“See? She’s already found the way…”
Merlin watched Aphelia shut her eyes like a moon slipping behind cloud, a faint smile on his lips as Aether surged from his staff like a rising tide, and the iron knight clutched his head and howled like winter wind.
Inside the armor, the shell swelled as if forced open, the whole figure ballooning; his austere greatsword spat countless chains that stabbed toward Aphelia like a storm of thorns.
Her eyes were closed, yet her sight spread like starlight across eight directions; she slipped past every stabbing chain, ghosted away from vicious cuts, and now and then drove a heavy one‑armed punch that dented that hard helm like hailstones on iron.
But it still wasn’t enough.
Even with Merlin doubling the Aether, Aphelia hadn’t stepped onto that trigger point; the sense of danger didn’t fade, but those wild attacks no longer truly threatened her, more wind than blade.
Not just Aphelia felt it; on the observation platform, Merlin read the same knot in the weave. After long thought, an unstable glow peeled from his staff like a firefly from night; he hesitated, and didn’t cast it into the field.
“What is that, Master Merlin… why can I sense the breath of something alive?” Violet’s voice trembled like a taut string.
The Tower Spirit had explained the machinery’s bones, and she’d calmed like settling snow; but when Merlin palmed that light‑sphere, her heart climbed back up like a bird startled from a branch.
“Oh? Not bad. I’m thinking you’re not simple at all—below Demigod, yet you can sense what Aether seals away. But before the Epoch, there wasn’t anyone like you…”
She ignored his rambling like leaves ignore passing wind. A faint red rose in Violet’s eyes like dawn; she crushed the killing urge under her ribs, trying to see what hid beneath that light.
A small sting pricked her arm like a gnat; some liquid flowed in like warm tea, the red washed away, and the urge smoothed by a gentle current.
“Easy. For now, don’t call that power. I won’t harm Aphelia, and you see it too—only Thunder can break this deadlock.” Merlin’s voice was steady, like stone under rain.
He steadied the light‑sphere; Aether began to withdraw like ebbing tide. The “life” bound inside sensed a scent on the wind, thrashed like a trapped eel, yet Merlin held firm—no inch slipped free.
“Merlin… are you serious? You’re really putting that thing in?” The Tower Spirit’s voice was cold, like iron at night.
Merlin paused. He looked at the composed figure in the storm below, then at the Tower Spirit, his gaze clear and hard as frost.
“If we don’t pay a price… this Epoch will pass us by again.”
Silver‑white radiance opened a portal around him like a petal of light; the Aether binding the sphere withdrew, and he let it fall into the battlefield like a comet.
Without Merlin’s Aether, the sphere’s truth bled through—thick tar oozing, a twisted stench that made the air curdle. Violet’s eyes widened like lanterns in wind.
“Isn’t that the creation of that cult from the mortal realm?!”
It skimmed past the steel legions like black rain, pausing only before the giant beast like a shadow at a gate; then, finding Oz’s raging presence, it lunged like a hungry wolf.
Oz felt the thing behind him like cold breath; his austere greatsword whipped back in a slash, but the tar met the blade like wave meets cliff, split into stray pieces, and seeped into his armor like ink through paper; his wild assault on Aphelia stopped like a wind cut short.
Aphelia didn’t relax; she stepped out of the oneness with Heaven like a diver breaking the surface, stood silent, and waited for the next wave to strike.
Tar crawled inside Oz’s helm; the silver‑white plates bloomed with living membranes like sick moss, the greatsword bound by twisted veins like an old root, fused to his arm, and behind the visor, the pupils were gone, replaced by something strange, like a hole in night.
Oz, now assimilated, panted like a beast under bridle, dragged the heavy blade like a chained river, and walked toward Aphelia under some driving will.
She’d cut off sensation like snuffing a candle, yet now felt cornered, no road left; her calm shattered like glass, and deep inside she tasted that sharp stimulus, the key pebble floating above her sea of consciousness like a star over water.
The warped blade thrust in, and Aphelia didn’t dodge; she let it carve a harsh wound across her body like a frost line, and answered with another one‑armed heavy punch, same spot as before, crushing helm and clotted flesh like a hammer on clay.
That single strike put her in peril.
