Darkness.
There was only darkness. Aside from it, there was nothing else here.
Mortarion knew very well what he was experiencing. It was something he had longed for many times over the past ten thousand years.
Death.
Sweet death.
To seek and never obtain was the cruelest punishment in the world. Now, he had obtained it. Now, he had grown calm.
He had calmed down.
Even Mortarion himself found that unexpected. Before his eyes lay only a thin veil of mist, hazy like a foggy morning. Tiny insect cries came from all around him. He felt light, at ease. But there was still some confusion.
He had thought he would keep resisting, rise up from death. He would make Konrad Curze and Corvus Corax understand that he, Mortarion, was an opponent worthy of respect, that he was qualified to stand beside them.
But in the end, he had not.
So, this was the end.
Mortarion thought calmly, This is my end. I will die, like everyone else. Very fair.
Was it?
Golden light flared, piercing the mist. Crackling Thunderbolt suddenly rang out, making him instinctively shrink back.
The extinguished anger surged up again. He glared at those golden lights without a word, gritting his teeth in hatred. Under his stare, the thunder gradually receded, but it was still far louder than those insect cries.
A figure gradually emerged from the golden radiance.
He gave a mocking laugh. "I knew you would come, Father— you?"
His voice failed him.
The person who emerged from the golden light was not his father. His father would not have worn a black robe, nor would he have looked at him with such a calm expression. His father had made him kneel, had made him swear loyalty as though it were charity, as though it