“Of course. From that moment on, human bloodlines stopped staying pure, like a clear spring turned murky.”

The middle-aged man sighed, wind through dry reeds, and shook his head with regret, yet his lips sealed like frost on a locked gate.

His face twisted, a bone caught in his throat, and Aphelia’s expectant gaze felt to him like a winter blade on bare skin.

After a long silence, Aphelia felt the weight too, a stone sinking in a still well, and broke the stalemate first.

“Is this the part that can’t be spoken?”

His guarded look was a veil of fog, and it pulled back old, buried days in her mind, a shadowed alley she’d never left.

Behind it, the answer stood stark: the Eldritch Gods—an eclipse hanging over humanity’s twin peaks of civilization, a tide that drowns all light.

Merlin had never opened those files, and the reason this man wouldn’t touch the topic felt like a deeper abyss than she’d imagined.

“Lady Aphelia, please forgive me…”

“No need. I understand your reasons. We’ll skip this part.”

Aphelia lifted a hand, a calm ripple over stormwater, and let him go on.

She believed most of what he’d laid out, yet the mist-thin memories in her skull and that black-haired girl who mirrored her face kept burning like a lantern behind silk.

If she didn’t solve it, it would nest in her mind forever, a night bird that never sleeps.

“Of course, even skipping that, there’s plenty of history you should know—especially the fate you’ll have to face.”

He straightened, spine like a drawn bow, but before he spoke, the white-robed guard at the machine stepped in, whispered like moth-wings, then slipped away.

“This person—she’s your companion, isn’t she, Lady Aphelia?”

On the screen, a street unrolled under dim moonlight, and a lithe, brown-skinned silhouette moved with a curved blade, shadows flowing around her like water.

The white bone mask and the unique force flaring along her blade marked her identity like a seal in wax.

“Right, that’s… my attendant. Please bring her in.”

The white robe bowed and turned, feet quiet as falling ash.

“Oh, wait.”

Aphelia rose, a white flame lifting from a quiet hearth, stopped him, and stepped to the mechanical door. Her voice turned to the middle-aged man.

“She seems afraid of this town. I’ll go. How should I address you? Lead the way.”

“Of course, it’s my honor. I don’t have a proper name—call me Laz. The ‘city lord’ you met was just a machine we were operating.”

Laz moved to the door, respectful as rain on old stone, and pressed several buttons by the frame. Violet followed, unwilling to be left in this haunted place alone.

A soft whirr breathed out, and the door slid open like a shell opening under the tide. The three stepped into a chamber like a teleportation array carved in steel.

He adjusted a few settings, and a faint hum rose, bees waking in a glass hive.

Aphelia felt the Aether shift around them, a white current threading silk, and surprise flashed in her eyes like starlight in deep water.

These plain-looking machines were driving Aether again, yet didn’t trigger an Aether backlash, a river guided without breaking its banks.

“Next, please don’t marshal your power to resist. There might be slight discomfort…”

His words warped at the edges, heat shimmering on road dust, and sharp light filled the room like noon on snow.

A hollow lurch tugged at her gut—though the chamber didn’t change, Aphelia felt a clear relocation, a boat cutting under fog.

The sound chimed lightly again, and the door opened as if nothing had happened. Before them spread an opulent banquet hall, lantern-bright and gold like autumn grain.

Countless guests drifted through the hall, glasses clinking like little bells, savoring the feast, and they flowed past the three as if they were wind.

“Please, follow me.”

Laz ignored the guests, a stone in the stream, and even pushed aside two that blocked him, without a ripple in his expression.

Aphelia and Violet shared a glance, surprise like frost on a window. The pushed guests didn’t glance back; they laughed, stood, and called it a slip.

Aphelia signaled Violet and stepped forward first, feet soft as feathers on lacquered floor.

Doubt simmered in her chest, a kettle near boil, but Laz was already ahead, so she held her tongue and, in passing, let a thread of pure-white Aether sting into the crowd like a needle of light.

