“Eldest daughter of the Hydra Clan, drop the mask. I’m showing you the truth, not putting you on trial. What’s the point of acting before a True God?”
Her voice flowed soft as moonlit water, while Senro, after the burly man’s wife and child were beheaded, shook like a leaf and couldn’t bear to look.
At the words, she lifted her head like a blade leaving its sheath; the trembling vanished like mist. Regret and grief peeled off her face like a painted mask, and ice returned.
“How did you notice?”
Senro was truly back to her first self, calm as winter glass. Even her tone was flat; the honorific she used rang hollow, like a temple bell with no bronze.
The Valkyrie laughed, a silver ripple on a dark lake.
“I’m a True God. At least pretend some reverence.”
“A True God’s still an achievement wrought by humans,” Senro said, voice cold as frost. “I’m one step from that threshold.”
Her ice-blue eyes locked with the Valkyrie’s gentle gaze, unblinking as two shards of glacier, refusing to yield.
The Valkyrie only shrugged, a feather falling, then pointed at the carnage below like a judge’s fan.
“Watch the truth you asked for. Even as the hand behind the curtain, you didn’t foresee this. Because…”
Her soft eyes narrowed like crescent moons. She eyed the splattered black blood on the middle-aged man’s robes and smiled an unreadable smile, cool as rain.
“…that’s the power of a True God.”
They lowered their gazes again, two hawks circling a battlefield, and fell silent.
“So, next patriarch of Hydra,” the middle-aged man drawled, voice dry as sand. “Watching your wife and child die under your nose—if it were me, I’d have slit my throat. Why drag this out?”
He gripped the burly man’s hair like a butcher seizing a carcass, yanked his head up, and forced him to face the two headless bodies like two toppled pillars.
“Look at you. What did your futile resistance buy you?”
The burly man seemed deaf, gaze spreading like spilled ink. His eyes dulled, light draining like a guttered lamp.
“Tch. Dead? Dispose of him.”
After speaking to a corpse for too long, his temper curdled like milk. He turned to leave, coat flaring like a dark wing.
Executioners closed in, blades dropping like hailstones. Steel hacked without hesitation, eager as wolves, trying to turn him into minced meat, as if nursing an ancient grudge.
“This method—only Hydra’s own know,” the Valkyrie murmured, voice cool as dew. “Against a Demigod Hydra, only total bodily ruin truly kills. Leave a head, and revival slips in like a vine. Unfortunately…”
“Unfortunately, he borrowed a True God’s power, right?”
Senro’s low answer glided out like a shadow, pleasing the Valkyrie. As the carnage ebbed, she snapped her fingers, and the scene folded like paper into a barracks.
With the clever, you only point at the moon; they see the sky.
“By the way, give my regards to your Highness,” a middle-aged man said as he left, smile thin as silk. “It’s our lord’s wish.”
He bowed deeply toward a black silhouette about to depart, posture humble as a servant kneeling by an incense burner.
The shadow didn’t answer. A silent nod fell like a pebble. She split space like glass and left.
“She’s probably not far from your level. What a pity.”
The Valkyrie’s teasing glint flickered like foxfire. Senro lowered her head; for a breath, something complex rippled in her ice-blue eyes like wind under ice.
It vanished at once, a cloud torn by sun, leaving the Valkyrie no room to taunt.
The scene shifted again, a tent breathing like a lung. The middle-aged commander rested, feeding flame with a letter, watching it turn to ash like snow.
Black Arcane Power seeped from his neck, quiet as smoke. Eyes fixed on the burning script, he missed the darkness curling out like a vine.
“Hard to strong-arm us into ‘winning over the Hydra Clan,’” he started, voice a rusty hinge—
Pain exploded; his eyes bulged like overripe fruit. The black Arcane Power had cinched around his throat like a noose, hoisting him onto an invisible gallows.
Agony flooded him; blood fountained scarlet, then the Arcane Power drank it like a starved beast, turning life into fuel.
The struggle felt long as winter, but lasted only a heartbeat.
Within the black current, a shadow blurred like ink, and slid into the man’s body along the wound like a river entering stone.