Veins across the armor unraveled into tendrils like hunting vines, pierced her body, and yanked her to Oz’s chest like a hooked fish. The arm fused with the blade twisted to an eerie angle like a broken branch, the sharp edge leveled at her heart like a spearhead at dawn.
The tragedy of a severed arm seemed ready to repeat; this time, Aphelia’s strength was gone like ash in wind—she couldn’t tear free of those tendrils. On the platform, Violet shut her eyes like a lily closing at dusk, unable to watch.
The blade kissed Aphelia’s heart like ice; the strange pain shattered her Heaven‑and‑self as one, and standing on the brink of death, her inner ocean roared. Power compressed by Aether’s isolation burst open like a dam, and her mind drowned in a boundless sea of Aether like a ship in storm.
At the center, pure white light erupted from her ruined body like a newborn sun—too bright for open eyes.
“Where… is this?”
Aphelia opened her eyes; the scene was blurred like fog, pure white light veiling her view like gauze; she rubbed her stung eyes and finally saw—and went still.
A splendid capital was drowned in fire like a sea of embers; the sky was gnawed by darkness like moths eating silk; meteors dragged burning scars across the horizon and smashed into the city like iron rain.
Screams swelled in her ears like a tide; she covered them as tears pricked, watching the capital burn like a forest in summer.
When she reached out to help, the scene shifted like a turning page. The capital lay broken, snowstorms draped the ruins like shrouds, and deep winter gnawed the survivors like wolves.
From those meteors, monsters grew like fungi from rot; when night fell, they swarmed the ruins and hunted the living like shadows.
Grotesque beasts butchered humans with wild ease: some vast, each motion a quake; some twisted, each flicker sowing fear; alchemical guns did nothing, and cold steel was less than straw.
Soon, blood filled her sight like poured dye.
The monsters only slaughtered, piled the bones like a trophy mound, and then retreated into the meteors as if to sleep like stones.
They missed what lay beneath the pile: a slim body with a stubborn heartbeat thumping on like a drum under snow.
The scene turned once more like wind changing; before Aphelia stood a figure of pure white she couldn’t fully see. Silver‑white armor cloaked her shape like moonlight on ice, yet Aphelia’s instincts whispered she was a woman—near perfect, like a statue kissed by dawn.
Only such a woman would carry such grace.
She held a Silver Lance like a shard of winter; her Bracer Gauntlets were fine as art and not the least bulky, like petals forged from silver.
The armor’s edges were clean and sharp like facets; barbed fins ridged the forearms, yet they didn’t make her feral—only strong, like a cliff over sea. A sigil marked her silver breastplate like a secret star, but Aphelia rubbed her eyes and still couldn’t read its shape, as if mist guarded it.
Sensing Aphelia’s gaze, the woman turned like a slow comet and removed her helm; a cascade of silver hair spilled down to her waist like water from a high spring. The white glow hid her face, yet Aphelia felt her kindness and beauty like warmth after snow.
“I’m so sorry… for the pain you had to bear.” Her voice was low and soft, a touch androgynous, gentle as rain on bamboo.
She half‑knelt and reached out a hand like a bridge of light.
For reasons she couldn’t name, Aphelia’s heartstrings thrummed like plucked zither; her nose stung, and tears rose unhidden like tide. Though she didn’t know why, it felt like she’d known this woman for years, and she gave herself over, body and soul, like a boat to harbor.
“I’m sorry… I’ve no words that heal. If you need me for anything, let me bear this pain for you.” The woman smiled like spring sun.
To take on another’s suffering and still smile—warm and steady—at that instant, a blurred image swept Aphelia’s mind like lightning behind cloud; pain bit, and she let out a low sound, gripping that offered hand tight like a lifeline.
“From here on, leave it to me.”
At that voice, Aphelia finally slipped past the edge of pain, and under that inexplicable trust and gentle warmth, she closed her eyes like petals at dusk.
On the observation platform, the pure white glow faded like returning day. They rubbed their stung eyes and looked to the battlefield’s heart like watchers after storm. Merlin reacted most. He fell to his knees—smiling, yet sobbing like rain.
A pure white figure stepped free of Aphelia’s body like a spirit stepping from mist and, with only her raised index finger, stopped that heavy blade like a breeze halting a falling leaf.
