Before the Shadow Throne, towering like a mountain, Verde atop the stone pillar suddenly fell silent. It was nearly a minute before he finally said, "That joke isn't funny at all—Lady, if even an ancient deity like you can call yourself a 'mortal,' then are there any gods left in this world?"
"The essence of a god lies not in the extent of their power, nor does it have anything to do with their age—dragons have a history of more than two million years, and the oldest dragon still alive today is even from my era, yet they remain mortals, simply because they possess mortal minds and live according to mortal 'paths,'" Night Lady said leisurely, as though she were merely chatting with an old friend about the passing years. "Everything in this world has its own path. Gods walk the paths of gods, and people walk the paths of people, but these paths are not impossible to cross.
"Great Adventurer, I crossed that boundary many, many years ago—though I received a tiny bit of help from the Voyager at the time, judging by the result, I no longer fit this world's definition of a 'god.'
"Crossing the boundary... you mention that term from time to time," Verde said, half-understanding. Then he seemed to think of something. "Wait, then by that logic, you actually can help the mortals of this era..."
"I cannot," Night Lady interrupted the Great Adventurer. "As for why, you said it yourself just now—'this era.' I do not belong to this era, Great Adventurer. I am a ghost that has lingered on from ancient times. Even if this ghost is no longer a god, I cannot take the place of this era's mortals and accomplish what they ought to accomplish. The extent to which I can