Rosetta dragged one illusory avatar after another from the air and fed them into the blazing Fire Basin like firewood. Some phantoms were dull and lifeless, some vivid; some remained silent amid the flames, while others screamed endless mad curses. Still others let out howls that humans could neither understand nor reproduce, cries filled with powerful contamination that could make the bravest warrior tremble and drive ordinary people insane—but no matter what they did, they could only be thrown helplessly into the Fire Basin, whose flames gradually took on an iron hue and burned ever more fiercely.
At last, even Malm Dunite's phantom emerged from the flames. It grew increasingly real and began shouting:
"Rosetta! I curse you! You fallen wretch who has betrayed the gods! You will come to no good end! Defying the gods will bring no good end!"
"Stop, stop! What you are doing is doomed to be futile. How could a great god be manipulated by mortals? Your arrogance will condemn you to eternal damnation... Stop! Your blind confidence has no basis..."
"What is the point of this? You worked so hard to make an empire strong, only to push it into an abyss at a time like this? Look at what you are doing... You have buried so many people who were once loyal to you..."
The voice in the flames was sometimes furious, sometimes sorrowful, sometimes sternly accusatory, and sometimes softened into desperate pleas. Yet Rosetta merely continued his work at an unhurried pace. Only after throwing more than a dozen avatars into the flames did he lift his eyes toward them. "Do you know why I was able to capture so many of your avatars?"
"You..."
"You trusted your god too much, but gods are not as flawless as you imagine. The Augustus