The battlefield was silent save for the crackle of burning sap and the faint hum of insects drawn to the stench of blood.
Hundreds of bodies had already become flowers. The garden was vast now, stretching far beyond the clearing, a labyrinth of blossoms glowing faintly in the dark, cocoon-shrines rising like gravestones, petals drifting in a red-stained breeze.
At its center stood Rosaria, still pristine beneath her veil, her hands folded loosely before her as though she were leading a prayer. Blood streamed gently down her cheeks, feeding the roses that sprouted at her feet.
The eleven Gold-Rank Elites, the pride of Virehall's army, faced her in a ragged crescent. Their armor was shredded, their weapons slick with sap and blood. Exhaustion weighed on them, but their eyes still burned.
Rosaria tilted her head, and then softly, sweetly she laughed.
It wasn't a cruel laugh. It wasn't mocking. It was melodic, tender, almost motherly. And that made it worse.
When she finally spoke, her voice was a prayer disguised as cruelty.
"I made my thorns weaker," she said, lifting a hand to brush the petals from her veil. "More brittle, easier to break. So that you could play."
The words sank into them like poison.
A ripple of anger crossed the line of Elites. The glaive-woman spat blood into the dirt. The twins exchanged grim looks. Even the stoic shield-knight's grip tightened on his bulwark.
But it was Draves, their captain, who reacted most sharply.
His face, already streaked with sweat and grime, darkened. His teeth ground together, and his veins bulged in his neck. He had fought wars, burned cities, watched comrades fall by the dozens. Yet never not once had an enemy spoken to him like a teacher indulging a classroom of children.
His gauntlet flexed. His gaze dropped to his right arm.
The armor there was unlike anything else on him. Blackened steel interwoven with emerald glass, veins of light pulsing faintly along its length. Ancient runes were etched into its surface, glowing like buried stars.
He whispered under his breath. A mantra. A warning. A resignation.
"We have no choice."
The others stiffened.
Draves raised his right arm.
A low hum filled the battlefield, deep enough to rattle bones. The artifact's runes flared emerald, brighter and brighter until the entire clearing was bathed in green light. The vines around them recoiled, hissing as if sensing the weapon's awakening.
The other ten Elites stared, disbelief painted across their faces.
"Captain…" the glaive-woman whispered.
"You can't be serious," one twin hissed.
The brute's eyes widened, his usual fury stilled into awe. "You're actually using it…"
They all knew what it meant. The arm was not ordinary steel. It was not forged by any smith alive. It was a relic, dragged from the ruins of an ancient civilization whose technology eclipsed their own by millennia. A weapon so advanced that scholars argued it had never belonged to man at all.
And it was forbidden.
For it was said that when unleashed, it could rival the fury of a Diamond.
Draves ignored their disbelief. His jaw was set, eyes burning with grim resolve.
"Better damned for breaking oath," he growled, "than buried as flowers."
Then he fired.
The artifact screamed.
A beam of emerald destruction lanced outward, cutting through the night like a blade of light. It tore the earth apart in a straight line, uprooting trees, disintegrating vines, boiling sap into vapor. The shockwave alone sent soldiers tumbling like dolls, ripping helmets from heads and shields from arms.
The world itself seemed to split.
For a single instant, the forest vanished, obliterated in a corridor of annihilation. Soil turned to glass. Stone became molten. The air stank of ozone and ash.
The beam hit Rosaria dead on.
The impact was apocalyptic.
The entire garden convulsed, thorns exploding outward in showers of splinters. Flowers ignited, petals vaporized, roots shrieked as they were reduced to ash. The night sky itself lit emerald, painting the battlefield in false daylight.
The Elites threw up barriers, ducked behind shields, clung to the dirt as the wave of energy scoured everything in its path.
When it ended, silence fell like a hammer.
Smoke curled upward from a gouge a hundred paces long, carved into the earth like a scar from heaven. Nothing remained in that path there's no roses, no thorns, no corpses. Only molten glass and ash.
Draves lowered his arm slowly, its glow fading to embers. His breath came ragged, sweat streaming down his brow.
The other ten Elites stared at him, disbelief etched on every face.
"You…" the glaive-woman muttered, voice trembling. "You actually..."
"You used it," the brute finished, awe and terror mingled in his tone.
Even the priest's replacement a younger cleric who had stepped forward when the elder was lost could only whisper, "That was… Emerald Rank."
Draves said nothing. His eyes were locked on the smoke, his heart pounding.
And then…
The smoke parted.
Rosaria stood where she had been.
Unmoved.
Untouched.
Her veil dripped blood onto the glassed earth, and each drop sprouted fresh roses in the molten cracks. She lifted her head slowly, tilting it as though genuinely curious.
Her voice floated across the battlefield, soft as a hymn.
"Fascinating…"
Every Elite stiffened. Their blood ran cold.
"The power of this world…" Rosaria mused, extending her hand. Vines stirred at her feet, writhing with anticipation. "How curious. How sweet. Then… let me try."
Her voice was gentle, almost apologetic.
"…an Emerald Rank attack of my own."
The ground split.
Vines surged upward like tidal waves, thorns thicker than siege towers, twisting into colossal braids that pierced the heavens. Flowers the size of houses bloomed at their peaks, their petals opening in slow, obscene majesty. From within, pollen spilled like golden mist, sizzling against the glassed earth.
The air screamed as power condensed, reality itself warping around the growth.
The Elites could only watch in horror.
The glaive-woman's knees buckled. The brute swore under his breath, voice breaking. The twins went pale, their synchronization shattered by sheer terror.
"She's…" one choked.
"…going to erase us," the other finished, their words trembling.
Even Draves faltered. His artifact still hummed weakly, but its glow was nothing compared to the cathedral of thorns rising before them. His eyes widened, breath caught in his throat.
Rosaria clasped her hands as though in prayer.
The garden sang.
The air grew heavy, thick with pressure so immense it felt like drowning. The roses pulsed with crimson light, synchronized to the steady drip of her blood.
And then---
The leader of the Elites moved.
Draves.
His hand shot to his chest, pulling forth a small object hidden beneath his armor. It gleamed faintly even in the choking dark a shard of crystalline silver, etched with runes not of their age.
A Diamond-ranked artifact.
The others gasped.
Draves didn't wait. He slammed the shard into the ground.
Light engulfed them.
The artifact shrieked as it activated, bending space like cloth. The world twisted, the garden's pressure clawing desperately to keep them. For an instant, Rosaria's towering thorns crashed down, filling the clearing with an explosion of emerald and crimson.
But the Elites were gone.
Vanished.
All that remained was a crater of roses and molten earth.
And Rosaria, standing alone, veil dripping fresh blood as she lowered her folded hands.
She smiled faintly behind the crimson veil.
"Pretty toys," she whispered to the empty night. "But the game isn't over."
The garden pulsed once more, alive and endless, awaiting its next hymn.