The group boarded the police carriage, heading straight for the Brumes District, an outlying zone bordering the neighboring city of Fercluse.
As the carriage pressed on, the distance made itself plain: the bustling commercial avenues and towering buildings gradually gave way to dense vegetation dotted with scattered, isolated homes.
Arriving, they were met with a desolate, nearly empty stretch of land. Its few remaining residents survived off hunting the wild terrain, living entirely outside the system, free of the tax burdens the rest of the city's population carried.
As if fate itself were making a point of it, a heavy shadow reclaimed the sky once more. Clouds gathered again over the rustic wooden houses, and a bitter breeze wove through the trees of the nearby forest, carrying the scent of damp earth and the promise of another downpour.
Still, the harshness of the setting stood at odds with the true character of the place: beneath the worn façades and muddy roads, the faces of its people radiated a genuine human warmth, revealing a dignity and set of values rarely found in the wealthier corners of the city.
"You lot Noctis?" an old woman asked, her smile kind. Her features were wrinkled and calm, save for a subtle misalignment in her gaze — her right eye seemed to fix on a point slightly off from where the other pointed.
Alphard assumed it was simply a consequence of old age, or perhaps some minor condition from birth. Still, he pushed the thought aside, feeling as though he were disrespecting her, judging someone for something beyond her control.
"Yes, that's us," Charlotte answered, her usual firmness intact.
"I'm the one who called you here. We're close to the wine cellar. I'll take you there."
Without wasting a second, the old woman leaned on her worn wooden cane and began leading them toward the cellar.
The path climbed steadily uphill, turning into a demanding, grueling walk with every step.
To make matters worse, the carriage had to be left behind; the earlier downpour had turned the dirt roads into thick, clinging mud that would have swallowed the wheels whole.
Despite the state of the road, the trek posed no real trouble for the Noctis squad. As part of their standard gear, everyone wore sturdy boots with thick rubber soles.
Though the contrast between the heavy boots and the fine clothing looked a little awkward on several of the agents, Charlotte and Evelyn somehow made the combination work with total elegance; their tailored suits adapted effortlessly, and the boots looked entirely in step with their style.
Crossing the threshold, the sheer size of the cellar greeted them, wrapped in shadow. Only a handful of high windows let in thin streams of dim light, just enough to keep from stumbling in the dark.
The place looked pristine; there wasn't a single trace suggesting an anomaly had ever manifested there.
Even so, both Charlotte and the squad understood that the absence of damage was no guarantee of safety lurking somewhere in the shadows.
There's nothing here. Could be a false alarm, or maybe something's genuinely hiding.
I should check with my spiritual sight.
At that, Alphard's vision shifted into its monochrome tones, sharpening into a clarity that had nothing to do with light, letting him examine the essence of the people around him.
At first, the surroundings held an apparent calm; but the moment his gaze landed on the old woman, he found the anomaly — her outline lacked any defined human shape, her essence shifting in a constant, unbroken flow.
What is this? Why doesn't she have a human form? Is it just old age? Or is she not human at all?
Alphard came up with a plan instantly, simple but effective, meant to test his suspicions. He took a couple of steps further inside, drawing the group's attention; the moment felt right, he warped the shape of his hand to cast a monstrous silhouette.
Amid the gloom, the shape looked genuinely terrifying — nothing more than a shadow trick, really — but it was enough to get an instant reaction from the others, who rushed in to back him up.
Even so, Philip smiled knowingly; he caught on to the trick immediately and, with a small nod, began drawing the others in closer.
That was the exact moment the entity took the bait. A colossal tentacle burst violently from the old woman's eye, shattering the opposite wall with a single blow. Alphard's lure had worked flawlessly.
There it is! That's all I needed.
A second tentacle slammed down, the impact echoing through the cellar, forcing the team to scatter in every direction.
The old woman's transformation was already unstoppable: her legs tore apart and dissolved, giving way to tentacled limbs stretching five meters long, while her facial features vanished beneath a frenzied, writhing mass of parasites and viscous blood.
"Everyone — don't let those parasites, or even a single drop of that blood, touch you!" Charlotte shouted.
Fully unleashed, the entity began lashing out at everything around it, fierce and indiscriminate. One of the violent strikes caught Antonie, slamming him against the wall with brutal force.
Both Alphard and Didier lunged to help him, but the constant sweep of the creature's limbs blocked off any path to reach him.
Unable to advance, they drew their weapons and unloaded their ammunition into it — an assault that only provoked the beast into a fresh, renewed fury.
At that exact moment, Evelyn's arm morphed into an enormous blade, while her back split open to unfurl a pair of radiant wings that, in shape and glow, resembled living flame.
Without hesitation, she wove her way through the monster's assault, scaling one of its limbs before rocketing at full speed toward its head. The target, however, was heavily defended by the great tentacle and the parasitic mass writhing within it.
Evelyn began cutting through the flesh with fast, careful strokes, keeping the entity at bay while making absolutely sure no contaminated fluid ever touched her skin.
Meanwhile, Philip caught Didier's eye with a silent order. Understanding the plan, Didier acted immediately, plunging the entire perimeter into a state of partial darkness, close to nightfall, broken only by brief flickers of light.
