After personally witnessing this youthful and striking witch transform in the blink of an eye into a hunched old crone, and then, before dying, shout such a declaration before burning into a blazing torch, the people present could not help but look at one another.
In truth, most of them did not believe the witch's words. After all, Stannis had been bewitched by her to such an extent; how could such a clear example not make people doubt her?
Faced with this evil witch still trying to sow discord with her final words, the crowd paid it little mind, finding only her foolishness laughable.
As for the scene unfolding before their eyes, they merely found it shocking.
Of course, it was not as though everyone present had a brain. Melisandre had arrived and immediately caused such a great spectacle, even setting herself on fire merely to shout those words, which inevitably stirred people's hearts.
Yet whether people believed her or not, for Kal it was not something he could pretend he had not heard.
"Oi!"
"If you're going to say something like that, I can't just pretend I didn't hear it!"
As soon as Melisandre's words left her mouth, Kal looked utterly helpless.
Originally he had intended simply to watch Melisandre burn to ashes, treating it as though he were watching a performance. Yet now he had no choice but to intervene.
Facing Melisandre, who had already become a blazing torch, he raised his hand and clenched his fist. The green radiance of the [Heal] skill appeared out of thin air upon the witch's body.
As the light of healing descended, the flesh that had been scorched and peeled away by the flames immediately began to recover at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Melisandre, who had intended to warn the world with those final words and then calmly wait for her mutilated body to burn away, suddenly saw in agony that not only had her aging been forcibly halted, but the flesh burned by the flames was being healed at the same time.
Thus the fire burned without pause, while Kal's [Heal] was released without interruption.
The power of both sides instantly began to clash at the scene, forcibly turning what should have been a moment of healing and restoration into a hell on earth.
Melisandre could not help but cry out in agony.
She had originally endured the pain, believing her mission complete and waiting peacefully for her end to arrive. Yet now she was like an oil lamp constantly being refilled with fuel, forced to endure endless burning.
At last she could no longer bear the pain of her body. Screaming, she collapsed onto the ground, her entire body being repeatedly dragged back and forth between the state of burning into a skeleton and being healed once again.
"This is divine punishment. If you only heal her like this, it will have no effect."
At that moment, Erevi—who earlier had merely acted once to block Melisandre's attack—spoke from the side. Seeing Kal's actions, she immediately understood what kind of flames were burning upon Melisandre's body.
Back when she had tried to kill Kal, the boy who had trespassed into her Dread Tower, the black dragon evil god she worshipped had frightened her in a similar way.
It was a kind of primordial power, something that came from the gods themselves.
Of course, ever since leaving that world, Erevi had in fact already understood what was going on.
Hearing Erevi say this, Kal turned his head to look at her.
"I think she cannot die for the time being, at least not in this way."
"So do you have any method or not?"
Kal, who habitually healed people in an instant, could likewise feel that his healing magic was locked in a searing struggle with a scorching force. At this point, it was not so easy to withdraw it.
"If you want her to live, then at the very least you have to interrupt this ritual of divine punishment first. Otherwise, you're only doing useless work."
Faced with his question, Erevi shrugged and continued, "But for this kind of divine punishment that acts directly upon a god's own follower, I do not have any especially good method."
"Most importantly, if my method is used, then with her current condition she likewise will not be able to endure it. She may even turn to ashes in an instant."
"Because you have also noticed that the time she possesses right now does not belong to her at all. She is merely using the power of magic to maintain her existence, while at the same time the flames of divine punishment continue upon her body. Unless its mission is completed, it will not go out."
"And now this balance has also been broken by you."
The radiance of life kept shining upon Melisandre's body. Burned black by the flames again and again, then restored again and again by Kal, Melisandre felt only that death was the greatest mercy she could receive at this moment.
But while enduring such torment, she also heard the conversation between Kal and Erevi.
After all, neither Kal nor Erevi had any intention of lowering their voices while they spoke.
Yet at this moment, as she hovered without cease between life and death, there was nothing she could do. She could not even stop her screaming, for it was no longer under her control at all.
That force acting directly upon her made her feel as though even her soul were being burned by the flames.
Kal narrowed his eyes slightly, then turned his head again to look at Melisandre struggling in the fire. "So, we have no way to stop this?"
Erevi only kept shaking her head.
"If you can restrain everything happening to her in a way that causes no harm, then the rest will be simple."
"Like the necklace she had looped around her neck just now. But that thing has already been completely destroyed, and I am no dwarven craftsman. I have no way to repair a magical item like that."
