She came to herself inside a lavish bedchamber, like surfacing from a lake of dreams.

A soft bed cradled her like moss, velvet-like garments draped nearby, and a faint perfume hung like morning mist.

Someone had set this stage long ago like a banquet table.

Her head still throbbed from the Aether’s surge, a dull drum under water, yet her eyes finally cleared.

Only then did she see the brown‑skinned woman in a maid dress, and surprise fluttered like a startled sparrow.

"Natalie? Why are you here? I remember you weren’t—"

"I’m sorry, I’m not the Natalie you mean," the woman said, voice even as a still pond. "I’m an Endwalker, mass‑production model, serial number—"

"Stop, stop—save the lecture," Lilo cut in, anxiety pricking like cold rain. "Where’s Miss Hrok? Can you take me to her?"

The woman parted her lips for a long report, but Lilo chopped it short, because the too‑perfect quiet pressed like snow.

The brown‑skinned woman hesitated, then answered, words set like stones on a path. "Lord Hrok and Lady Shilwen are in the Central Park preparing to preach. If you wish to see them, I can inform them now. They told me that if you woke and sought them, I’m to handle everything. It’s so you don’t leave a poor impression of the City of the Abyss."

"City of the Abyss?" Lilo echoed, the name ringing like bronze in a temple.

"Yes, you are at the Abyss’s very heart, the City of the Abyss," she said, raising her wrist like lifting a veil.

She brushed back her sleeve, glanced at her watch, and smiled with practiced warmth. "And now happens to be breakfast time, ripe as morning fruit."

The woman’s prim tone sat like a seal on wax, and Lilo’s stomach answered with a hollow wind.

She sighed like a reed in breeze and nodded. "Thank you," Lilo said, nodding like a falling leaf; "please take me to the dining hall."

Soft sunlight seeped through pale curtains like milk, washing the hall before her.

Under nameless gemstones, the whole dining room wore a gauzy halo like river fog.

Several food trolleys rolled up like little ships, and attendants waited like statues to present it all.

Lilo’s words stumbled like pebbles. "Ah, Na— Miss, how should I address you? I can’t call you that… End—"

"Endwalker, mass‑production model, serial num—"

"Stop, stop."

Sitting to eat, Lilo set down her knife and fork, exasperation rippling like heat. "Just tell me your name," she said, voice flat as a blade. "A name, not a serial."

Pressed by her insistence, the woman finally understood, fingers pinching her skirt’s sides like folding petals.

She dipped a perfect curtsey and spoke with bell‑clear diction. "Andrea," she said, the word falling like a seal on parchment. "That is my name."

"Andrea? That’s a good name," Lilo murmured, a thought flickering like lightning and gone.

She let the question go like a leaf on water and focused on the plate.

Seeing Lilo fall silent, Andrea withdrew to the trolleys, posture straight as a metronome.

Her serious face barely shifted, like a fine doll that still breathed—a living contradiction.

Without word from Aphelia, Lilo had no mood to linger, and hunger tugged like a ghost.

She was a True God now, yet habit steered her hand toward food, seeking fullness like a hearth seeks wood.

When she noticed, half the plate was gone, so she dutifully finished the rest like closing a circle.

"Then, Miss Lilo, these are garments Lord Hrok prepared for you," Andrea said, laying clothes like snow on a branch.

"How thoughtful," Lilo answered, the smile brief as candlelight. "Did she leave other instructions? Tell me all at once, save us both the trouble."

Back in the bedroom, Lilo stood before the mirror like a calm lake and slipped off her robe.

Her skin was smooth as jade, stainless, save for a tiny mark at her lower belly.

Instead of worry, relief loosened her chest like thaw, as if afraid that faint trace might vanish.

"The rest is not from Lord Hrok," Andrea reported, voice flat as parchment. "It’s from Lady Shilwen. She hopes that, no matter what you see, you won’t be too shocked. Don’t act out of bounds—though we couldn’t stop you anyway. Those are Lady Shilwen’s words."

Dressed and neat, Lilo let a wry smile pass like a cloud and nodded.

