The one who turned the tide and stopped Aphelia was Merlin.
He looked battered, shock and anger scored across his face. His staff was cracked. Still, he planted himself before Aphelia and parted that pitch-black serpent like a river of night.
The seven obliterated figures surfaced again. This time the seven angels weren’t faceless dolls. Expressions etched their features, sharp as frost.
Their gazes locked on Merlin. The pressure fell like a mountain squall, and Merlin met it with a string of cold laughs.
“Violet is alive.”
That single line lit hope in Aphelia’s eyes like dawn striking wet stone. Her scepter tapped once. The seven black-winged angels behind her, silver bowls in hand, halted before they could pour out that blood-red “wrath.”
The sight made Merlin’s heart thud, a drum under a storm.
He had already braced to strike again, to pay in pain if needed, to erase those seven attackers from this pocket of space.
The seven black-winged angels behind Aphelia weren’t her own spawned power. They were calamity given shape by the Demon World, a resonance born from the World Will answering Aphelia’s resolute heart.
Put simply: heads bowed, silver bowls cradled, riding a scarlet flood called “wrath,” those seven black-winged angels were avatars of the World Will.
They came bearing pure malice, palms cupping a god’s fury.
Things like that lowering themselves to Aphelia? Even Merlin had to be surprised. He could still bar them for now. But if Aphelia kept growing as his plan demanded…
A shard of memory flared in Merlin’s mind. He faltered, then let out a long sigh.
“But I can’t feel her soul’s ripple anymore…”
“That’s because I already moved her to my Mage Tower. You’ve only just pushed open a True God’s door. With a few tricks…”
Merlin smiled. A silver radiance opened a portal beside him like a moonlit gate. Ophelia’s thought swept out and caught Violet’s missing soul pulse.
Her killing chill melted like frost under sun. The black serpent flowed back to her side, coiling like night silk.
Phoenix, cowed by that dreadful force, went blank and stood rooted. Merlin’s power folded around him and locked him in place.
Seeing this, Aphelia dropped talk of ending all things. The despair-born killing intent bled away. The seven figures lost their anchor.
They gave a single, mournful cry, raised their silver bowls, and tipped them over themselves.
The seven black-winged angels, once mere phantoms, took on weight for a breath. Flame bit them. They crumbled into drifting ash and vanished behind Aphelia.
“What… is going on?”
The moment those angels turned to ash, Aphelia felt her shoulders lighten, feather-faint.
She had stepped to a True God’s threshold. Illusion shouldn’t touch her now. If she felt it, change had happened. But the feeling flickered and was gone.
Even power at a True God’s level couldn’t catch it. Aphelia frowned, shadow deepening between her brows.
She moved, instinct wanting to cast her thought outward and probe. Merlin stopped her, sharp and urgent.
“Don’t. Don’t send your thought after that. They’re pure malice. You just became a True God. It’ll cut you to the bone.”
Silver light poured from him as he spoke. It swallowed the ash that fell like gray snow. He opened a portal in haste and dragged Aphelia through, not daring to linger a heartbeat.
“What were those, Merlin?”
Inside the Mage Tower, Aphelia watched Merlin pant for breath. She touched that moment her shoulders had gone light and asked, confusion misting her voice.
They were barely in when the prepared tower spirit offered Merlin a knot of silver light. He didn’t even look. He swallowed it like a star.
Then the tower spirit turned to Aphelia. She lifted another silver glow toward her, hesitated under that gaze, and let her hand fall. She sighed, long and soft.
She floated up to stand before Aphelia, meaning to speak. Merlin stepped in and blocked her. He only shook his head.
Aphelia couldn’t make sense of the two of them. She let it pass and waited, silent, for Merlin’s answer.
Ever since she unearthed that True God power in her body, questions crowded her mind like restless birds. She needed answers, needed a road, needed someone to say what had happened.
Dizziness hit. Power flooded out of her like a tide leaving bare reefs. Weakness went through her legs, and she nearly fell.
A soft body pressed against her back and held her up. The familiar scent and voice eased her tight breath.
“Aphelia, rest well…”
Weariness and hollow ache filled Aphelia’s limbs. With no enemy to face, her will dropped like a pulled curtain. Bright eyes dulled. Sleep took her.
The red-haired woman wanted to speak. She tried and failed, and her words became a thin sigh.
“Let her rest, Lilo. She went through too much.”
After swallowing the silver light, color returned to Merlin’s face. He signaled the tower spirit to lead Lilo, to bring Aphelia to a place fit for rest.
The tower spirit drifted forward. She smiled, opened a portal like a silver flower, and guided Lilo through. Merlin stayed.
Once they were gone, his gentle eyes filled with endless fire. Rage burned there, quiet as a furnace.
He raised his staff. Silver radiance wrapped him head to toe and carried him into a world wrought entirely of flame.
Around him, fire elements, pure to the edge of silence, grew into countless clusters of Mana Crystals. Leak this place, and every fire-specialist in the Demon World would bare their fangs and tear each other to pieces.
Merlin smiled and looked at the only jet-black flame in that ocean of fire. His voice went cold.
“Talk, Phoenix. How did trash like you survive?”
Beside Ophelia, Lilo kept watch. She watched the tower spirit tune precise arcane devices and tend to Ophelia and the red-haired girl at her side.
“Tower Spirit, Ophelia… did she actually become a True God? That aura back there…”
Lilo hesitated. She stared at the perfection now lying where the former Ophelia had been. Her eyes wouldn’t believe.
She’d waited in the Mage Tower to meet them. The instant they came through, she felt two True God auras, clear as bell metal.
Lilo was a Demigod. She prided herself on knowing most powers by scent. That deep, dark aura almost drew her blade on instinct. If not for Merlin and Ophelia speaking, she’d have missed who stood there.
It was like a budding girl suddenly turning, overnight, into a flawless, full-figured lady. Ophelia looked just so, a touch more mature. It took Lilo’s breath.
If the face weren’t still similar, Lilo might have thought she was someone else.
“Of course. But it’s a temporary True God.”
The tower spirit finished a small calibration. She drifted to Violet’s bedside. Her arms became silver light and flowed through Violet’s body, checking every wound.
“A temporary True God?”
Lilo stared at sleeping Ophelia. Unease pricked her skin, and she took a half-step back.
“Yes. Temporary.”
Seeing Lilo’s face, the tower spirit laughed lightly. She didn’t explain much. She only pulled Mana Crystals now and then and worked on Violet.
“That’s impossible. A divine domain doesn’t just show up and vanish…”
“That’s you—mortals.”
The tower spirit ended Violet’s treatment and floated to Lilo. Her voice was soft, like water.
“Ophelia—no. Maybe we shouldn’t call her that. She’s already stepped beyond the concept of ‘human.’ It’ll take long years to forge it. When her strength fully returns, a True God?”
She gave a small, scornful laugh, patted Lilo’s shoulder, and pushed the door open. She left alone. Her words left Lilo shaken to the core.
Beyond ‘human’?
What kind of thing is that? Something a True God barely measures up to… what monster is it?
“Merlin, you know it yourself! She’s a monster. A creature that shouldn’t exist in this world!”
In the sea of fire, Phoenix—no, the undying bird—roared at Merlin hanging in the air.
His black flame tried to kindle, but the pure fire elements washed it clean. They stripped what power he had left. He could not move.
“Monster? If there’s a monster, look in a mirror. You’re a Phoenix meant to lean on flame and be reborn from ash. Now even flame rejects you.”
Merlin’s sneer cut down at Phoenix. Scorn shone in his eyes.
