Rose Garden

This was a mountain forest far from the Tree Spirit Court.

The mountain had a flat summit called Rose Peak, wreathed in clouds and mist.

Riding aboard the flying vessel, Angel spotted a blaze of vivid red beneath the clouds from afar. Before he had even drawn close, he could already catch the faint, elusive scent of roses.

That was Liana's Rose Garden.

Though he had never truly set foot inside, he was not at all unfamiliar with this Rose Garden. Sanders had told Angel more than once that if he had any doubts about alchemy, he should go to Rose Garden and seek out Liana.

It was simply that Angel had never gone before.

Angel did not fly directly to Rose Peak. Instead, he landed at the foot of the mountain, then slowly made his way up along the mountain path.

To keep outsiders from disturbing her, Liana had laid a layer of fragrant poisonous clouds over Rose Peak. If Angel had kept flying forward, he would have been courting death.

The only path through was to measure the mountain road with one's own feet.

Halfway up the mountain, Angel found his path blocked by walls of thorns. Through them, he could vaguely make out the shadows of buildings beyond, as well as small paths winding through the dark woods.

Yet these thorns blotted out the sky and covered the earth, like a towering wall. If outsiders wanted to enter, they either had to leap over them or cut them down.

Leaping over them meant entering the poisonous clouds, while cutting them down meant offending Liana. Thus, outsiders really had only one option left... bribery.

Angel had once heard certain secrets about Rose Garden and knew that this high wall of thorns was, in truth, a rose from the