She stepped out, patted Andrea’s shoulder like tapping a drum, and answered. "Relax. I’m not about to cause a scene. You’re the hosts, I’m the guest. And Aphelia still depends on you. I won’t be an ill guest."

Andrea, hearing the layered meaning, did not reply like before.

She only nodded, kept three steps ahead like a shadow at noon, and led her out of the manor.

A broad stone street opened before Lilo like a riverbed, brick and light intertwined.

It was early; the shops slept like shuttered shells.

Yet countless passersby held sprigs in both hands, forming two rivers of bodies.

Even children walked among them, mouths closed like seeds, moving in shared silence.

When the manor’s pair stepped out, both lines knelt as one tide, foreheads lowered to earth like rain.

On their faces swam not fear or anger but reverence and softness, as if a bringer of miracles had stepped from that door.

"What is this…" Lilo’s eyes widened, shock rising like a spring.

Even in well‑ruled fiefs of the Demon World, she had never seen such tame sincerity.

When it appeared, it wore masks of fear or gain, brittle as frost.

Even the youngest bowed in the same tide, their small backs bent like reeds.

It wasn’t for the two of them, Lilo felt—it was for the manor’s master.

The scene carried the hush of a rite, no visible cords binding it, yet no one dared—or wished—to snap that silken quiet.

Unease and awe braided in Lilo’s chest like smoke.

She asked Andrea in a low voice while following her slow steps like stepping stones.

But Andrea moved as if used to such tides, silent as a stone lantern, and kept the way.

People were numberless along the way, a mosaic of races, and some bodies bore strange changes like coral on driftwood.

All held sprigs, walked in order, and when Andrea passed, they bowed like wheat in wind.

Lilo’s feelings knotted like vines as she followed.

If she didn’t know this was the Abyss, she would have named it a holy land, bright as dawn.

No snarling monsters came, no warped chaos seeped, no force slid in to twist flesh.

Ears can lie, eyes claim truth like mirrors.

But when sight breaks the map of your mind, how do you test what’s true?

Wrapped in that braid of feeling, she followed Andrea into the Central Park.

"This is… a park? Am I seeing things?"

Lilo stared, breath held like winter air.

In a city of gray‑and‑white stone, titans of trees stood like pillars of sky.

Long boughs crawled up nearby houses like rivers.

Beneath their shade, grass broke from stone like spring water, a green so wide it tricked the eye.

One step held solemn streets; the next, a ring of green.

Yet city and grove braided seamlessly, and an unwary step could lose you like fog in valleys.

"It’s not your eyes, Miss Lilo. You left eye strain behind," Andrea said, face unreadable as lacquer.

She stood at the forest’s verge and walked forward like a metronome.

The two rivers of pilgrims flowed into the park, yet parted to give them a wide road like a dry creekbed.

The courtesy felt too large, and Lilo’s steps faltered like a bird on ice.

"If the Demon World knew the Abyss looked like this," she breathed, a laugh thin as snow, "historians and mages would drop their jaws like pearls onto stone."

The deeper they went, the thicker the crowd grew, yet faces stayed calm as moonlit ponds.

Angels and demons—old enemies in tales—knelt shoulder to shoulder, sprigs in hand, all facing one way, lips moving in a soft chant like rain.

Had she not risen as a True God, she would have cried "staged."

But in that calm, Lilo felt sincerity like warm bread, without a stitch of pretense.

They were not bowing to some living god or swaggering strongman, but to a weathered stone statue, cracked and veined with climbing branches like old scars.

Before the statue, Hrok stood with a purple‑haired woman like twin candles.

Both wore pure‑white vestments, laurel crowns like circlets of leaves, and heavy books cradled like infants.

Their gentle chant rose and fell like tide, and a thin mist of Aether drifted out, settling over every pilgrim like dawn.

"You’re here~" A familiar voice chimed by Lilo’s ear like a bell.

The purple‑haired woman walked barefoot through the grass, each step a ripple, her soft smile warm as a hearth—an archbishop from a painting stepping into breath.

"Lady Shilwen, I have brought Miss Lilo," Andrea said, dropping to one knee like a blade returning to its sheath.