“This is... Natalie? Or...”

Dread hit first, a cold ripple under moonlight. Aphelia’s mind leaped to Eldritch Gods who steal bodies, like mold creeping under paint.

They smile like lanterns in fog, then corrode the host a layer at a time, drop by icy drop.

Seeing Natalie so changed, that was the first shadow to rise.

“Of course not.” Lilo shook her head, calm as still water. “In a sense, the Abyssal Progeny are spurned by their gods, like weeds. Why lend them power?”

The woman in the shadows walked out, slow as a tide, and came toward Aphelia without a word.

Her strength barely grazed a Titleholder’s level, a candle beside a bonfire, yet her aura was wrong enough to make Violet frown.

Violet moved like a drawn blade to shield Aphelia, but Aphelia pushed her aside, gentle as wind smoothing grass.

“Aphelia…”

“It’s fine,” Aphelia said, voice soft as falling ash. “Trust me. She won’t hurt me.”

Violet stepped back like a wolf easing from a threshold, wary yet obedient.

The brown-skinned woman stopped before Aphelia and dropped to one knee, a stone settling into earth.

One hand pressed to her chest, head bowed like a moon behind cloud. Her voice rang low.

“My Lady Goddess, Night Warden, at your service.”

She wasn’t the tender girl from before, but a campaign-hardened warrior, iron to the core, kneeling like a shield before its lord.

White hair spilled forward like snow-water, veiling her face, and her sharp horns caught the firelight like twin knives.

Aphelia’s trust had roots, old as spring buds. Since Natalie had changed, a familiar breath had swelled like a growing dawn.

When she drew near, Aphelia found the source, clear as a bell across water.

A gemstone blossom unfurled in Aphelia’s palm, petals like crystal ice. Pure-white Aether spun into pale filaments, silk in moonlight.

Those threads linked to the kneeling woman, a bridge of light, and confirmed Aphelia’s guess like a seal pressed in wax.

Natalie’s body now was woven by a variant of pure-white Aether, warp and weft like a loom under stars.

Some parts were refined, higher and sharper like tempered steel, yet Aphelia knew that cloth best, being its true weaver.

“Her elders say it’s their clan’s gift,” Lilo said, voice steady as banked coals. “They pray to an unknown god and borrow their future strength.”

“But Natalie’s too young. She can only borrow this much.” Lilo pointed at the woman’s brow, her finger a spark in the gloom.

Faint firelight rose, blue as a glacier flame, and lit the patterns etched on the woman’s horns like veins in marble.

“You can judge their strength by these horns,” Lilo went on, words measured like beads on a cord. “See that tiny fleck of white at the tip?”

“That’s proof she passed the infancy phase, a mark like dew on a leaf. To pass that and reach Titleholder level—she’ll keep growing.”

Lilo didn’t need to finish. The value blazed in Aphelia’s mind, bright as noon.

Pray, and borrow your own future might—an arrow for any dire hour, a sword for any purpose, born warriors from cradle to shore.

Touching Titleholder power early is a road-map in starlight, to become a Titleholder, build a Domain, and ascend as a True God.

Countless “geniuses” freeze at that step, like rivers under ice, unable to move an inch.

But if one can touch that power in youth, even in childhood, the road ahead smooths like a well-trodden path.

“More than that…” Lilo sighed, a tired wind over reeds. “This power passes down, permanent as a brand on blood.”

“Generations can turn like seasons, and it remains like a buried root. Now you see the Abyssal Progeny’s worth in the Demon World?”

Lilo’s eyes dimmed, remembering like a storm behind the hills, as she watched the kneeling brown-skinned woman.

Aphelia understood, of course she did, the truth heavy as rain. In the mortal world, the last to bear such ‘treatment’ were the Nature Elves.

They too inherit through blood, sap running strong, and take to elements and magic like fish to water.

When Aphelia was still a child, human and Nature Elf quarrels flared like brushfires, all because of that root.

“Natalie, how long can this power last?” Aphelia asked, voice calm as a still pool.

“If I don’t fight, three days,” the woman answered, low and steady like drumbeats. “In a fierce battle, at most half a day.”

Her black eyes held a maturity ill-fit to her years, deep as old wells. The borrowed power had lent experience and mind, iron and edge.

As she was now, her battle weight matched Violet’s like twin scales, balanced and deadly.

