With Shi and Fen attending her, Aphelia returned to her room; her mind had crashed like a frozen river. When thought thawed, night pooled like ink, and the gaudy revel had guttered out.
“Seriously... that was brainless.” The taste in her chest was half bitter, half sweet, like a plum left in frost. She couldn’t even tell why she’d followed a feeling and kissed.
By reason, she wasn’t bound by stiff etiquette, but she wasn’t the type to flirt. Desire had surged like a spring flood, and it happened in front of people.
She would be gone in a year like wind over reeds. Lilo was of the Demon World, born out of wedlock; before nobles, that kiss was a thrown spark in dry grass.
But what could she do to make it right? The question hung like fog.
She measured herself, then let the thought fall like a stone. If she fought now, she’d only take hits, like a drum in a storm. They couldn’t kill her anyway—this was a True God’s body.
Think it through. Power first. In a Demon World where Titleholders were as common as street dogs, her state—a hair above mortal—was a leaf against thunder.
Her gaze slid to the pitch-black serpent ring, like eyes drawn to a pit. If she wanted strength now, it had to start here.
What beats a True God? The question burned like a brand. She stood before a treasure mountain, yet she could only hunger and watch.
She sighed; sleep fled like mist. She sat up, fixed on the black ring, and gathered Arcane Power like cupped fire, then drove it at the ring.
Staring, she felt it pull at her like a tide pulling ankles. Even the Arcane Power in her palm wavered like a candle in wind.
At the brink of losing control, she bit her tongue. Pain cracked through like lightning, and she tore her gaze away, gulping air like a diver breaking surface. She wrapped the ring in Arcane Power to smother its lure like cloth over a mirror.
In that instant, a black shadow split her power like a knife through silk. It leapt from the ring and streaked for her throat like a hawk stooping.
Her power hadn’t returned, but her reflexes were winter-honed. She locked on the shadow, and her pale hand became a blade, cutting down like cold steel.
Horror crawled her spine. The shadow slid up her chopping hand like a live serpent, pierced skin like a thorn, and drove for her heart.
It swam under her skin like ink in water. Her scalp prickled. She whipped Arcane Power at it again, an axe at a snake.
What a joke—who lets a thing crawl inside their body? It was lunging for her heart like a dagger. It was murder, plain as a blood moon.
Her flimsy Arcane Power did nothing before it, like reeds before a black wave. It split her power in two, and she watched the shadow burrow into her heart like a nail.
Pain exploded through her like wildfire. She tried to call out, but her throat was a sealed well, and then numbness flowed in like frost.
Black Arcane Power poured from the ring like night fog, veiling the room like a barrier, severing inside from the world like a cut rope.
Shock and a fierce joy sparked together. Strength flooded back into her limbs like spring sap, and it pressed at the limit between mortal and god.
She tried to seize her body, but the power ran wild like horses. From her heart, a will burst like a volcano and surged for her mind-sea.
“Come… hand the body to me…” The whisper curled like smoke, devil-sweet, tugging at her mind like hooks, trying to crack her sea of thought.
A figure almost her mirror stepped out, black eyes reflecting Aphelia like a still pond. She blinked, stunned for a breath.
She moved to push it away. It chuckled like chimes and sank into the fog, and pain rose like a breaking wave.
Her heart jolted under a rain of needles. The other will kept at her ear like a mosquito by night—threats, promises—never a breath’s rest.
“Give it to you?” The laugh came cold as iron. She clenched a fist and hammered her chest. Her heart stumbled a beat, and that will stuttered like a skipped record.
“Even if you beg, this chamber sits under True God force like a dome. Who could save you?” The laugh turned lazy and cruel, like a cat at a mouse.
Black Arcane Power threaded her blood like dye, peeling her senses away like bark. That will wanted to drown her mind, clean and total, like rain over ash.
If mind lost the body, she would be a skiff in a typhoon, flipped in a breath. The thought should have iced her.
Cornered, she felt no despair. In her black eyes flared a sliver of madness like flint.
“You want it? Come take it here!” She snarled, and hammered her heart again like a drum. Her thin Arcane Power lit inside her like a spark in tinder.
Water and fire met. The black Arcane Power shuddered like an earthquake. Both sides took her body as battlefield, hacking and burning like armies in a gorge.
Pain came in waves that almost sank her. Every inch of her twisted like rope. Muscle peeled from skin, and blood thickened like cooling syrup. Her pale skin turned sickly, moon-pale.
“Are you insane?!” The invading will cracked. Her Arcane Power was a spark in a gale, yet it refused to die. One ember lived, and it flared again, burning her flesh as fuel, raising a blaze to meet the black tide.
The will raged, shocked. It wanted a whole vessel, not a charred husk, not ruin after fire.
Call it what it was: self-harm. She threw herself on the pyre like dry wood.
Her meager Arcane Power was only a fuse. The aim was to burn flesh to fight back, like steel in quenching. No strength to match? Wager your life. No room to resist? Break yourself, drag the other down.
The will sensed wrongness and pressed down with True God might like a falling mountain. Blood-tears slid from her eyes like red rain, and still she clung on like ivy on stone.
“Come on! Keep it coming!” Everything outside was cut off like a severed line. She roared without scruple, a wolf in a pit with no ladder.
Talk terms gently? She’d vanish at hello, like smoke in wind. Only a life-for-life fight bought a hair’s chance.
“Wait… stop! You’ll die if you keep going! Fine, I get it. Calm down. Let’s talk terms.” The once-smooth woman’s voice softened like thaw.
A figure almost twin to Aphelia appeared, panic flickering like a candle. This will was Uroboros, the one the Valkyrie sealed.
With her show, the black power and will stilled like a lake. The pain thinned like a receding tide. Those black eyes held a plea like rain on glass.
“I…” Aphelia eased the burn like easing a knot and let out a breath. She opened her mouth—then that will leapt like a snake.
It crashed through her guard like a hammer through clay, and shot for her mind-sea like a spear. Pain surged back like a flood.
Startled and furious, she bit down, and as the will crossed into her mind-sea, her right hand became a blade and stabbed her own heart like a nail.
Uroboros smiled with a touch of scorn, like frost on glass. Her will had entered the mind-sea. The body would soon obey her touch like a puppet.
With a True God physique, a wounded heart was a crack in ice. Easy to mend.
Then her face changed like a cloud bank. The tendrils she’d sunk into the mind-sea recoiled like scorched eels. They’d touched something terrible in the depths.
She tried to rip free, but found herself bound in Aphelia’s body like a fly in amber, unable to move a finger.
The floating figure before Aphelia cried out and vanished like smoke. The black fog in the room pulled back into the ring like tide to moon.
Writhing in pain, Aphelia finally couldn’t hold. Darkness fell like a curtain. She collapsed.
The grotesque signs on her body faded like chalk in rain. The black Arcane Power that had seeped into her blood ebbed back to her heart, circling the black shadow like stars around a void.
