Matt awoke wrapped in the warm, damp embrace of vines. The roots held him like a living cradle, gently tightening around his arms and legs. The emerald glow from the ceiling filtered through the leaves, bathing everything in a soft, calming green.
For a moment he remained still, feeling the green warmth of the scar pulse in rhythm with his breathing. The fatigue from the previous night still weighed on his muscles, yet it was no longer the suffocating heaviness it had once been.
He slowly sat up.
The vines withdrew with reluctant slowness.
Looking down, Matt let out a low, tired laugh. His trousers were still soaked and scorched, but the jacket and shirt had been completely devoured by the fire.
He was practically naked.
Wonderful. The great rising Wingless Angel… and he doesn't even own a clean shirt.
He stood and walked to the small niche where spare church robes were kept. Taking one, he slipped it over his head.
It was a simple priest's robe of the Harvest Church: loose, earth-brown cloth, with dark green embroidery along the edges and a small symbol of wheat stalks on the chest. It hung slightly wide on his shoulders, but it was warm and carried the scent of dried herbs and clean soil.
He tightened the cord around his waist and felt… strangely appropriate.
A Criminal dressed as a priest. The Mother has a sense of humor.
He ascended the tunnel steps at an unhurried pace. The roots parted before him and closed again behind his passage. When he emerged into the hidden corner, the emerald glow followed him to the moss bench.
Elara was not there.
In her place, upon the packed earth floor, a small improvised altar had been prepared.
Three thick green candles stood in a line. A small clay cauldron rested beside them. Dried herbs. The lead dagger.
And at the center—three objects that caused Matt to stop.
Vargan's dark heart, beating slowly, its blood a cold blue.
An opaque glass bottle filled with thick blood—clearly the 130 milliliters Elara had collected.
A much smaller vial, almost like a perfume bottle, containing a transparent liquid faintly tinted with gold—the thirteen drops of Twin-Flower Hydrolate.
Resting above everything was a note, written in Elara's elegant, steady hand.
"Perform the ritual of supplication to the Mother.
Ask her for Joren's heart.
She will grant it to you.
When you finish, the potion will be ready.
— E."
Matt stared at the note for a long time.
So this is it… There's no turning back.
He knelt before the improvised altar. Drawing a slow breath, he entered Cogitation for several seconds, calming his mind before beginning the ritual with the precision Elara had taught him.
First he lit the candles, rubbing his spirituality against their wicks—the Goddess's candle first, then his own. Smoke from the herbs began to rise, earthy and sweet. He constructed the spiritual barrier around the altar—ethereal roots forming an invisible wall that sealed the space.
The lead dagger was placed at the center.
Then Matt took Elara's note, read it one final time, and burned it in the flame of the Goddess's candle.
The smoke rose thicker.
Closing his eyes, he began the incantation in Hermes, his voice low and reverent.
"Spring of Life, Mother of All Things;
Supreme Hearth, Sustainer of the Fertile Earth;
Symbol of Rebirth and Reproduction."
The candles flickered once, as if the Mother had heard.
Matt continued, his voice calm yet unwavering.
"I pray for the loving grace of the Goddess…
That you grant me the heart of the first being I slew, the one who returns to the cycle…
Wheat that sprouts from death, roots that reclaim the fallen—lend your power to this conjuration."
The entire garden seemed to hold its breath.
The emerald flowers closed and opened again in unison. Beneath the altar, the earth shifted faintly, as though something had awakened below.
It did not take long.
Barely a minute.
The soil parted with a soft, wet sound. A human heart slowly emerged, wrapped in slender shining roots that held it like an offering.
It was Joren's heart.
Fresh, still beating weakly, streaked with ash-gray veins of corruption that faded as they touched the fertile soil. The roots gently placed it upon the altar before retreating beneath the ground once more.
Matt took it with both hands.
The organ was warm and heavy, and for a fleeting moment a distant echo of guilt stirred within him—
But the scar pulsed and extinguished it at once.
There is no space for that anymore.
He placed Joren's heart into the cauldron. Then he poured in the 130 milliliters of Vargan's blood; the thick liquid slid down slowly. Next came the thirteen drops of Twin-Flower Hydrolate, clear and faintly golden, gleaming as they fell.
Finally, he set Vargan's dark heart atop everything.
The cauldron began to boil without visible flame.
The liquid churned, gradually turning an icy blue. Countless black specks appeared within it, suspended like stars drifting toward an abyss.
The Wingless Angel potion was ready.
Matt stared at it for a long moment.
What he felt in his stomach was not fear.
It was anticipation.
The scar pulsed once—warm, approving.
He lifted the jar and drank.
The liquid slid down his throat like frozen oil, thick and bitter, tasting of rusted metal and withered flowers. At first there was only cold—a shiver rising from his stomach to the base of his skull, making his teeth chatter.
Then came the heat.
A slow fire spread through his veins like roots invading fertile soil. His muscles tightened one by one—first his arms, then his legs, then his entire torso. His skin felt stretched, as though something inside him were pressing outward.
His vision blurred.
Black and bluish colors spiraled before his eyes.
And then the changes began.
His morality eroded like sand beneath a wave. The concepts of good and evil blurred until they became irrelevant. It no longer mattered whether something was right or wrong—only desire remained, raw and instinctive.
He felt his conscience retreat, like a thin thread stretching but not yet snapping.
Dark impulses—stealing, harming, destroying—no longer felt evil. They were merely natural functions, like blinking or walking. The world became an endless forest where every being was either prey or predator.
And he was the one who chose the role.
Physically, his body became something less human. His skin tightened over his muscles, growing faintly pale, as if a thin layer of frost had formed beneath it. His eyes darkened; the whites turned grayish, and his pupils dilated until they nearly swallowed the irises.
A tingling spread through his hands.
His fingers lengthened by a centimeter, nails hardening into fine claws.
His heart beat slower now, yet far stronger, as though pumping something thicker than blood.
Lust, anger, hunger—every impulse amplified, yet strangely controlled, like tools rather than chains.
He felt no panic.
Only a cold, distant exhilaration, as though he were observing his own transformation from the outside.
The scar pulsed strongly, anchoring him—reminding him that a fragment of self still remained beneath it all.
When it ended, Matt stood.
He was no longer the same.
He was a Wingless Angel.
And the world had never seemed so… natural.