The middle-aged man moved like someone struck by revelation, winter-steel in his resolve. He used his knowledge of the Hydra Clan to purge those who had persecuted him, turning them into taboo specimens in a blood-lit lab.

“But don’t set your sights on this power. If you do, next time my hand falls, it’ll be for your head, eldest daughter of the Hydra Clan.”

“Of course not. Any force that demands a blood rite is no different from the Abyss,” Senro said, cold as a still winter lake, disgust and pity glinting inside ice-blue eyes.

The Valkyrie only tilted her head, a petal-soft smile gaining a trace of mockery, like frost edging a blossom.

In the instant Senro’s guard thinned, the gentle eyes behind her seemed to hold wheeling stars, worlds blooming and fading like a night sky in motion.

It vanished in a blink, like dew in sunlight. Senro sensed the ripple, turned sharply, and found only the Valkyrie’s warm smile, smooth as lacquer over steel.

Silence settled like falling ash. Under Senro’s cold gaze, the Valkyrie stayed unfazed, smiling, head tipped playfully like a sparrow, as if asking if Senro had questions.

Senro’s throat tightened first; emotion surged before words. Her voice trembled, ripples on a glassy pond, and her eyes on the Valkyrie lost their calm.

“My Lady Valkyrie… since I received the inheritance, it’s the first time I’ve felt a kin’s aura this strong…”

Stars rose around Senro like beads from deep water. A vast, ink-black firmament pushed to unfurl, but the Valkyrie stepped forward and tore it like silk with a single hand.

The stars beside Senro dimmed at once, candles snuffed by a storm. The imminent starlight vanished, as if swallowed by a night tide.

Senro felt suffocation clamp down, like a vise around her chest. She tried to retreat, but a jade-white hand seized her arm, iron beneath porcelain, and she couldn’t move.

“This isn’t part of our deal. To know, you’ll have to pay a price, and a bigger price at that.”

Her smile never changed, honeyed over blade, yet it chilled Senro like a winter draft. She didn’t dare meet those black eyes, regret pricking like needles.

“I’d better let you reach the truth faster. With curiosity like yours, you’ll die like a moth to flame.”

The hand unclamped, steel turning to silk, and in its place bloomed a Crimson Flame. It wrapped Senro like manacles, chaining her where she stood.

“Stay put. The truth you want will be shown—and finished—soon.”

While the Valkyrie unveiled the truth, everyone outside the Crimson Flame waited with drums beating in their chests, nerves taut like bowstrings.

“Zhe, your family’s dealt with the Valkyrie. What are those flames, really?” Nero asked, eyes narrowed like storm slits.

He asked because he couldn’t see through the Crimson Flame at all. As Hydra Clan, his sense for elements was sharper than most blades.

Even so, Nero couldn’t read it. It wasn’t fire—just power wearing fire’s skin, a mask of embers on a deeper force.

“I don’t know. The Valkyrie only passed us martial skills and artifacts…” Zhe’s voice shook, a tight wire twanging.

True God power felt close, a fever buzzing under his skin, the urge to dive like a moth into a torch. But terror in the Crimson Flame left him one thread of reason, and he didn’t touch it.

“You can relax, Your Highness Nero.” Lilo opened her eyes, gold slits flashing like sun on a blade, freshly after absorbing the Crimson Dragon Source.

Nero met her gaze and pain pricked like needles; he turned aside, wincing under a noon-bright glare.

Then her dragon might rolled out like a thunderhead. Nero stumbled back, storm-tossed, draconic traits surfacing on his face like scales in rain.

“Could you please rein in your dragon might!”

Lilo smiled, sheepish as a fawn, ducked her head, and the aura ebbed, a wind dying behind closed doors.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s a power I just got,” she said, breathing steady, like a fledgling dragon learning its wings.

After a few deep breaths, the prickling might was barely suppressed, a fire under ash. Nero’s draconic signs faded like tidewater slipping off sand.