"Wait, you said necklace?"
Hearing Erevi's example, Kal suddenly thought of something.
Then he lifted a hand, and a collar suddenly appeared out of thin air in his free hand.
Noticing his movement, Erevi looked over in puzzlement, her gaze falling upon the silver-white collar, which looked as though it had been forged from silver.
"This is...?"
"A chastity collar," Kal said. While continuing to maintain the healing on Melisandre, he handed the collar over.
This was the little trinket he used to restrain that little succubus tailing him around. Otherwise, in a single day she would ask for it several times, and there would not even be peace while walking.
Erevi took it and saw through the item's function at a glance. "The effect of this magical equipment is to restrain desire. You want to use it to try?"
Kal nodded. "Let's try it. It costs nothing to try. If it doesn't work, then so be it. If she dies, she dies. Keeping her alive—I only thought she might be useful. Didn't you say the Lord of Light she worships has already abandoned her?"
Hearing Kal's words, Erevi could not help but look toward the witch curled on the ground, trembling and wailing.
"If she had not done something excessive, then with her faith, generally speaking her god would not inflict such punishment upon her—even if it were an evil god."
"Then let's try."
As she spoke, she raised a hand. A force that appeared out of thin air controlled the silver-white collar and slowly sent it flying toward Melisandre's neck—Melisandre who had once again been burned to charred blackness and was gradually regrowing flesh.
With a faint click, the [Chastity Collar] fastened around Melisandre's neck.
In the next instant, the towering blaze that had been burning upward with Melisandre's flesh as its fuel seemed as though an invisible cover had been placed over it, shrinking little by little until it was extinguished.
At the same time, the power of time acting upon Melisandre abruptly ceased the moment the collar was placed upon her neck.
The aging was restrained. The divine punishment was interrupted.
The aged and scorched flesh likewise recovered under Kal's continuous healing.
Then Melisandre appeared once again before Kal—silver-white hair upon her head, kneeling curled in place, staring blankly while reaching up to grasp the collar around her neck.
After casting two more [Heal], and seeing that there was indeed nothing wrong, Kal finally stopped.
He glanced at his mana bar. Half of it had been consumed.
At the moment Kal stopped casting, Erevi also examined Melisandre once more and discovered that the effect of the [Chastity Collar] was unexpectedly effective.
"Well then. I didn't expect this thing to work so well. You could prepare a few more of them."
"I can feel that this collar has isolated the witch. To be precise, 'isolate' is not quite accurate. She has become something more like half of a being similar to us."
Hearing this, Kal was slightly stunned.
"Similar to us?"
Kal did not quite understand whether Erevi meant what he thought she meant.
Erevi, however, smiled as she looked over.
"It is me, not you, my master."
"To put it more precisely, after she lost the favor of the god she worshipped, she has now received the favor of another, far greater god."
"The true function of that collar is not suppression, but assimilation. Therefore time stops upon her body, and punishments imposed by other gods can no longer fall upon her. Simply put, you have provided her protection with your own power."
"So you have also become her master, my master."
For some reason, Kal suddenly felt that Erevi's smile looked rather wicked.
Kal: "…"
This left Kal somewhat at a loss. But thinking about it, aside from those potions, it seemed he had never given items from the game world to anyone else to use.
Especially not a special magical item like the [Chastity Collar].
But on second thought, even that little succubus—who was more or less also an incarnation of an evil god—could have her desires restrained by that collar. Dealing with a mere Melisandre was indeed something easily accomplished.
The clash between the power of magic and rules—one was numerical strength, the other was a mechanism. They were simply not things on the same level.
Shaking his head, too lazy to ponder such trivial matters, Kal turned his gaze toward Melisandre, who was still hunched over and curled up there.
"Stand up, Melisandre. I think you already understand what has happened to you."
"…Why? I clearly did nothing wrong…"
Hearing Kal's voice, Melisandre's despondent and lonely voice slowly came from where she crouched on the ground. Yet to Kal's ears, it somehow sounded somewhat childish.
Before he could speak again, Melisandre—still hunched on the ground—unfolded her body.
She paid no attention at all to the fact that everything on her body had been reduced to nothing in the earlier flames. She simply stood up and looked at the man before her, who still sat upon his white horse, her gaze hollow.
Yet as she rose, Kal's calm and placid eyes gradually widened.
Because the person standing before him was no longer the Melisandre from before.
