“Heh... Ouroboros, you’re right. We still have a debt to settle, written in flame and steel.”

The woman in white, cool as moonlight on snow, was Aphelia’s martial mentor—the Valkyrie of Eastern legend.

She smiled and undid her cloak. Her spotless white robe fell like a feathered mantle, born to oppose Uroboros’s black feathered vestments like day against night.

“Hahahahahahaha. Settle a debt? Valkyrie, don’t tell me you still think this is before the reset.”

As if hearing a grand joke, Uroboros watched her with feline amusement, then flicked a streak of pitch-black light like a whip. It howled toward the Valkyrie.

The ambush failed. Two blooms of Crimson Flame rose like twin suns, settling before the Valkyrie.

“Not so fast. Why don’t you ask ‘Crimson Sakura’ on my hands?”

As the Crimson Flame unfurled, a snarling Ghostface Vambrace coiled onto her slender arms. The scattered flames drifted like cherry blossoms, circling the Valkyrie.

Her smile was gentle, a spring breeze over ice. Her eyes held no killing intent, yet the demon mask growled like a caged beast straining at the bars.

“Crimson Sakura? Don’t make me laugh. If that were the real thing, I’d be ash by now. Would you still be trading words with me?”

Uroboros raised her pitch-black lance. Endless dark streamers gathered like a massed army, and even the shadow hanging midair was drawn into that night-lit torrent.

“Your Majesty, please allow me to fight!”

Duke Dion dropped to one knee. Shame burned hotter than his pride; being sent flying by the Valkyrie had scalded his face.

“Get out.”

The words hit like poison. Duke Dion looked up, stunned, confusion and anger writhing like snakes in his eyes.

“I said get out. Didn’t you hear me?”

Uroboros’s cold glance sliced toward him. Instinct, old as blood, buckled his knees. He stumbled back, sweating buckets.

Fear dragged him to the past—the day he was an apprentice and faced a dragon at the apex of the food chain. That sovereign pressure had cracked his courage like thin ice.

Seeing it, Uroboros stopped caring about him. She turned—only to meet a giant ghostly face blooming before her, followed by a hammering iron fist.

Crimson Flame coiled up like live serpents, riding the brutal force as it slammed into Uroboros before she could think.

“Ever heard this one? Don’t get distracted in a fight.”

The Crimson Flame swept on without a pause, a tidal burn. The high-and-mighty Uroboros was sent flying, clean and simple.

“You bastard!”

Duke Dion charged the Valkyrie. Black lightning fell like a blazing divine verdict.

But divine verdicts are for humans.

Crimson Flame surged up like a wall of fire, swallowed the lightning mid-descent, and the Valkyrie didn’t budge. Duke Dion went tumbling again.

“Ahh, worthy of the Valkyrie. Small fry like that could never match you. Your opponent should be me!”

Uroboros’s teasing voice rang from far off, yet it brushed the ear like a whisper.

“She’s in the air!”

The red-haired mage followed the sound. She saw six black wings spread wide in the sky.

Uroboros gripped her black lance. She dove with the streamers of night, a giant serpent plunging. The lance became venomous fangs lunging for the Valkyrie.

“Valkyrie, if you still have your old strength, take this!”

Uroboros’s calm broke. Madness curled her smile. The aura of a True God exploded, and the swarming black light twisted space. Shadows were born from that dark domain, blades in hand, charging the Valkyrie.

The world shuddered. That was the awe of a True God.

It dwarfed the earlier skirmishes. Not twice, not tenfold—power that stepped outside the tier of dimensions.

The red-haired mage couldn’t bear it. She fainted, a candle snuffed by a gale. Senro held out slightly better, but beneath her pallor bloomed a feverish flush, her body almost crushed by that weight.

“Why bluff behind borrowed might? You haven’t even recovered.”

The Valkyrie smiled. She flicked motes of Crimson Flame that circled Senro and the red-haired mage like a ward. The True God’s pressure broke like waves against a cliff and fell away.

Senro gulped air like a drowning woman, fighting on the lip of death.

