The Valkyrie tapped Uroboros’s cheek; her pale fingertips drifted down like snowflakes over hills and valleys; with each touch, the remaining feathered robe ignited, turned to ash, devoured by the Crimson Flame.

Uroboros lost her earlier poise; her body trembled like a leaf in wind; demon-bright eyes welled with glassy tears; she tried to speak, but the words lodged in her throat.

"You forgot your duty and profaned the power we lent you; even if you’re this universe’s primal truth, a dawn-born star, you can’t be like this."

Uroboros jerked up to argue, like a snake coiling to strike, but the Valkyrie set an index finger against those vivid red lips; her gaze was winter steel, and Uroboros sank back like frost-bitten grass.

"You’ve stained yourself with mankind’s original sin—pride; that’s the heaviest sin; so return to that place, and perhaps you’ll find our mercy like rain after drought."

The Valkyrie lifted Uroboros’s right hand, light as a swan taking wing; a pure-white ring slid onto her ring finger like a crescent moon settling on water.

As the ring seated, Crimson Flame burst from its halo like a breaking volcano; it surged around Uroboros in waves; black mist peeled from her body like night torn from dawn.

Pain struck like a spear of fire; Uroboros cried out; then a wet warmth pressed to her lips, sweet as forbidden honeyed wine; the taboo flooded her mind like tide, and she closed her eyes, letting the Crimson Flame burn like midsummer sun.

Cataracts of black hair braided together like rivers; pale hands interlaced, ten fingers locking like dovetailed roots; white and black seemed to melt into one stream, no longer separable.

"Farewell."

A soft sigh rose like wind through pines, a send-off bell rung in fog.

"Lord Senro, look— they’ve stayed inside that flame so long; won’t something happen?"

The red-haired mage eyed the Crimson Flame, worry curling like smoke; even with her Demigod strength, she couldn’t pierce what changed within, as if cloud hid mountains.

"Don’t rush; the Valkyrie most likely won; see how those black streamers are almost swallowed by the crimson, like ink fading in sunrise."

Senro’s words had barely fallen when a ragged scream tore the air like a torn banner; they turned, and there lay Duke Dion, crushed utterly by the Valkyrie’s storm.

Black streamers flayed off his body like shed bark; his True God aura dwindled fast, like a tide draining; in moments it dropped below the True God threshold and fell back to Demigod.

His flesh changed even more plain to the eye; the sculpted, statue-like physique shrank like a grape to a raisin; without the black streamers, it withered below the strength he once had before his conversion.

Duke Dion writhed in the pit like a wounded boar; he slammed his head into rock walls without hesitation, carving blood on stone, a self-mutilation like thorns.

The instant Senro and her companion appeared at the pit’s rim, he saw salvation like a lighthouse in storm; he collapsed to his knees; his clouded eyes pleaded, and his voice shook like a cracked bell.

"Lord Senro… save me! I was wrong before…"

Senro answered his begging with silence; she slid one step back, a single cold leaf falling; that step shredded Duke Dion’s fragile nerves like paper.

"Why… why—aaah!"

Like a beast stripped of reason, Duke Dion clawed upward, hands and feet scrambling like a spider on glass; bloodshot eyes blazed; Demigod power flared around him; black Thunder sparked like crows in a storm.

Senro sighed softly, a winter wind through reeds; she raised her deep-blue staff; countless ice pillars thrust up like spears of glacier; an ice-blue array opened in the air like a frosted flower; several ice spikes fell and pierced Duke Dion as he lunged.

Scalding blood ran down the ice like red rivers; Duke Dion, caught mid-leap, was skewered through the lumbar spine and locked in the air, nowhere to brace, a moth pinned.

"Why… why? I only craved power, Lord Senro—can’t you grasp that?" His roar came like a dying stag’s bellow; his malice-lit eyes fixed on Senro; blood spilled from his mouth like broken wine, but the roar didn’t stop.

"I gave so much to the Demon World; yet I’m not even a peak Demigod with a chance at True God; I’m just a man forced into Demigod for war, a sword hammered in smoke."

"You madman!"

The red-haired mage snapped like a spark in dry grass; she wanted to strike, but Senro barred her with a palm, a wall of ice.

Senro faced Duke Dion’s bitter howl with an unreadable face like a sealed mask; she watched him struggle as her staff glowed with frost-wrought Arcane Power, ready to erase him like snow over tracks.

"Right, Lord Senro, you’ve nothing to say; the Demon World never gave me equal return; it never gave me chances to grow; I was loyal, and what did I get— ashes!"

