A Pearl, Shining Brightly

"I don't accept it. This is for their own good... In the Dream Realm, and in Terra as well. I can easily see through their thoughts, allowing me to retreat before becoming an indispensable part of their lives... They like my power, my knowledge, my appearance... Ah, of course I know that given enough time, these superficial likings will eventually transform into genuine love. But I have always used words, actions, and the Flame of Burning Time to keep all romances at this stage."

—But in the past, I wouldn't have even had such thoughts.

She stood at the caravan door, letting the Fire Keeper walk past her. Filianore and Kal'tsit continued. And she shouldn't be getting too involved now—they were both intelligent. They would find a balance, and only then should she intervene.

I've become weak.

She stood at the doorway, thinking.

"From the moment I changed my way of thinking, I was destined to become weak," Persephone judged this as my growth. I believed her, so I didn't go back. However, even believing her in itself still falls into the category of weakness.

She clenched her fist slightly, desperately hoping that Laevateinn would appear in her grasp. If that were the case, she wouldn't be so worried... even if the problem remained unresolved. At least for now, she would have a pillar of support.

Unfortunately, Laevateinn is not here.

—I'm starting to suspect that Persephone tricked me into this... Ha, really. I'm quite prone to overthinking. Taking chances and shirking responsibility—if you actually do those things, it's not even weakness, it just falls into the category of cowardice.

Inhale, exhale, and reaffirm the decision you made minutes ago.

—I will bring the Fire Keeper back to Terra, as long as she is willing to stay with me until the end.

—I will bring Filianore back to Terra, as long as she is willing to stay with me until the end.

—Weakness or hypocrisy, it doesn't matter. At least for now, I'm certain I've truly fallen for them, and they've clearly expressed their feelings to me, leaving themselves no way out... That's the trouble with the gods. If I were to reject their love as I would in other dream realms, time wouldn't heal them as it would heal mortals. They would die, die from being abandoned by me. And this isn't a death whose motives I can erase by leaving behind the power of a kingdom or an endless treasure trove.

In other dream realms, given enough time, I usually only leave when I'm certain the other person can live happily without me. But now...

—Is the only thing I can do before leaving this world is to eliminate all future troubles so that they will have no regrets when they accompany me on my journey?

She pushed aside the curtain, and inside, the girls had already reached a preliminary truce during the time she had deliberately set aside. The Fire Keeper stood by, while Kal'tsit and Filianore sat on opposite sides of an equilateral triangle at a round table, with no clear hierarchy between them.

When she came in, all eyes were on her.

She naturally sat down on the last side of the equilateral triangle, next to the Fire Keeper— Filianore gave her a sweet smile. Kal'tsit looked at her with a hesitant expression.

"Lian will be traveling with us from now on." The moment she spoke, she saw Kal'tsit's face darken. Filianore's smile, on the other hand, became even brighter.

"And the plans we agreed on before will also need to be slightly modified."

"...I'll go prepare new materials." Kal'tsit slightly turned her gaze away, placed her hand on the table, and was about to leave—she probably thought that Surtr was planning to change his plans for this newly arrived fiancée and abandon the preparations she had made in the previous days in preparation for the Farron exploration trip.

Her eyes were a little red.

But this was just a misunderstanding.

"Not Farron." Surtr shook his head slightly before she stood up. "We still have to go to Farron, and after dealing with Farron's Undead Legion, we still have to go deep underground to the ruins of Izalith, the border of Ashen Lake, the sealed passage of the Abyss... We still have to go to these places, and the things we have to do are the same as what we decided before. But the plan I changed is what happens after that."

"I still need your assistance, Kal'tsit," she said to Kal'tsit, her tone serious and slightly forceful—but she didn't say what kind of help she needed.

That was enough; Meow Meow became docile again and sat down obediently.

The conversation then moved on to another aspect.

"Bringing the Lord of Cinder back to the throne is merely to mend the dying flames and prolong the preparations for the Season of Linking the Flame. To allow the pilgrimage of heroes to resume, is that it, Fire Keeper?"

"Yes, miss," the Fire Keeper replied gently.

"And that means the Lords of Cinder don't necessarily have to be killed. As long as there's enough firewood, their lives or deaths don't really matter, right?"

"Yes, my lady," the Fire Keeper replied, "But they can still be used as firewood. For in this age, the one most suited to be a hero, Gundyr, has failed. And apart from Yhorm the Giant King, whom you have spared, and Saint Aldrich, whom you have slain, the Farron Undead Legion and Ludleth the Ringed City are still usable fuel."

She mentioned the dwarf king of the Ringed City in front of Filianore, but Filianore did not react to it at all.

"If you need time, these are the best emergency measures. And my brother, Prince Lothric, who betrayed his honor and abandoned his duty of linking the fire, may no longer be able to fulfill the role of the main source of fire, but he can still provide a stable order for more than a decade."

"More than a decade?"

