At this...
Six ink-black arms, carrying a mountain’s weight, crashed toward Aphelia.
The twisted domain pressed tight around her.
A crater already gaped, and now savage force walled her in.
The fragile earth gave way, pried like a crust, quakes rippling across the capital.
Aphelia breathed a soft murmur, calm as snowfall, as if that lunging fist didn’t exist.
Her dull eyes found light again, and her prone figure blurred like mist.
The terrifying fist landed true on that slender figure.
The lingering shock finished the ruin and chewed into the street.
At the storm’s core, the ground glowed like buried magma.
Stone melted to crimson lava that seeped downward, slow as blood.
The slender form struck by six fists had vanished before the black giant.
It felt as if that sky-splitting blow had unmade her.
Yet the black giant roared, a volcano given voice.
Six arms hammered outward.
His twisted domain turned into fist-force and tore through everything without restraint.
His gray-white eyes, once lifeless, were veiled by scarlet Runes, like sight reborn.
That new “vision” swept the field, hunting for someone.
“No way? Someone survived Angor’s strike? The opponent should be a not-yet-fully-ascended True God…”
Inside a mansion, a girl stared at the scrying array, her eyes round as moons.
Her fingers skated across sigils, probing around the black giant, but found no trace.
A stern man stood behind her.
Eagle-sharp eyes locked on the vision beyond the array.
His burly frame breathed a chill that bit like winter steel.
If Violet were present, she would know that scent at once.
It was a battlefield reek—killing intent forged from countless enemies’ blood and lives.
Not a power, more a tempering, yet it shook the heart.
“Don’t bother searching. My eyes can’t find her, so yours won’t.”
“Angor’s met a real foe this time.”
“Mia, I’ll take a squad to support.”
“You notify the Matron, just in case.”
After a long breath, the burly man closed his eyes.
He rubbed his temples, rose, and strode out, voice cold as iron.
“Come on. You know Angor’s strength better than anyone.”
“He’s held himself at that threshold for centuries.”
“A fledgling True God without backlash? Even two wouldn’t match him.”
“And if the opponent isn’t that?”
The burly man cut her a weary glance, as if the question were extra.
His killing intent spread like frost, pricking Mia’s skin into a shiver.
“Impossible…”
“Why impossible? Use your head, foolish woman.”
“The one who pressed all races down for epochs is here, in the capital.”
The door slammed, and the burly man was gone.
Mia stood stunned, then spun and let Arcane Power surge.
Hidden observation arrays bloomed one by one.
They filled the mansion like stars, and the dim room cleared.
The vision slid to Angor and Aphelia’s battlefield.
Silver-white artifacts ringed Mia as she closed her eyes.
Her intent took her sight; her power became hands.
She combed the area, trying to find the vanished Aphelia.
“What a joke… Merlin—there is and must be only one in the Demon World.”
Mia muttered, but before she could fully move, a tall figure stepped into midair.
She looked down on the black giant, venting like a rabid beast.
Mia saw her, and the black giant did too.
His twisted domain locked on the figure at once.
A storm of fist-force blasted upward without doubt.
“Such a pity. Right now…”
Pure white light gathered on Aphelia’s arms and formed massive Bracer Gauntlets.
Their delicate engravings looked like fragile art, the kind that begs you to close your eyes.
No one dared watch her fate.
Even Mia, watching, faltered in surprise.
Was this woman giving up hope?
That white glow carried no pulse of power—how could it stop a True God’s blow?
Aphelia only smiled at the oncoming force.
Her feathered robe turned pure white.
Within those massive Bracer Gauntlets, she held a gorgeous crystal blossom.
“…you can’t kill me anymore.”
She simply offered it forward.
The crystal flower acted like a god-forged blade and split the fist-force.
The brutal surge never even touched Aphelia—it unraveled in the air.
“How is this possible!!!”
Mia screamed at once.
The array projections buckled under her ripple of power.
Disbelief smeared her face; without noticing, her nails had sliced her palm.
The burly man rushing to support saw it from afar.
His hawk eyes went wide; he barked for his team to halt.
He stared at the smiling woman in midair and felt, inexplicably, defeated.
Aphelia kept her place, smiling down at the black giant, and crooked a finger.
The black giant erupted, like a beast driven to a cliff’s edge.
His overgrown muscles swelled further.
Scarlet Runes spread like veins, tearing his ink skin in appearance.
A dark-gold Rune flared at his heart.
Destruction surged skyward, and his twisted power turned to wrathful flame.
The fire burned his body as six arms gripped weapons born of it.
Across his frame, several feral pupils opened like wounds.
Those pupils fixed on Aphelia.
In that instant, space before her burst like glass.
Twisted forces appeared from nowhere and broke the air, yet left her untouched.
“So this is a True God wrought from raw flesh?
Impressive—still a little short.”
A small black snake coiled at Aphelia’s neck, and Uroboros spoke.
“Weren’t you asleep? How…”
“Because I prepared ahead.”
Let’s turn the clock back to the instant Aphelia was struck.
In that instant, Aphelia’s mind flooded with a sea of memory.
Consciousness teetered like a candle in wind.
Uroboros, unwilling to be reborn only to die, split his own power.
He peeled those memories by force and left only what fit Aphelia.
That memory carried a strange force, and the act bit him hard.
He fell asleep under backlash, like a serpent retreating into winter.
Aphelia took the flow and, in less than a breath, learned a part.
In a flash, she slipped past the black giant’s fury and built anew.
On that basis, she evolved a fresh power.
So when she reappeared, she had calm enough to swat aside his attacks.
“I can’t explain the source yet.”
“Only the world’s Will suits that tale.”
“But I can teach you to wield it.”
“I’ve been itching to try this power.”
The little black snake hissed a scarlet tongue and whispered at her ear.
The weight of it drew a wry smile from Aphelia.
She looked at the onrushing black giant and met raw strength with a simple motion.
Petals scattered.
One palm pushed.
The twisted domain wrapped her shape, and the black giant lunged.
Six weapons drove through Aphelia, or so his nerves insisted.
He felt the familiar pierce, and his warped face forced a smile uglier than tears.
However…
The pure-white figure appeared again.
Aphelia stood behind the black giant.
The crystal blossom had pierced the dark-gold Rune at his heart.
Countless silver-white threads flowed from her fingers as a barely seen white line.
It tethered the gorgeous flower like silk to a blade.
“Goodbye, Angor.”
Aphelia didn’t look at him.
A faint smile held her mouth as her hand closed.
In that moment, everyone who saw it felt the black giant’s death.
No reasons, no scales of power—just a concept, born as her fingers tightened.
No great spectacle followed, no blinding light.
Only a clean, crisp sound of shattering.
The crystal blossom was no longer a bud.
On that dark-gold Rune, it bloomed at last.
