“Mm~ nicely done. Wait by the side.”

Shilwen handed the heavy tome to Andrea, then turned to Lilo with a smile like a crescent moon.

“Then, Miss Lilo, come with me. I’ll explain it one by one.”

She didn’t wait for Lilo’s answer, like wind ignoring reeds, and walked toward Hrok and the stone figure.

Shilwen slipped through the kneeling crowd like a stream through rice stems. Lilo hurried after, while the people stayed bowed like wheat in prayer, ears tilted to an unseen whisper.

They crossed onto ground where old bricks peeked through the grass. Lilo’s body stalled for a heartbeat, like a bird hitting still air. She looked back for that feeling, but it vanished—like stepping into a new world.

Shilwen’s lips arced, a cat that knows the path.

“Felt it, didn’t you?”

“Mm…”

The answer came with a steady breath. Fear first, then sense—Shilwen’s depth was an ocean a new True God couldn’t sound. Better to be honest than stir the storm.

“Heh… you’re decisive. See that statue? Can you really make it out?”

She pointed with a pale hand, like moonlight on water.

To Lilo, it was still a blurred stone shape—human in outline, details swallowed like faces in fog.

“Good. Let’s go closer.”

Shilwen offered no lecture, only slow steps over emerald grass, her pace like a lantern leading the night. Lilo’s instincts whispered—the blurred figure felt familiar, like a name on the tip of the tongue.

With every step, the Aether around the park thickened, like mist that wasn’t mist. Sight cut through it like sunlight through clear air, yet being within it felt like standing in a warm tide.

The Aether moved like living breath. It didn’t reject Lilo, a stranger at the gate. It curled around her like kin returning home, lively as children cheering under rain.

As if Aether itself was blessing this ground, a holy dew falling on roots.

Lilo’s thoughts twisted, a quiet scoff under the surface. If this land lay in the Demon World, the great clans would bankrupt themselves to seize it—just like her so-called Crimson Dragon Clan.

“Something on your mind?”

At some point, Shilwen had stopped—voice gentle as silk on stone.

“Ah, no—”

The words caught in her throat like a fish in a net. She stared, eyes wide, pointing at Shilwen, then the statue, breath stolen by the sight.

“Don’t be surprised~ This is the statue’s full form. Once you stand here, you see her true face.”

Shilwen’s hand brushed the stone like a palm on calm water. The teasing left her eyes; warmth settled like dusk light.

From afar, the statue had been ruin—broken bone and dust. Up close, it was fresh-cut artistry, soft luster flowing from crown to base. Even the climbing branches were carved, each vein clear as frost on petals.

What stunned Lilo most wasn’t the shift from ruin to grace—it was the face, lifelike as a person standing in breath. White jade held the features; add a shade of polish, and it would be her, down to heartbeat.

“Ap… Aphelia?!”

The stone was twin and one—a two-faced figure, both faces wearing Aphelia’s calm. One side reached out with open hands, the image of embrace and mercy. The other held a sword, a queen bestowing honor, majesty like steel in snow.

Lilo cried out, then clapped a hand over her mouth. A youth was bowed beside the statue. A scar sliced from temple across his left eye, claiming half his face—fierce as lightning carved in bark.

Yet his expression was serene, his chant soft as rain.

He cradled a branch, knee to stone, reverent. The stern face’s arm seemed to stroke his brow; the stone blade rested on his shoulder like a weight of oath.

Hrok stood by him in pure white vestments, a winter swan amid green.

She ignored Lilo’s outburst. She held the tome with grave poise and intoned an oath. The youth echoed line by line, and the pure Aether pooled around him like spring water, then threaded into him like silver streams.

His strength surged visibly, a tide rising: novice, intermediate, advanced. It climbed to the threshold of a Titleholder brushing a Demigod’s gate. His cheeks flushed; sweat rolled like rain from eaves. When Hrok finished, the geyser stilled, a well returning to calm.

It wasn’t over. Under Hrok’s guidance, the youth brushed his face with the branch, then turned to the compassionate side. As the oath resumed, he dropped to one knee and clasped the outstretched hand of stone.

“…May you be spared hunger and sickness, spared the grief of parting…”

Hrok’s cadence slowed like dusk thickening. The Aether around the youth stopped pushing upward. It turned inward, stabilizing muscle and marrow, soothing that sudden blaze. In Lilo’s senses, it streamed into fiber and bone, hardening flesh, picking old thorns of injury.

