When Velen went mad, Dick stood by and watched.
He watched the dagger in Rakeesh's hand plunge into Velen's body again and again. It was not that he could not stop it, but he had to respect Velen's will.
This was more like an act of atonement.
Anveena stood on his shoulder, clutching his hair tightly. The little Light Wisp's face was filled with anger. She even wanted to charge out and knock that damned demon down. The little Light Wisp had a very good impression of the old man Velen. As a being who could sense what lay in living creatures' hearts, she saw Velen as a true, living "saint."
That was no exaggeration.
But just as she was about to charge out, Dick forcibly stopped her.
"Don't go... this is Velen's choice."
"But he's going to die!"
"He's atoning... we have no right to interrupt a conversation between father and son."
Dick turned away, no longer watching the human tragedy of a father and son killing each other. He could understand something of the torment in Velen's heart.
When they fled Argus, those people had placed their greatest trust in the Prophet, even entrusting their lives and futures to him. The old man who had served the Holy Light all his life would not betray that trust. He could not even show a trace of weakness.
Dick believed that when Tempest Keep fled Argus, Velen must have waited on the highest peak until the very last moment. He had been waiting for his son, waiting for his wife, but even when the calls of the Naaru and his people rang out, they had never come.
Twenty-five thousand years... twenty-five thousand whole years of regret and pain. Dick could not imagine it. If it had been him, after losing