Without another word, the elf raised its translucent wings behind him.

Ed had seen this happen many times before he had seen it - Iss always had wings before turning back into a dragon, but every time he saw it, he was still amazed.

When the faint form was covered with deep shades of green, Ed saw the spotted leaf dragon that looked very young again. Its colours were more vivid and real than those seen in Grivar, and the pale golden markings on the scales were like sunlight falling on the forest meadows. It flew upwards, but its wings didn't actually move much, more like it was going up with the wind. Ed looked up, wondering how to keep up...... But he wasn't left behind.

He was wrapped in an invisible force, as if he had been encased in an invisible bubble, and floated up with the spotted leaf dragon. It feels very different from flying on the back of a dragon or using the wind element to make yourself fly, it feels like floating in water...... Like a fish floating leisurely to the surface.

They flew higher and higher, and their horizons gradually broadened. The black earth stretched out to the sky, without much undulation or mountains, and the ruins of the city surrounded the towers, like decayed and withered petals, but the stamens did not produce healthy fruit.

He saw strange patterns on the gray and white towers, looming and changing, as they climbed up rapidly, as if they were flowing...... It's like chasing. He didn't see the twisted, blurred faces like those on the scales of the serpent, but he felt the same fear and disgust that made his hair stand on end.

The sky was always out of reach, but they finally flew to the top of the tower.

There is only a small platform at the top of the tower, and four slender stone pillars are slightly bent inward, like half-closed fingers, holding a flame that is flickering and extinguishing. The flame suddenly brightened as they approached, and the cold, white light shook out black smoke as it rose, but then disappeared when you looked closely.

Ed landed on the edge of the platform and didn't rush closer. The spotted leaf dragon was still hovering around the top of the tower, and the platform seemed too small to barely fit its massive body—but a soul wouldn't care about that?

The young man's thoughts drifted off the rails as usual, and quickly retracted. He took more care of the rose in his hand...... Although, in fact, it may be protecting him.

The white flames rushed towards him, like a sharp claw sticking out of the flames, but they silently dispersed as they approached him, scattering into harmless snowflakes that disappeared the moment they fell.

The spotted leaf dragon flew higher and then fell straight down.

Ed exclaimed uncontrollably, even though he knew that Sachses was not disembodied...... He watched as the Spotted Leaf Dragon crashed into the flames like a meteor, and then took the flame with it and disappeared under the stone slab.

Ed lunged at him, but he couldn't penetrate the slate.

There was a downward entrance at the edge of the platform, but he hesitated before rushing down - he couldn't catch up with them. And if he had to run down eventually, why did Sachses pull him up instead of making him wait at the bottom of the tower?

During this brief hesitation, he felt a slight tremor in the tower. It wasn't strong at first, but it was like a breeze blowing across the water, but the tiny ripples turned into a monstrous wave almost instantly, forcing him to hold on to a stone pillar and wait in horror for the moment it collapsed - Trinine's Rose wouldn't have let him fall to his death, would it?!

His doubts were not tested.

The flame almost grazed his face, and slammed out from under the slab again, bigger and brighter than before. As it expanded and contracted, Ed saw the shadow of the dragon wrapped in it.

It's almost dissolved in it.

"Sacks!" he cried out, and without hesitation, he reached out directly, and the outline of a small silver bird on the back of his hand flashed.

He he'd taken Sackses' warning to heart, and he didn't let the soul out of his body, but the flames without temperature didn't just consume the soul, it could also burn his flesh.

He watched his skin blink as it withered and cracked, its dehydrated bark clutching around his bones, and the horror of a nightmare coming true, but he still struggled to stretch out his arms and concentrate all his consciousness on his unconscious fingertips.

He said he would catch him, and he would definitely catch him.

A silver glow peeked out of his fingertips, wrapping around the left wing of the spotted leaf dragon's vanishing wing. The power flew away, and as if sucked into a hollow that could never be filled, in the blinding light of fire, he saw the dragon in a trance. It stopped struggling...... Or maybe it didn't struggle at all, it looked at him quietly, its golden eyes still bright...... Bright and warm, as if a real flame was burning.

It's like laughing...... But Ed didn't see it.

His blurred vision was drawn by something else—he saw a thin, delicate flower blooming on the silver thread.

A wild rose.

"Trini......" he muttered in a low voice. This is not the name of the earth goddess...... In just a few moments, he had forgotten her real name, but he was not alarmed by it.

The pink and white flowers bloomed silently, one by one covering the field of vision, as if they were about to bloom from his eyes to the sky.

When the flowers vanished like a vision, the blinding light dimmed, and in the remaining halo, the spotted leaf dragon raised its long neck and stretched its body. Its scales seemed to have been forged by fire, losing their original vivid color, leaving only a shimmering silver white, as if the stars that could not be seen in this world adorned it.

Ed almost blurted out another name.

At this moment, it really resembles the dark side of the earth, the dragon that holds up the whole world with its body.

The form of the elf gradually separated from the shadow of the dragon. He floated around the dragon's neck, smiling down at Ed.

Ed exhaled slowly.

"Did we succeed?" he asked.

The elf shook his head with some regret: "It's still a little bit close." Still, it's okay...... It's not that big in the world. ”

He looked up at the sky. It was as if the ink-stained sky was pressing down, and those solidified clouds began to flow, but like countless monstrous beasts, full of danger and ominous.

It's not just life that the world has lost. When the only obsession that sustains its existence ceases to exist, complete collapse is imminent.

"It's almost ......," the elf muttered.

He looked at his other self. They had enough strength to separate from each other, as they had hoped, but never realized so deeply as they did now that they were supposed to be one.

"So...... Is that it?" he said.