At the mention, Laz sobered, his face settling like frost on tempered steel.

“I’ve been waiting for this. On the descent of the Eldritch Gods, we ran exhaustive forecasts, a web of numbers like storm tracks. Want the full set?”

“No. I probably wouldn’t read it right. Just give me the conclusion.”

A small sigh rose in Aphelia first, then she shook her head, as calm as a lake at dawn. She didn’t care for charts. Her memories had no figures to lean on, and bluffing would only sour the air.

Coco stepped forward first, quick as a sparrow hopping to the front, and cut in before Laz.

“By our estimate, we’ve got almost ten years before an Eldritch God descends.”

“Ten years? Then you’ve prepared countermeasures?”

Aphelia’s question fell like a pebble in a well, and both across from her shook their heads. Coco’s look turned wistful, clouds drifting over a spring sun.

“The armor Coco wears—Miss Violet saw it before. It’s the strongest weapon we can make so far, steel and lightning like a last bastion. But before an Eldritch God, it’s likely not even a single exchange.”

“But if an Eldritch God does descend, those who ascended as True Gods shouldn’t stand by, right? Across eras, the number of True Gods is limited, but still.”

She didn’t dare belittle what could crush a civilization. Twice the world had capsized under those tides. Yet in her memories, neither civilization had birthed a True God. If so, perhaps this era had a chance to strike back?

“I’m sorry. That’s impossible.”

Laz shook his head, then laid out a truth that hit like thunder over dry plains.

“The so‑called True Gods are long dead.”

“That can’t be! No matter how strong an Eldritch God is, it can’t—”

Before Aphelia could speak, Violet flinched as if a scar were touched, and cried out like a bowstring snapping.

“It is what it is.”

Laz met Violet’s flare with river-flat calm, and gestured for Coco to bring something.

Confusion tightened in Aphelia first, then her gaze steadied like a spear. If all True Gods were gone, then what was a Valkyrie? What did the Church worship?

“Have you never questioned it? This theory of ‘ascend to the divine realm’ and ‘being rejected by the world.’ Aether is the root of all things, like loam for every seed. Why would the world reject you after you merge with its soil?”

His tone held a thin edge of mockery, a knife glinting in a lantern’s light. He strapped his apparatus back on, pinched a wisp of Aether from the air like plucking a firefly, let it whirl between his fingers, then drew it into himself. His aura surged like a rocket cutting the night.

Yet the world around him didn’t push him away. It felt like wind at his back.

Doubt pricked Aphelia, cool as rain on heated stone. Laz didn’t grow strong by the methods she knew, so he shouldn’t count as proof. But what about her?

A True God, forged by orthodox practice, had tarried in this world long enough to watch mountains age. Where was the world’s so-called rejection?

“‘Ascend to the divine realm’ is just this: once you become a True God, the Eldritch Gods’ servants sense you. Then you’re bound or butchered.”

Laz spoke it like a bell tolling in fog, plain and terrible. He watched Aphelia’s reaction with a quiet satisfaction.

“Then where’s your proof?”

Violet clung to the question like a cliff ledge, her wine-red eyes knotted with emotions—anger like fire, hatred like iron.

“Proof… Coco, show them. Since Miss Violet insists.”

At that, Coco returned cradling a pitch-black magitek device as if carrying a rare egg through thorns.

She reattached her Bracer Gauntlets. A thin veil of Aether wrapped the obsidian apparatus. She moved step by careful step from the metal door, checking it like a jeweler watching breath fog the gem.

At Laz’s nod, she bowed slightly. Fine mechanisms unfurled from her Bracer Gauntlets like filigree vines. They slotted into several pinholes on the apparatus like a key entering an old lock. With a soft whirr-click, the device began to contract. After a short run of gears, what remained in the air before them was a sliver of ember-orange crystal.

A ripple of Aether flowed from the shard, and Aphelia’s brows drew in like willow leaves touching water. She stared a long breath, then answered herself.

“This is the source of a True God’s power?! Fully stripped, clean as winter ice. Where did you get this…”

The energy inside was upright and serene, like a straight road under noon light. It felt familiar, and her eyes narrowed, the blade in them turning toward Laz.

