Chapter 94: The Garden of Giants
Nobody moved for a long moment. Everyone was still breathing heavily from the run, and outside the sealed doors, there was nothing. No horns. No footsteps. No Guardians shifting through the streets. Just silence, thick and complete.
Sun slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor. "I vote we never do that again," he said.
Arthur laughed. "No."
Sun sighed. "I knew that wasn’t a vote."
Mithra stretched her arms over her head, rolling her shoulders. "That was fun," she said.
Sun looked at her like she’d lost her mind. "You’re becoming Arthur," he said.
Mithra smiled proudly. "I’ll take that as a compliment."
Arthur grinned. "So will I."
Even Vedas let out a quiet laugh, and the sound seemed to release something in the room, the tension of the chase finally draining out of all of them at once.
Everyone finally took the time to look around properly.
The chamber they’d escaped into was nothing like the military architecture they’d just run through. This place felt sacred instead. The walls glowed with a soft golden light, and vines climbed up ancient pillars in slow winding patterns.
Thin streams of perfectly clear water ran between carved stone pathways, and hundreds of glowing flowers bloomed along the ground despite being buried far beneath the surface.
The ceiling stretched overhead like a night sky, scattered with points of light that shifted gently, almost like real stars.
Arthur turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. "This place is beautiful," he said.
Nobody disagreed.
Sun frowned. "Why does every place that looks beautiful immediately try to kill us?"
Arthur laughs. "Maybe we’re just unlucky."
Athena spoke quietly from where she stood near one of the walls. "Nothing here was built for war," she said.
Everyone naturally drifted apart to explore. Athena moved quickly between the carvings lining the chamber, notebook already open, pen moving faster than her feet. Mara walked much more slowly, gently brushing dust away from the walls as she went, reading the faded symbols beneath her fingers.
Arthur noticed her pace and walked over. "You can read it?" he asked.
She smiled. "Some of it," she said. "My grandfather taught me."
The murals stretched along the wall in a long sequence, each one revealing another piece of the Kingdom of Dawn’s history. Arthur stopped in front of the first, and the rest of the group gathered around him without needing to be asked.
The mural showed a massive Goblin army standing beside enormous beasts, facing down warriors made entirely of living metal.
Mara studied the runes carved beneath the image. "The Metal Vanguard," she said.
Sun frowned. "Living metal?"
Athena nodded. "Look closer." She pointed at the mural. "They aren’t wearing armor... They are armor."
Arthur stared. "That’s pretty amazing. The Goblins fought these?"
Mithra quietly smiled. "And won."
Vedas simply nodded. "They did it by working together, I can feel it."
Sun let out a low whistle.
Athena’s pen moved rapidly across her notebook. "The inscription says—" she began, glancing at Mara for confirmation.
Mara nodded. "The day iron challenged the forest," she said.
Arthur studied the mural closer, taking in the way the Goblins and beasts stood shoulder to shoulder rather than separately. "They fought together," he said. Not Goblins alone. Not beasts alone. Together.
Vedas traced one of the runes with two fingers. "Victory," he said quietly.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Vedas shrugged. "I recognized the word," he said.
Arthur smiled. "See?" he said. "You would’ve made a great Historian."
Vedas sighed. "Again?" he said.
Mithra laughed. "It never gets old," she said.
The next mural made everyone stop.
No armies.
No monsters.
No battles.
It showed Goblins teaching children beneath enormous trees. Builders raising homes. Farmers harvesting glowing crops and goblin children sleeping peacefully beside them.
Arthur quietly smiled. "I’m glad they record this moment."
No one disagreed.
As they continued to the next one.
Arthur stops. "...What’s this?"
The mural is smaller and much simpler.
A Goblin Commander sits beneath a tree.
Children climb all over him.
One pulls his ear.
Another sleeps against his shoulder.
A tiny Goblin proudly places a flower crown on his head while the Commander smiles.
Mara quietly reads. "...The strongest protect so the smallest may laugh."
Nobody speaks but all of them had a look of nostalgia as if they could recall the time someone strong protected them.
Arthur immediately thinks about Voro.
He doesn’t say it and just smiles.
Then they continue to the next mural.
It shows towering clouds and jagged mountains, gigantic figures walking slowly through raging storms, lightning crackling around their shoulders like it belonged to them.
Mara read the runes carefully. "The Giants demanded tribute," she said.
Athena looked up immediately. "What happened?" she asked.
Mara continued reading. "The Goblin King refused," she said.
Sun grinned. "I like him already," he said.
Arthur smiled too. "Same," he said.
The next mural showed Goblins riding flying beasts straight through thunderstorms, lightning splitting the sky around them.
Mithra blinked at the scene. "They fought in the sky?" she asked.
Arthur looked genuinely impressed. "Now that’s awesome," he said.
