“That black-haired girl—who is she, really?”

That question gnawed at Aphelia the moment memory returned, like a thorn under skin that you can’t tweeze out.

She couldn’t tell if they shared one memory or one fate. The helplessness felt shared, like two strings vibrating to the same cold note.

Raz had clearly expected it. He held her gaze in steady silence, a lake under wind, with a trace of helpless apology rippling in his eyes.

Aphelia sighed, palm flicking like a falling leaf, telling him to drop it. Some answers were shackled, and he wore the chains.

“I’m sorry, Lady Aphelia…” Raz rose and bowed, guilt pooling around him like shadow around a lamp.

“Then my memories—can I still restore them?” Her fingers tapped the table, a clock’s heartbeat, while she waited.

“I’m afraid not. We stockpiled Aether for nearly an entire epoch to drive that process. After your… incident, that Aether dispersed like smoke.”

He flinched under her hopeful look. He spread his hands, as if showing empty sleeves. “To find your memories now, we’d have to ask the World Will.”

Aphelia breathed out. Trapped by an unknown force, even the strong feel ice at the spine, and mercy slips like sand.

“Forget it. I’ll ask the World Will when I find it. Then this city—those guests, that city lord—you can explain that much, right? Why can’t they see us, and how do they reset so fast?”

At the city’s mention, Raz smiled and shook his head, as if dusting off a simple trick.

“Just small methods. An application of Aether manipulation. Those guests are memories engraved in Aether. When they’re destroyed, we call Aether and restore them.”

“But restored like that, they’re frozen in the instant they were recorded. They only do what that instant captured, so they can’t see us. As for those who attacked you, Lady Aphelia, they were affected by the Fallen Demon. We didn’t interfere to avoid exposing the plan. Please forgive us.”

“It’s not a crime,” she said, though her tone carried a winter edge. “But if you work like this…”

She thought it through. This city clung so close to the Demon World’s legions. From the Second Epoch till now—could they really stay hidden without a crack?

“Of course, we had help from Master Merlin and the current Demon King. Without them, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

That fit. The answer rang clean as steel. Aphelia nodded, acceptance settling like dust after rain.

“Then, Lady Aphelia, do you have any other questions?” Raz spoke with careful respect, straight-backed like a spear.

“No more questions. I assume Master Merlin’s route includes this place. He clearly wanted you to help clear the fog in my mind. I’ll stay a few days, wait on Lilo’s Domain construction. Packs and sundries—can you arrange them?”

She barely finished before Raz bowed, the gesture crisp as a blade’s line. “Leave it to me. I’ll see to it. As for the other two…”

He glanced at Violet, then toward Natalie, who’d been guided to rest.

“They’re with me,” Aphelia said. “No training disruptions. Not for a while.”

Even if they agreed on paper, trust didn’t bloom overnight. A knife from the dark followed by an explanation left a bitter rind. If not for Merlin’s name and the faint memories that had resurfaced, she wouldn’t have listened at all.

And Lilo stood at the threshold of becoming a True God. One nudge at the wrong time, here on their turf, could shatter that step like thin ice. Aphelia would not risk it.

So the choice was made. They returned to the cavern lab. Only Coco served as their go-between, carrying words like a swift sparrow. No one else crossed that line.

Days later, in the cavern lab—

Eyes closed, Aphelia rested near the giant egg. Crimson Aether wrapped her like a quiet tide, and she merged with it, a boulder in the river.

Violet and Natalie kept watch beyond the Aether’s rim. They sat in stillness, mirroring Aphelia, studying her outline inside that red haze.

“Your rival in love is something else, huh~” The voice in Violet’s sea of consciousness curled up like lazy smoke.

Violet ignored it. She kept her gaze steady. She couldn’t see Aether itself, but she felt its pulse like a drum behind a wall.

The voice kept prattling on, pebbles thrown to ripple her calm, needling and humming to break her still lake.

Hours bled away. Violet remained unmoved, a stone lantern in wind and rain. Irritation pricked the voice, then it changed tactics.

In a blink, wine-red irises flooded blood-red. Violet’s vision filled with churning crimson Aether, a storm-wall crashing over unready shores. She flinched, instinct tugging at her power.

Natalie moved first. Not in her mature form, all wire and speed, she pounced and caught Violet’s arm, pinning down the surge. Power jammed inside Violet like a stuck blade, refusing to slip free.

Violet steadied her breath, then patted Natalie’s hands, a small tap telling her she was fine. Inwardly, she demanded, “What are you trying to do?!”

“Nothing at all~ So? How’s the view from a True God’s eyes?” The lazy drawl stretched like a cat in sun.

Irritation surged, hot as pepper on tongue. Violet adapted to the vision and found herself astonished despite it.

When she’d lent her body to the demon before, she’d only balanced the power inside. She had never seen Aether’s true face. This—this wasn’t Arcane Power at all; it was another sky.

The first shock rattled her, but she had used Aether through that “demon” more than once. A few steadying breaths, and her sight aligned with the flow.

If she had to name it, in Violet’s eyes the surrounding crimson Aether looked like blood in motion, a river under skin.

It moved along a hidden lattice between Aphelia and the egg, a perfect circuit. With every cycle, the crimson deepened, then poured into the egg’s halo like molten metal.

Something was gestating around that shell, like thunder brewing inside a mountain.

Violet lacked the strength to see what it would become. But recalling their talk, she guessed it must be the Domain that condenses when one steps into True God.

“Well? Doesn’t it feel crystal clear now? I didn’t do anything wrong, did I~”

“Can you read what that Domain will be?”

“Me? Oh, now you remember to ask me? Then I can only say—I don’t know~”

She clearly understood the birthing state, yet chose to tease, leaving the view open like a window in winter. Her laughter scratched Violet’s nerves like a feather and a blade.

Just then, within the crimson ring, Aphelia’s eyes snapped open.

Pure-white Aether rose like a sudden army, spearing through the red and tearing a clean sky. It pressed against the egg’s field, and clash roared through the cavern, an Aether storm sweeping out like a sand gale.

Violet grabbed Natalie to retreat by reflex, but Aphelia split a share of power. A shield bloomed before them, a clear wall that turned the storm aside like rain off a cliff.

“What is she doing? Why interfere now?” Behind the Aether screen, Violet stared at Aphelia in the storm’s heart, feeling that growing pressure push toward the egg.

This went against Aphelia’s earlier plan, like a boat suddenly rowing against the current.

“If you beg me…” the voice purred.

“Say another word and I seal the path to my sea. No more body for you. Ever.”

Silence knifed the air. A cold snort followed, grudging as winter sun.

“She’s making final preparations right before the Domain sets.”

“If you build a Domain alone, it forms at a lower tier—the standard kind. ‘Standard’ for a True God still shakes mountains, sure.”

“But what’s ahead of you won’t be handled by a standard True God. Your Aphelia plans to use herself as a guide-post, to raise that Domain a whole level.”

“My methods don’t follow your cultivation road. For her to grasp this with your path… that’s something remarkable.”