Fill Chaos with "love."
It sounded like a terrible statement, one that easily conjured up unpleasant images—milking cows, stuffing cream puffs, or even something as absurd as those awful WOW snow cakes.
But the meaning behind Chaos's words was not about such trivial filth. It was something far worse—something deeply vile.
Though Chaos often teased Elizabeth for her dramatics, and her own behavior usually seemed quite normal—gentle and harmless, even—things were not as they appeared.
Over time, everyone grew used to her presence. Even knowing she carried the Frenzied Flame, they gradually lowered their guard, treating her as an odd but harmless companion. Some even began to question whether the Lands Between's current stance toward the Frenzied Flame was perhaps too harsh.
As for Lloyd's opinion...
"Harsh? Not at all. Perfectly justified."
Despite their long companionship and close bond, it was precisely because of that closeness that Lloyd understood how dangerous she truly was.
Unlike Elizabeth, whose madness was worn openly, Chaos appeared perfectly sane on the surface. But inside, her madness and distortion far surpassed Elizabeth's.
To put it simply—Elizabeth was a sane person pretending to be mad. She might indulge in the abstract, but she always knew her limits. When real problems arose, she was dependable and precise.
Chaos, on the other hand, though outwardly kind and calm—never causing trouble or showing any hint of mischief—was the type who, if she ever acted, would go to extremes.
Don't be fooled by her gentle demeanor. That restraint existed only because Lloyd kept her in check. Even then, Elizabeth stayed by her side constantly—not out of sisterly affection, but to watch her, making sure she didn't start something catastrophic.
And what kind of catastrophe could that be?
"Hmm... how about a plague of madness across the entire Lands Between?"
"No, I don't want to kill anyone. I just think that in such despair, people reveal their purest, most sincere emotions. Whether it's embracing despair or clinging to love—it's beautiful..."
"Or perhaps... we could try to kill the Greater Will?"
"After all, it created this world without our consent—never caring for how we felt. It tore apart what was once one, forcing us, who had existed in unity, to experience pain and despair..."
"The Frenzied Flame despises the Greater Will, calling it an irresponsible creator. Its goal isn't merely to burn the Lands Between, but to merge everything—the stars above, and the darkness beyond them—into one inseparable whole...
"That way, everyone would finally be happy. Pain and despair would cease to exist."
Those were the words Chaos once whispered to Lloyd during the defilement ritual.
She wasn't joking. She had thought about it deeply, seriously.
She never hid these ideas from Alice either.
Unlike others, as a being hosting an ancient essence, Chaos had long recognized Alice's true nature. But since she viewed the Greater Will as a negligent god, she felt no respect for Alice and made no effort to conceal her rebellion.
And Alice's response to that?
None.
She was used to it.
"Children throwing tantrums are an everyday thing. Honestly, the ones who don't are rare..."
"You think the situation in the Lands Between is bad? Hardly. The children there are actually the well-behaved ones."
"Why do you think Metyr carries that emergency tactical airdrop skill? It's because incidents like these happen so often that I had to give one to each of them—otherwise, they'd end up dead before they even got started..."
That was Alice's complaint.
...
Now, back to the present.
After the Midra incident, Chaos made a peculiar request—to be filled with love.
It sounded terrible, but the reality was far worse.
Unlike Elizabeth, whose excessive "play" was harmless thanks to her absurd regenerative power and Lloyd's near-abstract healing ability—no matter how bloody things looked—it was all just a game, without real consequence.
Chaos, however—Frenzied Flame's true essence—desired something beyond mere play.
"I want our souls to intertwine—to touch the darkness deep within your soul."
Chaos spoke softly, her tone serious.
At first, it sounded simple enough, as if she merely meant a connection of souls, no different from the defilement rituals before.
But it wasn't.
In the past, whether it was the intertwining of souls or the defilement ritual, it had always been a one-sided act—Lloyd channeling power into her.
The reason it was one-sided wasn't because Lloyd distrusted her or feared she'd cause chaos within. It was because he worried that, if the restraints were loosened, something within him might spill out—something she would not be able to endure.
Now, however, what she asked for was more than the lifting of restraints. She wanted to enter that place. To touch it herself.
If anything went wrong, the best outcome would be for her to lose herself in that darkness, only to be retrieved—broken and shattered—by Lloyd, after he had finished purging it, however long that might take.
But if she slipped even once, she would merge with the darkness completely, becoming one with it forever, without any chance of salvation.
Beyond that, there was the matter of corruption, its effects on him, and what Chaos might do—or intend to do—once she stepped inside...
All of these were problems.
And yet, they weren't.
"If you're certain this is what you want."
Without hesitation, Lloyd grasped Chaos's hand and pressed her down onto the bed.
Beneath him, the eyeless girl stared up with her empty sockets, silently watching him, her thoughts unknowable.
Then, the Ashen One lowered his head.
And darkness stirred.
As spirit and flesh intertwined, a dense, unseen darkness flowed into the girl's hollow eyes.
Terrifying and twisted, it carried a faint metallic tang of blood, and within it lingered traces of fading embers. The instant it touched her, her fingers clenched tight, and a muffled groan of pain escaped her lips.
In the past, whenever she suffered, the nearby flames would glow softly, their warmth easing her pain.
But this time, there was no warmth.
She had crossed the safety line set by the flames, reaching into the heart of the fire itself to grasp a piece of charred, warped, burning wood.
And in that boundless pain and despair, her consciousness sank into darkness.
Her expression twisted further in agony.
...
In the Lands Between, the Frenzied Flame was an unwelcome presence.
Born from the Madfire Plague, it had always been an existence of extremity and distortion.
In its view, all things were pain and despair—a tragedy it had been burdened with since the dawn of life, ever since that irresponsible Creator had brought them into being.
