"Not all decay smells like death. Some, like roses, lure you in before they kill you."
The door creaked open, not with force, but with something like breath—hot, damp, and filled with the scent of rotting petals. Hiragi stepped through, boots sinking into a field of soft mulch. It wasn't earth. It was the flesh of fallen gods, bloated and blooming with fungal roses.
Every step he took released a squelch, like walking over a graveyard that had been watered too often.
The sky above was pulsing, a translucent pink membrane stretching across the horizon, stitched shut with vines of thorns. From somewhere deep within the ground, came a music—no, a rhythm, like heartbeat and lullaby fused.
"You made it further than I expected," said a voice, smooth like velvet dipped in formaldehyde.
Hiragi froze.
From between the flowers, a figure emerged: a tall man with no face, only blossoms blooming from his neck. His voice came from the petals. "Tell me, God Eater, what will you do when even love rots?"
Hiragi's eyes sharpened. "I'll burn it all. Even the parts that once made me feel human."
The field trembled. The flowers twisted, their petals curling inward to reveal eyes—hundreds of them, blinking in unison.
The Faceless Florist smiled through his blooming mask. "Then come. Let us test the scent of your resolve."
He raised his hand, and the flowers screamed. From the earth, hands grew—delicate, feminine, rotted—grabbing at Hiragi's legs, his waist, his heart.
—
In the back of his mind, a whisper stirred.
Nolan.
The voice wasn't external. It was buried within Hiragi now, ever since Spiral One. A trace of the Voidwalker.
"You're still holding back, aren't you?"
Hiragi clenched his fists. "Shut up."
"Let go. Become the absence, not the reaction. The Spiral isn't a path. It's a mouth. It eats your hesitation. Feed it, or be fed to it."
He exhaled—and for a moment, the air around him stilled. Void leaked from his shadow, black tendrils slithering upward, wrapping around his arms like gauntlets.
The flowers recoiled.
The Florist's body convulsed. "Ah... Now I smell it. The scent of true rot."
With a roar, Hiragi dashed forward. He punched the earth, and a shockwave of Void shattered the terrain. Petals exploded into black mist.
A symphony of screams filled the field.
—
In the sky above, the clouds peeled open like skin. Watching from beyond the membrane… was something else.
A god. Half-formed. Dreaming.
And Hiragi, the intruder.
"Welcome deeper, little eater," it whispered.