The woman in a white dress crossed half the plaza in a single breath, like a swan cleaving dawn mist, and stopped at Aphelia’s side. Her voice dropped like a temple bell, leaving no room to argue.
Aphelia’s heart hammered like a war drum in a hollow chest, and dread rose like black tide; as the white-robed woman struggled, her own body began to warp like ice under a thaw.
Static flooded her mind like a swarm of cicadas in summer pines, and pain returned like a hot iron; the closer she drew to the kneeling white-robed woman, the sharper it gnawed, grinding her will like a millstone.
Aaaaaaaah!!!
The scream rang across the vast plaza like a blade across glass; the white-robed woman tore her own flesh like silk and pulled a shadow out like ink spilled in water. Aphelia’s body answered in kind, as a pure-white Crystal Blossom burst from her heart like frost-born jade, drinking her life like roots in dry earth.
Pain and whispers peaked like a storm at full gale, yet Aphelia’s hand closed without flinching, gripping the gorgeous Crystal Blossoms as if seizing a thorny rose; the petals cut her palms like cold glass, blood blooming like plum red on snow, and with a crack like snapping ice, she broke it and flung it away in a scarlet arc.
As the Crystal Blossoms tore out root and all, the static vanished like fog at sunrise, and the twisting agony fell away like a shed skin; though she had stripped away a piece of her heart like a carved shard, a strange fullness welled up like spring filling an empty gourd, the hollow slowly being filled.
Nicely done~
The woman in the white dress caught Aphelia as she swayed, like a willow catching rain, and kept her from falling. Gentle Aether flowed over Aphelia like warm wind over wheat, propping her up to finish watching this scene.
The white-robed woman coughed softly, like embers popping in a brazier, then looked at the other “her” that had stepped from her body; with a face like winter under moonlight, she rose and walked forward as if wading through a river of light.
The separated “her” stood as well, and her beauty bent like a flame around a blade; unlike sacred snow, she carried a demonic allure, like a heel on the edge of a shrine, sacrilege sweet as forbidden fruit.
As they neared, two currents of Aether surged skyward like twin pillars of storm, clashing above the plaza like thunderheads, their forces battering each other as if war were a tide already turning.
Complex emotion crossed the white-robed woman’s face like clouds over pale jade; she grasped the Aether around her and drew out a pure white sword and a long spear, blades like frost and moonlight, ready to pierce the other without a tremor.
You… are me.
I… am you.
The split-off woman smiled like a crescent over dark water, and Crystal Blossoms bloomed around her like a dazzling frost-garden; in only heartbeats, the open plaza turned into a field of glass flowers.
You were born from my wicked thought, a shadow sprung from mire; you shouldn’t have been born at all.
Pity and pain warred in the white-robed woman’s eyes like rain and wind; in that moment, she no longer felt like Aphelia’s cold, sacred figure of snow, but a person of flesh and warmth, complete as earth and sky.
What a pity, Goddess. I was born anyway, and my heart still holds love for this world like incense in a hidden hall. So, will you kill me?
With Aether, the demonic woman shaped armor around herself like silver scale on a river dragon, descending like a Valkyrie from myth; edge met edge like two needles’ points, and not a finger’s breadth yielded.
They faced each other across empty air like two drawn bows, yet neither loosed the first arrow.
So be it… I’ll entrust you with the Holy Lance, like passing a torch through night fog. I hope the future you will shelter this world as I have.
Seeing the stalemate hang like frost on a branch, the white-robed woman sighed long, like wind through bamboo, and turned the Holy Lance sideways; wrapped in Aether like gauze, she offered it to the one who had split away.
Of course. I’ll do better than you, like a sharp blade cutting a straighter path.
The split-off woman nodded without a blink, tone firm as hammered steel; in that instant, her teasing air fell away like a mask, leaving a solemn calm like a still lake.
A strange illusion took Aphelia then, like a horizon split by lightning: the world seemed to divide into two halves. One half belonged to the sacred woman in white robes; the other half belonged to the demonic woman like dusk fire.
From that day on, the once-sacred Valkyrie Brynhildr cleaved into two people, like twin stars torn from one sun.
One embodied absolute good, bright as noon; the other embodied absolute evil, dark as midnight. Yet neither weakened; they became the two strongest forces in this world, like twin rivers in flood, stronger than before.
The woman in the white dress watched and let out a long sigh, like a reed flute in a quiet hall, her expression tangled like vines.
They had been goddesses, already beyond the span of humankind; even when they moved for humankind, their paths were clouds few could read. From that day, they weren’t high and untouchable anymore; by walking to the edge, they walked into strength, like steel tempered in extremes.
