Aphelia hadn’t even processed it when her legs, below the knees, turned to pure crystal—cold as her Aether—creeping like frost up a windowpane.

Her head was a fogged lantern; the shattered crystal of her limbs stabbed pain into her nerves, and she sucked in a cold breath, set her Ancient Martial Flow breathing, and tried to clear the mist.

Beside her, splendid Crystal Blossoms sprouted like roadside weeds gone wild; from each heart, pure-white Aether pooled like milk-light, thick and sweet. On any other day she’d be thrilled; now that whiteness felt strange, like snow that burns.

A terrible possibility floated up like a black fin in deep water; she bit her lip and roused her inner sea.

Fresh from a brutal fight, the sudden turn made her skull throb; she stretched her will toward the Aether—and this time the river bucked the dam, leaving shock written across her face.

That pure-white Aether, once a part of her flesh, slid out of her grasp; worse, it bristled and resisted, like a tamed hawk turning feral.

“What’s happening?!”

She blamed overexertion and tried to blanket the Aether again, but each attempt shattered like foam on rock; she could only watch the white tide nibble her body away.

Ignoring the tearing pain that ripped through her like claws, she forced herself up; fear beat in her chest, urging her to get away from that whiteness. She planted a hand to push off—only to find an invisible ward hemming her in like glass walls.

“Cough… damn it, am I going to die by my own hand?!”

Watching the slow gnaw of white on her flesh, her eyes narrowed; a blade’s resolve flashed there, cold as winter steel.

Even if the Aether wouldn’t obey, raw muscle remained; below the knees was rubble, but her arms were mountains under skin.

Breath steady in Ancient Martial Flow, her arms chopped for her knees, as if that meat weren’t hers at all. If rot sets in, you cut the wood.

In this world, limbs can be fixed a dozen ways; when she ascended as a True God, her arms were restored whole—legs could grow back like spring shoots.

But as her palm turned to a knife and dropped, a pair of withered hands tore the void like paper and clamped her wrists with brute, senseless force; a True God’s strength couldn’t pry deadwood fingers.

Her free hand slashed for that withered grip; the rift widened like a moonlit crack, and a figure stepped through, freezing her mid-strike.

“Master Merlin?”

A white-robed, handsome youth—the one who had long aided her—stood there. His gentle look was gone; he wore the exhaustion of sleepless nights, face haggard as a burned-out candle.

Those withered hands didn’t match that face; if they were someone else’s she’d believe it. How could this youthful Merlin carry hands like rotting roots?

“Don’t damage the body. Let the Aether keep eroding.”

Master Merlin’s grip held her down like an iron vise; even after speaking, he didn’t loosen a hair.

“But, Master Merlin—”

“Eat this, and you’ll be fine.”

Before she could finish, he drew a pure-white Crystal Blossom from his robe and offered it forward. It looked identical to the blossoms around them, yet it shone with a living glow, like a real flower breathing under moonlight.

She swallowed without meaning to; the blossom’s charm was a siren on petals, hooking her gaze so she couldn’t look away.

Merlin showed no flicker of emotion; his face stayed drawn, and his eyes—once star-river bright—had lost their color, puppet-still and dull.

Master Merlin… he wouldn’t hurt me, would he?

Aphelia’s heart drifted toward the bloom like a moth for a lamp; Merlin had never truly wronged her. She reached out without thinking.

A roar like a wrathful beast cracked heaven and earth; Aphelia jolted awake and slapped the blossom aside, snapping the spell like a thunderclap through fog.

What is this thing, bold enough to bewitch the heart?

She raised her guard, eyes hard on Merlin; both the blossom and this man felt wrong, like a fox’s scent in a shrine.

A crimson figure tore her ward like paper, wrapped in blazing fire, and slammed Merlin’s grip off her wrist like a comet of flame.

“Lilo?!”

The familiar blaze and the heat of memory flared; Aphelia cried out, heart lurching like an ember stirred.

“Wuu wuu wuu wuu!”

The flames parted; a small red-haired girl stood before her. Two crimson dragon wings unfurled behind her, sheltering Aphelia under their arc like storm-bent shields.

The little redhead couldn’t speak common tongue; she could only whimper, child-soft, all urgency and care. Her eyes toward Aphelia brimmed with mist like dawn dew.

“Easy, easy… it’s okay.”

Aphelia reached to smooth the girl’s hair, hand gentle like palm over warm feathers.

Before the words finished, a silver-white form blitzed in from the side and blasted the red-haired girl away, leaving Aphelia stunned, hollowed like a struck bell.

“You bastard! What are you doing!!!”

Blood surged like a tide; Ancient Martial Flow moves ripped free. Even without Aether, a True God’s flesh hits like an avalanche.

“Just a troublesome lower creature…”

Merlin slipped aside with a cold blank; with no legs for anchors, Aphelia couldn’t steer her strike and fell hard, and his boot hit her abdomen like iron on stone.

“…Still thinking to resist?”

Silver-white Star Pupils unfolded behind him like a cold constellation; overwhelming pressure poured down like a night sky falling. Since becoming a True God, she had never felt a storm like this. His dulled eyes flared with brittle life, lantern-bright and dying, wrong as a flicker before ash.

Silver-white Aether speared through her remaining limbs like ice needles through vines; she cried out, and before she could fight, Merlin gripped her jaw and forced her mouth open.

“I told you to eat it. Then you’d be fine.”

His voice was winter shadow; the alien aura chilled her spine. So this was the face behind Master Merlin’s mask.

“Let me go!”

With a sharp cry, a crimson Demonic Spear dragged a shriek through the air and stabbed for Merlin’s arms like a blood comet.

Aphelia didn’t need to look to know who had come; and now, the last thing she wanted was Violet here, banner snapping in a killing wind.

“Wuu wuu wuu (Run, now!!!)”

With her jaw crushed open, Aphelia couldn’t shape words; she could only watch Violet in blood-red armor sprint in, heart pounding like war drums.

“How tedious…”

Merlin snorted, and he flung Aphelia aside like a ragged kite; without Aether, she smashed into rock and coughed blood that shone dark as garnet.

Silver-white Star Pupils blazed; the clear sky was inked into night, and stars lit one by one with his steps, like lanterns hung across black water.

“I smell an enemy… damn it, Violet, stop!!!”

The demon that shared part of her body control roared from within, but Violet was already all steel and killing snow; she couldn’t brake, couldn’t hear.

“Lower creature.”

With the words, a light flared in that painted starry sky, quick as lightning across silk.

Violet’s last thought was that flash of silver-white before her body slipped from her grasp; she watched herself still charging like a leaf watching its tree—then the world spun, and her head fell.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

Aphelia saw it happen and screamed, a bird beating itself against the bars; she could do nothing but watch, hands empty, soul splintering.

Regret, grief, fury, despair—no word netted the storm in her chest. She lifted her head, eyes blood-red, teeth grinding, and glared at Merlin standing with a boot on Violet’s fallen body, volcano heat under an ice crust.

“Merlin, why… why!!!”

“Why? Do lower creatures need to ask why?”