Fierce silver light flickered like broken lightning, and the space-storm swelled like a whirlpool. It bulged to the brink of eruption, a fruit about to split its skin. No matter who won, this storm would promise mutual ruin, like twin candles dying in the same wind.

Neither pair of eyes showed retreat, like two blades refusing their sheaths. The young Ophelius burned most of all, as if killing Aphelia was his final shore. He cast an incomplete Titleholder-level spell, yet his force surged past a Titleholder, like a tide overleaping the moon-dam. Aphelia felt that pressure close as a mountain’s shadow.

“Alright, alright, almost missed it—stand down!”

A familiar voice fell into the Sea of Consciousness like a bell into still water. At once, both of them felt their magic circles buck free, like reins cut from wild horses. Space heaved in violent ripples, and Aphelia threw up a shield like a hurried umbrella, bracing for a Titleholder spell gone feral.

A blinding flash flooded the sky like noon poured into midnight. Before Aphelia’s eyes shut, she caught the outline of a familiar figure, a lantern seen through mist.

The impact hit like a hammer on paper. Her shield turned to rice paper in rain. The first shock stole her awareness in a breath. Twisted space and raw Arcane Power burst like seeds in fire, and in this inner sea, everything felt cruelly real, like frost that bites harder at dawn.

The black-and-white Sea of Consciousness buckled, ink and snow colliding. Space ripples grew visible to the naked eye, like rings racing across a lake. One more step and the sea would shatter like porcelain, and Aphelia’s life would spill with it.

An invisible force rose like a hidden frame of ribs and held the world together. The raging waves met a greater current, and after a few fierce flares, the violence dissolved like foam in sunlight. Besides that first blast, a Titleholder clash went quiet as falling ash. If not for the trembling edges, no one would guess a duel had bloomed here.

A slender figure floated in midair like a crane poised on wind. Complex sigils spun in her hands like clockwork stars. Chains built from Runes poured out like silver serpents and bound the young Ophelius from throat to heel.

“She’s the real you. You’re just a copy. Why are your emotions burning this hot? I don’t recall giving you that gift.”

She stood tall and beautiful, with black hair pouring to her waist like a waterfall at dusk. A broad white robe draped her like a slow cloud, lending a lazy grace. Her face was gentle as spring water, yet a blade of heroism showed between her brows.

“Maybe because I’m her copy.”

Bound, Ophelius wore a sneer like a scar. He stared at her as if she were a sworn enemy, two cliffs glaring over a gorge.

“Oh? That is amusing. You’re only the contingency I left to protect her, a buried seed. Even if you kill her, you can’t replace her. You know that bone-deep.”

Her smile stayed, soft as light through gauze. She turned her wrist, and the pattern flared like a rising constellation. The chains tightened in a snap like a hunting leash and yanked him to her heel.

“So what? Once she dies, you’ll have to pick me. Look at her. Is that really your best harvest?”

He roared like a caged beast, struggling until the chains rang. He drove Arcane Power and forged blades of light, moon-thin edges trying to hew the chains apart.

“Stop. That trick looks refined, but it’s a low shelf masquerading as high wine. You’re only adding pain to pain.”

The halos around him faded like petals in frost. They broke into countless Runes, fireflies returning to the starry pattern in her hands. With the halos gone, his blazing blades winked out like sparks in rain, leaving not even a scorch mark.

“Add pain? Heh… hehehe… hahahahaha! My Mother, I’m her soul too. Whatever feelings she carries, I carry like a mirror.”

Without the halos, the chains drank his strength like roots drinking rain. He aged before the eye, a peach turning to dust in the palm. Flesh and pain traded blows, and his Titleholder force dwindled like a tide drawn off the shore. What power the chains stole ran back along them into her hands, gathering into a silvery-white orb, a cold little moon.

“…So you know that answer better than I do, don’t you.”

Withered, he forced each word like lifting stones. The light in his pupils dimmed like coals going black. His aura fell to mortal dust.

