As Aphelia sprang into the void, the Valkyrie of Light flared behind her, twin wings of radiance driving her straight at the Church’s warships.

Her entry shattered the battlefield’s balance, and the Church wouldn’t sit and wait to die. Not everyone could stride the void on flesh alone, but weapons and magitech were made to answer her.

From the foremost warship drifted a warrior in dark gray armor. Flame shaped wings beat once and hurled him at Aphelia. It could only be Phoenix.

Seeing Phoenix take point, a breath of relief loosened Aphelia’s chest. She knew the Church’s depth wasn’t just a turncoat Phoenix; she’d counted that weight in already.

As Phoenix closed, a wry smile touched her lips. Searing light knit itself into her right arm. The Holy Sword flashed into being. She held it across her waist, stance set in the Ancient Martial Flow.

The Valkyrie slipped from her side and speared toward the clustered warships, a comet on a righteous arc. Even if the Valkyrie entered Phoenix’s reach, he didn’t dare split his focus.

Phoenix moved in the void because Church armor shouldered most of the void’s turbulence. The rest he ate with a monstrous regeneration and a stubborn will.

If Aphelia struck in that moment, the armor wouldn’t last. It would fail under her cut, and he wouldn’t survive the void like she did.

“Ancient Martial Flow—”

Phoenix had already read her stance from afar. His blade rasped free. Fire surged, forging a giant flaming edge that cleaved toward Aphelia.

“Autumn Silence!”

A tide of sword-qi rose, bright against the starless dark. Flame edge met that wave, and shock ripples hammered the void, one after another.

“Damn it—does that lunatic not fear dying with us, crushed by the void?!”

Inside the lead warship, Jericho clung to life through a brutal array. No one expected the head Cardinal to crawl back after Aphelia’s kill-stroke.

He roared, because Phoenix’s reckless clashes had already shaken the ships behind. Even in the void, a warship was only a skin of protection, like a ship at sea that can’t ignore a Plague of Beasts.

If a hull breaks in the void, the loss is bottomless. His fury was a storm rolling for good reason.

Aphelia refused to let them sit like anglers on a safe pier. As the Church moved to patch, that holy figure appeared before them, sword and shield raised, her cut ruthless as winter frost.

The two in the center had no time for the rear. Aphelia had to stall the Church and guard Lena’s escape. Phoenix had to live and kill Aphelia here.

The blast-waves thinned, revealing their silhouettes trading blows. The Holy Sword’s pressure drove Aphelia’s assault, no mercy held back. Her arm of light swung cleaner and harder than ever.

Phoenix had long fought beside her; he wasn’t a fool. He leaned into his long blade’s reach. Each strike sought a wound, small but stacking—best play from a losing hand.

“Phoenix, they all have their reasons to kill me…”

Steel screamed as Holy Sword met long blade. Aphelia snapped a kick, sending Phoenix skidding back, distance forced open. Light flared along her sword. Holy radiance extended the edge in countless streamers, and the cut raced at Phoenix.

“And you—what are you fighting for?!”

Phoenix didn’t answer; he had no breath to waste. He tried to throw a flaming edge to guard, but he was late. The light-forged blade carved him clean, a killing stroke meant to take his life.

A man who could stand beside a Hero doesn’t die so easily.

A shriek, beast and bird at once, ripped through the void. Fire exploded from Phoenix’s wounds, blooming with him at the center. The king of birds roared defiance, a blazing answer to the intruder.

Not only Aphelia felt it. The Church’s warships shuddered, and damaged plates burst into fire, burning without air in the hungry dark.

Aphelia let the giant light blade fade. Her eyes narrowed. She faced the phoenix of flame, its wings beating like a furnace. In its heart, she saw Phoenix’s body knitting at shocking speed. The sight pinched her temples and dragged a helpless sigh.

“The power of the Phoenix…”

She raised the Holy Sword to strike again, then froze. Relief softened her face. The holy light around the blade unwound, reweaving into a vast magic circle.

She exhaled, quiet as falling ash, and drew a cut across her palm. Blood bright as dawn coated her grip. She drove the Holy Sword into the circle’s core.

“Using the Holy Sword and me as burial goods—consider it respect.”

Her smile was self-mockery and calm. Stained by her blood, the Holy Sword dimmed completely, became the heart of the circle, and set the spell in motion.

The Valkyrie returned to orbit her, light feathers drifting like snow. She nodded once. The aim had been met.

To wreck them, and to seal their retreat.

The Valkyrie wielded most of Aphelia’s magic, high and low. While Aphelia crossed blades with Phoenix, the Valkyrie had torn through the Church ships and planted a circle that blocked spatial transfer.

She had dragged the battle to this moment on purpose.

A circle fed by the Holy Sword and Aphelia’s Light bloodline—how far could it reach? She didn’t know. She knew this: anyone below a Titleholder wouldn’t escape.

From the instant she stepped from the warship, she’d chosen to strip threats from her friends’ path. If the Church dared chase, they’d bring high-tier force.

So bury them here, and buy time for her friends’ counterstrike.

With that thought, she acted. By a string of sharp coincidences, she would succeed. The price—the weight on the scale—was her life.

As her Light bloodline dwindled, her hold on the Valkyrie slipped. Before the Valkyrie faded, Aphelia thought she saw a smile there, deep and knowing.

“Heh. This is the strongest magic I’ve mastered since earning the Hero’s title.”

She spent the last thread of bloodline. It turned in the lock like a key.

“Title Magic—Dimensional Collapse!”

The colossal circle sank and vanished into the void. Her last Arcane Power spent, Aphelia blacked out. The final image etched in memory was the void fracturing.

An ending like that—maybe it wasn’t so bad.

Her last thought carried a smile. She met death with calm steps.

Phoenix, freshly mended, stared as the void around him began to collapse and compress. He gathered the phoenix’s force and tried to leap to a warship, any plan after that.

The collapse moved too fast. It gave him no time to think.

The warships he reached for, his last straw, were torn by the falling void. Even the Red Cardinals beside him could not bear it. They were ground into dust and scattered into endless night.

The void folded in from all sides like jaws. Even with the power of the phoenix, despair gnawed at Phoenix’s heart. He whipped the flames higher, a sun in a storm, but the collapse didn’t yield.

In despair, he met his death.