“Courting death.”

The words fell like frost. Fenrir’s pupils shrank to pinpoints, while the pure-white silhouette before her stayed still as a snow statue. In a heartbeat, she felt power surge like a rising tide.

It was a terror mortals could only look up at, like a cliff face cutting the sky.

If Fenrir was a dragon, then Aphelia was the Plague of Beasts. Before a True God, even the mightiest beast was a passing mote, a bug without resistance.

Since becoming a Titleholder, Fenrir had never felt such a gulf. They were an arm’s length apart, yet divided by an abyssal sky. She’d felt this only once—before the one she called His Majesty.

The massive horse‑cleaver never reached Aphelia. It turned to ash mid‑charge, while the black‑armored rider’s fanatic grin froze, unaware his body had become dust on the wind.

When they realized it, they were head and limbs parted, blood speckling stone like red rain. Aphelia still stood where she’d begun, a white cliff in fog.

No one in the black‑armored troop dared jump out again. No one questioned her strength now; their tongues were stones in their mouths.

“I’ll leave this to you, Miss Fenrir. I hope I won’t be waiting long.”

“Of course…”

Fenrir’s face went dark as a storm front. To rebel under her eyelids, to march men up the mountain—this was premeditated, plotted like roots winding through rock.

In a place this far from the throne, seizing troops to rebel was a naked slap across royal cheeks, a firebrand to old banners.

Worse, this was the Abyss. When it first erupted, it carved wounds to the bone, a thorn lodged in the Demon World’s heart.

Anyone who touched the Abyss would peel open that blood‑wet scar. No demon could stomach it—least of all a royal like Fenrir.

The black‑armored riders knew her temper. They scrambled down, knelt in the dust, kowtowed like hammers on stone. It wouldn’t calm Fenrir’s storm, but what came next wasn’t Aphelia’s burden.

Aphelia turned, face calm as still water, and asked Koko, “Speaking of which—where’s Lori? I haven’t seen her.”

Thinking of Fenrir’s draconic form, Aphelia remembered that red‑haired little shadow stuck to her heels. She’d woken to a rush of tasks and lost the girl’s trail.

“Oh, the red‑haired little one? Natalie’s looking after her. Don’t know why, but she and Natalie get along, so Natalie took over.”

Something twitched in Aphelia’s gaze. She covered Koko’s mouth, a fingertip like a snowflake, and urged silence with her eyes.

Heavy footsteps rolled in behind them, a drum from the fog. Along the stone path, through thick white mist, something huge walked closer like a mountain moving.

Fenrir, standing before the black‑armored troop, snapped her head around. She finished with them in a few strokes, then hurried to the two and stared into the milk‑white shroud.

Aphelia’s face sank like a storm cloud. She set the two behind her. The footsteps drew near, armor knocking in dull echoes, like a beast humming in the dark.

“You brought more men up?”

“Of course not. How could—”

Her words cut off as a lance of light shot from the fog. It kissed Fenrir’s cheek, slicing it open and throwing up a flower of blood.

In the same breath, Aphelia shoved the two aside and shot into the mist like an arrow leaving the string.

The collision of force rippled the air like pond rings. The mountain itself shuddered; the fog shredded, torn like old silk.

Earlier she felled heavy cavalry with thunder, quick as lightning through clouds. Now, greatsword and tower shield crossed, and she locked into a stalemate like antlers hooked in a thicket.

On the stone path, Aphelia’s fists pressed the sword and shield down. Beneath them stood a tall knight in battered heavy plate, rust flaking like dead leaves.

His sword was broken at mid‑spine; his towering shield wore dark red stains like dried rain. Yet he took Aphelia’s Aether‑laden fists head‑on, a cliff catching breakers.

The shield‑bearer even tried to push her back, like a tide reversing. A strike no Titleholder should withstand found room to turn, and Aphelia’s caution climbed another step.

She snorted, a winter gust. Pure‑white Aether flared, and her fists drove down. The weight surpassed human limits—a mountain leaning on iron.

Metal screamed. The sword and shield sank inch by inch, until the tower shield pressed the knight’s chest like a millstone.

Aphelia swept her legs; white Aether streamed around them like water, wrapping and dragging.

The tall knight sensed the current. Stone cracked under his step; his armor rasped like thorns. A small sidestep slid him clear of her sweep and exposed Aphelia’s back like a sunlit window.

He wouldn’t waste the opening. He swung not the broken sword, but the two‑man‑high tower shield, turning it into a brutal blade to cut her in two.

But Aphelia’s power wasn’t only in flesh and bone; it was wind and river, stop and flow.

As she fell, air and Arcane Power stilled, a pond freezing mid‑ripple. Boneless as silk, she flipped, palms to stone, her legs lashing like iron whips through the fog.

Her attack didn’t end there; it bloomed.

Gorgeous Crystal Blossoms opened in the Aether, then shattered like ice. Their petals hung, held by an unseen hand, suspended behind the knight like stars in frost.

Silently, time resumed its river.

Those long, powerful legs met the towering shield. To any watcher, they should’ve been severed like reeds before a blade.

Yet the knight felt something and tried to yank the shield back, a boat fighting the current.

Thump, thump!!!

Two dull blows sounded. Two bright marks scored the tower shield, and his armor shuddered like a drumskin. He ate the strikes without retreat, a boulder in flood.

Fenrir almost moved to help, but the force in that leg‑sweep shook her bones. She killed her Arcane Power and dragged Koko back, steps skittering like pebbles.

What kind of monster was this?!

The thought hit like cold water. Aphelia’s sweep had churned the surrounding Arcane Power; even with bloodline and Titleholder strength, Fenrir couldn’t gather it in the wake.

The heavy knight demanded her full attention. Aphelia’s strike had astonished, yet he held as if rooted—was he…

A terrible possibility surfaced, then sank. If he were a True God, his domain would’ve unfolded like a sky; why let Aphelia press him without unveiling it?

Seeing the opening, Aphelia detonated the suspended petals. Shattered Aether crystals became a thousand fine shards, sunlight turning them into a rain of jewels.

Aether roared like a flood from behind, slamming the knight’s exposed back. In that moment, Aphelia let her Titleholder power unfurl like seasons.

Grass withered, then rebirthed; blades rusted, then regained edge; the knight’s corroded armor cycled through decay until, under the jeweled rain, the backplate gave up and vanished like smoke.

In the next second, the knight answered with perfect knightly offense, a textbook carved into bone.

He slid his tower shield to guard, heavy plate seeming light as wind; weight and speed together made an iron chariot charging downhill.

The shield hid half his body; his broken sword thrust like a fang, then turned to a slash at the last inch, cutting for her eyes with hawk precision.

The motion flowed like a river, no hesitation, no snag, muscle memory etched like runes.

In the blink of an eye, a white gleam flicked through air like a falling star. The slashing sword halted mid‑drop, frozen above stone.

A long sigh drifted like mist. Aphelia stood several paces away on the stone path, a longsword of pure‑white Aether in her hand, calm as moonlight.

“What… what just happened?”

Fenrir murmured, her voice a breath of fog. Koko’s eyes widened like lanterns in night.

For one reason only: she had seen a thin cut rising on Aphelia’s wrist, a line of red like a thread on snow.