Watching Brynhildr toy with that eye like a pearl between fingers, pain flared in Aphelia’s hollow socket like a spike of ice, yet fear bit deeper than the blade.

“Well then—this is mine.”

Her voice was soft as silk, and she pressed the eye into her own socket like setting a moon into a dark lake.

In that heartbeat, Aphelia felt something torn away like a thread from a loom. She blinked, and her spirit-sight in the left eye fell to black, like a lamp gone cold.

“What… did you do?”

“What did I do?”

Brynhildr smiled and shook her head like a wind-stirred willow, stroked Aphelia’s face with a gentleness sharp as frost.

“I only took back my left eye. Next comes the rest, piece by piece—hold on if you can, A–phe–li–a.”

Tendon and bone, heart and lung—plucked like zither strings, opened like a sealed casket, each cut a snowflake, clean and exact.

She moved like a master surgeon under a clear bell, every stroke precise, no mud, no blood-spattered hesitation, not the old torment but a sacred rite kindled like incense.

Aphelia had no strength to resist; the pain rose like a tide, then dulled like rain on stone, and her body dimmed as if it had never been hers.

In its place, Brynhildr’s figure grew solid like frost glazing a window, and the body that floated in Aether was sheathed in pure-white crystal like winter bark.

Once, Aphelia never wondered what dying felt like; now death pressed close like fog, and the border seemed a hair’s breadth, thin as a reed.

Her limbs lost their shape, a slush of soul and Aether like snow churned with ash; from the neck down, control was gone, like strings cut from a puppet.

Only a sliver of breath flickered like a guttering candle; at a glance, she was a corpse laid on cold stone.

“Aphelia, Aphelia, what are you still hoping for?”

Brynhildr, body clear as ice, stood before her like a statue come alive, pity glinting in eyes that were not Aphelia’s but a different sea-blue.

Bound and blind, Aphelia heard only a jumble like wind in dead reeds, the words scattering, meaning drowned like pebbles in a stream.

Brynhildr chuckled, a bell behind a sleeve, and with a twist of fingers bloomed a resplendent Crystal Blossom like a star carved from quartz.

“Poor thing. For gifting me this flesh, I’ll spare your life,” she said, voice warm as tea and cold as snow.

She parted the lips of that body like opening a shrine, set the Crystal Blossom within like laying a jewel, and chanted heavy syllables that swung like bells and hummed like bees.

Outside the Aether barrier, eyes flew wide like shutters in wind; save for Hrok, all stood stunned by a sight like scripture rewritten.

The pure-white barrier shattered and drifted like petals on a breeze; no sky-piercing beam, no thunderous fanfare, only quiet light spreading like dawn on frost.

A silhouette stepped out, and under her feet the white grew like wild grass, racing in a breath over the chained ranges of the Abyss.

From that dense white glow walked a peerless woman in a plain white dress, her grace like falling snow and still water.

Each step beat like a drum against every chest, hearts thudding like hooves, breath caught and held like birds snared in nets.

“Aphelia?”

Lilo whispered like a reed in wind, hoping the figure was Aphelia, yet the woman before her was the opposite, a mirror turned to another moon.

Opposite not in face alone, but in the born-and-breathed aura that rose off her like heat from sunlit stone.

Silver-white hair fell to her waist like a waterfall; her long, full frame held a woman’s charm like wine in a clear cup.

But the soft touch of youth on her features folded that allure like a fan, tempering flame with dew so the contrast dazzled like lightning and rain.

Proud as a swan, gentle as a lamp—both at once, both true, a paradox like frost blooming on flowers.

Her eyes, sapphire-deep, could drown a gaze like tide swallowing sand; a simple glance over the shoulder lingered like perfume, beauty unbound by gender.

Yet her face was near Aphelia’s twin, and perhaps Aphelia was only a clay doll shaped after this perfect goddess, a copy under a moonlit hand.

Even Lilo had to admit it, heart tight as a fist.

“Aphelia?”

A mature, magnetic voice rolled out like velvet over steel, with a teasing lilt that curled like smoke; every gesture spilled temptation like spilled honey.

Yet Lilo’s heart shook like a trapped drum, pounding until the ribs ached.

“I’m not her, Lilo~”

The silver-haired woman flicked a lock like a silver fish, bare white feet stepping over gravel like cloud over ridge, a smooth glide with no weight.

She hooked Lilo’s chin with a touch like silk’s edge, a smile peeking like crescent moon.

“I’m Brynhildr—the world’s True God, and the only God~”

The words gripped like a hand on the soul, but Lilo wrenched free like a fish tearing the net, ignited crimson Aether like flame, and sprang back to Hrok’s side.

