Adrift in the pitch-black darkness.
Light seeped in.
Ling An's eyes widened. His hazy consciousness finally began to gather, and he reached a nonexistent hand toward the light.
It was not just light.
He heard a voice.
"Ling An!!!"
An urgent cry reverberated through the sea of consciousness.
Someone was calling him.
How could Ling An not recognize that voice?
Tide Sis... has she already made it here?
Following countless rising frequencies, Ling An headed toward that single beam of light.
Closer.
Closer still.
The calls grew more insistent, the light more blazing.
He was like a drowning man beneath the sea, desperately trying to reach above the surface.
He knew.
This light was his only chance.
He seemed just about to reach that warmth.
Suddenly, a powerful surge pressed down.
Like a mountain weighing on the sea, it sought to sink him to the bottom.
Dreamless!
How could Dreamless simply stand by!
Vast authority gathered, seeking to cut off every hope Ling An had.
To crush this soul that had drifted here into dust incapable of resistance!
Ling An could not resist the crushing pressure of that authority.
He watched the light before him grow ever more distant as he sank toward the pitch-black seabed.
Is there... no chance left? A wave of desolation passed through Ling An's bewildered consciousness.
Countless rising frequencies swept past him.
Ling An felt a faint trace of warmth.
These frequencies were the countless lost souls who had died on the battlefield since the Threnodian's appearance.
The countless frequencies formed by deaths in war were sustenance for Dreamless, the Threnodian representing war.
And Crownless.
The resentment of those who died in battle and the fear of those who clung to life made up everything Crownless was.
The Threnodian could take away the frequencies themselves,