After parting from Aphelia, Lilo found a safe hollow, a nook like shade under a tree. She set the two down and gave brief orders, crisp as flint.

“Remember, tell Father not to meddle,” she said, voice taut as bowstring. “Leave this to me.”

Crimson sparks bloomed in Lilo’s palm like cherry embers. She spared them a glance, then streaked toward Merlin’s Mage Tower like a comet.

The Mage Tower lay drowned in shadow, a well of hush with one silver-white point like a lone star.

Every demigod array had dimmed, lanterns after rain. The base array looked dead, a shell of lines without pulse.

Peer closer, and countless demigod arrays were threaded by a hair-thin silver glow, silk spun under moonlight.

At the tower’s crown, Merlin studied a silver Mana Crystal, focus sharp as a blade. He etched its skin with Arcane Power, frost carving glass.

Sweat beaded his brow like dew on stone. His eyes were bloodshot, a man who hadn’t tasted sleep for nights.

Behind him, the Tower Spirit stood quiet, hands haloed in verdant light like spring leaves, washing fatigue away with dutiful calm.

Arcane Power pooled before Merlin like a tide to one shore. Crystal clusters tried to bud around him, then hushed away as the Tower Spirit cleared them, broom-smooth.

“Merlin… are you sure this is alright?” the spirit asked, voice a soft wind through grass.

The carving slowed, the finish line near as dawn on the ridge. The Tower Spirit sighed, a reed bending under weight.

Merlin answered with his own sigh, loss heavy as rain. “It’s her choice. Only that person can sway her. You know it.”

“It’s always been that way,” he murmured, memory like old smoke. “Once she decides, almost no one turns her back.”

He stared at the tower’s central silver glow, heart tight as a fist. His hands stopped. He shut his eyes, words caught like fish in a net.

Just as grief pooled, the Tower Spirit sensed a ripple, a stone dropped in water. “Merlin, the young girl from the Crimson Dragon Clan is here. Shall I send her away?”

The spirit gestured a polite dismissal, a fan closing mid-air. The moment felt crucial, a knot you don’t cut.

Merlin shook his head, calm as winter bark. He whispered, and twisted silver light coiled in his hand like braided moonlight.

He flicked his wrist, and the half-carved silver Mana Crystal vanished under that gauze of light, not a wisp of aura escaping like smoke in wind.

Still wary, he raised his staff. Two silver arrays bloomed in the air like twin lilies, forming a tiny ward. He sealed the crystal, then nodded, a clean stamp, and bade the spirit let Lilo in.

The Mage Tower breathed back its usual form, silver radiance rising like dawn along its bones. Intricate mechanisms showed like clockwork ribs.

The central glow hid behind magitech instruments like veiled lanterns. Every demigod array flared alive, danger humming like a strung bow.

“Miss Lilo…” the Tower Spirit began, tone smooth as silk.

“P‑please,” Lilo blurted, panic sparking like flint. “Tell Lord Merlin—Aphelia’s been taken by a Demonic Knight.”

The spirit moved to host her, then split an avatar in an instant, a ripple across mirrored water. It appeared before Merlin and relayed her words.

Merlin stood before Lilo almost at once, presence dropping like a shadow. His handsome face went so dark it could drip.

Veins knotted along his slender arm like coiled ropes. Storm sat in his eyes, held and hard.

Lilo hadn’t seen how he arrived, not even a ripple of space, surprise blooming like frost-edged flower.

“Which Demonic Knight?” Merlin asked, tone calm as stone, authority sharp as steel.

“Roland,” Lilo said, voice small as ash. “But behind him, I fear…”

She hesitated, doubt fluttering like a moth. She held her guess back, a breath held tight.

Merlin smiled, gentle as lantern light. He opened a ward around them, a dome like clear ice. His voice brushed her ear warm as tea.

“Speak freely. Have no worries. I’ll vouch for you as Protector of the Realm.”

Relief loosened Lilo’s chest, a knot undone. She leaned in and whispered her suspicion, words thin as rain.

As she spoke, Merlin’s gloom melted like frost in sun, and a bright smile unfolded like a banner.

While Lilo ran for help, Aphelia was led down a hidden passage, a vein in the city like a burrow under roots.