Brynhildr laughed behind her hand like a courtesan’s bell, then her gaze slid to Merlin, now all but bone, and a faint frown creased like a ripple in still water.

She did nothing, only watched Hrok with interest like a cat watching a drawn bow.

“What’s wrong, Hrok? I’ve returned. Won’t you offer your leader a warm word, or an old friend’s hug? You really bruise a girl’s heart.”

Her tone fell like a leaf, sorrow soft as rain, and in a blink she wore the helpless maiden like a shawl, tears ready like dew.

Hrok had seen this theater like seasons on a calendar; she sighed like a breeze, stepped before the Valkyrie and Brynhildr, and set her eyes like twin blades.

“You’re not her. No matter the likeness, you’re not, and you never will be.”

“Say what you like. I broke the iron law like a chain and walked back into this world,” Brynhildr said, waving light as a gull’s wing.

“I hope the enemies ahead—aside from the Eldritch Gods—won’t include my old subordinates, or I’ll be so very sad.”

She pointed at the “skeleton” on the ground and at the Valkyrie behind them, her finger light as a reed, and waited like a hunter’s moon.

“You—”

“Where’s Aphelia?! What did you do to her!!”

Lilo’s shout cut like a thrown knife, beating Hrok’s reply to flight like crows.

She hadn’t seen Aphelia’s shadow; even the Valkyrie who guarded her lay quiet as stone, and fear crawled like ants, whispering the worst into her bones.

“Her?”

Brynhildr brushed off the rudeness like dust, pointed to the densest pool of pure-white Aether like a well, and smiled soft as snow.

“Go look and you’ll know~”

She slid aside like a curtain, opening a path and parting the white Aether like reeds in a marsh; her deep-blue eyes held no visible tides, a sea too deep to read.

The unreadable calm made Lilo still as a deer, foot half raised.

“Go. Leave this to me.”

While Lilo wavered like a candle in draft, Hrok drew her blade with a whisper like dawn wind, and stood before Brynhildr with eyes like cold iron.

In her hand, the sword was no longer steel but a bar of white light like a struck comet, steady and straight.

Seeing the standoff, Lilo said nothing more; she stoked crimson Aether like bellows and rushed into the white like a spark into tinder.

Brynhildr did not strike from behind, her pride and sanctity held like a crown.

“Hrok, must we fight? I’ve just revived. I’d rather not stain my hands yet.”

“I don’t want to either,” Hrok said, voice calm as stone and sharp as sleet, “but if you insist, I’ll stake my life and keep you honest.”

“Even if you won’t admit it, my power hasn’t slipped like sand. This body’s former owner did me proud—trained to True God—so the merge is almost seamless.”

“Then we fight.”

Brynhildr smiled at straight-backed Hrok like a fox at a spear, and pointed at the white light in Hrok’s hand with a feigned shiver like a cat in snow.

She looked like she’d rather avoid the clash, but Hrok’s edge only rose like a tide; she and blade were one, a single line like a mountain ridge.

One step more from Brynhildr, and she’d meet that dreadful cut like lightning cleaving a pine.

“Sigh, fine. Let’s talk terms—terms that spare us both from breaking like twin jars.”

They stared long, pressure mounting like storm on sea; Hrok didn’t retreat a hair, while Brynhildr still wore the fragile bloom like a veil.

In her palm, refined silver-white Runes coiled like quiet serpents, hidden fangs behind silk.

Only then did Brynhildr truly yield; the runes faded like mist at sunrise. She stepped back and stood upon the ruins like a white lotus, helpless and poised.

“Return Mist Bloom and Aphelia to me. That’s all.”

Hrok lowered the streaming white light like a river easing, but her presence didn’t dim, a spear’s ridge against the sky.

“That won’t do~ You can take that girl Aphelia; she hasn’t many days left, like frost under noon. But Mist Bloom… no.”

“She’s my lover. I don’t hand my weakness to another like a knife to my own throat.”

Brynhildr shook her head like a bell, and silver-white runes bloomed again in her palm like winter flowers; for the first time, emotion flickered in the deep-blue like a fish flashing in depths.

“Don’t overreach… Hrok. I said I’d rather not blood my hands, but killing a few here and there—I don’t mind.”

Her voice cooled like night falling, and the runes breathed pure-white Aether like steam turning to snow, edging toward substance like ice thickening.

The Aether’s pulse thudded like a world-heart; even Hrok felt the ground slip like a rug pulled, a moment of misalignment like a star out of place.

Blinding white leaped from its sheath like a lightning stroke; one more inch, and it would spear Brynhildr’s heart like a skewer through fruit.

But Hrok’s blade halted at her breast like a hawk frozen mid-dive, for the silver-white runes in Brynhildr’s palm had scattered to nothing like ash on wind.