Like a candle in the wind, Ophelius watched her, holding one last breath as if waiting for a bell to ring.

She didn’t answer at once. She kept the chains working like mills, grinding Arcane Power and life down to light. When a segment of the array lit like a filled cup, she finally spoke.

“Yes. I know the answer. Once you have awareness, who gladly dies for another? That’s no one’s first wish.”

She paused, tasting the words like tea, then said:

“But how is she ‘another’? She’s your whole body. You’re just a sliver, a leaf from her bough. Without her, there is no you. I split you off for this single day, a blade kept in cloth. Because of that, the one who should live is her, not you. We don’t have another millennium to burn.”

Ophelius drew a breath like a man surfacing. After he took Aphelia’s memories, he tripped the key his Mother had set, a bolt falling home. The copy’s fate had been chalked long ago on stone.

“If only you hadn’t given me awareness. Then I wouldn’t fight the yoke. I wouldn’t dream of taking her place, becoming a piece on your board. I can’t outrun your design. So what can you do about it?!”

Hearing his aged roar, she shook her head, a willow shedding one leaf.

“Fate? You truly think this is fate’s needle? Tell me—did I teach you anywhere to bow to fate?”

“But…”

“You think my plan was unfair, that you were born to die. Think back to the clash just now. She fought with raw instinct and the grit of scars, and she tangled you up, you with your polished tricks, even driving to kill. Tell me, where did she lean on fate? In her Titleholder power stands an undying will, iron under silk. You’re an empty shell, a drum without skin.”

He fell silent, the words torn from his throat like thread. He sighed long, half resignation, half winter wind. He closed his eyes and waited, still as stone.

“Farewell, Mother.”

The chains covered him like falling snow. Before he vanished, he spoke with a thin sorrow, a flute note fading.

“Farewell.”

Her smile dropped away like a veil. Gravity wrote solemn lines on her face. The array turned like an ancient astrolabe, and Runes streamed along the chains like rivers of stars. They wrapped him, unspooling him into rays, and the light flowed toward Aphelia like aurora to the pole.

When the young Ophelius was gone, the woman no longer floated. She drifted down like a leaf. Only after the last streamer sank into Aphelia did she drive the chains into the ground-bound girl, pouring in that silver radiance like moonlight into a cup.

Aphelia dreamed long, a silk unrolling past the horizon. In the dream, she lived her life again and again, as if walking a corridor of mirrors. Laughter and bright wine, grief and helpless snow, blood-rain and iron wind—every unforgettable scene became a labyrinth, and she nearly drowned in her own tide.

“Wake up.”

A familiar, gentle call brushed her ear like a reed in water, again and again. When she started to sink, it caught her by the wrist and pulled her toward shore. She opened her eyes by degrees.

First came a pair of clear eyes, bright as stars washed by rain, carrying a thousand unstated gentlenesses. Then the face came into focus, like a moon lifting through cloud.

“Ma… Master?!”

The sight of that iconic white robe hit her like a bell. She blinked wide. Then she realized what her pillow was. Panic bloomed like firecrackers. She struggled to rise, and a gentle force pressed her down like a palm to ripples.

“Calm yourself, Aphelia. The poise I taught you—did you forget it at the door?”

Her voice was soft with a smile, warm as tea. Panic ebbed from Aphelia like a drawn tide. Her face flushed, and she turned aside, not daring to meet her Master’s gaze.

A faint fragrance drifted from the woman, cool as orchids in shade, and Aphelia’s heart-monk leapt from branch to branch. This was her Master, the famed Valkyrie of the East. What was she even thinking?

With that frantic thought, Aphelia shut her eyes again, an ostrich burying its head in sand, hoping to vanish from the sky.

Her mood right now could be summed up in one breath.

I woke up on the Valkyrie’s lap—soft as clouds and far too comfy. What do I do? Send help. Urgent.