As the ground trembled violently, it let out a mournful groan. The "dead skin" covering its surface peeled away in chunks, revealing a familiar octopus face.
Faced with that death-bringing visage, Nolan remained astonishingly calm.
He stood firmly in place without moving in the slightest. Even the hand he had pressed against the octopus face did not tremble at all.
Just like that other body far away in the west, under the unrelenting pressure of death's aura, this octopus face began to collapse and disintegrate inch by inch before their eyes.
The half-wheel wound of the centipede fused into the body of the Tarnished Lord!
Everything happened with almost eerie calm. From beginning to end, it took less than two seconds, so fast that there was not even time for anything unexpected to happen.
Ranni tilted her head up slightly, a trace of tension showing in her beautiful eyes as she asked softly, "How is it?"
Her voice seemed subdued by the stillness around them, making it sound especially gentle.
Meeting the eager, anxious gazes of the others, Nolan slowly said, "We've obtained the Cursemark of Death, but it isn't the Great Rune we were hoping for."
"The way it feels to me... hmm, how should I put it? It's more like something formed from countless runes, or rather souls, fused together, similar to those Putrid Tree Spirits."
His tone was calm and candid, with no attempt to hide anything. At this point, there was really nothing to conceal.
"I want to run an experiment. Come with me."
Nolan spread his wings, pulled Melina close, and flew up into the air. Lansseax immediately followed after him.
Before long, they began circling above the edge of a cliff, the wind howling around them and kicking up clouds of dust.
They did not stay there for long, and soon landed at a nearby spot. It was very close to Summonwater Village, located halfway down the cliffside.
Below them ran a crystal-clear stream, its murmuring waters like music. Looking farther along it, they could see a solemn and ancient structure. The Third Church of Marika.
Nolan folded away his flying dragon wings and looked around. The place was not large. As far as the eye could see, there were only crooked, slanting gravestones.
A few long-dead trees stood scattered across the ground, while dense, desolate weeds covered the surrounding area, giving the whole place a heavy air of death.
In ages past, the Golden Dynasty Subjects would never have chosen a place like this as their resting place.
But as the flames of war spread and grew fiercer, graveyards like this had become more and more common.
With time, when the appointed hour came, these dead should have gone beneath the roots of the great tree to seek their final sleep and peace.
Perhaps they never realized that choosing to return to the tree was already a mistake, but the merciless war had forced them to stop short of that sleeping place.
"My disciple, what kind of experiment is this exactly? Do you need your master's help?"
Sellen leaped lightly from the dragon's broad back. As a professional scholar, she was more than happy to help with experimental research.
A gratified smile touched her lips. This foolish disciple of hers had finally come to his senses. What was so good about fighting and killing all day? Exploring mysteries was the true path.
"My experiment is to bring back the dead."
Nolan lightly licked his lips, and immediately a mass of pitch-black gas surged out from his body.
A faint sound of earth being turned reached everyone's ears. Then the graveyard at Nolan's feet began to shake violently.
Several pale hands suddenly thrust up through the soil. These dead had not been gone long. Their bodies had not yet decayed into bare skeletons, and still retained some trace of how they had looked in life.
"Those Who Live in Death!?"
The women present all turned to look around at one another.
The Golden Dynasty Subjects could indeed now undergo what was called "death," but the phenomenon was still far less natural and ordinary than it was in a normal world.
The dead whose souls had fused with the tree roots, whose not-yet-dead bodies had returned in a bizarre half-living, half-dead state, were Those Who Live in Death, beings caught between life and death.
The mountain wind howled through the air with a mournful whine, like evil spirits shrieking in the dark.
Amid that hair-raising sound, a dozen or so pale bodies slowly clawed their way out of the soil.
Accompanied by the creaking of their joints, these Those Who Live in Death staggered step by step toward Nolan.
And when they finally drew near him, they all dropped to one knee in unison, as though showing reverence or submission.
The scene before them looked straight out of a horror film, and Nolan was not the protagonist. He looked more like the final villain.
Seeing this, Ranni could not help frowning tightly as she muttered in confusion,
"How could this happen? Could Deathroot already have spread here and corrupted this place?"
"It has nothing to do with Deathroot. This is the death I command. Life and death have always gone hand in hand. They cannot be separated. Where there is death, there is life. Where there is life, there is death."
Nolan gently waved one arm, and a brilliant golden light, like radiant sunlight, pierced through the darkness and terror around them like a sharp blade.
Bathed in that warm, bright glow, Those Who Live in Death, who had looked terrifying just moments before, now showed only deep reverence, as though devoutly paying homage to a Lord.
"Do you wish to die here and vanish from the world, or do you wish to remain in it?"
Nolan's cold face remained expressionless as he slowly spread his hands and addressed the corpses before him.
"..."
As expected, the corpses remained silent, as though they had lost the ability to speak.
And yet, strangely enough, though they had lost their reason, they still seemed able to understand Nolan's words and gave their answer in a different way.
One by one, they turned their hollow, lifeless gazes toward their own graves.
This was not a chaotic world. Its concepts and laws had long since been clearly defined.
For most people, continuing on as walking corpses like this could hardly be called a blessing. The dead should remain as the dead.
Just like the group among the Golden Dynasty Subjects known as the "Putrid Corpses", people who had reached the time to return to the tree but could not do so, leaving their souls with nowhere to go and their flesh to slowly rot away.
Some of them could no longer endure the pain of "living on." They gathered together and roamed the world in search of flying dragons, hoping dragonfire would finally send them on their way.
"Mm, very well. It seems you've already made your choice."
Nolan gave a slight nod and silently watched as Those Who Live in Death shuffled back toward their graves with stiff, halting steps.
As the last of them disappeared into the darkness, the death surrounding Nolan grew even denser, granting these dead eternal rest.