The words hung in the air between them, carrying the weight of two years of silence. Julius could see Ren getting tense at his sister’s name.
Ren looked up from where he had been examining the crystalline structures, his attention now completely focused on Julius.
"She hasn’t gone once to see the statue in the two years."
The statement confused Ren. His eyes widened, and Julius could see the reaction playing across his features.
"What do you mean?" Ren asked quietly.
"Exactly what I said. I go regularly to keep the place monitored, to look at the rings on the door, the rings on our king’s hand, make sure no one can remove them..." Julius gestured vaguely toward where he knew his father’s crystallized form waited.
"Though my concern has proven unnecessary. My old man and the corruption made sure to leave ridiculously hard crystals. Removing the relics from there is impossible for anyone right now."
The casual reference to his father carried layers of emotion. Julius had learned to speak of Dragarion with matter-of-fact acceptance, but the slight tension in his voice suggested the wound was still fresh beneath the exterior.
Julius stopped, realizing he was rambling to avoid the real point of the conversation.
"But getting back to the point," he continued, meeting Ren’s eyes directly, "I understand her. I myself feel great sadness every time I see the statue... And surely she would feel something similar seeing you too."
Ren’s face was unreadable, but Julius could sense the internal struggle happening behind his eyes.
"Because of Larissa’s way of being," Julius continued carefully, "many might think she’s very mature, brilliant, always in control. But in reality, she’s also just a child. Most of that is an act, a character like the ones we all create to survive in the world around us."
Julius paused, choosing his words even more carefully.
"Underneath all that, she’s just a dedicated girl with too many responsibilities who pretends to be tough to defend herself in the unpleasant world of us nobles. But in reality, she’s just afraid of being seen crying, of having the facade of power fall and our world devouring her."
The observation carried the weight of personal experience.
Ren’s breathing had become slightly irregular, his hands clenching and unclenching as he processed this information.
"Maybe that’s why she’s a bit afraid of you," Julius said gently. "Though, if I tell you the truth, her private tutor says she knows you too well, even though she’s never seen you..."
How could that be? The answer lay in the obsessive attention to secondhand information that characterized someone trying to stay connected while maintaining distance.
Julius took a deep breath before continuing with the most important part.
"Even though she’s afraid, even though she won’t accept it openly, I think she misses you. Liora and Luna visit her often, and according to what they’ve told me, she always ends up discretely and roundabout asking what they do on expeditions with you just to know more about you. How you are, what you’ve been doing, if you’ve mentioned her at all..."
Julius met Ren’s eyes directly.
"Just... don’t tell her I told you this, okay? She’d surely kill me if she knew I was gossiping about her insecurities."
The admission was both revelation and plea. Julius was crossing boundaries he had maintained for two years, risking his sister’s trust to bridge a gap that was hurting everyone involved.
Throughout this information dump, Ren had strangely relaxed while also examining the crystallized statues of monsters surrounding them, maybe as a soft form of escapism. It was a ridiculous quantity... thousands upon thousands of creatures, all frozen at the same moment.
All were exactly like those in the chamber where the final battle had occurred, and despite being frozen, all had identical mana signatures to the other monsters in that chamber. Even the King had a mana mark, though different...
But while Julius spoke, and now that he was less worried, Ren realized something crucial.
The changes in mana he had been sensing, the fluctuations that had been concerning him for months... weren’t coming from here.
The crystallized creatures were stable, their mana signatures consistent and unchanged. Whatever was causing the disruptions he had been detecting, it wasn’t related to these frozen monsters.
If the mana disturbances weren’t coming from the known source of corruption, then something else...
And then he began to sense a strange signal.
It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but definitely different. Something that pulsed with a rhythm that didn’t match anything here.
Ren’s face changed as the realization hit him. His expression had shifted from confusion and pain about the situation with Larissa, then to recognition, understanding, and something that might have been hope. But now...
"Julius," he said quietly, his voice carrying an intensity that made the prince immediately alert, "I think there’s something else here. Something that reminds me of corruption but isn’t crystallized."
Julius looked around at the thousands of frozen creatures surrounding them, then back at Ren.
Julius initially interpreted the statement as a tactic to avoid the conversation about Larissa. The timing was too convenient, right after revealing such personal information.
"Ren," Julius sighed, "I understand that your situation with Larissa is a lot to process, but you don’t need to change the subject. We can talk about this and..."
"I already knew that," Ren replied with a slightly pedantic tone that made Julius raise an eyebrow. "Well, I didn’t know the specific details, but I had my suspicions. But what I’m telling you now is completely different. There’s something alive here, something that’s moving."
Julius rolled his eyes, but as he observed Ren’s expression more carefully, he realized the boy wasn’t lying. There was tension in his shoulders, a way his eyes moved systematically across the area, that suggested he was genuinely detecting something.
The atmosphere around them changed subtly. What had been a simple exploration of crystallized ruins began to feel different. More silent. More watchful.
The thousands of creature statues surrounding them, which moments before had seemed simply tragic trophies of corruption, now seemed like silent observers.
It was then that a hunter bug emerged from the earth.
It was small, no larger than a five-year-old child, with a dark shell that had kept it perfectly camouflaged against the rocky ground. It moved with the rapid erratic movements typical of a creature being hunted, zigzagging between crystallized statues as if trying to find refuge.
Julius remained motionless, but not because of the beetle. His mind was processing broader implications.
"Ren," he said slowly, "in your research during recent months, have you perceived an increase in low-level creatures in the upper layers?"
Ren frowned, considering the question.
"No," he admitted after a moment. "Actually, now that you mention it..."
His expression changed.
"I understand what you’re asking. I had thought they had simply gone from being preyed upon by abyssal creatures to being hunted by those in Gold and Silver layers after crystallization. But on my journey here, I didn’t sense the increase I expected in their numbers."
Ren began walking slowly among the statues, his mind clearly working through the problem.
"Too few are passing from this abyssal layer. There should be many more now that they have free passage upward, without the main number of predators here to keep them contained."
The logic was sound. The crystallization event should have created a power vacuum, allowing smaller creatures to flourish and migrate upward. The fact that this wasn’t happening suggested something else was maintaining the population control that the crystallized predators could no longer provide.
The hunter beetle disappeared behind a statue, but the sound of its movement continued, suggesting it had found some type of tunnel or crack upward.
"Julius," Ren stopped abruptly, "I need you to hide your presence. Completely."