The Broken Horizon
The eight sectors of Edenfall burned in confusion. After the events of the Silent Founder's Trial, the city was no longer the same. The streets seemed to breathe, and the walls, at times, trembled with unspoken emotions. In the center, the Central Tree began to emit a strange aroma, not sweet or putrid, but ancient.
Akihiko stood before the frozen lake in the Umbral Sector. The water, black as the ink of a repressed memory, reflected a shadow that wasn't his own.
"They're not just sectors... they're extensions of our collective denial," he murmured.
The Seventh Pillar: Mirgal, the Gardener of the Void
As the sectors were restored one by one, an unforeseen enemy emerged from the roots of the Tree. It was Mirgal , the Seventh Pillar of the Throne , known as the Gardener of the Void .
Mirgal didn't plant flowers or trees. Her task was to plant dead emotions , cultivate buried traumas, and make them sprout like thorns that slowly tore at the will.
She wore a cloak made of pages torn from personal diaries, and her nails were stained with emotional ink extracted from forgotten victims.
"The pain that is not mourned becomes a seed... and I am its harvester."
Her ability was Sterile Bloom : she induced memories that couldn't be shared, emotions that germinated within the body but never blossomed into words or tears. Victims entered vegetative states, trapped in a garden they couldn't describe.
III. The Battle in the Garden of Lost Names
Isabella, Lirea, and Akihiko were guided to an underground crevice of the Central Tree. There, the ground had been invaded by dark roots. Each root held a name, and each name, an untold story.
Upon arrival, the roots began to move like snakes.
"This is the Garden of Lost Names. Each one represents a suppressed wish. Can you walk through them without breaking them?"
Mirgal appeared from a column of dry leaves, wielding a scythe made of sharp petals. When he swung it, he opened wounds that didn't bleed, but hurt as if they did.
Akihiko felt the weight of the past: scenes with his brother, betrayal, loss, and the void he hadn't filled. His katana vibrated, but the Void didn't respond.
Isabella screamed, not out of fear, but out of rage. She struck the ground with her seismic vibration, fracturing part of the garden, but the damage was emotional: names shook, releasing echoes of muffled voices.
Blossoming Anger: Rebirth from Accepted Pain
Lirea found a small root bearing her name. Touching it, she saw herself as a child, before the lab, before the mind control. Tears flowed, but not of sorrow. Of identity. Of reconnection.
"I am not just what they made of me. I am also what they denied me."
His ability, previously limited to mental fields, awakened a new aspect: Affective Memory Irradiation , allowing him to project shared memories to weaken the Barren Bloom.
Akihiko, still lost, finally stopped resisting. He allowed the Void to invade him without blocking it. It was then that he realized the Void wasn't an enemy, but a channel.
"The Void is not absence... it is space for what is to come."
His katana ignited with a purple energy more vivid than ever, and as he launched himself at Mirgal, each blow unleashed an image, a voice, a truth.
Fall of the Seventh Pillar
Mirgal, overwhelmed by so much true emotion, began to wither. The pages of his cloak ignited with each released memory. He tried to summon one last Bloom, but Lirea absorbed it and transformed it into a stream of vivid memories that echoed throughout Edenfall.
The Garden of Lost Names became a Shrine of Recognized Grief.
Mirgal fell, not destroyed, but trapped in an eternal loop of the emotions he tried so hard to deny.
The Central Tree Breathes
With the defeat of the Seventh Pillar, a new branch grew on the Central Tree. This time it wasn't black or twisted. It was luminous, as if born from processed grief.
"Now Edenfall knows that pain is not a mistake... but a part of the soul's map."
But Shoen Rikudō watched him from his tower.
"There's still one more. And the Eighth Pillar isn't an emissary... it's the testament of the Tree itself."
END OF CHAPTER 204