“Release it,” Aphelia said, tender as a hand over silk. “We don’t need you fighting yet. But I’m glad you have it.”

She stroked the white hair, combing the tangled ends like a gentle rain through branches, her words a warm hush.

The kneeling woman looked up, hesitant as a wavering flame, then sighed like a cooling forge.

“I understand, My Lady Goddess.”

Ink-black shadow peeled from her body, smoke from a burning wick, and the voluptuous shape shattered like glass in shade.

The slim, tender girl remained, a reed by the river, and with a soft hum the time-spanning power faded like dusk light.

As it faded, pure-white threads slipped from Aphelia’s hand, fishlines of moonlight, quick and sure.

The instant the girl returned, the silver-white filaments trembled like plucked strings, and the gemstone blossom opened a single petal.

Seeing that, a thought bloomed in Aphelia, a lantern lit behind her eyes. She erased the blossom like a tide erasing footprints.

She lifted the limp girl, light as a bundle of reeds, and carried her to the carriage like a mother cat with a kitten.

Ignoring the girl’s fluttering panic, she set her down and whispered a few words, soft as falling snow.

The door closed with a hush, and pure-white Aether surfaced like frost, etching a Rune upon the wood.

“Well? Find anything, Aphelia?” Lilo asked, voice low as embers. She’d seen the small motion like a hunter notices a rustle.

Violet drifted closer, curiosity a moth to flame. Time-borrowing had cracked her old map of the world.

“I did,” Aphelia said, palm opening like a shell. “The girl’s power is clean, not from an Eldritch pact. But…”

The gemstone flower sat half-bloomed, petals quivering like leaves tugged by a hidden stream.

“…her power resonated with my True God power,” she finished, the words like thunder under silk.

Lilo blinked, then chuckled, a ripple across still water, and shook her head like a willow in a breeze.

“So you’re the god the Abyssal Progeny worship? Don’t be absurd,” she said, light as smoke. “She borrowed it from her future. You felt that.”

“But my power is time,” Aphelia said, steady as a clock’s heart. “I can bend time by my will.”

Silence fell like snow, soft yet heavy. Lilo stared, disbelief winged like a startled crow.

After a long breath, she spoke again, voice tight as bowstring. “Time… isn’t a human art. Every book says so.”

“Aphelia, you sure it’s not a trick of something similar?” she asked, suspicion a thorn on the stem.

Aphelia didn’t argue. She rose and curled a finger, a playful hook of moonlight. “Come. Attack me. Don’t hold back.”

Pure-white Aether flowed and formed mighty Bracer Gauntlets, shells of light around her arms like glacier plates.

A faint glow crawled over her skin, a sunrise under ice, carrying a nameless force like tide under a calm sea.

Seeing it, Violet relaxed like a cat in warmth, as if the end had already been written in sand.

She yawned, slipped into the darkness like ink in water, and left one line behind her. “I’ll sweep the perimeter. I’ll be back when you’re done.”

Lilo said nothing. Scarlet flame cooled into a quiet deep-blue fire, a midnight ocean without waves.

She had climbed a step in her own art, steady as chiseling stone. A crimson Mageblade rose from the blaze like a phoenix’s feather.

A dusting of dragon-scales shimmered on her forearms, glints like river pebbles. They were in Abyssal Progeny country, so she kept it tight.

Still, she meant to make Aphelia eat some pain, a bitter herb to clear the head.

Too bad. That plan was ash before wind. She didn’t know how far Aphelia had climbed since they parted.

She hefted the Mageblade not like a mage, but like a knife-fighter, the stance lean and hungry as a wolf.

The edge leveled at Aphelia’s heart, a straight line drawn by frost. A bloom of flame whoomped in the air, and Lilo vanished like a spark.

Even Aphelia lost her for a heartbeat, a blink in night. Yet she closed her eyes, calm as a lake, and waited.

Deep-blue fire flared in the dark, a star lighting the deep. The blade cut for Aphelia’s heart, clean as a falling icicle.

It should’ve been a killing stroke, a bell to end the song. Lilo didn’t pull it, hunger bright as steel.

The thought had barely formed, a bird barely lifting wing, when the killing edge skated off its line like rain off glass.

Lilo’s body, bursting from that cobalt fire, also slid wide, a comet pushed by a hidden current.

Aphelia still stood where she’d been, rooted like a tree, a faint smile touching her lips like dawn on snow.