The garden was dead silent, save for the friction of withered leaves in the wind, whispering like a low chant.

  Vivian, returning from the reception hall, was unsettled. She pushed the all-wooden wheelchair to a halt before a cluster of withered roses.

  They had lost their gaudy vitality, turning into gray-brown brambles. Like withered ghost hands reaching out from the purgatorial soil, begging the heavens for a rain of suffering.

  "Endure..." she murmured softly, snapping off a rough, thorny branch and gripping it tightly.

  The thorns pierced her palm without mercy, but the corner of her mouth hooked into an intoxicated smile.

  Pain is the alarm bell granted by the Supreme One. Proof that the flesh is still alive. A hymn that the soul has not been swallowed by numbness.

  She knelt on the stone slab beside the wheelchair, her expression as pious as a pilgrim, weaving the brambles into a ring.

  "Please accept this coronation, my King."

  The Unstained One in the wheelchair stared silently ahead. His gaze was deep as an abyss—a transcendence gained after perceiving all the sorrows of the world.

  She pressed that Crown of Thorns onto his jet-black hair.

  The sharp thorns pierced his smooth forehead, and beads of blood vanished in an instant.

  The Guardian moved, imperceptibly.

  Look. He is enduring the same.

  Mortals would scream and recoil from the sting, but he accepts it silently.

  The pallor of his lips is not cowardice, but a seal to lock away the wailing he is about to utter for the world.

  The twitching of his eyes is not pain, but a silent accusation against this brutal world.

  Finally, a drop of blood wound its way down the Unstained One's high brow bone, hanging at the tip of his eyelashes like a solidified ruby tear.

  Vivian stared obsessively at that ruby. It was the Stigmata of his coronation.

  What the Unstained One displayed was a divinity from the same source as her own.

  "Now, you are complete." A massive sense of happiness enveloped her.

  After a moment, she rose, wiped away the tears of extreme adoration from the corners of her eyes, and gripped the wheelchair handles again.

  "Let us depart, my King. Those lost fawns are still waiting for your shepherding."

  The wooden wheels crushed the fallen leaves with a crisp crackle.

  Vivian pushed the Guardian through the deep path, returning to the Great Hall of The Sanctum.

  Inside the hall, Mother Mora waited deep in the shadows of the high dais, while the Gatekeeper Crow stood aside, wrapped in his pitch-black feather cloak.

  "That spy from the Privy Council knows a lot," Mora said loudly as she saw her return.

  Vivian did not respond. She simply pushed the wheelchair onto the central Silver Sigil, as if displaying a rare holy relic.

  Mother Mora’s voice continued to echo in the hall, carrying an unquestionable judgment. "Those jackals of the Privy Council do not covet The Drop, but the succession of the 'Fire Keeper'. Investigating a heretical physician is just a smokescreen. If they can defeat you before the 'Lunar Rite', the 'False Gods' they serve—Miranda and Isabella—will secure their place above you."

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  Vivian felt a wave of nausea at hearing the names of the Fire Keepers of the First and Second Sanctums. "Have they both been corrupted by False Gods?"

  Crow pulled a scroll emitting a ghostly blue light from his robes.

  "Yes. 'The Clean' Miranda... she is no longer a child of flesh."

  "What did she do to herself?" Vivian looked, suffocating at the phantom image floating beside the name.

  Crow answered coldly: "I heard she cut out her spine and replaced it with a tireless 'Silver Axis'. Now, she can no longer feel the happiness of spinal tremors. And there are others..."

  "Blasphemy..." Vivian interrupted Crow. She covered her mouth, tears spinning in her eyes—compassion and horror for the fall of her own kind. "How dare she? How dare she turn herself into a sex toy for False Gods to play with!"

  "Isabella accepted another kind of blasphemy. She copulates with flora." Mother Mora turned slowly. The silver arms on her back, though made of Mithril, were not connected to her flesh—a world of difference from those monsters who defiled their flesh for selfish desires.

  "As for the Fire Keepers of the other Sanctums, they are too young to participate in this competition. But I heard Tyra replaced her eyes with Demon Pupils that peer into ghosts, and that little bitch Susanna replaced her skin with Gold Armor..." Mora began to list the crimes of the other Fire Keepers. "Since the defeat by the Golden Ring three hundred years ago, the Silver Ring has rotted. They have forgotten why we fled Gaia, forgotten why we rebuilt this Sanctum of Sacred Flesh on Thaea. Now... this place has become an Asura field where heretics compete."

