“A foe at the True God’s level? If you unleash your domain, what are our odds?”

The thought struck like a bell in fog; Aphelia turned to the smiling Uroboros, weighed it, then let the question fly.

“Easy, easy—this isn’t a True God as you understand it,” Uroboros said, voice light as wind over reeds. “If I had to name it… a False God.”

“False God? What is that? Under a True God there’s only a Demigod. Since when was there a False God wedged in?”

Surprise rippled through Aphelia like a pebble in a still pool; years of cultivation, yet she’d never heard that name.

She sighed, breath like frost on glass, as the thought turned.

If not for the Demon World, she’d still think the human realm the horizon; here, even the streetlamps burned hotter.

In months, she’d seen more Titleholders and Demigods than the human world could muster in a century; the sky here held more eagles than crows.

So the term “False God” likely grew in soil like this—fast roots, fierce sun; in the human realm, the Church held the leash on faith and names.

If a “False God” showed itself there, the Church would sweep like a winter storm and erase even the footprints it left.

“Then, Aphelia, tell me this—why is a True God called a True God?”

Uroboros ended the massage, stepped before her like a stern tutor, face straight as a blade’s edge.

Aphelia thought, her calm like a lake before rain, then answered.

“In the past, I’d say, whoever built a domain. But now…”

She’d ridden a rocket from Titleholder to the edge of True God, every step hammered by torment and power, like iron forged in thunder.

On the Hydra Plains, the Valkyrie clashed with Uroboros; the rhythm of a True God’s power branded her body like a seal in hot wax.

She learned a True God’s battle wasn’t a simple arm-wrestle of domains; the sky wasn’t won by larger clouds alone.

The Valkyrie’s Crimson Flame had shed the old skin of “element”; it became the concept of Burning, a law that walked on two legs.

It did what complex spells could only dream of, like a sun painting miracles on stone with a single brushstroke.

Uroboros, in turn, wove black radiance into rules; that shadow legion fell, but it evolved like wolves learning fire.

Given time, Aphelia believed, that power alone could birth a host to sweep the mortal world like locusts over wheat.

Behind both, her instincts felt one current—the same river now coiled in her body, neither Arcane Power nor mere element, but something clear and cold.

Aphelia hadn’t used Ouroboros’ domain since gaining it; it wasn’t her root-spring.

Before they struck a pact, it even chained her growth like ivy strangling a tree.

“That nameless force… that’s the key to a True God, isn’t it?”

Her voice was steady, but under it a drumbeat; storm on the horizon, thunder in the ribs.

Uroboros couldn’t help herself; laughter spilled like pearls, and she ruffled Aphelia’s hair, petals shaken by wind.

Aphelia stared at the shameless girl, anger like a spark in dry grass; she swallowed it, let the hand mess her hair, and waited for the blade under the joke.

Seeing that, Uroboros stopped teasing; she nodded, then shook her head, like a reed bending both ways.

“You’re right, and also not.”

Black radiance bloomed in her hand, a night river cupped in a palm; its tremor was so faint it felt like silence.

“The power you named, we call Aether.”

Uroboros winced as if plucking a tooth; the black glow paled, as though refined in a quiet kiln.

Ouroboros’ scent and sigil peeled away like old lacquer; what remained turned clear, and became a gemlike flower resting in her hand.

“A True God is nothing but Aether condensed. The clear rises, the turbid sinks; that’s the law of the cosmos.

Attain True God, and you shed the dust, then you rise.”

“Rise where? Some so-called divine realm? Or a self-made pocket world?

Why has no True God been born in the human realm for so long?”

Her heart sped like hooves on stone; instinct said a veil was thinning.

“Divine realm?”

Uroboros laughed as if she’d heard thunder claim it was rain; her pitch lifted, sharp as a skylark’s cry.

Her smile tilted strange; she patted Aphelia’s shoulder, a sister’s tap, then spoke.

“Each True God attains a different law, and each is a world’s rule.

Two opposite rules won’t braid into one rope.”

“The world’s rules run like parallel rivers—side by side, never mixing.

I don’t know who birthed the lie of a ‘divine realm,’ but whoever told you that is either mad, or a liar who wants the world asleep.”

She tugged Aphelia close, breath a warm whisper at her ear.

“For long epochs, in your so-called human realm, no one has become a True God.”

“Then the ‘divine realm’ preached for epochs… was all—”

Her thought slammed to a halt; her skin prickled like winter fur.

She’d thought the Church hid the key to ascension; now it smelled like they’d muddied the word itself.

Uroboros only shook her head; she offered the resplendent flower, careless as a cat with a caught firefly, and smiled with a teasing tilt.

“This Aether—what does it look like to you?”

“Why ask that now?”

Aphelia looked at her, shock still a ringing bowl; her gaze slipped aside like a fish in current.

“Take a look. It ties to your power; it won’t bite.

We’re about to face a False God. If you grasp the first thread, I can help you weave.”

Her smile felt mischievous, a fox’s flicking tail; but at a moment like this, she wouldn’t plant thorns in the path.

“Mm… a flower. I’ve never seen it, yet it feels familiar, like a crystal carved into bloom.”

Her words fell quiet as snow, honest and unsure.

Uroboros sighed, deep as a long well; her whisper rode the echo.

“So it is you…”

“What?”

Aphelia looked up, missing the murmur; Uroboros only shook her head, then let the crystal flower dissolve like dew in sunlight.

“Nothing. I’ve tuned your state. As for a False God, let me finish the tale.”

The scene snapped into focus like a lens clearing; she was back in the world, not even a heartbeat lost.

The prince still lay limp, eyes full of a hunted animal’s shine.

Aphelia didn’t spare him a glance; her vast will unfurled like a night tide and draped over the manor’s walls.

She found the “False God” Uroboros spoke of at once; a lantern was easy to spot in a field of fireflies.

Her mind-sea was a moonless night; each target she marked lit like a paper lamp, obedient and small.

But one shape, still unlit by her, already blazed like a sunrise.

The brilliant point had crossed the whole district and stopped outside the manor; sensing her probe, it paused, then pushed the door open with a calm hand.

“Friend,” a voice called, steady as a drum. “I’m Angor, Guardian of the Giant Clan.

Would you give me some face, and release the man behind you?”

A burly man in plain cloth walked in, shoulders like a cliff; his tone, gentle and measured, belonged more to a scholar than a brawler.

“Oh? Do you know what your Highness did?”

The Obsidian Scepter kissed the prince’s throat like a shard of night; he dared only sip air, each breath a drowning man’s gasp.

Aphelia stressed “your Highness,” a bell rung on purpose; she’d marked his identity, and warned the burly man not to move rashly.

He stopped, sighed like wind leaving a sail, and spoke with solemn care.

“Beautiful lady, as Guardian, I can’t leash their deeds.

But I can promise this: teach him a lesson and return him, and we’ll pay what satisfies you—coin, rank, power, or…”

He hadn’t come to pick a fight; even with the scepter at a royal throat, his manner stayed mild, like tea kept warm.

“Why try to recruit me? If you knew what he did, I doubt those words would leave your mouth.”

The Obsidian Scepter pressed back, inch by inch; the prince was forced onto the ‘throne’ behind him.

Pain and death-fear flooded his skull like black water; he couldn’t speak, and he didn’t dare try.