Listening to the sound of surging waves, Nolan saw foam rise at his feet. Crimson water, red as blood, quickly roared upward and swallowed him whole in the blink of an eye.
Within that sanctuary stained crimson by blood, it seemed as though every inch of ground bore bloodshed and scars.
Though he knew this trip would be fraught with danger, Nolan never voiced a single complaint from beginning to end.
As he quietly watched, Melina's body gradually dissolved into specks of blue light, slowly scattering like stars in the night sky. Nolan steadied the petite Ranni on his shoulder.
In the next instant, his body sank until he vanished from sight, followed by a hateful sense of blurriness that reminded him of death.
It felt as though he were inside an extremely deep well. Looking up, he could see only the faintest trace of light far, far above the surface.
Vaguely, he seemed to glimpse flickering shadows swaying back and forth, while faint cries and the sound of running water drifted into his ears.
He struggled with all his strength to open his eyes and make out his surroundings, but for some reason, his eyelids felt impossibly heavy.
Again and again he tried, and again and again he failed. Each effort seemed to drain all the strength from his body.
Nolan opened his eyes. By the time he came back to himself from that haze of memory, the splendid palace had already vanished, and the bright glintstone lamplight remained only in his mind.
The originally pure white scene had changed in an instant, as though an invisible giant hand had smeared it over with gray stone.
A faint blood-colored mist hung in the air, and the sky overhead glittered with brilliant starlight.
The landing point could be freely chosen along the outer perimeter. It was a very user-friendly setup, preventing anyone from dropping straight into enemy territory and alerting them at once.
Of course, it was not because he feared Mohg. If he were afraid, he would never have come here. It was simply a way to avoid unnecessary risk.
Human beings are social creatures. The longer one lives in this world, the more ties one forms, until at some point life no longer belongs to oneself alone.
Ranni suddenly spoke.
"Not seeing that loathsome Erdtree. This does feel rather nice."
Nolan truly could not understand what was supposed to be good about a place this gloomy, but he respected Ranni's opinion all the same.
Then he began cautiously surveying the area around him.
After a careful inspection, he found no sign of an ambush, nor did he see many people nearby.
This so-called Dynasty of Blood felt especially cold and desolate. After all, something hidden away in a dark corner was never going to have anything to do with prosperity.
"You can smell the heavy scent of blood even when you breathe. Mohg really does have some unique tastes."
As he spoke, Nolan reached out and lightly poked the princess's soft cheek. Then he stepped forward and slowly swept his gaze across the area.
The first thing he noticed was a blood-red lake. A thick, pungent stench of blood rose from it without end.
A heavy crimson mist covered the surface, making it impossible to see clearly through it.
Looking at that lake of blood, Nolan could not help frowning.
How many wounds would it take to create a lake of blood on this scale?
The people of the Dynasty of Blood looked refined enough, and when Mohg first appeared, he had carried himself with perfect elegance.
But that did not mean they were good people. The god they worshipped was enough to show that, at their core, they were fundamentally different from ordinary folk.
Next, Nolan turned his gaze forward. Not far away lay a stretch of ruined walls, clearly the remains of some ancient temple.
The broken walls were covered in crisscrossing cracks, and their surfaces were carved with obscure murals of uncertain meaning. They looked ancient.
Mohg had most likely found some ancient ruins. Even if he dug day and night for four or five years, there was no way he could have excavated a Dynasty this vast so quickly.
Nolan lifted his head and kept looking. The terrain rose higher and higher, and a winding staircase stretched up along the slope. Palaces of all kinds were scattered along the way.
At the end of the staircase stood a magnificent giant temple. From the top of that temple, one could probably take in the whole Dynasty at a glance.
The scene felt strangely familiar, like Athena's Sanctuary in Saint Seiya. The difference was that Mohg was not here to protect peace. He wanted people to revel in suffering.
Mohg's eye for locations was not bad, though it was also possible this place had once been built by worshippers of the Formless Mother.
This mysterious underground world was almost entirely cut off from the outside. There was not even a normal passage connecting it to the surface.
The only bridge linking it to the neighboring Ancestral Woods had already collapsed. Anyone living here either had to be able to fly or possess spatial abilities.
There was also another possibility. Perhaps this place had been built by the people of the neighboring Ancestral Woods, and Mohg, relying on the fact that they had no one to complain to, simply seized it for himself.
"Why are there so many Albinaurics here?" Ranni frowned. She liked to think she had treated the Albinaurics well enough. Surely they would not willingly join a Dynasty that took pleasure in pain.
"These little fools are easy to trick. And don't forget, they came from underground to begin with."
Nolan remembered reading in the Carian royal library that when the Queen of the Full Moon conquered Liurnia, the Albinaurics had been among the followers who emerged from underground.
And as part of some form of exchange between the two sides, or perhaps as a generous reward from the Queen, Caria had granted them a place to live. The Village of the Albinaurics.
Ranni nodded, recalling what she had learned in her royal education. She was not stupid. It was just that when she was with this man, her mind sometimes seemed a little less sharp.
Nolan led Ranni and the manifested Melina around a bend. Ahead of them lay that lake of blood.
Crowding both shores of the lake were round, plump second-generation Albinauric Children. At a rough estimate, there had to be at least several hundred of them.
A closer look revealed that these Albinauric Children looked somewhat different from the ones commonly seen in Liurnia.
Their bodies were a deep dark red, as if soaked in blood, and strange horns jutted from their foreheads, making them look particularly eerie.
Whether Mohg had studied bioengineering or received technical support from the Eternal City, these artificial lifeforms had indeed come to match the style of the underground Dynasty.
To be honest, Nolan thought these red Albinauric Children were nowhere near as cute as the ones on the surface. All he could say was that Mohg's tastes really were unusual.
The second-generation Albinauric Children's pitch-black eyes rolled back and forth as they warily scanned their surroundings.
But seeing no one and noticing nothing out of the ordinary, they did not think much of it and simply turned and left.