How many times had Tristessa found herself in that long, candlelit hallway?

How many times had she faced that door that, when opened wide, revealed only absolute darkness?

She couldn't move toward that [Dark Room]. She couldn't even take a step forward, as if hundreds of shadowy hands were seizing her from behind. Grabbing her by the neck, by the arms, by the legs, impeding her progress.

Memories scattered in a broken psyche, trapped in a perpetual vortex, at the hands of chance.

"...still here, Tristessa?"

Selene Irandell's voice drifted from within that unrelenting darkness, frost like an arctic wind. Chilling that hallway, extinguishing the candles, covering the walls with frost, the carpet, every millimeter of Tristessa's skin, every astral particle that made up her soul…

And a dark full-helm, filled with that miasma called Discord, covering her head and harboring a voice within that whispered to her:

"Defeat me."

"...Ah?!" Tristessa woke up suddenly, faced with the sudden layer of cold water that fell on her head and part of her chest. Some of the liquid got into her mouth and nose, making her cough with an unbearable itching sensation. "What the hell?!"

"That's what I should ask, you tramp!" said the hoarse voice of a man, who was the silhouette standing in front of her, blurred by the water. "What are you doing in our dear sister Cyela's greenhouse?"

Greenhouse? Sister Cyela? Tristessa had no idea what the man was talking about. She ran her hands over her face, now fully awake and alert, managing to clear her vision: she realized she was lying on top of what appeared to be a flowerbed—it had been, since she was clearly responsible for having crushed all those cerulean blossoms.

Looking around, she saw dozens of plants of various sizes and colors. They hung from the glass walls and ceiling with metal frames, while the floor was a patch of fertile black soil filled with so many red, light blue, and gold flowers, like a small meadow teeming with life.

Floating in the air near the ceiling were several halos of glowing glyphs. Some used several ethereal symbols that comprised them to generate small clouds laden with rainwater that gently fell on the plants, while others simulated the soft, faint rays of the sun.

"Hey, tramp, I'm talking to you!"

That male shout made the girl whip around. In front of her was an old man with bulging green eyes, one of them magnified by the silver-framed monocle he was wearing. He had a beard and extremely long hair as white as snow; his facial hair was so massive that it even covered much of his gray robe, which seemed heavy due to the type of wool it was made of. The robe reached his ankles, and he was barefoot, treading carelessly on the black earth. He seemed to be some kind of monk.

In his bony hands with very long nails, he clutched the metal bucket with which he had thrown water on her to wake her up.

"Master Caius, her fat ass full of Discord killed all my missmis flowers," said a voice behind the old man, making Tristessa's ears turn red with fury.

"Fat ass?!"

Offended, Tristessa leaned to the side to see who dared to say that. It was a girl about Lucahn's age, with brown hair tied in a bun and deep, black eyes. She was cute, but with a permanent expression of disgust on her face and she wore the same type of robe as the old man, but it was too big for her size, to the point of dragging against the dirty ground wet from the artificial rain.

"I won't forgive her, Master Caius," she said, in her tiny voice, clutching the side of the old man's robe. She was so small and adorable that that sullen grimace didn't suit her at all. "Since she killed my beautiful flowers, I have the right to kill her too."

"What?!" Tristessa exclaimed, but absurdly, neither of them was paying attention to her now.

"That would bring trouble for me and the Sanctuary. Are you stupid, child?" The old man, Caius, put the bucket down and looked at her reproachfully. "I can see why your parents left you here in the middle of the night."

The girl pouted and let go of him, before giving him a sharp tug and a harmless kick in the ankle.

"I hate you, Master Caius… You're a dirty old man who spies on me while I bathe."

"Stop spreading lies, you little shit!" Caius snarled as he watched her run toward the greenhouse exit, baring his undamaged teeth and adjusting the monocle that had become displaced in his outburst. "That Cyela… I'd throw her back to the street if she weren't skilled at non-elemental thaumaturgy. This isn't the first time that she…"

Suddenly, the old man let out a scream that made Tristessa flinch, causing her hands to slip backward, making her fall and further soil her hair with mud and petals.

"Don't think I've forgotten about you, tramp!" Caius pointed an accusing finger at her, his nail so long that the girl feared it might accidentally pierce one of her eyes. "What in the name of the Three Gods were you doing sleeping on top of that shitty girl's flowers? Don't you know how unbearable she becomes when someone mess with this greenhouse?"

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"It wasn't on purpose! I was…I was…!" Her voice trailed off as Tristessa began to recall the events of the previous night.

Having met the gunslinger Auron Casimir, the battle between that beautiful, white-armored knightess against the Ghost Daggers gang—who had seized the treasures from Madame Luchie's caravan—and the final awakening of her second Divinity.

Her [Divinity of Accursed Existence]. The ability to reanimate corpses and control them against their will, like a necromancer from the stories of Earth, while feeling the hatred and contempt of the lost remains of those souls who temporarily returned.

Using it still terrified her, but at the same time gave her a certain sense of excitement. Thanks to her new ability, she had managed to distract the guards at the great gate and enter the main city of End-World, Entrana.

