Ascending the final steps, they were struck motionless by the sight awaiting them.
The Great Garden of Arlette—once praised as sacred ground—was no garden at all.
Its flowers were crimson, not with natural color, but with blood. Thick, fleshy petals bloomed grotesquely from veins of poison-soaked earth, their stems pulsing like living arteries. The air reeked of rot, alchemy, and decay—so dense it burned the lungs with every breath.
At the garden's center lay a body.
Santanios.
Or what remained of him.
His torso had been impaled into the soil, roots and vines piercing straight through flesh and bone. Flowers erupted from his chest, neck, and skull, blooming outward as if his body were nothing more than fertilizer. Poison and blood poured endlessly from the ruptures, staining the sacred stone beneath him.
The garden wasn't growing around him.
It was growing from him.
"That clergyman..." Asuma muttered, covering his nose as bile rose in his throat. "So this is how it ends."
Behind Santanios's ruined body lay something far more disturbing.
Latriys.
She was bound within a massive cocoon of entwined vines and arteries, suspended slightly above the ground. Unlike Santanios, she wasn't being devoured.
She was being fed.
Thick streams of blood pulsed through the vines, pumping directly into her body. The garden throbbed with each heartbeat, as if Latriys herself had become its core.
"What the hell are they doing to her!?" Leon shouted, horror breaking through his voice.
Asuma's fists clenched.
"Amira—let's get her out of there," he said, already moving forward.
Amira stepped toward the cocoon, lightning flickering instinctively around her spear. "Whatever ritual this is, we stop it now."
"That," Urillia said coldly, "would be a catastrophic mistake."
They froze.
Asuma turned sharply. "What do you mean?"
Urillia's golden eyes—now faintly glowing—never left the cocoon.
"If you free her," the princess said, her voice eerily calm, "this entire city will collapse into ruin."
Leon spun toward her. "You're saying we should just leave her like this!?"
"No," Urillia replied. "I'm saying you don't understand what she is becoming."
Amira swallowed. "Explain. Now."
Urillia stepped closer, her gaze tracing the ancient magic circle etched beneath the garden—now fully revealed as it bled power into Latriys.
"This garden was never merely poisoned," she said. "It was transformed into a living altar. Santanios was the sacrifice. Latriys is the vessel."
Asuma's heart sank. "A vessel... for what?"
Urillia's eyes narrowed.
"For something that cannot be allowed to awaken."
She finally turned to face them fully.
"That cocoon isn't imprisoning her," she said quietly.
"It's containing her."
"The child the sage protected," Urillia said quietly, her gaze fixed on the cocoon,
"is named Lyra."
She paused.
"Lyra, the Shadowsborn Demon—known across history as The Noctyrix."
Leon's breath caught in his throat.
"The Noctyrix...?" he repeated, disbelief etched across his face.
That name was not legend.
It was terror.
"The Noctyrix was classified as a Seven-Star calamity," Urillia continued. "A demon beast that nearly erased the Carja Republic in the eastern continent. Entire cities fell in its wake. Five-star elites were slaughtered. Even six-star units—those considered walking disasters—were torn apart like insects."
She exhaled slowly.
"In the end, the Church intervened. Their Holy Knights could not destroy it, so they did the unthinkable—they sealed its existence."
Her eyes shifted back to Latriys's cocoon.
"They bound the Noctyrix into a child. A vessel named Lyra."
Asuma's blood ran cold.
"That child... was stolen," Urillia continued, "by the Black Guild and smuggled to Nior, the Demon Continent. For years, the world believed the Noctyrix lost—buried in hell itself."
She paused.
"Then the sages returned."
Leon swallowed. "The expedition to Nior..."
"Yes," Urillia said. "When the sages crossed into demon territory, they did not merely survive."
"They came back with Lyra."
Asuma's head snapped up.
"They brought her back...?"
"Disguised," Urillia replied. "Hidden from the world. Presented as the granddaughter of Sage Fionalla. Latriys was never meant to be known as Lyra. She was meant to be forgotten."
Asuma staggered back a step.
"Latriys... was a demon beast?" he whispered.
Memories flooded his mind—
a small girl chasing Anami through fields, laughing, tripping over roots, pouting when teased.
Not a monster.
A child.
"Do you know why the sages vanished from public life?" Urillia asked suddenly.
Leon hesitated. "Why...?"
"Because Lyra was not the worst thing they brought back," Urillia said.
The words fell like a blade.
"There was something else. Something even the empire refuses to name."
A chill crawled down Asuma's spine.
"...Is that why the empire began killing the sages?" he asked, fury tightening his voice.
Urillia turned to him sharply.
"The empire did not hunt them," she said coldly. "The sages were invaluable. Strategic assets. Relics of an age long gone."
She looked away, her jaw tightening.
"But there are powers far greater than any empire. And there were beings—ancient, furious—that the sages stole from."
Her eyes returned to the cocoon.
"Their deaths were inevitable. Not ordered."
"Enforced."
Asuma's mind reeled.
Fionalla had known.
She had protected Latriys not because she was dangerous—
—but because she was alone.
And then, unbidden, something stirred within Asuma's consciousness.
A memory surfaced.
Not his.
Not Anami's.
A child's memory.
Latriys's memory.