The next showed an enormous ocean, towering waves frozen mid-crest, and strange humanoid figures made entirely of flowing water standing among them. The Goblins stood along the shoreline facing them, and nobody in the image was fighting.
Mara smiled at the scene. "This one isn’t a battle," she said.
Everyone leaned in closer to look.
"The Water Spirits offered an alliance," she continued.
Athena raised an eyebrow. "So not every Beast Tribe became an enemy," she said.
Mara shook her head. "They weren’t building an empire," she said. "They were building relationships."
Arthur looked at the mural for a long moment before speaking quietly. "No wonder the Kingdom lasted so long," he said.
They continued down the row of murals together.
Athena kept filling page after page in her notebook. Sun asked simple questions that somehow always led to longer answers. Mithra noticed small details nobody else caught, a hidden symbol here, a repeated pattern there.
Arthur grew more excited with every new discovery, unable to hide how much he was enjoying himself. And every so often, Vedas recognized another word carved into the stone, surprising everyone each time.
Eventually Arthur turned to him with a small smile. "You’re reading more," he said.
Vedas answered quietly. "I’m learning," he said.
As they walked further along the chamber, Arthur’s hand suddenly grew warm again. The King’s Mark glowed, and golden light briefly spread across one particular mural, brighter than it had for any of the others. It depicted the Goblin King standing beside five Goblin Commanders, each wearing a fragment of a crown split into pieces.
Nobody else seemed to notice it happen.
The glow faded almost as quickly as it appeared.
Arthur quietly reached out and touched the carving.
Nothing happened.
"Strange," he murmured to himself.
He didn’t mention it to the others.
The murals eventually came to an end, and a massive stone doorway opened ahead of them into another chamber entirely. The smell reached them before anything else did, fresh herbs and flowers and something faintly medicinal drifting through the open doorway.
The room beyond was overflowing with life. Thousands of plants, maybe tens of thousands, grew in dense clusters beneath a soft golden light filling the entire space from above.
Tiny streams flowed between every garden bed.
Fruit hung from ancient trees.
Flowers Arthur had never seen bloomed beside herbs that glowed softly in the dark.
Not a single plant had withered. It smelled and looked like spring itself had been preserved underground.
Athena’s eyes went wide. "An underground greenhouse," she said.
Mara stood completely speechless, staring at the sheer scale of it.
Arthur smiled. "I guess we’ll leave this to you," he said.
Mara laughed softly. "I was hoping you’d say that," she said.
Sun immediately looked around at the endless rows of plants. "Or," he said, "we collect all of them."
Arthur burst out laughing. "That’ll only take," he said, glancing around the massive room, "several months."
"So, we start with the first one?":
Vedas sighs.
Even Athena smiled despite herself. "Please don’t," she said.
Sun shrugged. "I thought it was a good plan," he said.
Mithra grinned. "I admire the optimism," she said.
Mara slowly knelt beside one flower. Her eyes widened. "Impossible."
Athena looked over. "What?"
"This plant went extinct hundreds of years ago."
Arthur slowly looked around. "How many extinct plants are there?"
Mara held her chin thoughtfully for a moment. "I’m not sure but," she said, "we should still move forward."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Arthur stepped into the garden first. His foot touched the stone floor.
Nothing happened.
He took a second step. Still nothing.
Then the floor beneath him groaned, and a sudden weight slammed down onto his shoulders hard enough to drop him instantly to one knee.
"What," he managed, voice strained.
The stone beneath him cracked under the sudden pressure. The others stepped through the doorway behind him, and the same force hit every one of them at once.
It felt like gravity itself had multiplied five times over in an instant.
Weapons slammed out of their hands and into the ground. Armor that had felt weightless moments earlier now pressed down like it weighed hundreds of kilograms.
Athena gasped, struggling just to keep her head up. "I can’t," she managed.
Sun’s face was pressed nearly flat against the ground. "Why," he forced out, "is breathing hard?"
Even Kong collapsed under the pressure, his massive frame crumpling to the stone floor. Melo pressed herself flat against the ground, unable to lift even her head.
Vedas gritted his teeth and forced himself up onto one knee through sheer will alone, his whole body shaking with the effort.
Sun groaned. "Who made gravity angry?"
Athena tried adjusting herself while holding Athy. "This isn’t fair."
Mithra laughed once. "Still smiling?"
Arthur somehow grinned. "Barely."
Even Vedas almost smiled.
Arthur lifted his eyes toward the center of the garden, fighting the crushing weight bearing down on him.
There, standing peacefully among the rows of herbs and flowers, was an enormous stone statue unlike any of the constructs they’d faced so far.
It didn’t move toward them.
It didn’t raise a weapon.
It simply stood there, watching.
And then everyone saw it. Every flower in the garden slowly turns toward it.
Every vine bends.
Every leaf follows.
Like plants toward the sun.
Nobody understands.
Slowly, its golden eyes opened.
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