Gilded Ashes-Chapter 261: Literally Floating

Raizen and Hikari didn’t move for a few seconds.

They stood beneath the central tree, necks tilted back, staring at the glass dome half-hidden by branches. The building sat inside the trunk like it was part of the tree. Above it all, the dome glimmered with rainwater and lamplight, like a giant eye that never blinked.

Hikari’s voice stayed calm, but Raizen heard the decision behind it.

"...We have to climb that."

They circled the base first, moving along the edge of the empty plaza where shadows fell under thick roots. The city center felt abandoned. Everyone walked with the coffin somewhere else, leaving this place too quiet. Even the air felt still.

Hikari walked right next to Raizen, looking for good angles and sightlines. Her black dress looked too elegant to move quickly. The fabric caught on her ankles the moment she stepped over a root. She pulled it free with a small jerk, annoyed, and kept going.

Raizen glanced at her dress again. It wasn’t built for climbing. Not even close.

"Hikari" he said quietly.

She didn’t look at him. "Yes?"

"You can’t climb that in this."

Hikari almost smiled. Almost. "Want to see that I can?"

"Well... You can climb anything. But that doesn’t mean you should."

Hikari finally looked at him, eyes flat. "Alteea told us to do this. There’s no use in defying that order."

Raizen frowned. It was like obeying Alteea wasn’t even a choice to her.

Raizen kept his voice even. "Alteea told you to go take a look. She didn’t tell you to rip your dress."

Hikari’s jaw tightened. She looked away again and kept moving.

They found a narrower stretch where the trunk’s outer roots rose into a ladder of sorts. Thick ridges. Natural footholds. Above them, lower branches angled down, heavy and wet, dripping. A good path if you knew how to use it.

Hikari stepped onto the first root and pulled herself up quickly. Then she tried to swing her leg higher and the dress caught. The hem snagged against bark. She jerked again, more annoyed this time, but the dress just wouldn’t rip free.

Raizen’s hand shot out and caught her wrist before she could yank harder. "Stop."

Hikari froze, more from surprise than obedience. She looked down at his hand on her wrist like she didn’t expect that.

"It’s a beautiful dress, and it suits you. Why ruin it?" Raizen said.

Hikari’s expression stayed mostly blank, but something flickered under it, and her ears went slightly pink. Confusion, maybe. Or irritation at being slowed down.

Raizen loosened his grip and let go. "I can go alone if I have to."

Hikari went very still. Her eyes stayed on him for a second too long, then she turned back to the tree without a word. She adjusted the dress with a quick tug, lifting the fabric just enough to free her legs, then started climbing again.

Raizen followed.

He offered a hand when she reached a slippery patch of bark. Hikari didn’t take it. She shifted her footing and pulled herself up anyway, stubbornly.

Raizen didn’t argue again. He just stayed close enough to catch her if she slipped and far enough to not make her feel like she needed saving.

They climbed higher.

The roots turned into thick branches. The air smelled like wet leaves and sap. Raizen felt his ribs ache with every pull, especially when he had to stretch for a higher grip.

Above them, the dome came closer, its curve reflecting the distorted clouds held in place by the Echelon’s field. The sky looked even more wrong up here. Like someone pressed a hand against reality and smoothed it flat.

They reached a section where branches thickened into a kind of natural platform. The bark widened enough to stand without hugging the trunk. Leaves shielded them from below. From here, the glass dome sat directly under their feet, only a half a meter down, slick with rain and slightly fogged.

Hikari crouched, careful this time. She placed one hand on the branch, steadying herself, and breathed out quietly.

Raizen crouched beside her.

Together, they leaned forward and took their first real look inside.

The hall looked nothing like Raizen expected.

He thought it would be sterile. Perfect. Cold.

It wasn’t.

It was beautiful and chaotic at the same time.

White marble walls rose into tall arches. Gold accents lined pillars like someone tried to make it feel ceremonial. The ceiling curved under the dome and scattered light in pale reflections. In the center sat a round table with high-backed seats arranged like an ancient council. It reminded him of Neoshima’s Hall of Deliberation. The dome next to the Spire, made of glass.

