The following contains spoilers for The Eminence in Shadow Season 1, now available to stream on HIDIVE.
Episode 4 of The Eminence in Shadow, “Sadism’s Rewards” throws fans into a gory showdown as Cid and the rest of Shadow Garden save Princess Alexia and overthrow the Diablos Cult’s second kidnapping. While the princess suffers from more injury than when Cid’s sister, Claire, was abducted for her blood as a heroes’ descendant, the white-haired monster held in the cell beside Alexia may have had a much more tragic tale.
The unexpected actions of this monster give the impression that it is more than just a puppet subjected to experiments by the Diablos Cult, while also holding an obscure but deep connection to Shadow Garden and Cid’s first encounter with the hidden cult members.
The Monster In the Cell
The first glimpse of this hideously disfigured white-haired monster is at the beginning of Episode 4 when Princess Alexia finds herself trapped in a dungeon cell and strapped to a chair. As the princess takes in her surroundings, she notices a crouched figure with its foot chained in the cell beside her, watching her until a cult scientist with a few screws loose approaches Alexia.
This monster is not given a name in the episode and instead seemed to be a failed experiment the Diablos Cult scientist used to vent his anger during his fits. While it acted submissive and didn’t fight back against the scientist’s violence, it showed a cautious attitude, keeping an eye on Alexia after she saved it from another beating by distracting the scientist and turning his focus onto herself instead. This white-haired figure only showed defiance against the scientist’s abuse when he injected it with a prototype medicine made out of the blood of hero descendants — including Alexia’s royal blood — to fight against Shadow Garden’s attack.
Rather than becoming a sacrificial weapon for the Diablos Cult, the white-haired monster aimed its power at the scientist that tormented and experimented on it, killing him with no hesitation, however, was still able to retain its sanity and released Alexia from her chains instead of killing her. Free from its shackles and finally strong enough to escape, the monster breaks its way out of the dungeon, and it is not seen for the rest of the episode.
The Father, The Daughter, and The Cult
Although there are not many clues to the white-haired monster’s background in the anime so far, fans of the manga may find it easier to recognize the disfigured experiment. Starting from the beginning, fans need to rewind to Episode 2 of The Eminence in Shadow, “Shadow Garden is Born”, when Cid is fighting as Shadow against the disgraced Viscount Olba, who was a member of the Diablos Cult.
The Viscount is completely outmatched despite his conviction to teach Shadow about how deep the world’s darkness ran and how powerless and fragile reality was in front of it. However, during their battle Olba’s flashbacks briefly display a deeper meaning behind his reason for working under the Diablos Cult. Images of the Viscount and his young, white-haired daughter surrounded by flowers are replaced with images of the child bedridden with the mana overload symptoms displayed by the curse in the hero descendants’ blood — or ‘demon possession’ as the people of their world knew it — while her father cried over her and hooded beings grin wickedly in the background.
Through Viscount Olba’s despair over his powerlessness against the darkness, this backstory suggests that the Diablos Cult took advantage of his daughter’s illness, forcing him to work under them as they kept his daughter hostage with their experiments. Leaving a vague hope in Shadow’s potential to fight against the darkness he failed against, Olba calls out the name ‘Milia’ and Shadow picks up Olba’s locket holding a photo of the father and the daughter in it.
While the anime has yet to show any connection the white-haired monster has to Viscount Olba, the manga gives more clues that fans may find in the coming episodes. It is revealed that the monster is Viscount Olba’s daughter, Milia, through a dagger that Milia’s body leaves after an encounter with Alpha. With the words ‘To my beloved daughter, Milia’ on the sheath, fans of the manga were able to connect the dots between Princess Alexia’s kidnapping and the abduction of Cid’s sister, Claire, in Episode 2 through the flashbacks of this father and daughter pair.
This tragic backstory of the torment Milia experienced as she was experimented on while hostage and the powerlessness that Viscount Olba felt against the Cult as his daughter suffered, and he could do nothing about it, gives fans a deeper peak at the horrific deeds the Diablos Cult were capable of and how far they would go for their goals.
Thankfully, with the support of the Shadow Garden, our clueless hero holds the hope of destroying the Diablos Cult from within the shadows as the Eminence in Shadow.