"The decay of the Flame is a very rapid process, Surtr," Filianore —let's just call her Ferrenor for now—explained. "A stable order, vast borders. Once the Flame's decay reaches a critical point, the flow of time becomes abnormal. A year in Lothric might be a hundred years in a place like Lind. And when all of spacetime converges in Lothric, the center of the world, the collapsing spacetime itself will put even greater pressure on the First Flame."

Lian made a squeezing gesture.

"The more severely the First Flame is extinguished, the more difficult it becomes to reignite it. The pressures of the world demand higher quality fuel. Lords of Cinder in Lothric, for example, could only burn for a hundred or two hundred years in peacetime before being replaced. But this time, they have dragged it out for far too long. It would be quite good if they could burn for more than ten years; if they are unlucky, they might only be able to make the First Flame Mars explode for a moment."

Miss Surtr pondered the Linking the Flame CG. Indeed, at the moment of linking the Flame in the game, even with Prince Lothric, already a Lord of Cinder, added as fuel, the flame was as weak as a campfire. In her memory, when she replaced Gwyn as the First Lord of Cinder, although her own fuel made the First Flame so strong it almost exploded the First Flame, before linking the Flame, the First Flame's flame... seemed barely larger than the fading flame in the Third Lord of Cinder.

So it really was a problem with the quality of the firewood, not with the process of linking the flame—indeed, the first time they linked the flame, they stuffed in a bunch of Lord Souls plus themselves, a super-sized fuel rod. And in the third game, the four Lords of Cinder that had been burned once were just accelerants, and the Prince of Lothric, as the main fuel... wasn't exactly that great either.

Very good, that's a good reason.

Miss Surtr nodded slightly.

"So, I don't intend to burn the Lords of Cinder. Neither those who were awakened nor those who didn't sit on their thrones." She glanced at the Fire Keeper and explained, "I believe the Lothric royal family still has merit, so your brothers should live. They should take on other responsibilities in the new order I'm building—I won't take their heads or send them to the First Flame as kindling."

The Fire Keeper lowered her head and did not reply—perhaps this was a form of avoidance, since she hadn't seemed to care about Miss Surtr's blood relatives when she was with her earlier.

Perhaps, but that doesn't matter.

"So what do you plan to do, Surtr? There aren't any heroes to be found in this era." Ren looked at her, tilting her head as if mimicking her. "If you intend to continue the tradition of linking the First Flame, then Prince Lothric, who advocates ending the curse of linking the First Flame, must be dealt with. But you neither intend to deal with them nor to destroy this world... Hmm, have you devised a new way to link the First Flame? Or are you planning to strip them of their right to perform the ritual of fire?"

"Both."

Miss Surtr answered, reaching out and dusting the clutter off the table.

"My thinking has yielded a result, one that is less risky than passing on the fire and more conducive to the development of civilization." She stretched out her hand and drew her ideas on the table.

"And this achievement can not only liberate the cycle of fire-linking, but also liberate you, Lotus."

She gazed at Filianore and explained in the sudden brightness of his eyes.

"I call it the Civilization Flame Inheritance Law —when civilization continues, all the desires of all living beings, such as birth, old age, sickness, death, and suffering, are gathered together. They are refined with the Profaned Flame, forging the sediment of the human heart. Then, using the Dark Souls as the radiating mother, they are assimilated and continuously fed into the First Flame —in this way, as long as civilization itself still exists, the burning of the First Flame will only flourish and never decline. And the flourishing of the First Flame means the stability of order and the expansion of the world, thus making the continuation of civilization smoother."

"It's a very simple concept, isn't it?" Surtr blinked. "It's no longer heroes who will link the fire, but all living beings on this land. What I'm doing is simply linking the continuation of humanity with the stability of order. And I've already calculated a stable model for this cycle. The only thing that needs to be solved now is some technical issues related to the transformation of the kindling—which is also the problem I need to solve at Ashen Lake."

"This world will no longer need gods, kings, or heroes. The weak people will automatically gain the power to rule the world by supporting its operation—of course, the maintainers of the Flame of Civilization system will still be necessary. And this is the responsibility that the Oolacile Township, the living gods, and the Lothric royal family need to bear. They will remain detached, but they have no need or time to spend on anything other than maintaining the operation of the Flame of Civilization system."

The defining characteristic of the gods is their unwavering commitment to oaths; once a covenant is made, it will be kept. At least, this is true of the current generation in the Dark Souls world. Just as Gwyndolin has maintained the White Order for millennia, and Filianore has remained in the Oolacile Township. Their long-lived mindset dictates that they will never change, even in death.

Prince Lothric might be an exception—but perhaps he isn't. Because Miss Surtr knows that the prince's early education came from outside the royal family, with the idea of breaking the fire.

"And you will be liberated, Lotus."

"I will end your duties as a god on this land—you will not need to step into the First Flame in times of crisis, for the new order does not need heroes to pass on the fire. Nor will you need to continue guarding the Dark Souls and the Oolacile Township, for they will be integrated into the new order, and you will be your own eternal guardians."

"And after that... would you like to come to Terra with me?"

Chapter 203 - A Pearl Shines Brightly