“Looks like the Hydra Clan and the Demon World’s royals run deep, like roots in black soil.”

Aphelia’s gaze snagged on a stone at her boot—half a human face, a cheekbone in dust—she nudged it aside like a dead ember.

Lilo missed the small motion. She let out a sigh like wind threading reeds, then led Aphelia onward through the broken streets.

“Yeah. My Crimson Dragon clan’s the same, just anchored in the imperial capital, not strung along the Hydra Clan’s lines…”

Saying it, a hunter’s pity pricked Lilo’s heart, like a fox flinching when the rabbit falls; her eyes dimmed like ashen coals.

At her side, Aphelia caught every shift, like ripples on a still pond, and felt the truth she knew was only the surface of the lake.

Her gut tightened first, like a hand on her throat; then her mind cooled—this was a time to lie low, like a blade under silk.

If she exposed her ignorance, Lilo would wall up like stone, and the truth would retreat like fog before sunrise.

“As for Blackhold,” Lilo went on, voice steady as a metronome, “rumor says a True God of the Hydra Clan ascended here. Nonsense. If a True God…”

Aphelia’s pulse skipped like a trapped bird. On the plains, she’d seen a Hydra True God’s husk, a shed skin harnessed like a puppet.

Not nonsense at all, she thought, just a shell beaten empty and put to work, like a drum with no heart.

But she swallowed it. Words were sparks in dry grass, and she had no wish to start another wildfire of trouble.

All she wanted was to mend herself and race back to the human world, to pull her friends from the flood.

They talked in drifting fragments, and crossed a city of ruins like broken teeth, until the walls fell behind them.

A vast magic circle had been carved, lines like scars in stone, its glow a faint bruise under the skin.

The scent of Arcane Power was smothered like a candle under a bowl; Lilo stepped up, and red sparks whooshed along the circle.

Deep-violet light speared the sky, and Runes unfurled like iron flowers—but as the aura swelled, Lilo’s flames rose like a tide.

They wrapped that violet circle and its breath in blazing cloth, and not a whisper leaked, like a sealed kiln.

“Please, Miss Aphelia. My clan’s ready on the far side.”

Lilo offered a graceful hand, a smile like a calm harbor after storm.

Aphelia cut off her thoughts like threads, drew a steadying breath, and tucked her last Arcane Power tight as a clenched fist.

She stepped into the violet pillar, like a moth flying into a moonlit well.

Lilo watched the light swallow her, then braced as a giant force surged up like an earthquake under ice.

Veins rose on her arm like blue vines, and scales of a half-dragon shimmered through like dawn under mist.

The tremor gnawed on for long breaths, then eased; the violet circle settled like a lake after rain.

Lilo let out a breath, a ripple of relief, and the corner of her mouth loosened like thawing frost.

“Not as simple as it looked,” she muttered, with a thin, rueful smile like a cut that wouldn’t bleed.

She withdrew the encircling flames, then leapt into the violet gate like a spark following a fuse.

Moments after they vanished, the deep-violet circle cracked like dry clay, and raw Arcane Power blasted naked to the sky.

Blackhold shuddered like a drumhead, and the already-chaotic currents bucked like storm-tossed seas.

In his outpost, Senro felt it as a knife of cold; he strode into the air with his staff, cloak snapping like a banner.

A crown of ice-blue Arcane Power spread from him like winter over water, colliding with the riotous surge.

Priests who followed Senro raised their hands, and deep-blue pillars rose like glaciers to pin the storm.

“Reckless fools,” Senro hissed, face drawn like stone, knowing Lilo’s touch in the blaze and the bite.

Clash by clash, with the other priests bracing him like stakes in flood, he pressed the citywide storm down.

Wounded already, Senro coughed blood like rust, and drifted toward the ground like a falling leaf.

Priests converged, shields up like overlapping shells, and ringed the weakened master in a living wall.

Seeing no fresh wound, the leader leaned in, voice tight as a bowstring. “Master Senro, are you well?”