Below, the Valkyrie faced that divine storm as if strolling through mist. Crimson Flame burst from the Ghostface Vambrace. A fist drew back to her waist, slow and steady.

Her hair tie burned in the blaze. Black hair fell like a waterfall, whipped by the wind.

“Ancient Martial Flow—”

The black lance was a breath from her throat. Time seemed to stop. Crimson Flame and black streamlight stood like rival banners, locked in a dead heat.

Only the Valkyrie sighed, soft as falling snow.

“Shattering Fist.”

Her tucked fist slid forward, gentle as a push on a door. It carried the weight of a mountain. The black lance shattered segment by segment under that one strike.

Crimson Flame became a storm of fire, roaring upward. It swallowed the army of shadow soldiers, and in that endless blaze, almost nothing survived.

Uroboros’s expression froze. Terrible force raced up the broken lance like a thunderclap. Even her long-unmarred feathered vestment split along her arms, threads snapping like brittle frost.

She screamed and beat her wings, retreating in a frantic spray of feathers. The Valkyrie on the ground had no intention of letting her go. The Ghostface Vambrace vanished. Pale, slim hands seized the six black wings.

“Don’t rush off, Ouroboros. Weren’t you here to test my strength?”

The Valkyrie beamed. Those delicate arms held a brute, unreasonable power. She tore Uroboros down and pinned her with an elbow, clean and merciless.

Uroboros didn’t yield. Her black wings slashed like honed blades, hacking at the Valkyrie pressing her down. But Crimson Flame rose as the stoutest shield, and every cut fell to ash.

“Why? Why is your power… this is impossible…”

Her roar was raw with refusal. Black streamers probed for gaps, but the Crimson Flame moved like it had a mind. Every dark ray met flame and died; there was no blind spot.

The Valkyrie only smiled. She took out a ring and reached for Uroboros’s ring finger.

The sight of the ring made Uroboros thrash harder. Fear flickered in her pupils. An enormous magic circle bloomed beneath her like a black sun. Its terrible force made Senro lift her wand to help.

The Valkyrie made a simple move. She tapped a fist into Uroboros’s abdomen.

The touch looked soft. It landed like a hammer inside the body. Pinned beneath her, Uroboros choked blood, the magic circle shattered, and wild Arcane Power blew into a devouring storm.

Senro and the red-haired mage stared, eyes wide as moons. A True God bled. Their worldview cracked like glass.

“No—don’t send me back to that hellhole!”

Still, Uroboros kept fighting. The Valkyrie atop her felt like an unmoving stone, and the Crimson Flame weathered the onslaught like silk turned steel.

Sometimes soft, sometimes hard—brute force was ground down by its resilience. Subtle arts bounced off its spring. Not even a seam opened in that fire.

“You’re right, Ouroboros. That place is terrifying.”

The Valkyrie watched Uroboros’s frantic struggle and smiled with a touch of helplessness.

Uroboros froze at that, staring up like she’d found a monster in human skin, weighing the truth in those words.

“Believe me, Ouroboros. No matter how I try to understand you, your betrayal is written in iron.”

Her smile faded. Cold replaced it, contemptuous as frost on graves. Senro’s usual chill looked cast from the same mold, only far less terrifying.

A giant Ghostface Vambrace loomed behind the Valkyrie. Crimson Flame lit it like a furnace. It pressed down Uroboros’s frantic wings, and the searing bite drew a cry of pain.

Satisfied, the Valkyrie nodded. She bent, lips to Uroboros’s ear, and whispered.

“Even your rebirth was done with our help. And this time, you chose to betray us again.”

She straightened and swept aside the black hair veiling Uroboros’s face, palm stroking her cheek. If Senro and the others saw it, they’d cry out.

They were mirrors—face for face. Only the set of the brows differed. With the hair brushed away, Uroboros’s features were the Valkyrie’s reflection.

“A hundred million years ago, a billion years ago, even before the reset—you chose betrayal every time. Ouroboros, tell me, why shouldn’t I send you back there?”

The Valkyrie laughed, bright as sunlight on blades. But her slanted, alluring eyes were ice-cold, gazing down as if at a corpse.