Thanks to that new ability, she had apparently managed to elude the Dullahan.

"I was... escaping..." she stammered, more to herself, confirming amidst all the mud and water covering her torso and limbs that she was intact. No wounds or damage done. "Nothing weird happened around here last night?"

"Here? Not at all, I was sleeping like a baby in a golden cradle, and no shitty brat woke me up crying about their ass hurting because sleeping in a slab of rock it's painful and uncomfortable. Life in this Sanctuary is austere, fools! What do you think this is, the Heterodox Church? Honestly, kids these days… WAIT A SECOND! Don't try to distract me!"

The old man ruffled his beard and took out a thaumaturgical wand, which he used to sweep it from left to right, as if he were trying to shoo a cat with a broom.

"Move, out, out! Don't make me call the city guards!"

"Wait, please! I don't even know where I am!" she tried to justify herself, only to make the situation worse.

"A tramp and drunkard? Of course, I should have guessed!"

"No! Listen, it's fine, I'll go…"

The last thing she needed was for the city guards to interrogate her and see that she was an intruder. Tristessa stood up and, ignoring the furious growl of her stomach, lifted her backpack from the floor—which she miraculously hadn't lost in her desperate, blind escape through the city streets—and took one of her two remaining great soul-jewels from the small cloth bag.

"Here. Can I count on your discretion to make sure no one knows I was…?"

Again, that old man named Caius let out a shriek that again made Tristessa's heart nearly leap out of her mouth.

"What the hell is wrong with you, you crazy old man?!"

"A large donation! Oh, miss, you are a kind soul!" Caius exclaimed, smiling briefly. After slipping the GSJ into one of his pockets, he took one of the surprised girl's hands. "Come with me, come! Let me offer you the services of our humble Sanctuary!"

"W-wait, sir, I…!"

Tristessa was forcibly led out of the greenhouse, showing her that they were in a courtyard with several fruit trees and meticulously trimmed and well-shaped shrubs, surrounded by high perimeter iron fences. A wooden path with side railings to prevent users from falling into a pond led them to a large building, only one story long, housing dozens of rooms with windows almost all closed by double wooden doors.

"Come on, don't be shy! Hey, shitty girl!" As they entered through one of the doors, the old man shouted, his voice echoing down a long hallway, which was crowded by several monks of varying ages, all wearing the same humble, heavy-cloth cassock. "Where's Cyela?"

"I saw Sister Cyela go into the storage room where she keeps her gardening supplies, Master Caius," one of the monks responded as he passed by. "She seemed very upset. More so than usual."

"Thank you, Master Anders!"

"Hey, old man, wait! Seriously, I need to be somewhere else!" Tristessa groaned and tugged at her arm, but to her surprise, the old man was strong and easily led her down the hallway. It could also be attributed to the fact that she was so hungry that she had almost no energy left in her body to fight back. "Can you at least tell me what service your Sanctuary offers?"

"Well, what we Mystic Tattooists do, miss! Second sighting and characterization of Divinities, soul-ink tattoo sessions, the usual!" he replied. "Don't you want a tattoo that reflects your soul?"

"N-no… But, now that you mention it, I have a Divinity I recently discovered…"

"Perfect! I'm the one to help you!"

"But I haven't told you if I want your services yet! I can't waste more time; I need to find Severus!"

Once in front of a half-open door, she opened it wide, and they both saw that little girl named Cyela trying to drag a large basket containing fertile soil, which was almost as tall as her. "Leave that for another time, girl! Take the client to the restroom and leave her spotless!"

"Have you gone senile, Master Caius? Can't you see that... I'm... busy? Ugh, how tiresome!" she complained, tugging at the bag so hard that her face was red and sweaty. "Besides, I'm not going to provide services to that destructive woman. All that huge amount of Discord her dark soul unleashes is going up her ass, otherwise it's hard to understand how she managed to have killed all my dear missmis."

"Listen up, you little…" Tristessa tried to get in between them, the base of her neck burning with anger, but the old man was quicker: he stood in front of the girl and bent down to bring her face to face, though the sudden movement caused his long beard to fall over her and cover her head.

"The young lady just deposited the equivalent of one hundred soul-jewels into our accounts, so you're going to give her a bath that will leave her sparkling clean and without smelling like the urine of a palkuria in heat. Did I make myself clear?"

"Yes…" Cyela agreed, her voice hampered by that waterfall of white hair.

"Excellent. And you, take a bath too; you stink of vilecross' ass." With that, the old man came out of the hallway and smiled at Tristessa with great enthusiasm. "When you're ready, go to room nine, yes?!"

The screaming old man practically ran away, leaving a very confused and stunned Tristessa in the company of that girl who glared at her and, in the old man's absence, kicked her in the heel.

"Hey, that hurts!"

"Come on, I want to get this over with as soon as possible… I must go clean up the mess you and your fat ass made." Cyela's small right hand encircled some of the fingers of the same hand of the black-haired girl and pulled her in the opposite direction Caius had gone. "I don't want to waste any more time with you."

"That's what I say about you crazy monks, brat!"

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