Violet World.
Winter Spring Valley.
Setting foot once more on that land covered in frost and snow, he raised his head and gazed at the magnificent towers rising one after another. They seemed like shattered illusions from an ancient dream, so unreal, so utterly hollow.
He strolled leisurely across that ancient land, his pitch-black robe contrasting with the white snow, like a ghost who did not belong to this age.
Step by step, he passed those towers.
As though paying his respects.
As though remembering.
At last, he stopped.
The fierce wind whipped his robe. Outside that secluded Mage Tower, he saw two flowers nestled close together in a pot behind the snow-covered windowsill.
The bitter wind howled outside the window, but one of the flowers had already withered. Its yellowed petals had fallen to the ground one by one, and even its stem seemed dried out and lifeless.
He paused for a moment.
He seemed to give a soft chuckle, then reached out as though to pluck it.
Buzzz-
Yet almost at that very instant, all of time seemed to freeze, as though someone had pressed the stop button on a film. The bitter wind ceased blowing, the scattered snow stopped falling, and everything stood still in that single instant.
As he abruptly dodged aside and retreated, a black blade blazing with fierce flames all but cleaved the time beside him in two.
The roaring flames buffeted his robe.
Clang-
The ringing of that blade forced him back more than several hundred meters in an instant.
When he steadied himself and slowly rose from the ground, a faint smile appeared on his face. There was neither urgency nor surprise, as though he had always known they would come. They were never late.
"You're here, Lynn. I'm glad to see