“Don’t you get what it means, Miss Mu—Saki—?” His words dragged like smoke.

Merlin’s face, already twisted from the beating, cracked into a manic grin. Seeing he still didn’t know fear, the Valkyrie didn’t waste breath; her crimson blade hauled sideways like a scythe, and the wound split wider like torn silk.

Silver starlight seeped from that Star-Eye and curdled into blood-red, wringing a scream from Merlin, while his deranged laughter kept sawing on; his eyes were veined like cracked glass.

Right then, Aphelia cried out, and every gaze snapped to her like iron to a magnet. But an unseen force bounced them all back, a glass storm flinging bodies aside, so fast even the Valkyrie couldn’t react.

“Cough—ah!”

Pure-white crystal had already eaten up to Aphelia’s chest, and the white Aether thickened into fog that coiled around her like winter breath. Gorgeous Crystal Blossoms spread across the floor, a frost garden sketching a boundary that sealed the others outside.

The Valkyrie snorted; the crimson blade folded into Bracer Gauntlets, and she drove a fist into the white-Aether barrier, punching a crater in the mist. But even a world-shaking blow couldn’t open the white ward; it hurled her Bracer Gauntlets back with matching force, and she had to step away like from a recoiling spring.

“I told you already—you’re late!”

Merlin wiped the blood from his lips, watching the white Aether around Aphelia grow thicker, his expression feverish like a zealot at an altar. Valkyrie couldn’t be bothered to argue; she shaped the Crimson Flame into a cage and bound him tight like a dragon-spined prison.

Meanwhile, Aphelia was sinking fast; with each bite of Aether, more of her turned to white crystal and slipped from her control, even her heart now half a faceted stone. Her sight blurred like rain on glass; in her ears, everything thinned to drifting lullabies; her numb body hung like a puppet, jerked by white Aether.

Five senses in disarray, limbs stiff as frozen branches—if you had to name her state, those two boxes fit. What scared Aphelia most wasn’t the body or the senses; it was the gaze inside the white Aether, watching from nowhere like a pale moon in fog. That gaze held no malice, only quiet; she could feel its owner was a woman gentle to the extreme, yet fear rose in her like a tidal bell of doom.

“Mas… ter…”

She fought to speak; in her blurred sight, the Valkyrie and the others stood behind the white silhouette like statues, questioning Merlin as if nothing were happening. The figure moved like she owned the empty world; catching Aphelia’s notice, she laughed softly and stepped to her side like a petal on wind.

A hand woven of white Aether stroked Aphelia’s cheek; the familiar feel stunned her, then she struggled like a netted fish, which drew another laugh.

“Merlin, hand it over, or I’ll kill your last scion today and wipe your Star Remnant from the world!”

Driven to the edge, the Valkyrie used life as a blade. But Merlin, now tough as boot leather, cared nothing for threats. He pointed at the mass of white Aether, ignored his wounds, and jeered at her.

“A thing? I fed it to her long ago. By now it’s probably sprouted and rooted, ha ha ha—mm!”

A sudden punch cut his laugh; Crimson Flame devoured the last starry pupil, and Merlin screamed as his withered frame grew young then shrank, like a vine ruthlessly pruned.

“Heh… heh-heh. Kill me, it won’t help.” Think, Valkyrie—she gave you the name, she taught you the arts. Are you her match? No. Even if you are, could you raise a hand against her?”

As his limbs twisted, Merlin only laughed louder, ending in a roar. A complicated shadow crossed the Valkyrie’s face; her fist hung in midair like a hammer above glass and didn’t fall—he’d struck the knot in her heart.

Silence dragged like winter dusk, until Lilo couldn’t bear it. Aphelia writhed in the white Aether, and to the already lost Lilo, it felt like a thousand cuts under the skin.

“Lady Valkyrie, what should we do…”

“Watch him. I’ll solve this.”

She flung the twisted Merlin aside like rag cloth and handed him to Lilo, then walked to the white Aether and sat cross-legged like a stone by a river. Every tongue of Crimson Flame withdrew and packed into her palm, like a crimson jewel, and Lilo reflexively stepped back a few paces. It wasn’t the jewel; it was the Crimson Aether focused to a point, a spearhead of presence. That single point felt like a fully armed Valkyrie standing before her, edges bare and cutting.

“From now on, don’t let anyone disturb me, or we’ll never get Aphelia back.”

The Crimson Aether drifted from her palm and touched the white Aether; a searing hiss rose like snow on iron. The Valkyrie paled; blood welled at the corner of her mouth; she grunted through the pain. Under that burning clash, the pure-white barrier that even an earthshaking blow couldn’t breach split with a thin tear, like ice cracking.

Seeing it, Lilo moved to help, but what came next rooted her to the spot. A crimson shadow peeled out of the Valkyrie’s body and walked straight into the white slit. It moved so fast that Lilo couldn’t be sure she’d even seen it before it vanished. Only a mote of crimson Aether crystal kept burning, an ember on an altar.

“Do you know who I am?”

The white figure laughed softly and asked the steadily crystallizing Aphelia, as much to herself as to the girl. Aphelia, tortured past thought by the crystal, had no mind to answer her. The white figure hadn’t expected that; she smiled again, and at her bidding the white Aether bloomed a gorgeous Crystal Blossom and set it on Aphelia’s brow like a seal.

In a haze, Aphelia felt herself float; when she came to, she stood before the white figure, while her body lay quietly to the side like an empty shell.

“Feeling better now, Aphelia?”

Her voice was so soft it made you want to kneel, a silk ribbon in the wind; if not for her body nearby, Aphelia might have fallen for it.

“I’d feel better if you gave my body back.”

“Sadly, that won’t do—”

Faced with Aphelia’s bite, the white figure only shook her head, looking so innocent it made Aphelia pause, a porcelain mask of guileless calm.

“I don’t want to die again. Life is so precious—why would I abandon it?”

“So I should abandon mine?! You say life is precious. Then why take mine?!”

“Huh?”

She giggled as if at a strange joke, palm hiding her smile like a white lotus; rage climbed in Aphelia, but bound as she was, she could only spit words.

“Didn’t Merlin tell you? You’re just a vessel— even your soul was split off from me—piece by piece—”

She petted Aphelia’s hair like soothing a bristling child, voice gentle as a lullaby. Cold crept into Aphelia’s bones, because that gentleness treated her like a doll, not a person.

Her mind leapt to Merlin’s words, and the white figure’s claim made her blood run cold. “A vessel… Right, Merlin said something like that too…”

Eyes wide, she stared at her hands, while a field of terrible thoughts sprouted like weeds. The white figure pulled her into an embrace and whispered at her ear with a little laugh.

“Yes, that’s right—a vessel. Prepared across eras, across eons. Your mission is done.” Give me your pain and sorrow; I’ll bear them all, not a single drop left—”

Her voice seemed to carry a bewitching pull that even tugged up Aphelia’s oldest memories like a tide.

“Does that include retaking the mortal realm and fighting the Eldritch Gods? At this point, I even doubt your Eldritch Gods, let alone anything else…”

“No. The Eldritch Gods are real. My revival, and your making as a vessel, are to meet the third descent of the Eldritch Gods.” Her velvet tone gained an iron edge, like thunder under snow, leaving no room for doubt.