They’d prepared a visor inscribed with arrays to cage her sight, a lid of runes like netted reeds.

She didn’t break it, not to stir the snake from grass. She let them pull her along, calm as a lake under moon.

Soon she felt the numbers around her thinning, footsteps fading like distant drums. She didn’t move.

She rounded her intent into a steady ring, a moon in her mind, and fixed on Roland ahead like a star.

Curiosity pricked her like a needle. She’d been in the capital only days. Who laid such a trap for her?

To learn the truth, the best path was forward, into the enemy’s fold, turning their game like water turns a wheel.

The rabble meant little, leaves in a breeze. The real thorn was Roland, a Demonic Knight with iron in his name.

She wielded the power of a True God, a river under ice, yet she wasn’t a true god. She knew the gap like a cliff.

On the Hydra Plains, Oz had shown what force felt like. Demonic Knights hid cards near that height, blades under cloaks.

Acting rashly would bare her aim like a flag. It would rouse their fear, bees shaken from a hive.

“Sir Roland, what now—do we keep walking?” she asked with a light laugh, a bell in mist.

In her sense, the soldiers were gone, a ring dissolving like salt. Only Roland’s aura stood ahead, a pillar in fog.

He stopped, so she asked, manners cool as snow. “Indeed,” he said, voice dropping like a pebble in a well.

His presence vanished in a snap, a candle blown out. A hard shove hit Aphelia, and she staggered forward, beads scattering from a string.

In those few steps, the world turned, a page flipped by wind. Her surroundings inverted like a mirror cast down.

Her sense had told her of a tight corridor, a stone throat. Now she stood in a wide expanse, a bowl under sky.

She meant to break her bindings, lightning in a fist. Then the architecture groaned, a heavy rumble rolling like thunder.

Her visor shattered with a crisp crack—snap. Light speared her eyes, a white blade, and she squinted, lids like shutters.

She adjusted fast, breath smooth as silk, and looked around, gaze sweeping like a falcon’s wing.

Five minutes later, when the scene settled in her mind like ink on paper, she sent out a thread of intent.

It slid into the structures around her like mist into pines, tasting stone and steel by touch alone.

She stood in a vast arena, a coliseum like a stone crown. In the stands above, Roland reappeared behind a well-dressed man.

They looked down on her like hawks over a field. “Criminal, do you know your crime?” the man declared, voice hollow as a drum.

Aphelia answered with laughter sharp as ice. “Criminal? I don’t see any criminals.”

She squared her stare at the man, gaze a blade. Power flowed through her quietly, a river under reeds.

One squeeze of force, and these anti-magic manacles would powder like dry clay.

The man blinked, thrown off, a puppet missing a line. Roland bent to his ear, whispering smoke.

With new bravado, the man spoke coldly, words like sleet. “Criminal, your only redemption is battle. Entertain me.”

As his voice fell, a transparent barrier rose from the arena’s rim like a glass tide. It sealed Aphelia at the center.

She felt the wall and counted its strength, math in her bones. Then she dismissed it, a gnat waved away.

A barrier you can break with Demigod force can’t leash her, a wolf on wire. His performance felt arranged, a script under satin.

Even dressed to impress, he wore awkwardness like ill-fitting shoes. Aphelia doubted he was the hand behind the curtain.

After a few heartbeats, a plan formed, a seed cracking its shell.

“Oh? If I refuse to fight, what will you do?” she asked, contempt a thin smile, a knife in velvet.

As if he’d expected that, the man clapped, palms sharp as sticks. On the far stand, an old door swung open with a groan.

Two armored soldiers hauled a figure like a bag of grain and tossed it down, dead weight dropping through air.

The barrier above Aphelia parted just enough, a slit of glass, then sealed tight again, lid on a jar.

She didn’t leap to catch the falling form. She let it hit with a dull thud, her gaze on the stands like a judge’s eye.

“You might want to see who that is,” Roland called, smile easy as evening wine. He didn’t mind her scorn, lounging like a cat in sun.

The well-dressed man wore the same ease, triumph flaring like a match. He thought his game had landed.

Aphelia’s smile thinned. Inside her palm, True God power gathered like starlight in a bowl.

If the figure was a ploy, she could turn it to ash, a moth in flame. If not, she could guard and break away, wind through reeds, clean and gone.