“Don’t misunderstand. This came from the Fallen Demon Miss Violet fought in the city. We only purified it. This Aether crystal—Lady Aphelia, take a guess. Which ‘ascended’ powerhouse did it once belong to?”

Coco nodded quickly behind Laz, then added, words tumbling like beads.

“I’ve done this many times already. To prove this one point, we kept engineering Fallen Demon descents. Lord Laz has a lot more crystals saved—mmph…”

A pastry cut her words off, neatly pressed to her lips by Laz. He sighed at Aphelia’s gaze, now edged like a drawn sword, and explained with hands open.

“Please trust me, Lady Aphelia. We pulled these from Fallen Demons. We do have more. It’s because we fought them again and again that we reached this conclusion.”

“This Aether crystal… is it from that recent ascetic of the Church? Only their lot used this force.”

Aphelia plucked the ember shard. She tasted the power within like a vintner tasting a familiar vintage, and matched it to a face in memory.

Yet disbelief hovered like mist over a ravine. If it truly came from that ascetic’s Aether crystal, what was the Church thinking when they announced ‘ascension to the divine realm’?

“Think about it. Where did that ‘ascension’ idea come from? And what did the one who spread it actually do?”

Seeing her circle the right flame, Laz fanned it gently. Some truths couldn’t be named, but guiding the mind was wind through bamboo.

Violet had sunk into her seat, spine loosened like a bow put away. Old memories bit down, and she ground her teeth.

What had the Church done?

Aphelia let out a thin, cold laugh, frost skimming clear water. The proof sat on the table like a stone. Even if she doubted Laz elsewhere, when it came to the Church, she wouldn’t spare the knife, whether or not he stoked the fire.

“In that case… you can cultivate enough True God-tier fighters as a counter to the Eldritch Gods, right?”

“Of course. But candidates aren’t easy to find. To this day, only Coco has adapted to the Aether crystal left by the previous God of the Void. And she did it without tainting her bloodline. Only then did she show power fierce enough to face a Fallen Demon.”

Laz nodded, admitting the plan in plain daylight. Coco flushed beside him, shy as a peach blossom, which made Laz sigh from the chest.

“That’s not praise. And at your current level—sigh…”

Coco only smiled at the jab, spring breeze over stone, and didn’t argue.

“So a case like Coco’s is hard to copy, isn’t it?”

“Exactly. People like her will be your stepping stones, sending you to the Eldritch God’s face and opening a window. But to fight an Eldritch God, tip-of-the-spear power alone won’t save a civilization.”

Aphelia agreed with a small nod, like a seal stamped on parchment. A True God could shift mountains with a gesture. But True Gods had been turned into Fallen Demons. Who knew if those inheriting Aether crystals would be warped again?

“To resist an Eldritch God, the whole world must stand together. The apex can’t shield all. They’ll be the spearpoint against Fallen Demons. But the legions that march with an Eldritch God—those monsters require the full mobilization of civilization to find a sliver of dawn.”

“Legions?”

The word snagged her thoughts like a hook in silk. Laz kept tossing out answers she had never heard, but the iron in front of her forced belief.

“Yes. Legions. To be exact, we call them—Calamities.”

The name struck a buried bell in her memory, and ripples ran.

She saw doomsday unfurling like a black banner. Twisted ebon creatures crawled at an Eldritch God’s feet, howling like rusted saws. Their bodies defied nature, and their malice was pure as poison, a cold that seeped to the bone.

Before that heaving, warped host stood only a black-haired girl, alone like a lantern at midnight. Pressure and malice surged like a tidal bore, nearly solid, and Aphelia reflexively drew on Aether.

For a breath, the present overlapped the old, two mirrors facing. The girl turned, surprise flickering as if she’d noticed an uninvited guest.

Then the black-haired girl smiled. Silver-white Bracer Gauntlets gleamed on her forearms like moonlit ice. With the lightest wave, the storm of malice broke on an unseen shield.

“Lady Aphelia, it seems you’ve recalled those things.”

Laz’s voice snapped her back like a hand on the shoulder. The vast pressure, the pure malice, and the black-haired girl all vanished like dew in sun.

“Indeed… You may be right. But I have one last question for you.”