“What’s with these guests, Laz? I saw black fog shroud this place and tear it down.”

Once they left the manor, Aphelia finally spoke. Violet came alongside, her eyes questioning like night stars.

Since walking through that door, Aphelia hadn’t sensed any Aether or Arcane Power, a still pond under an iron sky.

“They’re clones processed specially… ah, forgive me, Lady Aphelia—your memory may not be restored that far.”

They moved through dark streets, ink pooling between stones, and Laz searched for words like a fisherman groping in cold water.

Behind him, the two traded a look, then shook their heads, a silent wind across grass.

The laughing guests in the hall were normal humans. Different methods, same conclusion—two paths to one mountain.

“We’re here, Lady Aphelia. I’ll be counting on you…”

After a short walk past a few blocks, they reached a corner, and Laz stopped, inviting her forward like a host opening a gate.

Before he finished, a curved blade flickered out of the shadows, a crescent moon with teeth, and the agile figure lunged like a hunting cat straight at Laz.

“Stop, Natalie!”

White light bloomed, fresh snow under moon, and Aphelia crossed the distance in one breath, catching the blade barehanded like thunder held in a palm.

The brown silhouette froze, a deer pausing mid-leap, and when she saw the white glow, she pulled back and stilled.

“Lady Aphelia… is it really you?!”

Natalie trembled, the blade clattered like a bird bone, and she threw her arms around Aphelia, crying as if the person before her might be smoke.

Feeling the tremor in her arms, Aphelia sighed, a quiet reed bending in wind. For someone that terrified, slipping in alone after the fog thinned took the courage of fire.

The agile hunter vanished, and what remained was a small girl, tears falling like warm rain, clutching Aphelia’s hem with white knuckles.

“Easy, Natalie. If you’re afraid, say it. You don’t have to be afraid now.”

White light stroked Natalie’s frame, a hand on fevered brow, easing her fear and steadying her breath.

With Aphelia’s calm, Natalie stilled, struggled a moment like a fish in net, then gritted her teeth and chose.

“There… there are monsters. They used to swarm the Abyss. They’re the ones who sold us to humans.”

She shrank back a little, a leaf under hail, and pointed at the manor with a shaking finger.

“Monsters?”

Aphelia turned sharply toward Laz, a blade of gaze cutting the night.

“I fear she means Fallen Demons. It’s a long tale, and this isn’t the place. Please, come with me.”

Seeing Natalie’s terror, Laz stayed outwardly calm, a mask of wood, with no expression to read.

They retraced their steps to the lab, corridors folding like paper, and this time Aphelia remembered the other name tugging at her chest.

“Where’s Lilo? Why haven’t I seen her?”

The past Laz had laid out was too vast, a mountain of notes, and it had swallowed her thoughts whole for a while.

“The red-haired woman? We didn’t touch her. She seems to have entered a self-protective state. She’s in the lab next door. Shall I take you?”

Realizing the oversight, Laz apologized quickly, raindrops tapping on stone, and had the white robes open the other mechanical door.

“Self-protection? What do you mean?”

They walked on, steps echoing like hollow drums, and Aphelia’s confusion rose. In her last clear memory, Lilo’s Aether braided with hers, birthing something new—maybe that’s the root.

“It’s tied to your power. More precisely, you let her climb another tier.”

They passed through the first door, and a massive natural cavern unfurled, a world of stone in sharp contrast to the precise steel of the previous lab.

“This is the Natural Mimicry Lab, prepared for her. Sense it with Aether, and you’ll see.”

Laz swept a hand over a crystal screen, and pale light raced across the cavern like dawn skimming a valley. In that instant, Aphelia saw the truth under the glow.

This was also a vast mechanical lab. Unlike the last, it showed no machinery, like a giant shell hollowed clean.

At the cavern’s heart rested a crimson giant egg, faintly glowing like an ember in deep ash.