But the room itself looked like a war zone of intellect.

Crates and boxes stacked along the walls, some open, spilling tools, wires and strange parts Raizen didn’t recognize. Stacks of paper sat everywhere, thick and messy, covered in handwriting so dense it looked like patterns. A whiteboard stood near one side, and it barely showed any white. Black marker covered it in graphs, equations, arrows, scribbles. Some lines were erased and rewritten on top. It looked like someone fought the board and lost.

Nothing was tidy.

But everything was calm.

Raizen’s eyes tracked the room instinctively, looking for guards, for staff, for some kind of security.

There were none.

No soldiers. No servants. No watchers.

Only the twelve.

Twelve cloaked figures sat around the round table, each one distinct even under fabric.

One wore a silhouette that reminded Raizen of an old storybook witch, a high hat shape rising above the cloak. Another wore a full mask, smooth and pale, with no expression at all. One had something mechanical unfolding behind them, metal arms shaped like a spider’s limbs, folded tight but ready to help.

Someone else rested one hand on the table.

That hand didn’t look human.

It was greyish, almost stone-toned, with a subtle sheen... The fingers were long and still, too still. Raizen stared at it, unsettled, and tried to make sense of it.

A ring of thin spikes hovered above another member’s head like a simplified crown, perfectly balanced in the air. Not touching anything. Just floating.

Raizen’s gaze moved, trying to catalog them all, but it was hard. The room felt dense, like every figure carried their own gravity. Every single one of them was extremely important, it seemed.

Hikari leaned closer beside him, shoulders brushing his. She didn’t react outwardly, but Raizen felt her focus sharpen.

Then the grey hand shifted.

Just a small movement. A subtle flex of fingers.

Raizen’s mind snagged on it.

That gesture.

That stillness.

He stared harder, ignoring the wet glass and the slight fogging that blurred edges. The figure’s posture looked familiar. The way they sat, slightly angled, like they didn’t fully belong at the table even if they had a seat. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Raizen’s eyes narrowed for a few seconds, then realized.

That was Eiden.

The hand.

The stance.

The presence that felt like a man who could talk about tech in a cat café and then sit among monsters like it was the most normal thing in the universe.

Inside, the crowned woman snapped her fingers twice.

The sound didn’t reach them through the glass, but Raizen saw the motion clearly. Sharp. Commanding.

A distant door opposite their position opened. Four guards entered, carrying a huge steel chest between them. They moved carefully, steps synchronized.

Each guard wore a blindfold.

Raizen’s stomach tightened. Blindfolds?

So they couldn’t see the room. So they couldn’t see the people. So they couldn’t see what they carried.

They set the chest down near the table and bowed quickly. No hesitation. No lingering. They turned and left as soon as they finished, the door closing behind them.

The room remained sealed again.

The crowned woman approached the chest and rested her fingers on the latch. Slowly, like she understood what a mistake would cost.

She opened it.

Raizen expected empty space.

Instead the chest was packed with foam. Dense, custom-cut, layered. As if the chest existed only to protect what sat inside.

The woman reached in slowly and pulled out a device.

At first glance it looked like a cube, but it wasn’t a solid cube. Only the corners existed, connected by thin struts, leaving the center half-open. Inside those corners, a mechanism sat, intricate and delicate, like a mechanical heart made of metal. Something glowed inside it, a bright core.

Luminite, he assumed.

But it didn’t glow like the luminite he knew.

It looked... Cleaner. Shinier. Like it belonged to a higher tier of reality.

The woman placed the device on the table with care. Then she moved her hands above it, fingers making small precise gestures.

Raizen couldn’t see every detail through the wet glass. Water streaks distorted parts of the view. Fog clung to the edges of the dome.

But he saw enough.

The core brightened.

Light pulsed through the mechanism, traveling along internal lines like veins.

Raizen felt something wrong before he understood what was happening.

At first it was subtle - like his body got lighter by a fraction. Like his boots didn’t press into bark as hard as they should.

Inside, the Echelon members began to rise.

Not standing.

Floating.

Literally floating.