“This is the True God called Ouroboros; hm… by today’s terms, calling her a True God is fair, like naming a storm by its eye.”

The Valkyrie dispelled the Crimson Flame like a sunset folding its wings, patted Aphelia’s shoulder, and the harsh surge drained away like tide from sand.

“For this world, she’s truth in a certain sense, like law carved into bedrock; if the world endures, she endures like a shadow at noon.”

“Good news, this power’s been chained, like a river dammed; bad news…” Her sigh drifted like winter wind, and sadness washed her eyes like mist on a lake.

Her jade-slim fingers brushed the ring, and a thread of pitch-black breath flowed out like ink in water, gathering in her palm.

“…this power will follow you for life, and pass down generations like a torch and a curse, a sorrow looping like rain on stone.”

She pinched out the black gleam like snuffing a coal, and regret bled through her gaze like dusk through thin cloud, which even startled Aphelia like a deer in frost.

When had this lofty Valkyrie ever shown such a face, like starlight lowered to street lamps?

“Then why,” Aphelia asked, heart tight like a drawn bow, “does this power stay in my body like a thorn under skin?”

She lowered her head, studying the black serpent ring like a coiled night river; its scales seemed real, cold light flickering like sleet.

In a blink, a chill gaze crawled from the ring like a winter lizard, and she turned her eyes aside like a bird from a snare.

“Only by giving Ouroboros a host can we keep her power from rampaging, like giving a wildfire a firebreak,” the Valkyrie said, voice low like fog on reeds.

“In a sense, she has no concept of death, like a snake shedding skin; death to her is only another dawn of rebirth.”

Her voice trembled like a leaf in rain; she turned her head in guilt like a moon behind cloud, black hair cascading to veil her soft eyes.

“So you chose to seal her, didn’t you, like a lid on a boiling cauldron?”

“Right, but common seals can’t truly bind her, like rope on wind,” she said. “As one of the wor— as one of the world’s first powers, her being explains rules like scripture in stone.”

Hearing the Valkyrie speak of Ouroboros, even Lilo, who’d been pretending to admire the view like a cat on a sill, straightened and took silent notes like ink on rice paper.

“Rules?” The word left Aphelia like a pebble dropping into a still pond.

“Yes, rules,” the Valkyrie said, each word steady like drumbeats. “Your cultivation obeys rules, your magic obeys rules, and even titles follow their own rules like tracks in snow.”

She took Aphelia’s right hand again like taking a blade by the flat, stroked the ring, and drew out black light like a thread of night silk.

Under her guidance, the black stream linked end to end like a snake biting its tail, forming a ring that floated in the air like a dark halo.

The instant the black ring formed, both Aphelia and Lilo shivered like reeds in a strange wind, feeling a deep dissonance like grit in gears.

At its arrival, the Crimson Flame wrapping the room grew restless like a penned stallion, sparks bucking like red carp under ice.

The Valkyrie waved lightly, and the agitated fire stilled like a pond after a stone, while the black ring began to whirl like a millstone.

With it came a sense of endless twisting, like heat haze over a road.

“This… isn’t this the Plague of Beasts, like a locust sky?” Aphelia blurted, heart thudding like a drum.

As the ring turned, Arcane Power and elements drew out of her like tide from a bay, yet before the words finished, they flowed back like rain returning to river.

Lilo frowned like a blade’s edge; she lit a scarlet flame in her palm like a rose in night, and under the ring’s sway, it snuffed out and reignited like a heartbeat.

“Aphelia, it’s more than the Plague of Beasts simply devouring, like wolves at a flock,” Lilo murmured, eyes clouded like smoke.

Drawn into the fire’s change, her look grew complex like braids in shadow, puzzled by the ring’s rule like a scholar at a riddle.

“Don’t overthink it,” the Valkyrie said, voice calm like snow. “The black ring was just reenacting circulation, like seasons on a wheel.”

