they burst into a small, flickering flame.
Then—
Whoosh!
The spark fell, and the rock wall seemed to ignite from within. Mad-yellow flames spread outward from the point of contact, consuming the entire wall in an instant. It cracked and groaned like a living thing in agony, oozing pus-yellow, molten blood from its wounds.
Pain. Despair. Wailing.
Long-buried emotions awoke, and ancient tragedies long erased from memory began to burn once more.
"Many believe that in the Lands Between, war is the eternal theme."
Amid the unending cries and searing flames, a soft, feminine voice rose.
She turned. The flames crept from her fingertips and enveloped her whole body until she seemed cloaked in a robe of gold.
"But I believe that since the dawn of time, what truly runs through the history of the Lands Between is suffering and despair."
"The deeds of heroes are carved upon sword monuments, their glories sung by generations. Yet few ever care for the mountains of corpses buried behind those triumphs."
Chaos stepped forward. The flames around her surged violently, and even the sky took on a hue of frenzied yellow, as though a colossal eye stared down upon the world.
Then, that eye began to weep.
Golden-yellow liquid fire poured from the heavens, streaking the sky with rivers of molten tears.
At the center of those tears, the yellow-robed maiden walked forward. Countless drops flowed toward her, igniting as they touched her skirt of Frenzied Flame, leaving behind a charred trail across the ground.
"The weak die in silence. The strong struggle against fate. Even the gods cannot escape the tragedy written for them."
The flames streamed down her arm, through her fingertips, gradually taking form.
A scepter emerged.
Its shaft was made from the stem of a pain-numbing plant called Yero's Eyeball. From its branches hung clusters of overripe, pus-yellow grapes—or rather, the eyeballs of the mad.
"If life is so painful, why were we torn apart?
If everything is destined to end in tragedy, why must we endure it all?"
The scepter rose high, countless eyes upon it trembling as flames of pure despair ignited across their surfaces. Beneath that fire, the girl gazed at the man before her through hollow, eyeless sockets, and smiled.
"If that's how it must be, then let all return to nothingness. Let us become one again."
"May Chaos fill the world."
...
Whoosh—
As her words fell, the Incarnation of Frenzied Flame lifted the scepter. Above, the great eye in the heavens opened once more. Its tears streamed down, gathering at the tip of the scepter until they slowly coalesced into a blazing sun of Frenzied Flame.
[Special Domain: Realm of Chaos · Incarnation of Frenzied Flame]
[Chaos Realm: During this battle, you cannot use any special systems except Covenant—this includes, but is not limited to, items, talismans, and Spirit Ashes. Additionally, consuming Focus Points will proportionally drain your health.]
[Frenzied Flame Incarnation: During this battle, due to the presence of the Gaze, you will continuously accumulate Madness until death.]
The notifications faded from view. Before him, the sun of Frenzied Flame had already formed—and then it fell.
BOOM!
When the blinding light dispersed, the ground was left scarred by a massive crater, its depths flowing with molten, madness-yellow magma.
At the center stood Lloyd, wielding the Fingerprint Shield Chaos had once entrusted to him. In his other hand, he gripped the Frenzied Flame Greatsword from the day they first met.
Then—
Charge.
Bracing against the surge of the Frenzied Flame with his shield, Lloyd rushed forward. Without hesitation, he raised his sword and drove it into Chaos's body.
At the same moment, Chaos raised her scepter before her. The yellow eyes upon it swelled grotesquely, and Lloyd's Madness gauge began to rise rapidly.
A sharp, wet sound followed as the blade was withdrawn. Chaos's body was flung aside, while Lloyd's Madness reached its limit.
Frenzied Flame erupted across his body, searing him as his health and Focus drained in great chunks.
In the distance, Chaos rose to her feet—only for her form to blur and vanish. A heartbeat later, she materialized before Lloyd, arms outstretched as if to embrace him.
But before she could touch him, strong hands wrapped around her waist instead. His eyes lowered, meeting the hollowness where hers should have been.
Darkness flowed.
As despair built within her, a surge of humanity's darkness burst from Chaos's body. When the eruption ended, her form blurred again, reappearing farther away. After a brief charge, torrents of Frenzied Flame shot from her empty eyes—only for Lloyd to evade them with a swift, reality-blending slide.
