Everyone froze.
Lynn raised his head and took a deep breath, tightening his grip on her hand. His eyes were filled with desolation and the weariness of years.
During those months, he had not been completely unconscious. In that haze between dreaming and waking, he had intermittently sensed what was happening outside.
That battle.
It had overdrawn all his strength and even exhausted his primordial source.
Had he not used the Divine Spark he had obtained to protect his soul and heart, deceiving the Nightmare King into approaching with his False-Death Body and giving himself one chance at a desperate counterattack, he would probably have died on that battlefield.
Countless rays of light flickered in his eyes.
He understood her.
Or rather, he was probably the only bastard who knew what she was thinking.
Though she had always embodied reason, only he knew that at certain moments, the emotions in this girl's heart would sweep everything else aside.
It was her guilt and pain over him.
But that did not mean she was truly acting on emotion. Even at the last moment, when she took him away, she still knew exactly what she was doing.
"The Painter must have known that too. That's why she chose not to interfere."
Over these past few months.
The Corrupted who had tried to assassinate him must all have died.
She had left him beside this girl, using that fact to draw out the Corrupted lurking in their ranks and then eliminate them one by one.
Because those Corrupted would never pass up such a perfect opportunity.
Lynn stood up and lowered his head.
"My injuries were severe, but with the Painter's abilities, healing me would have been effortless. What was really troubling me wasn't my injuries, though. It was the out-of-control afterflame inside