How to fix immortality? Was she supposed to put the brambles back into Dianthus? How? She wasn’t going to touch them, that’s for sure. Even with her gloves on, they would end up probably becoming a goat.

…

Would it be a fully living goat? With soul and everything? Or simply alive but in a catatonic state? What if she put Frenese’s Book there? Would the seal become undone, releasing the Devil? They had a no harm pact, so Frenese wouldn’t be able to attack her.

But she didn’t know what would happen if she put the book there, which would trigger the trying to harm each other part of their deal from her side. Which would evidently kill her.

She could instead try to put other things, to see how far the leaked powers of Dianthus went.

Velvet was a knowledge mage, first and foremost.

“What are you waiting for, wake Dianthus up.”

Which her latest companion didn’t seem to appreciate.

“How? Do you think I was born with the knowledge to fix… whatever the hell is this?” She knelt on the floor, watching the vines up close. “I can’t see traces of any formation or spell on the things, nor can I touch them without them activating.”

The lights inside kept moving slowly, but not even those had any symbols.

Of course, if Dianthus’ circumstances were so easy to replicate, he would have been part of a mage laboratory long ago.

Raising herself from the ground, Velvet went to check her second possible culprit, sidestepping over the vines crawling across the floor.

She was lucky they didn’t move at all. Like normal brambles, they remained pretty still, even as she loomed over Dianthus’ sleeping form, one hand on the coffin’s edge and another holding her hair back, lest it touched the vines.

By the way his hands were put, tightly locked around the thing, it looked like he had grabbed the object right before going down. It wasn’t big per se, so his hands kept it hidden perfectly.

Grabbing one thin, metallic tube from the crafting bundle that Harlan had sold her, she slid it between Dianthus’ fingers, trying to pry them open.

Damned combat mages, how are they so strong even after getting KO’ed?! Nudging the metal piece a “bit” harder, she fought against Dianthus’ iron grip. He was breathing, so the grip wasn’t the rigor mortis one, but the reflex type instead.

Even so, she slowly managed to spread his fingers wide enough to take a peek.

There, badly illuminated due to Dianthus’ other fingers and hand shade, a black, short, hexagonal cylinder was inserted against the center of his chest, like a perfectly fitting jigsaw piece.

Some red-like shapes moved across its surface, depicting word-

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“Mn!” Velvet flinched, as a sharp, piercing pain blasted her mind the moment she read over one of the letters.

It was an invasive pain, one that reached even the depths of her mind, yet she was unable to take her sight off it.

Not because she didn’t try or want to, but because she physically couldn't. She couldn’t move her eyes, nor her hands to block her eyesight.

Then the letters started warping, twisting and changing, crawling across the cylinder, and then, abandoning it, moving towards her eyes.

Whispers that she didn’t understand started babbling into her ears, as a wet, metallic substance dripped down her neck.

It was blood, coming from her ears.

Velvet tried to force her body to move, but it was futile. In addition to that, the whispers didn’t allow her to concentrate enough to force a loss of control by remembering the Chained Man’s dream formation.

“... ve.”

She could still call Lothigern, His name would be enough to shake her off.

She could-

“Aw… ay.”

At the next moment, something pushed her backwards with force, throwing her across the floor, several meters from where the coffin was.

Air escaped from her lungs as she hit the floor, yet she managed to cover the back of her head with her hands, preventing it from knocking against the tiles. She also curled her body, rolling through the ground instead of plainly slamming against it.

As she rolled, her eyes met Dianthus’ for an instant, who had awoken to push her back, probably due to the hexagonal cylinder activating outside his body.

He reacted instantly, and, after kicking her, grabbed the object, which had started getting out of his chest, and stabbed himself with it, forcing it back into place, shutting the whispers down, and falling down into the coffin.

Dianthus didn't move anymore after that, remaining motionless and unresponsive like before.

Velvet also remained motionless on the floor, eyes fixated on the ceiling, but because she was thinking, not fainted.

And because a blow from a combat mage did fucking hurt, even if the motives were justifiable.

She was lucky none of her ribs were broken, even when the pain made it feel as they were, and that she hadn’t hit any of the brambles by accident. Not that she could’ve done so, since they went back to Dianthus when he awoke, and came out when he fell.

Which made the cylinder the definitive culprit. A culprit that almost killed her.

Almost? Not really. She hadn’t felt any threat to her life whatsoever. It had been painful, yes, but not the kind of pain that tried to end her life, but the kind that tried to transform her, similar to the miasma from the Primeval Sea.

Similar but not the same, since she didn’t feel belonging to the place from where the cylinder originated.

With the miasma, it was like being on the coast at night, steps inside the water, as something called at her from below the waves, from the depths of the sea. She could always take steps forward, following the voice. Hoping that the next time she moved her foot forward, there would be sand.

Because the other option was for the next step to be devoid of any support, sinking her into the abyss.

But that was the miasma, not the cylinder. With the cylinder, it felt like…

Like…

Like the stars themselves were calling for her. That’s to say, an unreachable call.

Even more so now that she was still laying on the ground, contemplating life. Her own life, since this was the Death Realm, and thus, contemplating other’s life was a bit more complicated.

She might’ve remained in that position for a minute too long, since, eventually, in the back of her mind, she felt something small touch her hair.

Right, my hat flew off…

“Velvet.”

Velvet blinked slowly, looking up, her two eyes meeting Hyde’s eight ones. The demon, who had gotten out of his pocket dimension, had crawled across the floor, and had climbed from her hair to her forehead, was prickling at her skin with his tiny, sharp legs.

“You look so weird from below… wait, you DO have teeth.”

Hyde took several steps back, hiding his body from Velvet’s gaze. “What are you planning?”

“I didn’t think for a moment that waking up Dianthus was going to be easy, so this falls within my expectations.” Cardomos wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of kidnapping Dianthus just for her to walk in like she owned the place and take him back.

Either he was so weak that he would drop dead at the next second or he simply didn’t consider Velvet a threat. And she pretty much vouched for the last reason. Cardomos was an Archmage, probably the second strongest mage after the Director at his peak. Not only had he no reason to consider her a threat, but he also had no reason to consider her at all.

For him, Velvet and the trouts in the river had the same value. Maybe the trouts more than her, since at least they served as food.

Yet trouts didn’t wake up Chosen Ones.

But, of course, Velvet thought, getting up from the floor and dusting off her dress, walking to pick her hat from the ground, trouts cannot walk and knock on your door.

“Let’s go pay another visit to Cardomos.”