The strange edifice was the same as Velvet remembered from her dreams… which is to say, it also was the same as the fake one that Cardomos had created to lure her out in the material realm.
If something, the colors were duller, tainted due to the atmosphere of the Death Realm, which gave everything a grayish tone, including the gorgeous multicolor glass panels that covered the edifice’s round windows.
They still reflected the light in a mixed rainbow, but not as bright as before.
The walls had segments covered with small but intricate ornaments, as if the stone had been carefully braided, while some others were perfectly flat, almost tempting Velvet to caress them, as to prove their softness.
She didn’t reach for the walls, anyway, but for the immense doors, made of wood. They had no handles, but also didn’t have any sort of lock, simply remaining shut due to their own mass.
Unlike the ones in her dream, and the ones in the illusion that she only managed to touch, these ones were heavier, and solid, their weight pushing back against Velvet’s hands as she pressed against them. Yet they weren’t out of reach from Velvet’s strength, who slowly moved them back, opening them, showing the rows of benches, all of them perpendicular to the aisle in the middle, the one taking her to the altar at the back.
And, at the altar, there was a coffin, one that she didn’t need to be told who was holding. And, crawling around the coffin were the translucid brambles, almost glass-like, their innards pumping some sort of faint glow.
Pure white flowers ran through the brambles, smaller than roses, with two thin and long petals dangling, different from all flowers Velvet had seen, which made her unable to pinpoint their name or family species.
That was one of Velvet’s prime suspects for Dianthus’ current state, aside from the thing he was grabbing back in the dream, the one she didn’t manage to see.
The brambles looked… wet, but also not, as if the “glass” that made them was melted, even when they remained completely still on the outside.
“Do you know what those are?” She asked her companions.
“Hm? You mean the coffin?” Hyde said.
“No, the brambles. The vine-thingies around the coffin.”
Silence followed for several seconds, before the demon spoke again. “There are no vines there.”
“The ones like glass. Here.” She sent Hyde a thought containing what she was seeing right now, right in front of her.
And Hyde answered by sending her another image, one without the vines.
“Yes, but what about the one I showed you?” It would be… weird, if Hyde was unable to see them, but not impossible.
Cardomos was an Inquisitor, he probably had spells to hide stuff from demons and the like.
Yet Hyde’s answer seemed to disagree. “That’s the one you showed me. I just made a copy.”
Falling silent, Velvet took a long breath. “Hey, you. Corruption. What do you see?”
“I can’t see anything here, not the ‘coffin’, nor Dianthus.”
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Right, it mentioned so before. “They also were in the dream, so it’s not new.” Approaching the coffin, Velvet described them. “They look made from melted glass, with light inside, and they go towards the coffin… no.”
“They come from the coffin, from under Dianthus.” Under was an understatement. Velvet was sure that the brambles were coming from Dianthus’ back.
And, speaking of the guy, he was indeed inside the coffin, a fact that remained unchanged, same as the thing on his hands being too covered for Velvet to make out what it was. The vines went under him, but, by the way they were positioned, it didn’t look like they went below the coffin to who knows where.
But she would need to flip him over to check the truth of that, and she wasn’t really in love with the idea. And it wasn’t like she could turn him around with an explosion like with the trout, since his immortality was kind of in a dubious state right now.
Speaking of the trout, it had been tasty, but she liked eating while sitting, not while walking.
“Frenese?” Devils were of higher rank than demons, so maybe he could see it. He had collaborated a little bit before, so perhaps she could push it a bit further. “You also can’t see it?”
A dry groan, the small annoyance that came from it unable to dampen Velvet’s happiness to see the Devil collaborating for free rang in her mind. “What makes you think you’re seeing it all?” Frenese said, before adding. “Maybe what you can see it’s just a fragment.”
That doesn’t answer my question, but better not press him more. Even so, Frenese deflecting the question to humble Velvet didn’t mean he was wrong, but the opposite.
Just because she was seeing a bit more than them, didn’t extemp her from the same thing. Maybe there was something more aside from the brambles, but none of them could see it.
So she stopped her advances, choosing to test the terrain beforehand.
Velvet sent a paper figurine to touch the vines, cutting her connection with it the instant before it collided with the things.
The memory of the time Cornelius attacked her just by catching her paper figurine, exploiting the link between them, was a constant reminder of being careful with who touched her papers. And she couldn’t exactly blow them up if something went wrong, not without harming Dianthus.
But the paper figurine trespassed the brambles without issue. It didn’t collide with them, as if nothing was there.
Then, once it finally reached the floor and rested there, it started convulsing.
From the paper thin figurine’s frame, bulges began growing across it, inflating its shape. Like malignant tumors, they expanded, colliding and merging inside the figurine, increasing its thickness from within.
In just a few seconds, the paper figurine had morphed into an uneven mass, like bread dough, full of clumps. Once it looked about to pop, its colors started changing, from the dirty white of paper to a faint green.
Just like the one from plant sprouts.
And then, the colors became shapes, not undefined ones like before, but with a goal. They became leaves, stems and roots, sprouting from what not long ago was a thin paper figurine, and even less long ago a white blob.
And what now, was a small, alive baby tree.
A small, alive juvenile tree.
A small, alive, yo-
Splat.
Velvet stepped over the plant, crushing it, before grinding the sole of her boots against the ground, the mixture of the paper mass and the squished leaves splashing around her foot.
It didn’t move anymore after that.
That is, until Velvet used another paper figurine to pick some of the mixture, and drop it onto one of the brambles again.
And again, the small drop started convulsing and bulging, increasing in size, until it was back again to the original size of the small tree sprout.
And, once again, Velvet stepped on it, destroying it. This time, for good.
From a simple particle of the tree used to make the paper forming my figurines, to the original thing. From a complete dead thing, to a living one, healthy and well. She examined the remains, both from the plants and from the ‘dough’.
It didn’t need to absorb nutrients, or wait for time, since it simply started going back as it had been on its own.
And, as long as it touched those vines, that fact remained unchanged. Not even how big the remains were or how long it had been dead affected those abilities. It simply defied any sort of logic.
“That’s…” Hyde started, but Velvet interrupted him.
“Dianthus’ regenerative powers and immortality… are leaking.”