Even the scar on his face began to mend, the harsh mark fading like ash in rain.

Until the youth’s rise was complete and the angel guards led him away, Lilo remained wide-eyed, like a lamp left burning at noon. Hrok’s voice clipped her reverie.

“Had your fill of staring?”

“What… what is going on?”

“That depends on what you want to ask first.”

Shilwen lounged aside, legs crossed, spring light playing careless along the hem. She propped her chin, watching Lilo like a cat watches a fluttering moth.

“I want to ask everything.”

After a long breath, Lilo managed a wry smile. Shilwen didn’t refuse. She nodded, then spoke to two angel guards.

“Spread the word. Today’s Knight Order selection is over. That young man was the last. Tell them to return tomorrow. As usual, anyone who wants to pray can do it here.”

The angel guards bowed, then glided toward the crowd like white birds, carrying Shilwen’s voice across the grass.

“Is that alright? Won’t it stir resentment?”

“Of course not. But Hrok will handle your questions. I need to take over her work.”

Shilwen accepted the tome from Hrok, smoothed her clothes like a hand pressing silk, and walked toward the crowd. Her voice rose soft with doctrine, leaving Lilo where she stood, like dew forgotten on a leaf.

Hrok drew a deep breath, then patted Lilo’s shoulder, a steadying touch.

“Ask whatever you need.”

“I want to know where Aphelia is, and how her recovery is.”

They sat beneath a massive tree not far from the statue, bark ridged like old waves. Hrok took the waterskin from the demon girl, drank it dry, and eased the fatigue of the rite, like embers dimming in ash.

Though this world stunned Lilo, her worry for Aphelia was the stone in her chest.

“She’s still in the coffin, under treatment. The process is complex. The coffin shouldn’t be opened or disturbed. If you want to confirm it, when we return, have Andrea show you.”

It didn’t fully satisfy Lilo, but it was the best shore in sight—better than drifting with no map.

“And… that statue that looks so much like Aphelia?”

She glanced at the twin stone and recalled the youth crowned as a Titleholder beneath it. A thorn of unfairness pricked, small and sharp.

Hrok sighed, helplessness in the curve of her brow, and met Lilo’s eyes.

“Can we pick a different question?”

“No.”

Lilo’s gaze held like iron under ice. She wouldn’t leave without an answer today.

“Figures… I shouldn’t have let Andrea bring you. Troublesome.”

She pointed to the twin-faced stone.

“I won’t tell you its tie to Aphelia yet. Tell me this—at first glance, what do those two faces feel like?”

“One is compassion. The other… should be valor.”

Lilo thought, then spoke, words like stones set in a line.

“That’s right, but only in outline. Ever heard of the eastern idea of yin and yang?”

Hrok tapped the waterskin and drew a little liquid, tracing a perfect circle at the tree’s roots. She dyed it black and white with Aether, then a soft curve sliced the center, splitting it even as a breath.

“Please, go on.”

“In the eastern saying, the white half is yang—human flesh, sun on skin. The black half is yin—human soul, moon in water. Together, the whole circle is a sound person.”

“By that mirror, the compassionate face is yin, and the valorous face is yang.”

“And the statue is actually a heart-image domain left by a goddess—stronger than True Gods by countless folds. The pure Aether you feel is born from her, endless.”

Lilo froze like frost catching a leaf.

If that twin statue was a heart-image domain of such a power, and it kept making pure Aether—how vast had she been?

“But the statue isn’t that simple. Split into two clear sides, the extremes breed conflict—like fire and flood at the same gate.”

“You can’t cut a person into only those two facets, much less a god.”

“Eons ago, the statue’s owner, for certain reasons, became those two vivid halves. One was compassion. The other was valor.”

“Absolute compassion and absolute valor swelled into excess. Compassion turned into unconditional indulgence—love without anchor. Valor hardened into overbold violence—courage without leash. As if her good and evil were magnified to storm. For a while, it held. Over time, the world unraveled.”

Hrok paused, memory flickering like an old flame, and sighed again.

“Call it misfortune or fortune. Soon after, the goddess’s two halves fused again in war. After the war, the wounds were too deep. She never recovered. Till her final breath, she thought only of the world. Her heart-image domain settled into this Twin Goddess statue.”

“Her remaining power seeped into the world’s will. The two mingled like rain into soil. From scorched war-lands, they opened this patch of pure ground for her people—the only pure land. Does that make sense now?”