As her words fell like ash from a brazier, the once-sacred giant statue shook like a mountain under thunder; smooth jade flaked off like falling bark, revealing a two-faced figure only as tall as a person, sharp as a mirror split in two.
The crowd saw the two goddesses upon the plaza like twin moons over a sea, and fear rolled through them like a cold tide; one after another they fell to their knees, hands clasped in prayer like reeds bowing in wind.
Why… if it was their separation, did it ripple into me like a stone into a still pond? What were those Crystal Blossoms, blooming from my heart like winter roses?
Aphelia leaned into the white-dress woman’s arms like a weary swallow into eaves, breath thin as mist, and asked.
The Crystal Blossoms that tore free had sapped most of her strength like a drought; worse, terror coiled like a snake—why did Brynhildr’s power still linger in her body like incense in old wood?
Heh… don’t tell me you’re naïve enough to think Brynhildr left no backhand, like a hunter leaving no snare?
The woman in the white dress smiled and shook her head like willow over water, then spoke again.
Mm… to avoid confusion, let’s call this separated Brynhildr “No. 2,” like a second moon beside the first.
Let me ask you this: if you stood where No. 2 stands, knowing the other could recover her strength like spring after frost, after seizing the body, would you let her walk free, outside your grasp, like a fox from a trap?
Meeting the woman’s ink-black gaze like night over a still lake, Aphelia sighed like a spent tide and nodded.
Of course not.
Exactly. No. 2 thought the same, clear as cold water. The power you trained came by drawing from her, like sipping from an Aether battery; because her strength had rooted in your flesh like old vines, you couldn’t grow your own branches.
I never planned revenge…
Aphelia blurted it out like a spark in dry grass, then saw her own naivety fall like ash.
Even if you don’t plan revenge, who’d leave a threat this large to drift like a storm on the horizon?
Her voice dropped low like silk over skin, mouth near Aphelia’s ear like a moth’s wing.
If you get your strength back, you won’t be weaker than her, like twin blades tempered in the same fire~
The soft words felt to Aphelia like a devil’s whisper through keyholes; she snapped her head around like a startled deer and searched the white-dress woman’s eyes like lanterns hunting shadows, trying to see if this was a game.
Yet…
The woman in white met her gaze as calmly as a clear well, not a ripple out of place.
Is that true?
Of course it’s true, but…
Before Aphelia could speak, a pale finger like a jade scallion pressed to her lips like a petal.
You have to watch it all first, learn the past like reading rings in old wood, then decide. If your heart stays the same when the dust settles, I’ll tell you how to restore your strength.
As her words faded like rain into earth, the scene shifted again like a turning lantern; countless perilous battles unfurled before Aphelia like banners in a gale. At their center stood the two unfathomably strong goddesses, and the people they led, fighting the Eldritch Gods across a continent greening back to life like spring after ruin.
On the side of good, Brynhildr displayed near-absolute order like a bright constellation; she guided legions with honor and blessing, like a high priestess who refused to tighten the yoke, and didn’t trumpet herself like an empty drum.
Yet precisely that restraint made her the people’s leader in their hearts, like a hearth in winter; elite knights gathered under her banner like hawks to a thermal, and they swept battlefields like fire through dry fields.
On the side of “evil,” Brynhildr No. 2 praised an order hammered from honor as well; she hadn’t forgotten her oath to guard humanity, but she wasn’t a doting mother bird.
Unlike the original, she exalted a jungle-law honor, like fang and claw; win honor by war, prove yourself by slaying, whether the contest was with kin or foe, like whetstone against blade.
She even raised grand arenas after the ancients’ design, stones stacked like cliffs; if you emerged from a hundred champions like a star from clouds, you gained her favor, a highest seat like a throne, and the blessing of a god like seal-wax on a decree. For a people who lived upon war like fish in water, No. 2’s blessing was a medal more than a crutch, a laurel rather than a staff.
Under two extreme forces, the civilization born between them fused like twin streams into one river; for one simple reason: in truth, both sides swore to the same deity, Brynhildr who led humans out of their darkest night like a torch in a cave.
Given time, the mortal world should’ve bloomed like a garden after rain.
But beneath the surface, undercurrents churned like riptides. As the “evil” face, Brynhildr No. 2 pressed ever forward like a spearpoint, even wanting to leave the continent, reach the endless stars like ships at night, and destroy the Eldritch Gods who brought calamity like locusts.
As the “good” face, the original refused, her long years of bloodshed cooling her like iron in water; with a whole civilization on her shoulders like mountains, she looked further than No. 2, and chose caution like a wall, believing they should fortify and defend one-sidedly.
Even so, though they argued like thunder across a valley, neither ever sought the other’s end, not until the day an alien civilization fell from the sky like a burning star…