  The hall fell into a deathly silence, save for the crackling of a distant censer.

  In that suffocating silence, Mora suddenly stared dead at the Unstained One in the wheelchair—crowned with thorns, his face weirdly calm.

  "Vivian," Mora’s voice suddenly became slippery and cold. "Your opponents are no longer just other Fire Keepers, but a pack of abominations defiled by False Gods. What do you intend... to do?"

  "I must win the Lunar Rite!" Vivian answered immediately.

  Mora stood up abruptly. One silver arm slashed an angry arc in the air, pointing straight at the Unstained One.

  "Vivian, you are blinded. He is no Guardian. He is a jackal in a fawn’s skin."

  "...What?" Vivian stood up instantly. "What are you saying? He is the Unstained One! We just concluded the Fated Covenant before the altar!"

  "Ha!" Crow let out an ear-piercing laugh. "Your Highness, you are too naive. Do you think we are the only ones seeking unstained flesh? Those 'Witches' polluted by heresy... they would also use such a man."

  Crow stepped closer, his eyes fierce as knives. "The investigation by the Privy Council envoy today confirmed my judgment. This person was defiled by False Gods long ago. He is a spy, come to steal your 'Holy Fire' so those abominations can complete their final fall!"

  "Impossible!" Vivian screamed, her voice cracking with extreme denial. "He is enduring suffering for me! I can sense it!"

  "That is an illusion!" Mora’s voice exploded in the hall. "Vivian, your mind is bewitched by his seemingly pure skin!"

  "No, impossible..."

  Vivian turned back trembling, looking at the Unstained One.

  His eyes remained lowered. Serene. Holy. Compassionate. How could he be a spy sent by other Fire Keepers?

  "...I do not believe it. He drank my Crimson Dew in my arms; his soul is connected to mine..."

  "Connected?"

  Mora sneered, drawing the Rod of Truth from behind her back.

  "If the Fated Covenant was truly sealed, if his soul truly submitted to you, then why does he refuse to wake up?" Mora pressed forward step by step, handing the Holy Relic to Vivian. "True fusion is movement following the shadow. Sleeping... is because he is resisting. He is pretending. He harbors ghosts in his heart."

  Vivian looked at the thorn-covered Rod of Truth, her face pale as paper.

  She knew what this was.

  This was the ritual of "Confession," and a trial of ultimate pain.

  "Prove it to us." Mora’s voice dropped to a whisper. "Since you say he is your True God, then test his divinity with the Rod of Truth. If he is true, the Holy Fire will protect him. If he is false..."

  A cold light flashed from the dagger in Crow's hand. "Then use his sinful blood to cleanse his evil thoroughly."

  Vivian’s hand trembled, ice-cold with fear.

  But she took the cold staff.

  In this moment, her trust, which she thought was solid as rock, cracked.

  Is it true? Is the reason he won't wake up because he rejects my service?

  A sharp pain hit her. The Ark within her suddenly began to vibrate!

  Is this a warning from the Holy Fire? Or a decision?

  "Let Crow do it!" Mora said.

  "No! Let me!"

  Vivian endured the pain and approached the wheelchair.

  She raised the Rod of Truth, crackling with the power of lightning.

  "My Supreme One..." Huge tears rolled down her face, dripping onto the back of his cold hand. "Please... do not disappoint me. Wake up... even if only to prove your innocence..."

  Just as the Rod of Truth was about to fall.

  In the hall, silent as dead water, a single sound rang out: "Ah!"

  The Unstained One's tightly closed eyes, those eyes always hidden in the shadow of eyelashes, like two heavy Doors of Fate, clearly... opened.

  Those deep black pupils were revealed. There was no confusion of a fresh awakening, nor the fear of being exposed. Only a bottomless, freezing abyss that made her very soul tremble.

  The Rod of Truth fell from Vivian’s hand, rolling aside.

  "...Guardian, is awake..."

  An unprecedented happiness rushed to the top of her head, bringing a dizziness she had never known. She covered her mouth, let out a moan, and fainted to the floor.