“This is his door back to life,” the Valkyrie said, freezing time like a frost over water. “You never imagined it. The Demigod you used as a stepping stone turned himself into blood through a True God’s power.”
She halted the moment, led Senro forward like a guide through ruins, and drew the black Arcane Power out with ease, holding it up as if it were a pebble.
Senro glimpsed its essence, and her face blanched like paper. Even her iron will stepped back, a foot retreating from a cliff.
“This is the True God power your clan craves. What, won’t you look closer?”
She smiled, serene as a lotus, fingers calm around a writhing knot of malice. Crimson Flame traced a circle and wrapped it, a burning ring around night.
From the malice, a black silhouette poured out like tar.
A snap, and time flowed like a river; the shadow collapsed into fragments and burrowed into the middle-aged man’s flesh like worms into earth.
The lifeless corpse jerked, seized like a storm-hit tree. Limbs twisted to grotesque angles, a puppet dancing to unseen strings.
The black Arcane Power sank completely into him, and the frantic convulsions ceased. Eyes pale from choking regained a glimmer, cold as a polished bead.
No doubt—this middle-aged man was a borrowed skin. Inside, the burly man had moved in like a tenant replacing the owner.
He stood to test the frame, stirred Arcane Power like coals, and rolled his shoulders until joints cracked crisp as ice.
Certain of revival, he dropped to his knees and sobbed, voice smothered like a mime’s. He wept without sound, as if afraid to stir the air.
Tears streaked, and under their veil a warped smile cut his face like a knife.
“So good… so good…”
He whispered like a man hauled from drowning, gulping air in ragged lungfuls, chest bellows squeaking.
“How pathetic,” the Valkyrie breathed, soft as rain. “Borrow another’s body to return. How much of yourself’s left?”
The images sped up, a lantern flickering through scenes. Wearing the man’s face, the burly one played his role well, fighting under Fenrir like a hound along the hunt.
He stayed at the fringes, a shadow on the edge of bonfires. He seemed content there, and ignored Fenrir’s deliberate placing like fog ignoring stones.
Truth was, borderlands fed him bloodlines like rivers. In five short years, he harvested the blood of countless marginal species, a reaper in the weeds.
In battle, his mind clashed with the middle-aged man’s, antlers locking in the skull. Whenever he lost ground, the black Arcane Power appeared and “killed” the man again, cutting the thread clean.
The scene flipped; the man vanished like smoke. Nero and Fenrir took the stage, two lamps in different rooms.
Though in different spaces, each received a letter, parchment falling like a leaf. The Valkyrie smiled at Senro, a question curled like incense, asking if she wanted the words revealed.
“No need. I know it well,” Senro said, voice cool as starlight. “His Majesty’s direct order. I’m to seal it with the power of stars.”
“Impressive,” the Valkyrie crooned, a cat purring. “The Hydra Clan’s eldest daughter watching the royal house wipe out her own blood. What did the Demon King promise you? I’d love the tale from your lips.”
Senro snorted, a frost-spark. “A True God isn’t omniscient?”
The Valkyrie donned a coy look, a veil of shyness, and laughed softly. “A True God never knows better than the person herself.”
Senro met her gaze, cold as winter sun. After a long silence, seeing the Valkyrie wouldn’t yield, she sighed like a reed and spoke low.
“Simple. The Hydra Clan’s future stands with Nero. With their full support, Nero can outweigh those brothers. Among nobles, he’ll stand equal to Fenrir.”
“So you offered your whole clan as a sacrifice,” the Valkyrie said, delight bright as sparks. “Ruthless. I bet the Demon King wanted to see which heir’s sharper. The bigger the cake, the steadier the knife.”
She drifted to Nero’s side, plucked up the letter like a plum. “And another layer—testing your loyalty, right, Miss Senro?”
Senro didn’t answer. Her words fell cold as ash. “You’re satisfied. Now let me keep watching the truth.”
“Alright,” the Valkyrie said, a smile like morning. “A deal’s a deal. I don’t break my word.”
She snapped her fingers, sound clear as glass. Time flowed again like a river.
After reading, both activated hidden arrays, sigils blooming like stars. They spoke across distance like two moons reflecting, probed each other, and soon reached a tacit accord, quiet as snow settling.
