Krarvathar was curious. Interacting with humans—beyond simply killing them—was still a situation that gave him a certain strangeness. To him, they were insignificant creatures that, if they stood in his way, simply had to die.
Yet his capacity for thought granted him awareness of choices, and he had consciously chosen to accept this. That act of choosing gave him a certain satisfaction. To know that he had acted in this way because it was his decision.
"But what am I, really?" he still wondered.
Being in a position to face doubt, to think about it, had become a state he now regarded with interest. And these humans were the ones planting those doubts in him—perhaps that was exactly why he didn't want to kill them.
He was sitting on the floor. He had refused Neftraya's suggestion to move to a more appropriate hall. Even seated upright, with his back straight, he was almost as tall as they were standing.
The young acolyte had approached with visible excitement and placed her hand on Krarvathar's face. *I'm touching a God. I will… help a God,* Lizhireri thought. The girl was so anxious that Neftraya had to say:
"Calm down, dear."
"Right…" Lizhireri stared at Krarvathar's face. The shape was entirely human, yet the skin still felt as though the muscle beneath was impossibly hard, almost impenetrable. The dragon had his eyes closed and was breathing calmly.
Neftraya watched from a distance. The priestess had noticed the noticeably lighter posture in Krarvathar and wondered what he had found within himself. Regardless, she was relying on the acolyte's mental ability.
A silence stretched on for about two minutes. The cold early-morning breeze drifted in through the openings high above. At first Krarvathar felt nothing—his own mind was quiet—until, through a combination of his own thoughts and the acolyte's intervention, flashes of his draconic past returned to his mind once again: destroying elves, annihilating spirits created specifically to fight him.
Lizhireri let out a soft groan. Her unique mental trait was that she could not form images in her own mind, but she could access the minds of others and strengthen those images into solid concepts.
Then she did what Neftraya had instructed: she showed Krarvathar the moment of his transformation—the precise instant when Krarvathar had seen sunlight for the last time before he was changed.
Noticing the acolyte's discomfort, Neftraya raised her hand. The shadow of Amophf flowed from her own body into Lizhireri's. The girl finally pulled her hand away from Krarvathar's face, but fortunately—for Neftraya—Amophf had reestablished contact.
"The blinding light. That was the last thing I saw. So this is the proof?" Krarvathar asked, rising to his feet. Lizhireri nearly collapsed; she was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, but Neftraya caught and supported her.
"Yes… it seems the Pharaoh was right, after all," Neftraya replied. For now, she needed him to fully believe it.
Krarvathar looked at the young woman who had fainted in Neftraya's arms.
"She became weak, similar to what happened to you during your attempt," he observed.
"But unlike me, great Krarvathar… she did something far more human."
"What did she do?" He narrowed his eyes.
"She sacrificed herself… for you."