In the blink of an eye, the perimeter transformed into an instant sea of crimson spider lilies, a blessed plague climbing rapidly across the floor and even the walls. A bitter wind began roaring through the cellar as a low, rumbling thunder, conjured by Didier, shook the space with tremendous force.
The flowers glowed amid the darkness, and Philip already had the trap ready. But just as the roots moved to embed themselves into the creature's flesh, it launched into a massive leap, dodging the contact entirely.
The violence of the jump tore through the ceiling, sending enormous chunks of concrete crashing down.
"Damn it," Philip muttered, watching the play fail.
Despite the setback, Didier stayed focused and struck the creature down with a precise bolt of lightning. But to the team's dismay, the beast simply shook off the strike and kept advancing as if nothing had happened.
At that moment, Alphard rushed toward Antonie to help him, only to find he was already forcing himself back onto his feet. Managing a defiant grimace despite the pain, Antonie shook his head, making it clear that the brutal impact had been little more than a scratch to him.
Right then, Charlotte stepped forward, fixing her eyes on Philip with overwhelming determination.
"Can you conjure your lilies again?"
"Of course I can, boss."
"Then you already know what to do."
She advanced to the front line with a firm stride, her gaze sharp enough to unsettle anyone. Philip took his place beside her and summoned the tide of lilies once more, the flowers swallowing nearly the entire area within seconds while Charlotte readied herself for the next phase.
"Now. Say it."
Philip began reciting the poem as Charlotte laid her hand over the main root:
"Red as life, red as death. The heart parts from existence, and the crimson moon, ever watching, breaks in joy and rapture. May the mother take you back into her womb, and may you be poured out among tears and fresh blood. May your spirit be freed, and may your pain fade as the blood stills in your veins. Glorious is the day of death, for from it springs the meaning of our lives. May pain vanish from the face of the earth. And may your existence remain, held in the memory of the book of life."
Beside him, Charlotte began murmuring an unintelligible chant. Instantly, the branches surged with renewed violence, and the lilies stopped glowing red, blazing instead into a dazzling gold.
The creature thrashed desperately, trying to leap free of the roots, but couldn't break loose. Evelyn, meanwhile, tore open a fresh gap in the monster's flesh, holding it pinned with her massive blade, careful to keep the fluid contact strictly on her weapon and away from her skin. Still, the abomination refused to stop convulsing.
Watching the chaos unfold, Alphard executed a masterstroke:
He grabbed a pair of massive rocks and absorbed them into his right hand, bracing the limb with his left. At the same moment, Antonie took up both his own weapon and Alphard's, unleashing a continuous barrage against the monster to keep its leaps in check.
Using the cover, Alphard took aim and unleashed a brutal blow directly into the creature, the shot veering just enough to graze Evelyn.
An inexplicable pain shot through Alphard's arm, but he knew it had been a necessary sacrifice. Meanwhile, the golden roots wrapped fully around the entity, driving deep into its flesh as it let out mournful groans, thrashing violently in a last attempt to escape.
In the agony of its defeat, the beast lashed out with even greater violence. It struck Philip down with a brutal blow and knocked Evelyn to the ground with a whip of the tentacle sprouting from its face.
The resulting shriek was bone-chilling, echoing across the entire area. The creature lunged straight at Charlotte, but Didier reacted in time: exhausting every last ounce of his energy, he unleashed a devastating bolt of lightning that stopped the entity cold — before collapsing, unconscious, from the effort.
"Philip, now!" Charlotte bellowed.
The roots acted instantly, drawing the rotten fluid out of the enemy as it continued to writhe and let out ragged, tearing shrieks.
The creature tried to shield its face with its one remaining intact limb, but Alphard, pushed to the very edge of his strength, unleashed the final stone with lethal precision. The impact didn't just pulverize the limb — it fractured its face entirely, revealing an incandescent light glowing within the cavity.
The absorption complete, the magic shifted into its final phase: purified blood surged back through the roots, flooding into the creature's body all at once. Unable to withstand the purity of it, the monster let out one last cry of agony as its structure dissolved, collapsing in on itself from within.
At that, the chaos finally died out entirely. The only sound left breaking the silence was the soft clatter of a glowing stone hitting the ground — the very same light source Alphard had glimpsed the instant he shattered the monster's face.
The group collapsed, wrung out by exhaustion, as the sea of lilies slowly dissolved into the air. Blood trickling from his head, his body covered in bruises, Philip stumbled toward them, wearing a satisfied grin at a job well done.
"Boss, think I could get a little extra pay for this one?"
"Maybe," Charlotte answered, letting out a faint laugh.
Alphard, for his part, felt like his whole body had been pulverized; all he wanted was to collapse into a mattress and not wake up for days. He was on the verge of giving in to the exhaustion entirely when Antonie gave him a couple of pats on the chest.
"Excellent work, for a first mission."
Alphard managed a weak smile and, still lying on the floor, turned his head to one side. The small fragment gleamed sharply in the darkness.
Studying it for a moment with his spiritual perception, he confirmed a dense concentration of energy pulsing within it. Leaning on Antonie to push through the crushing weight of his fatigue, he managed to pull himself up and walked toward it.