“Lilo… senior, how did absorbing the Crimson Dragon Source make you weaker? You can’t even suppress your dragon might,” Nero said, choosing words like stepping stones, eyes on her still slit gold pupils.

Dragon might is born with the dragon, a banner of power. These aren’t the wild ages; you don’t need raw aura to cow enemies.

The stronger the dragon, the steadier the flame in the brazier. Suppression is a required lesson for any blood heir who doesn’t want to make foes with every step.

As a Demigod red dragon, Lilo should wield it like a sheath: out to strike, in to vanish, so no one could tell she was dragon at all.

Yet now, Lilo’s force felt unbridled, inciting kin-hostility like sparks in dry brush, tugging others toward a draconic shift.

She herself held a minimal dragonization, gold slit eyes burning like coals that refused to die.

“Weaker?” Lilo chuckled, a low embered laugh. Scorching flame rose around her, full of might, yet bound tight, braided and docile, like the Crimson Flame she toyed with.

The power inside it made Nero’s eyes widen, thunder stepping through his ribs.

Every inch of that fire hit like a Demigod’s full strike, the weight of it pushing past the Demigod’s border like a flood cresting a levee.

More shocks followed. Under Lilo’s hand, the flames were changing in kind, a chrysalis shedding into something higher.

“This is… just like that Crimson Flame, Nero!” Zhe blurted, eyes locked. His spell circle bloomed for analysis, lines of light spinning like gears.

Lilo didn’t care; she kept converting the flame, forging rules in fire. Even Nero leaned in, drawn like iron to lodestone.

A hair’s breadth, and the blaze would cross the gulf between mortal and divine, a bridge laid toward the True God’s gate.

The conversion felt like humanity advancing on the True God. The rules unfolding inside were a direct key, a straight door-latch to the threshold.

Then, at the final step, the flame went out cleanly, life snuffed, the rules halted mid-stroke, like a brush lifted from wet ink.

“That’s as far as I can go for now. Still nowhere near the Valkyrie’s level,” Lilo sighed, shaking her hand, letting the fire drift away like mist.

It was as if the True God rules that bloomed between her palms had never been, night swallowing a fleeting lantern.

Zhe stared, his analysis circle hanging like a stopped clock, mind still drowned in the tide of change.

“This… this… could that truly be a True God’s power?” he stammered, breath thin.

Nero was better, but his mind still stuck like a jammed gear, stunned by what Lilo had shown.

“In short, I got stronger. I’m closer to the Crimson Dragon Origin. I haven’t become a True God yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I’ll explain the details later.”

Nero’s shock eased a little, like snow slumping off a branch. Still, what she’d shown stood at the top of the Demon World, a peak in cloud.

“Th—this place is…” A faint voice cut across the room, like a bell muffled in fog.

They all turned toward it like flowers to light. Aphelia, who had been unconscious, held her forehead, leaning weakly on the bed, body adjusting like a lute retuned.

“Miss Aphelia, this is—” Lilo stepped forward to explain, but inky Arcane Power burst from Aphelia, weaving a tough barrier, a lacquered shell that blocked them out.

Aphelia didn’t open her eyes, head throbbing, posture slow as someone surfacing from deep water. The ink-black power cradled her, floating her toward them like a leaf on a stream.

She tried to step out—then collided, hard, with the barrier, a gong-strike of impact, and knocked herself out again. The barrier shattered like glass, and Lilo rushed in to catch her.

“What even is that… too strong and knocked herself out?” Nero said, face complete with bolded embarrassment.

He’d expected Aphelia’s awakening to bring calamity like thunder, judging by that barrier, which clearly surpassed a Titleholder’s force.

But she woke, took two steps, and knocked herself out. The grand storm turned slapstick, a sky turned slip.

“This… shouldn’t count as me being careless. I hope the Valkyrie will be lenient…” Lilo said, cheeks warm, holding Aphelia with careful hands.

She’d planned for countless awakenings, rehearsed answers if the Valkyrie didn’t arrive. She’d prepared for cries and quakes.

She hadn’t planned for Aphelia to knock herself out on her own barrier.