“Yes!”

The two knights took the order and wheeled away from Lilo, charging in the opposite direction like arrows leaving a taut bow.

Watching them go, Lilo lifted her gaze to the colossal sacred tree. The bandaged woman still stood before it, calm as a stone lantern in mist, unfazed by anything they did.

Such a vast change rippled through the city like a tremor through reed beds. Hrok and Shilwen felt it keenly and let faint smiles curl their lips.

“Shilwen, looks like her recovery’s far beyond what you imagined.”

At the city’s edge, inside a temple of colossal, timeworn statues, a white-robed woman spoke with a soft smile, like moonlight on old marble.

“Imagined? She stopped fitting our imagination eons ago,” Shilwen said, eyes cutting across half the district toward that swelling green sea.

Frustration simmered in Lilo’s chest like banked coals. She stopped testing the bandaged woman, drew in her Aether, and retraced her steps, heading deeper into the thickening forest with a storm-dark face.

“Aphelia, don’t let anything happen to you,” she murmured, the plea thin as incense smoke.

The old central park—no, the Central Grove now—had changed like a youth grown overnight. Shrubs clinging to the giant trunk thickened into muscular boughs and reared up like pillars.

What shocked Lilo wasn’t the towering trunks, but the branches that whipped at her like river serpents.

Heavy limbs swept across and churned the forest’s pure Aether like tides in a clear bay. The strikes felt like herding rather than killing; if they pushed harder, her crimson Aether would flare like wildfire.

In this forest, the crimson Aether, the very idea of flame, felt right at home, like a tiger back in its mountain.

One wave of her hand could turn wood to ash, a red dawn devouring green. But those precisely measured blows made her feel these trees held a mind; to burn them would be a massacre.

“Still… they’re a pain to dodge,” she muttered.

She vaulted a massive branch like a swallow over a ridge, then sliced through a gap with a perfect splits, a blade of motion between two whipping limbs. Yet the whooshing branches kept pressing her like a storm’s beat.

The trouble wasn’t only the wood. The pure Aether clinging to those limbs poured toward Lilo like spring water, and it did just one thing—made her stronger.

Any other day, she’d linger for rounds, laughing like a child at a festival. Free Aether? Who wouldn’t want it? But more strength meant a quicker spark, and her crimson Aether was a bonfire waiting for one dry leaf.

The trees felt it too. Their branches froze, thinking like wary men around a brazier. Then limb crossed limb, weaving a lattice of giants into walls that rose like ramparts before Lilo.

“If it’s like that, then… sorry,” she said, helpless and blunt, and lit crimson Aether in her palm like a red star.

Cool shade cracked into blaze. Firelight ran across bark like molten gold, and the whole grove’s heat surged like a heartbeat.

Leaves shivered without wind, rustling like soft pleas from a crowd, begging her not to strike. Yet the towering walls held firm like stubborn elders, barring her path without a gap.

Seeing the trees’ mule-stubborn stance, Lilo readied the fireball, and the leaves flurried again, a chorus of hushes. Back and forth, they stalled her, corralling her until she could barely move.

She sighed, resigned, the breath like steam in winter. Even she didn’t know what to do with trees that begged and blocked in equal measure; among humans, that would be a formidable sort.

Since Lilo didn’t fling the flame, the trees stopped swatting at her. But those giant walls stayed, solid as mountains, holding her like a closed gate.

“Fine… I’ll wait for Miss Shilwen and the others,” she thought, easing out the crimson Aether and drifting down, light as a falling leaf.

She touched down, and figures slipped from the grove’s shadow like pale moths. Bandaged women, each cradling something, stepped forward, and Lilo’s shoulders tensed like drawn strings.

What came next eased her guard and made her chuckle, unsure where to put her hands.

Branches stretched and curled, forming a table and chairs, wood smelling clean and fresh as rain on bamboo. Lilo was sure even her father’s chair from the royal vault couldn’t match this simple seat.

The bandaged women moved like clumsy maids, stiff but careful, setting things before Lilo with puppet grace.

“Is this… hospitality?” she asked, half amused, half wary.

On the table sat a green fruit, fragrant and vivid as jade. Beside it, a broad leaf cupped clear liquid, bright as spring water. She barely needed to look; both throbbed with dense life, like a heartbeat under bark. That fruit would be a healing miracle people would fight over.

The liquid puzzled her. It looked like ordinary spring water, yet a drift of pure Aether inside felt slippery, like fish flicker under ice.

After weighing it, Lilo left the offerings untouched. She studied the bandaged women instead, her gaze a careful brushstroke.

They seemed more human than the first one, yet each movement stayed stiff, like marionettes on taut strings. Still, the gaze through their wrappings felt curious, a child’s eyes beneath linen.

Like kids seeing the market for the first time.

“Are you… protecting Aphelia?” Lilo asked, gentle first, words like warm tea.

They didn’t respond at once. They stood blank as idle scarecrows, then tilted their heads and huddled, as if turning her question over like a pebble in the hand.

So they could communicate, in their way. Which meant they weren’t puppets under Aphelia’s direct control.

“Behind your wooden wall, there’s someone like you, right?” Lilo asked, adding broad gestures, sketching ideas in the air like a clumsy dancer. She felt foolish the moment she finished.

If they understood speech at that level, they wouldn’t need so long to think.

She watched them, mind turning like a mill-wheel, and weighed their origin.

World Will? Unlikely. If what Aphelia sought looked like this, there’d be no need to seek at all. If this mess was the World Will, the world might as well be ash.

A goddess statue? No. If the mythic goddess descended, she wouldn’t take this shape. And given that legend’s ties to Aphelia, it wouldn’t be so simple.

That left one answer. The great trees had copied Aphelia’s current form, making some kind of avatar—odd as a crow in silk. Why choose that look? Frankly, it could scare people.

To her surprise, the bandaged women turned, nodded in unison, and affirmed her thought like wind agreeing with reeds.

“Eh? Then why are you imitating Aphelia’s present look?” Curiosity rose in her like a cat on its hind legs.

They froze, then clustered again, muttering like bees in a hollow, leaving Lilo hanging between humor and irritation.

In human circles, that kind of hosting would earn slammed doors. But did these folk even know how to host?

She sighed again, letting the annoyance pass like smoke. No use bickering with wood. What mattered was what had happened to Aphelia inside.

At last, three bandaged women stepped forward and began posing, limbs set like carved figures.

“So you’ve decided—pfft! What even is that?” Lilo spluttered, spraying the sip she hadn’t swallowed, eyes wide as moons.

Two stood tight together in a strange linked stance, like roots entwined. The third faced the one with outstretched hands, clasped her palms, and seemed to ponder, still as a crane.

Then the close pair split apart. The woman whose palm had been held moved behind the front one, and pure Aether spilled from her body like a bright river, wrapping the other in a gentle surge.

The front woman lifted off the ground, rising slow as a lantern. Pure Aether wrapped her like a white cocoon, and all went quiet.

“Wait… do you mean the statue turned into Aether and cocooned Aphelia?”