What happens to the Undead during an Age of Dark?
My understanding of where the Undead curse comes from is that when the fire fades, men gain the darksign and become Undead, with more and more people turning and eventually hollowing as the flame dies out. If you link the flame, it seems like it restarts the age of fire and banishes the darksign, turning the Undead human again (or maybe just killing them). But what happens to humanity when the flame fades entirely? Would it not just result in all of humanity turning Undead and hollowing? And how is that functionally different from the Lord of Hollows ending in Dark Souls 3?
Whenever I think about what becoming the Dark Lord actually entails, I can't help but notice that you never really address the whole curse of the Undead. In fact, if you choose that ending in Dark Souls 1, the only thing you really accomplish is killing the last of the Great Lords. But surely killing Gwyn doesn't actually do anything to the world, so I'm left wondering what the consequences of your actions even are.