The Frenzied Flame was not a fire of destruction.
To the beings of the Lands Between, it seemed pure evil—a fire that burned both body and soul, a madness that wished to kill all life.
But from the Frenzied Flame's own perspective, it was an act of mercy. A desperate method to save the world—and all who would come after—from the agony of being born without consent.
As a flame born of pure despair, no one knew suffering more intimately than it did. No one understood hopelessness more deeply. And so, it believed it bore the duty to prevent that pain—to correct the mistakes of the Creator.
Until it descended into that darkness, it had never doubted this belief.
But...
"Is this where you once lived?"
Standing at the cliff's edge, Chaos gazed down through her hollow eyes, her voice low.
"It looks... rather unpleasant."
That "rather unpleasant" wasn't in comparison to the Lands Between—it was by her own standard of "unpleasant."
To the Frenzied Flame of the past, the current state of the Lands Between—with endless wars and countless souls unable to return to the Erdtree for rebirth—was already dreadful enough.
Going further back, to the Great Plague—the time of her own emergence—that had been, in her memory, the most agonizing and despairing era in all the Lands Between.
Yet, compared to the darkness before her now, even that great plague seemed almost gentle.
Souls unable to return to the Erdtree? At least they could still die. Even as Spirit Ash, they could pray that someday, when the Golden Tree was mended, they might be reborn as good people once more.
A terrifying plague? The existence of the Dark Souls made humanity itself akin to a plague—indeed, humanity was the plague.
And with the First Flame waning, even without the Dark Souls, every living thing—indeed, the very world—was constantly mutating and twisting.
But the most crucial difference was this: in the Lands Between, whether it was the collapse of life and death or the Great Plague, these were only fragments of history.
After such calamities passed, there would still come golden ages—millennia of perfection or gentleness. The good days always outnumbered the bad. There was always hope.
But here...
Pain could not be measured. Comparing suffering across worlds was meaningless.
Chaos understood that well.
And yet, as she watched the visions before her, sensing the pain and despair pouring from those fragments of memory...
Even the Frenzied Flame trembled. Deep down, it admitted the truth—the pain and despair of this world far surpassed that of the Lands Between.
By comparison, the Lands Between had always lived in relative peace. Even during the Great Plague, it brimmed with vitality and life.
But within this world of absolute despair, one figure stood out above all.
He was always at the center of the scene, always running, always struggling...
And always in pain.
That pain did not come from himself, nor from any single moment of tragedy.
It built up, slowly but relentlessly, through countless events—each one stacking upon the last like the stones of a tower.
After averting one doomed fate, he would watch helplessly as others fell into new abysses.
After saving someone with his own hands, he would have to kill them himself, just to preserve their final dignity.
Countless efforts. Countless glimpses of hope. Watching the fire burn down to ash at the end of time—just to buy a little more time.
But in the end, it only led to one shattered hope after another.
Even without experiencing it firsthand, merely watching those fragments of broken hope was enough for Chaos to feel the suffocating weight of despair pressing down on her.
Had this been in the Lands Between, each moment of despair could have easily summoned an apocalyptic surge of Frenzied Flame.
Yet here, within those scenes, it all seemed almost ordinary—so commonplace that it barely stirred any sadness at all.
After all, he had long since grown used to it.
And in the future, amid that distorted flow of time, countless more such habits awaited him.
After that, Chaos found herself at a loss for words to describe what she saw.
The kind of pain and despair that, to her, felt as if the sky itself were collapsing had become the norm here—so routine it was almost mundane. Worse still, new forms of agony and hopelessness appeared, each more incomprehensible than the last. The world grew increasingly fractured, as though everything were slowly slipping into an endless abyss.
And yet, at the very center of it all—the one who had endured the most—stood that same being.
Even with the mountain of suffering towering behind him, even as the vengeful spirits of those he once cared for bound him in a cocoon of humanity, his steps remained steady.
In that world where no hope could be seen, he still tried to light a single spark.
But that was as far as it went.
It wasn't that Chaos lacked patience—it was that, as she continued to witness the darkness, her mind began to erode, her spirit gradually consumed and assimilated by it. The corrosion had gone so deep she was on the verge of collapse.
Then, as her consciousness began to crumble, the surrounding darkness surged toward her.
Black vapors coiled around her, pulling her inch by inch toward the abyss, trying to claim her—to make her one of them, to keep her there forever.
Despair resonated through her.
At first, the essence of the Frenzied Flame tried to resist, but in the face of that overwhelming pain and despair, its resistance lasted only a moment before collapsing entirely. Then it began to respond—to mirror that same agony and hopelessness.
"I miscalculated..."
As the darkness slowly devoured her, Chaos's face was hidden beneath the shadows, her expression unreadable.
But just as she was about to close her eyes and accept her own disappearance,
a hand appeared before her.
"Take it."
It was a woman's voice—familiar somehow.
Chaos had already lost consciousness. The Frenzied Flame within her was cloaked in black, leaving her no strength to reach out.
Yet in that instant, a flicker of black fire ignited.
It wasn't the Frenzied Flame.
It was the Flame of Defilement—awakened by the spark of humanity.
As the Frenzied Flame fully succumbed, the Flame of Defilement spun itself into threads, wrapping around her fading body and extending its end into the waiting hand.
Then—
A grasp. A pull.
The next moment, Chaos opened her eyes. From her hollow sockets flowed a dark liquid—whether blood or tears, it was impossible to tell.
She turned her head toward the golden figure standing beside her.
The figure gazed back at her.
After a long silence, the golden figure finally spoke.
"I'm not such a terrible creator, am I?"
For a moment, Chaos said nothing. Then she smiled faintly.
"Then you're the second worst."
"What do you mean, second worst?"
"It means you're the second worst."