Duke Dion’s elegance was gone like petals blown away; he only roared, trying to drown the helplessness of life ebbing like sand from a glass.

"Enjoy the fruits of victory, Lord Senro; you’ll forever—"

His words snapped; a Crimson arrow had already punched through his skull like a comet; his shrunken body burned to ash, a paper effigy in flame.

"First daughter of the Hydra family, you still have time to listen to that drivel?"

The Crimson Flame parted like a curtain; the Valkyrie walked out carrying a milk-pale body on her shoulder, a white lily in her arms.

She smiled at Senro and her companion like sun after rain; then she handed the body to Senro without hesitation, a weight like a sleeping swan.

"What is this?"

Senro hesitated, and received it carefully like holding porcelain; when she saw the face in her hands, even her iron steadiness shook like a chime; her hands trembled, and the person nearly slipped to the floor.

"Ah—this is Aphelia. You haven’t met her like this. I’ve removed everything tied to the Ouroboros. You can rest easy."

The Valkyrie steadied Senro with a gentle touch like warm wind; her mild words eased Senro a little like balm; but the black-haired girl’s presence still left a chill like moonlight on water.

The red-haired mage didn’t dare step forward; to her, the Valkyrie was someone from another world, a star beyond reach; one wrong word felt like it could get her torn apart like paper.

The Valkyrie saw it all and only smiled, calm as a lake; she waved, and the Crimson Flame opened a massive portal like a blooming peony.

"Um… Valkyrie—my lady—may I ask why you came to the Demon World?"

Senro grew bolder like a sprout breaking soil; she saw the Valkyrie ready to leave and called quickly; chances like this are rare as comets.

Since the start, Senro and her people had been ensnared in chain-schemes like nets; from shadow monsters, to Demigod raids invading Clive City, to the moment just now—without the Valkyrie’s timely strike, Uroboros would have cut them down like wheat.

No doubt, to learn the secret of why Uroboros appeared in the Demon World, they had to rely on another True God—the Valkyrie, a lighthouse on the black sea.

Senro’s eyes carried quiet hope like a lantern; she knew the odds of an answer were slim, but this was a chance to hear truth from a True God; in an age when True Gods no longer walk the world, scholars spend lifetimes chasing such dawn.

The reason is simple: any True God, upon ascension, meets the world’s Origin like rivers meeting the sea; whatever happens in the world can’t slip past their gaze.

"Let’s go back to your city and talk, shall we?"

Hearing the Valkyrie’s gentle reply, Senro let out a breath like mist; since she didn’t refuse, hope flickered like a candle.

Thinking that, Senro sighed inside, a breath folded; she lowered her head and looked at the sleeping girl in her arms, a black-haired moon.

"Are you blessing or calamity?"

Senro dared only whisper in her heart like a prayer; she feared the Valkyrie might sense it like thunder; she couldn’t read this True God’s mind, even though they’d met once long ago, a leaf on an old stream.

Clive City, Temporary Outpost

"This is Aphelia? How did she turn out like this? She looks younger in one way… yet somehow more mature, like fruit on the branch."

Nero had regained consciousness; he leaned on the window like a wounded hawk and watched Aphelia carefully; he whispered to Zhe at his side, a small tide of words.

He looked ragged; bandages wrapped him like winter linen; the healing Runes etched around him were so many they dazzled like stars; before coming, he’d even had them tended, smoothed like lacquer.

But with the Valkyrie descending like a meteor, Nero—crown prince and lord of the city—didn’t dare slack, a soldier at attention.

Zhe frowned, lines like ripples; the black-haired girl on the bed looked too much like Aphelia, yet she carried a seductive demon-charm Aphelia never had, a night-blooming flower.

He wanted to probe Aphelia’s aura like tasting wind, but after learning the lovely woman at the bedside was the Valkyrie, he killed the thought like snuffing a flame; his gaze even grew feverish, a pilgrim before a shrine.

The Valkyrie ignored them, quiet as snowfall; she sat by the bed and looked at Aphelia with a gaze so tender it seemed to drip honey; she stroked that waterfall of black hair like a hand on silk.

The air turned rosy and awkward like dusk on clouds; no one dared disturb them, because one was the Valkyrie, and the other had been a True God poised to slay them—two storms crossing.

"Ahem… Lady Valkyrie, I mean no offense, but could you explain all this to us?"

At last, Senro couldn’t stand the pink haze; she coughed lightly, like tapping a cup, and spoke.