The flames roared. The battle raged on.
Though the power of the special domain was formidable, Chaos herself—whether distracted by maintaining the realm or simply weakened—was not as strong as Lloyd had expected. She was a capable opponent, but not the overwhelming threat he had feared.
Yet from the very start, the fight itself had not been Lloyd's true concern.
What troubled him lay beyond the battle—Chaos's, or rather the Frenzied Flame's, ultimate purpose.
[The instinct between flames is to devour one another.]
Those were the words spoken when they—no, when the two flames—had first met.
And now, though everything appeared normal, Lloyd doubted Chaos and the Frenzied Flame within her would behave as restrained or measured as others. This battle would not end so simply.
So what exactly was Chaos—or the essence of Frenzied Flame—planning?
After all the time they had spent together, Chaos surely knew she could never match him in combat. And as a being that revered "true despair" and "pure emotion," she would never do something hypocritical or vile.
Nor would she ever harm those close to him to fabricate tragedy—that went against her very nature and her sense of beauty.
And so, after ruling out every other possibility, only one remained—her last, hidden card...
"You… want to die?"
"Not to die."
Using her scepter for support, Chaos slowly pushed herself up from the ground. Compared to before, her condition had clearly deteriorated—her flames had dimmed, and her body was cracked and fragmented.
Yet the smile on her face shone brighter, more sincere than ever.
"It's to offer myself to you."
"My beloved kin."
Chaos's intent was simple: she wanted to keep fighting Lloyd until her death.
Normally, with Lloyd's mastery over souls, even death wouldn't stop him from pulling her back and binding her again.
But now, after that brutal soul corrosion, her state was already critical—her soul and spirit fractured, incomplete.
In this condition, if she kept fighting—deliberately damaging her own soul and essence—and fed those torn fragments to Lloyd, piece by piece, letting him absorb and consume them...
Then, when the two flames intertwined, she would become a part of him forever, with no chance of returning.
The instinct between flames was always to devour one another.
If she could not consume him, then she would let him consume her.
That was what Chaos—or rather, the Frenzied Flame's essence within her—so desperately desired.
But...
"I never said I'd allow it."
Before she could react, Lloyd flashed before her. His fist struck her in the abdomen, forcing her to double over in pain as the scepter slipped from her grasp.
With a flick of his other hand, he sent it flying far away. Then, raising his arm, he pulled her into his hold, locking her in place.
And then—
He drew out two soft, still-warm glass spheres and forcefully pressed them into Chaos's empty sockets.
Flames ignited.
But this time, they weren't the yellow madness of the Frenzied Flame. They burned black and gold—a Flame of Defilement, born of both the Abyss and madness.
Under Lloyd's control, the defiled fire sank deep into her essence, halting her attempt at self-destruction. Then he opened his mouth, lowered his head, and channeled the energy he had once absorbed from her. Piercing her defenses by force, he returned all that stolen power—roughly, brutally—back into her.
The essence of the Frenzied Flame writhed in agony.
But resistance was futile.
"So you really want to die that badly?"
Lloyd didn't sound angry. He'd expected as much. He'd dealt with beings like this before—in the Dark Souls.
But this time, he needed to deal with it for good—to make sure nothing like this ever happened again.
In the past, he might have taken time to think it over.
But now, after everything he'd been through, he had other means.
Like this one.
"You should be able to handle my current temperature, right?"
Placing his hand on her lower abdomen, he pressed down. The flames beneath his palm roared to life, forming a glowing mark that branded itself deep into Chaos's essence.
Her struggles began to fade.
But it wasn't enough.
Using every method at his disposal, Lloyd forced Chaos into complete submission—until she could no longer resist at all. Then, preparing to move somewhere more fitting, he readied himself for the next phase of the ritual.
But just as he turned to leave, a golden voice broke the silence—clear and direct.
"I want the first shot."
Alice stood watching him, her tone serious.
"And I can help test the temperature for you. Wouldn't want anything going wrong."
Lloyd was silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Fine."
"Also," she added, "open me a separate timeline, if you can. Given her current state, this might take quite some time."
He nodded once.
"Understood."
Then—
The three figures vanished from sight.
Where they went, no one knew.