24. Capturing the Eagle (10, Final)

In the briefest instant, everything began to change, yet Epidemius did not even notice where the change had come from—then it went mad.

The Great Unclean One's once-unshakable reason vanished like smoke in an instant, leaving only its decayed instincts rampaging through its body. Screaming, it raised the cauldron and, heedless of the boiling liquid within, smashed it viciously against the ground.

With a soft crack, the cauldron shattered at once. The fragments, propelled by the Great Unclean One's immense strength, sank deep into the fungal carpet. The broth within naturally suffered the same fate. In the blink of an eye, it seeped deep into the fungal carpet and vanished without a trace.

And what of the tallyman? How did it feel about personally destroying its last chance to turn the tide?

The answer was nothing. It thought nothing, because it could not think at all.

Likewise, the Rainfather suffering beneath Fireblade had fallen into the same state. More than half of its essential existence had already been destroyed. Yet from the moment the cauldron shattered, that destruction had been forcibly suspended—not stopped, but suspended.

Like a character in a film frozen after the pause button had been pressed, Rotigus's essence, flesh, and even thoughts were all enveloped by that inexplicable dead silence, no trace of life remaining.

Nothing else in the cavern escaped that dead silence. The air no longer moved. The moss no longer echoed. Heat rising from deep within the earth's crust was forced to halt midway. The minute friction between rocks vanished. Even the tiny particles of the microscopic world ceased their supposedly unending thermal motion.

Another aspect of the God of Despair and Disease's power revealed itself here without reservation.

He ignored the war in the garden, ignored the crazed tallyman and the Rainfather being