She still had that heart-shaped face and those blood-red eyes.
But her striking copper-red hair, once like blazing flames, had turned completely silver-white. And her once tall figure seemed to have shrunk, becoming at least half her former size.
The beauty who had seemed like a mature woman had, before Kal's eyes, inexplicably become a little girl.
Her silver-white hair hung long enough to trail upon the ground, and her blood-red, hollow eyes stared straight at Kal.
"Holy shit, what the hell is this…"
Seeing this scene, Kal's eyes widened.
Even someone as powerful as he was could not immediately understand what had happened to Melisandre.
Yet Melisandre still stood there calmly before him. Aside from the silver-white collar around her neck—which now looked somewhat ill-fitting in proportion—she was completely naked.
She wanted an answer.
But Kal had no time at all to argue anything with her. With a flick of his hand, the cloak over his shoulder flew out and covered the now childlike Melisandre completely.
Only then did Kal seem to let out a sigh of relief before speaking slowly.
"You truly did nothing wrong—because you were wrong from beginning to end."
"You never considered that your efforts might simply have been aimed in the wrong direction."
"You misinterpreted the prophecy R'hllor gave you, and you also chose the wrong person as the true savior."
"And your greatest mistake is that you never once questioned yourself. You trusted yourself too much—trusted everything you saw."
"That is the source of all the foolish things you have done."
Abandoned and punished by the Lord of Light she had worshipped, Melisandre slowly pushed her head out from beneath Kal's cloak, her blood-red eyes staring blankly at him.
"You mean… I… was wrong from the very beginning?"
Melisandre's tone was filled with disbelief.
Kal spread his hands.
"Otherwise what? Did you really think Stannis was the savior?"
"On what grounds?"
"Where did you see that he was the prince of the prophecy? In what way does he resemble a prince, and who has ever called him a prince?"
"Reborn amid smoke and salt—he likewise has no connection to that."
"And even the long sword he drew from the flames was nothing more than a cold sword that glowed. Even that was something you granted him with magic."
"You were wrong from the very beginning, wrong from start to finish. For R'hllor to tolerate you for so long without punishing you—He is truly generous. Or perhaps He had already abandoned you in this matter and arranged another mission for you."
"It's only that this time you completely lost patience."
"…Why?" Melisandre could not believe it.
Kal, meanwhile, stroked his chin. He had plenty of patience now.
The gates of Storm's End had opened before him—closing them again would not be so easy.
So he had plenty of time.
"This time I left Storm's End and went directly north, abandoning the castle and all of you. Do you want to know what happened?" Kal asked with interest.
Melisandre's eyes showed a trace of recollection as she remembered what she had seen in the flames—using the flesh of Edric Storm to cast blood magic and trace his bloodline.
"In the flames, I saw your figure beyond the Wall. The White Walkers stood around you, bowing to you… and countless free folk beyond the Wall suffered attacks from the White Walkers because of you."
"The wind and snow filled the sky. The dead rose again, their eyes turning the blue of stars, and the breath of death spread southward."
"No wonder you thought I was an incarnation of the White Walkers…"
Even Kal could not help but feel speechless.
The riddling nature of prophecy—this mysterious and cryptic way of speaking—always gave him a headache. Why could they not simply say things plainly?
Fortunately, among the talents that came from his Targaryen bloodline, only the [Unburnt] talent had been awakened, while [Dreamwalker] remained greyed out and unusable.
Kal shook his head and looked down at the silver-haired, red-eyed child Melisandre had become.
"The prophecy you saw in the flames was not wrong. R'hllor may already have done His utmost to tell you everything that would happen concerning me."
"But unfortunately, because of your stubbornness and foolishness, you ruined everything."
"When I went north this time, I formed an expeditionary army based on the nobles of the North, the nobles of the Vale, and the Night's Watch."
"On the road beyond the Wall, we were attacked by the White Walkers. Endless wights surged like a tide."
"And the scene you saw of the White Walkers bowing to me—this is because I defeated those things, and even captured one and gave it to the free folk beyond the Wall as a gift."
"Because I want to unite them, so they can all survive, and not become fresh strength for the White Walkers."
"So under those circumstances, do you think the Great Other would allow me to accomplish all that so easily?"
"And as for me—"
"I think from the moment that collar was placed around your neck, you already realized who I am."
"R'hllor is wiser than you. He knows what He wants. But His power cannot reach this world."
"And I will naturally be His partner."
"Our goals are the same."
"At least for now!"
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---