“I’ve heard it’s that person, but with no precedent, just a few days in a newborn True God’s domain seed, she forges domain-advancing power on her own. The two of you are frighteningly compatible, like flame and oil meeting mid-storm. If I dress it up, call it soul and flesh in harmony.”

The serious talk had barely begun when a honeyed voice slid in like incense smoke.

“If you don’t hold on tighter, she’ll slip right out of your hands~”

Violet’s cheeks warmed like dawn on snow. She didn’t argue. She simply watched Aphelia inside the Aether storm, wine-red eyes flashing like wet garnets under rain.

Pure-white Aether wrapped Aphelia like a lone skiff. It split gale and rain, and cut straight through the waves.

Aphelia cradled the gorgeous Crystal Blossoms, her face untroubled, her gaze steady as a mountain lake. Tide after wilder tide of Aether broke against her, yet the white Aether at her back didn’t tremble.

“What is this…”

As she stepped again, the crimson Aether around her jolted like a flame hit by sleet. Heat fell silent. Deep-blue ghostfire bloomed around her like foxfire in a graveyard.

Facing that chill Aether, so opposite to flame, Aphelia nodded as if hearing a tune in wind. The Aether at her side shifted colors like leaves turning under frost.

“Unbelievable. This level of Aether control doesn’t look like a False God without a domain. Look at you. Without me, how would you keep pace with her? Tsk tsk tsk…”

Violet met the taunt with quiet stone. She knew some truths like shadows under noon sun.

Before her, Aphelia stood like a descended god, power pure as snowfall, beauty formed like jade by rivers. You wanted to follow, as if drawn by tide and moon.

All the more so, Violet found that figure hard to meet head-on. The space between them stretched like mist parting down a long road.

Seeing the effect, the voice in her sea of consciousness fell silent again. It only laughed soft, then occupied a corner of Violet’s sight like a lazy cat, and watched the storming Aether.

“I’m eager to see it. In this age, what that person’s domain has become.”

The voice murmured where Violet couldn’t hear, like a reed flute under thunder.

As Aphelia neared the giant egg, ghost-blue Aether clung to her Aether like burrowing worms to bone. It stole the white light without mercy, like night swallowing a candle. Aphelia didn’t flinch. She kept the Aether flowing to fill the gaps, like water mending a cracked dam.

Pressure rose like a deepening sea. Aphelia stayed poised and elegant, steps steady as a metronome, the Crystal Blossoms in hand gleaming like frost-touched petals.

Aether around the egg sensed doom like animals before an earthquake. The ghost-blue burned violently, a final thrash like a beached leviathan. For a heartbeat, a seam opened in her white Aether, and surprise flickered like lightning across her mind.

She smiled, quick as a blade catching sun. Her Silvery Armor took a smear of ghost-blue like ink on snow. Before it could blaze, she snuffed it like a candle, and her white barrier knit again like silk. Aphelia lunged for the egg like a hawk stooping.

Space lurched like misaligned mirrors. Even wrapped in white Aether, Aphelia felt time stagger half a beat, her motion slipping like a foot on wet stone.

“What… is this?!”

Her vision bled scarlet, and at the egg’s edge, the air itself filled with ghost-blue and crimson, like a hidden beast baring fangs through cracks in night.

Violet cried out, breath snagging like cloth on thorns. Before that grand Aether surge, even the thought of resistance felt like a moth before a bonfire.

In an instant, Aether that filled the world capsized like an overturned sea and drowned Aphelia. The lone skiff that split the tide vanished under a towering wave.

Silence fell, dead as winter earth.

After the flood, the rabid Aether went still, a mountain pressing down with burial weight. It pinned Aphelia like stone over a spring.

Before Violet could speak, white light flared like dawn breaking fog. A figure in Silvery Armor ripped the Aether apart like claws through silk, and broke the domain’s shackle like a chain snapped under frost.

The Aether couldn’t even react. Aphelia had already slipped beyond its shadow and stood before the egg, swift as a swallow. The surging Aether chased, but it was a step late, like thunder after lightning.

The instant Aphelia touched the egg, every thread of Aether dispersed like smoke in wind. From within the shell, a strong heartbeat sounded, answering her like drum to drum across a valley.

Warmth so familiar it trembled her bones rolled through her like spring thaw. She reached out without thinking, hands open like petals. Before she touched, a clear cracking rang out like ice breaking on a river.