“The so-called disappearance of Arcane Power and elements was only their cycle sped up, like fruit ripening in a single noon.”

Seeing their confusion, she waved, and the black ring faded into air like soot on wind, the discord dissolving like frost at dawn.

“This is the power of rules, the force that keeps the world turning like a hidden axle,” she said. “Nothing as complex as you imagine, just the concept of cycle, sped like a river in flood.”

She spoke lightly like petals, but Aphelia listened with her heart pounding like a war drum, every thought sparking like flint.

Only circulation? If one could steer circulation, then in battle a tiny nudge would hand you victory like fruit dropping into your palm.

And beyond battle, her warrior’s mind saw only the blade’s edge, yet other fields opened like fields after rain.

To bend the world’s rules for human use, like yoking lightning to a cart.

That power could overturn the world like an earthquake; those lofty True Gods’ creeds would crack like glaze, and the fallout would howl like winter.

Seeing fear pool in Aphelia’s eyes like ink, the Valkyrie’s lips curved faintly like a crescent; yet when she looked at the ring, she sighed soft as ash.

“But Aphelia, you’ve felt the cost riding this power, like thorns under silk,” she said. “Beyond worldly trouble, you’ll bear the pain for life, like iron in bone.”

“For now, I’m suppressing it, turning pain into a controlled stimulus, like bitter tea into medicine.”

She drew again on the ring’s darkness, and even a finger’s-width of black light burned through Aphelia’s arm like acid under ice.

It was the flesh collapsing outward from within, like a tower sinking from its heart; words failed like a snapped string, and she gulped breath like a swimmer breaking water.

“In time you’ll face bloodier battles, like storms over open sea,” the Valkyrie said. “You won’t stop at this dose, and even a True God’s body would end by self-ruin, like a star that burns itself out.”

She lowered her head like a willow in rain; everything she’d done had only pushed Aphelia into another firepit, like trading embers for furnace.

“Death, so what?” Aphelia’s voice was soft like falling snow. “One who has died once won’t fear death again, like a traveler who’s crossed the dark pass.”

She cut her pain like a rope and broke the Valkyrie’s words, then stepped in and embraced her like shelter in a storm, cheek resting against that waterfall of black hair like night silk.

Their pale fingers crossed and laced like knots on red string, leaving the Valkyrie nowhere to flee like a deer hemmed by brush.

“It’s just another curse of power, like an old wind returning,” she whispered. “The title shifted from ‘Hero’ to Ouroboros, and I’m used to it, Master, like carrying a familiar blade.”

Warmth pressed from behind like a small hearth, and the gentle words by her ear fell like spring rain; guilt swelled in the Valkyrie’s heart like a tide.

She wanted to pull away like a bird lifting, yet she dared not move, fearing a slip would let Aphelia’s wild power cut her again like glass under skin.

Lilo shut her eyes cleanly like shutters at dusk, lit heat around herself like a brazier, and pretended nothing was happening like a cat facing a wall.

“From the first time I met you, you’ve been saving me like a hand from the river,” Aphelia murmured. “When I was hunted to the gutters, you pulled me up like a reed from mud.”

“You taught me the Ancient Martial Flow like a lineage of steel, gave me methods to run Arcane Power beyond the mortal, like rivers under mountains.”

“Before the battle with the Demon King, you helped us in secret like moonlight on a road.”

“Even in the Demon World, when I was to be sacrificed, you appeared like lightning through storm; if this pain is a burden, then it’s just the price I owed, like debt paid in coin.”

Softly she spoke like wind through bamboo, and the Valkyrie, held in her arms, loosened by degrees like ice in thaw, and laughed lightly like chimes.

She let herself relax fully, leaning into Aphelia like a drifting cloud, as if remembering old spring, hands slack and white, resting on Aphelia’s arms like feathers.

“In that case,” she breathed, a smile faint as moonwash, “it seems this too is written by fate, like characters brushed long ago.”