“I’m fine. Blackhold’s losses? Tell me we didn’t bleed the streets.”

Her first thought was the city’s bones; half in ruins already, one more sweep of storm and Nero might break for good.

“Minimal, my lord. We caught it fast, and the city wasn’t hit hard,” the report came, clean as a snapped thread.

Senro exhaled, a breath like smoke, and her suspicion crystallized like frost on glass.

The storm’s aim was to drive her to the edge of Arcane exhaustion, to make her hands useless during their passage.

A long-range teleport needs time, like a bow pulled to the ear; the storm was the hand that stalled and drained.

Leaning on her staff, she pushed upright, a weary smile like a scar. Her wound still gnawed; the chance was gone.

And Lilo’s strength now ran even with hers, like twin rivers in flood.

These priests? They couldn’t have rattled that circle at all; their spells would drip off like rain on oil.

“Back to the outpost. We’ve lost the first move.”

She turned and walked into the wind, leaving baffled priests blinking like owls in daylight.

In transit, Aphelia narrowed her eyes against the blaze; the void ran endless as a night sea.

A blinding stream of light howled past like meteors, and deep-violet radiance cocooned her, a shell against the abyss.

It flew as if guided, faster than any void warship, like lightning chasing its own echo.

A thought rose like smoke: if the Demon World’s army had moved at this speed then, half a year would’ve drowned the human world.

These days, every fight sat between Demigod and True God, like thunder between cloud and earth.

If the human world gathered every blade and cannon, could it stand? The answer rang hollow as an empty bell.

No True God walks the human world; how do you touch what stands above storms?

Even the strongest war-engine needs eyes and a locked target, like an archer needs a mark on bark.

A true Demigod builds a mind-world; unless it’s war among equals, you’ll never drag them out, not with human hands.

Why call them Demigods? Because they can remake the weather of the world.

If that power bent to me, could I break the Church like a rotten branch?

Her heart lurched, a beat gone missing; heat rose to her cheeks like dawn on snow.

Then the heat cooled to a sigh. Even if she marched home with demons, the nations would fuse like iron in fire.

Aphelia never put all eggs in one basket; a pessimist by habit, she always packed an umbrella for a cloudless sky.

She breathed out softly, and the endless dark seemed to thin, like mist before noon.

Near the far light, a familiar aura brushed her skin, a crimson shadow like a fox’s tail flicking at the edge.

She snapped her head back, but a giant force hooked her like a fish and yanked her from the void.

The light drained away like water, and she missed the moment a wisp of crimson flame slipped out with the last gleam.

Blinding light rushed her eyes, and voices reached her like calls through rain.

She shook her head, tried to stir her thin Arcane Power, like coaxing embers with bare breath.

She forgot her truth: she was mortal-weak now, and that trickle couldn’t even wake this True God body.

“…”

“…”

Two figures mouthed words in a haze, but her vision blurred like wet ink and a tinnitus droned like bees.

A tiny spark streaked before her eyes, and the drowning feeling fled like water from a broken jar.

Lilo’s face swam into focus, all apology, with two sparks circling her hand like fireflies.

“Sorry, Aphelia. Can you hear me?” Lilo propped her up, and waved a finger like a reed in breeze.

“Cough… I’m okay. Did we make it?” Her voice was a dry leaf, but it held.

“Yeah. We’re here. This is the heart of the Demon World, the imperial city—Valhalla.”

With Lilo’s arm steady as a rail, Aphelia finally saw it: they stood on a colossal watchtower, high as a cliff.

Below, classical palaces spread like constellations, cupping a vast palace that faced their tower like a twin moon.

A clean wind stroked her face, and the fog in her head thinned like tide going out.

She lifted her eyes, and the night was a lacquered bowl set with stars.

“Where… is this?”

“This is the capital’s transfer station. Any teleport registers here, then you step into the capital like crossing a gate.”

Held by Lilo’s calm, Aphelia took it all in, the city unfolding like a scroll under starlight.