Vast life force and crimson Aether surged together like a geyser. Only now, face to face with the egg, did Aphelia grasp the truth: the shell was Aether, through and through, a lotus made of light.

“In that case, this newborn True God will carry Aphelia’s brand like a seal in wax. The formed domain has taken her imprint. What new power will it breed? I’m truly curious.”

The voice in the sea of consciousness sounded again, this time serious as iron, without a trace of teasing.

Crimson Aether poured out like lava, and the whole cavern lab shook like a drum. The uproar jolted those outside. Laz and Coco were already in the lab, faces lit like torches by the glow.

“Is that noise a sign the True God’s about to be born?”

Coco eyed the near-solid mass of Aether like a storm cloud you could touch. Her voice fell to a whisper, like fur brushing glass.

“Looks that way. Except… Lady Aphelia seems to have meddled with the domain at a higher layer, like carving on jade instead of clay. The newborn True God endured it. When it emerges, it won’t be simple prey.”

Laz nodded, strapping on a crystal instrument that gleamed like a cold star. Within the dense Aether, a crimson figure moved inside the shell, bright enough to make eyes water, like a coal seen through bellows-fire.

Back at Aphelia’s side, she had already opened her arms like wings. She moved to embrace the figure in the Aether. The crimson Aether parted like loyal hounds, making way for their master.

“Welcome back, Lilo.”

She hugged the Aether-wreathed body, voice soft as a lullaby.

“Gu… wu?”

But the body wasn’t the mature fullness she remembered. The sound was small and new, like a hatchling piping.

Aphelia jerked her gaze down like a bird startled from a branch. She cried out, and instinct tugged her arms to loosen like tides retreating.

Everyone behind her gaped like carp. The scene felt unreal, like moonlight on water.

Sitting in the broken shell, making that tender, puzzled sound, was a red-haired loli with a human body and curled dragon horns, like young antlers crowned in flame.

Even so, no one dared belittle her. The crimson Aether around her had crystalized like rubies, hard proof ringing like steel.

Her gem-bright red eyes blinked at Aphelia, then swept the room like a sunbeam across blades. In a blink, those red eyes flared to blazing gold, and a crushing pressure rolled out like a falling sky. People in the back staggered like reeds in sudden wind.

“Stop, Lilo!”

Aphelia stepped in at once and blocked the child’s gaze like a screen. Pure-white Aether spread like snow across embers. The loli, still sucking a finger, froze mid-moment. The gold in her eyes went out like a snuffed lamp and returned to ruby. She reached for Aphelia with both hands, sweetness ringing like a bell.

“Mama~”

Hours later, they’d returned to the earlier lab, now refitted like a noble hall, lights and fabrics flowing like silk.

They sat around a round table like moons around a planet, casting odd looks at Aphelia, gaze twitching between laughter and restraint like sparrows pecking grain.

No wonder. Aphelia was cradling the pink-cheeked, red-haired loli, stroking her soft short hair like petting a kitten. She made tiny cooing noises, teasing the girl on her lap like playing a reed flute.

Whenever those looks drifted over like drifting leaves, Aphelia shot back a forlorn stare like rain on a window. Violet finally cracked first and laughed, bright as a clapper on bronze.

“Hahaha, Aphelia, you— you look exactly like a single mom left high and dry after a fling, seduced and abandoned, haha…”

Aphelia had changed into a white dress, pure as first snow. The red-haired loli giggled like chimes, rubbing against Aphelia’s ample chest like a cat kneading, piping “Mama” now and then, and Aphelia could only sigh like wind through pines.

She had tried handing the loli to someone else, like passing a warm coal. Each time, the girl wailed, blasted them back with Aether like a hammer of light, then clung to Aphelia with soft sobs. Aphelia could only yield like water.

“L—Lady Aphelia, if you dyed your hair this color too, you’d look even more like mother and child, hahaha…”

Coco laughed, doubled over like a bow. Aphelia rolled her eyes like rolling pearls. She did nothing more than smooth the girl’s hair, soothing her like stroking down feathers.

“Laz, do you know what’s going on?”

“Uh… I’ve got a few guesses, like stars behind clouds. But I’m not certain.”

Laz didn’t make a scene like the others. Even so, his face was stiff as cooled clay. He looked at the short-haired loli, hesitated like a step before a cliff, then spoke.