Adamanthea was still roaring, but her movements were deformed, and her strength was nearing its limit.
Her massive body crashed heavily amidst the sharp crystal shards, her eyes vacant, and her breathing was rough and labored like a broken bellows.
"I am not Neltharion." Nefarian slowly descended to the ground, his voice softening a few shades. "I am his offspring. I am not here to be your enemy."
He took a step forward, his dragon claws crunching on the gravel. "I only want to know—the truth behind my father's fall."
Nefarian's words were like ice water poured on a searing hot iron, producing a harsh "hissing" sound that roused her from her hatred.
"Offspring?" Her voice was hoarse and cracked, tinged with a hint of confusion. "Neltharion's—bloodline?"
She struggled to raise her scarred head, her cloudy vertical pupils trying to focus, attempting to find the shadow of that dream in Nefarian's outline.
"Yes." Nefarian answered decisively. "But I am not him. Tell me, before you were sealed, what exactly did he experience? What caused the Earth-Warder to transform into Deathwing?"
"Truth?" Adamanthea let out a sharp, broken laugh, filled with sorrow and mockery. "Heh, the truth is betrayal!"
She coughed violently, her dragon body trembling from weakness, but the fire in her eyes reignited, though this time it was a cold, all-knowing fire of despair.
Gasping, her voice lowered, leaving only heavy exhaustion. "I don't know what whispers finally filled his mind.
But I know the starting point! I know the moment everything began to sour!"
Nefarian's dragon eyes narrowed slightly, his body instinctively leaning forward: "When?"
"After sealing Razageth!" Adamanthea almost shrieked out, expending her last ounce of strength, her voice shaking dust from the crumbling dome.
The echo of her roar reverberated deeply under the empty dome, gradually fading, until only her sporadic, trembling gasps remained.
After the roar, she gasped for a long time before slowly recovering, her voice returning to a low tone:
"After that great battle, he changed." Each word was like a heavy stone. "There was no longer any of his former gentleness, nor did he confide anything to us, his family."
"I thought it was just trauma from the great war," she murmured, her gaze drifting into nothingness, with a hint of belated regret. "So I didn't truly take it to heart. Even his cold threats, I just took them as his jokes––"
Her voice grew fainter and fainter, finally turning into an almost inaudible sigh, "....until he really—"
She abruptly closed her eyes, shutting out the painful memory, her face etched with indescribable weariness and desolation.
"If you truly want to know the truth, I do have a guess." She added, her voice dry. "That is, how did he complete the sealing of Razageth? The style of that seal was unlike any before. He never explained, and we dared not ask."
Adamanthea reopened her eyes. "Looking back now, our Aspect was no longer his original self even then."
Nefarian listened quietly, then pondered for a moment. "What else do you know about Razageth?"
"She is one of the Incarnate, the master of storms." Adamanthea shook her head weakly. "That's all."
Nefarian slowly turned, looking towards the surging clouds above the mountaintops outside the door.
"I'm going to the sealing place," he said in a low voice. "To see with my own eyes what he did that day."
"Where is Razageth sealed?"
"Due north of here, a place called Froststone Vault."
Nefarian said no more, spreading his dragon wings: "Then lead the way."
The two dragons flew over the broken valley, heading north.
The further north they traveled, the colder the air became, the snowline gradually descended, and the roar of the storm grew more frequent.
Soon, a magnificent structure, half-embedded in the mountain, came into view, its gate even larger than that of Zskera.
Its surface was carved with runes similar to those on other buildings on Forbidden Isolated Island, emitting a soft, steady glow.
The gate was tightly shut, perfectly sealed, with powerful prohibitive forces contained within.
This was Froststone Vault, its seal intact.
Nefarian landed, his dragon claws lightly touching the cold gate.
"This seal not only contains father's power, but also intertwines—Titan divine power?" he murmured to himself, keenly sensing the structure of the composite seal.
Nefarian slowly paced in front of the gate, his dragon eyes sharply scanning every detail.
His fingertips gently traced the seal, magic probing like a needle, meticulously analyzing every ripple of the energy circuit.
He was completely focused, not trying to forcibly break it, but deeply analyzing the essence of the seal.
"The energy core converges in the center of the gate, extremely stable, but—" Nefarian frowned deeply, he caught a very subtle "noise," like a discordant note mixed into a perfect symphony.
Though faint, this note stubbornly clung to the core nodes of the seal.
"Did you find anything?" Adamanthea asked nervously, she knew nothing about seals.
"The seal itself is impregnable, its power immense." Nefarian's voice held a deep solemnity. "However, its foundation—
seems to have been contaminated by something."
Moreover, that feeling was unsettlingly familiar—the residual power of NZoth!
Though extremely faint, it lay hidden in the foundation of the seal, lingering for a long time.
"Incredible—"
Nefarian exclaimed in a low voice.
Although he knew the danger of the Old Gods, and should destroy and purify anything related to them,
Yet at this moment, facing this complex, miraculous seal that combined the power of the Titans and the Old Gods, he couldn't help but exclaim.
"He could actually, with his own wisdom, forcibly combine Titan power and Old God power, to forge such a solid and efficient seal—" He looked up at the core of the seal, his eyes complex.
Just as he marveled at his father's wisdom, a terrifying thought struck him like lightning:
Did father accept NZoth's bargain out of necessity, to gain enough power to seal Razageth?
This bargain allowed him to complete the seal, but it also meant he could never turn back. This thought was so close to the truth, it instantly consumed Nefarian's entire mind.
Nefarian walked to the very center of the gate, gazing at the energy core that floated with silver-blue lightning.
He instinctively raised his dragon claw, attempting to release a more precise probing spell, wanting to understand how these two great powers merged and to explore how his father truly "tamed" and utilized it—his thoughts were still immersed in that astonishing deduction about the "bargain," and his movements inevitably showed a slight delay caused by his distraction.
Just as the light of his spell was about to touch the core seal—Boom—!!!
A deep thunderous roar came from deep underground!
Nefarian's heart shook violently, immediately realizing something was wrong, and he sharply stepped back, forcibly retracting the probing spell!
But it was too late!
Rumble—!!!!
As if the internal and external forces had created a fatal resonance, the indestructible gate of Froststone Vault exploded with a colossal gap under the impact of the rampant energy!
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