“Pathetic fool.”

Aphelia’s face was ice as the severed head tumbled like a fallen fruit. Her sudden strike rang like winter steel, and soldiers stepped back like a receding tide.

Power that blazes too bright turns into shadow in other hearts.

Once the gulf is absolute, any hint of hostility hardens into threat. A heartbeat ago they cheered her name. When her target turned human, admiration curdled into fear.

No sting touched her. Fear slid off like rain on slate. What snagged her was the arrogant youth, a barb that pricked suspicion.

Simmons had just been hauled off to trial, right? The Unified Government sent this brainless showpiece? Were they burning their bridge to the Valkyries?

“Violet, could it be…”

Her first thought was a frame laid like a snare under frost.

The soldiers’ faces said enough. Her feat of tearing a Daemon Beast had washed them warm; her human kill iced it over. Strength turned straight into equivalent dread.

“Yeah. Likely those Eldritch God cultists are playing their tricks in the dark.”

Violet’s expression went dusk-dark. She strode to the corpse and searched. Aether seeped into the high-nosed youth like mist into loam, and, sure enough, evidence stirred.

Daemon Beasts don’t haunt only the Americas. Eurasia, Oceania, and the vast ocean hide monsters deeper than any land, like trenches full of jaws.

With Aphelia standing like a drawn blade, would they rush to break ties now? Smart leaders wouldn’t stomach it. They’d woo her, not waste her.

She’s a deterrent, a warhead before the war. Like a nuclear sun from old times, a symbol of extreme force.

In this war with Daemon Beasts, any nation that wins Aphelia’s help could peel free of the alliance. With no beasts at its gates, and the Elders’ tech, it would race ahead like spring grass.

No country would throw that chance away. Pushing this warhead onto humanity’s opposite side? Unthinkable, especially with crude provocations at first step.

If someone truly did that, they’d die before she raised a hand; other nations would hunt them like wolves. If not for Aphelia’s heat tipping too easily now—Crimson Fire fused into her bones, old killing intent whispering like embers—she sometimes couldn’t clamp down and struck by reflex.

By the time breath returned, the deed was done.

“It’s the Eldritch God cult. Residual Aether of those gods stains his body.”

Violet’s blood-red Aether drew out a twist of black vapor like a snake from the corpse. She brought it to Aphelia and let it coil in the air.

“So they really mean to sour the bond between the Elders and humans…”

Aphelia sighed, wind through pine. She’d expected cultists to move, but not at this delicate hour. The hard-won ease between Elders and soldiers cracked like thin ice.

“Anyone still willing to show me the way? Don’t worry, I won’t strike. If not, that’s fine.”

She looked at the ring of wary faces. They’d just seen a head fall. Trust wouldn’t bloom soon; no one would risk guiding her.

Aphelia met Violet’s eyes; both shook their heads, a shared, tired breath. They turned toward the frontline base’s cutting-edge lab. Forget permits—see it and leave; the Unified Government wouldn’t chase blame.

Being watched like a caged beast chafed like a hair shirt.

It tugged at old threads. Back when they called her Hero, the moment people heard an elf raised her, their gazes turned strange, lanterns aimed at a creature in glass.

Humans fear the unknown more than they praise the known. To their eyes today, Aphelia was a monster wearing human skin, heavier than any Daemon Beast.

Sometimes “hero” rhymes with “monster.”

Those who bear that name walk away from the human road. They won’t be let back in. They endure odd looks like cold rain and move alone.

Long ago, as a Hero, Aphelia learned that truth.

So she lived not as a human hero, but as Aphelia herself, struggling across this world with her companions.

Before they’d gone far, a man shoved through the crowd like a salmon breaking current. He reached them, gasped, steadied, and stood straight.

“Miss Violet, Lady Brynhildr, I have permission. Please follow me.”

It was the young officer from before.

“It’s fine. We can find it ourselves,” Aphelia said quickly, a soft smile with an edge. The thought counted. If he led them now, the others might mark him as odd, and humans flock in packs.

Violet tried to stop him too. She thought deeper; his eagerness rang too bright right after the cult’s stunt.

The officer shook his head, stubborn as a rock in stream. He bowed, stepped ahead, and racked his rifle with a sharp clack. His gaze swept the soldiers like a storm front.

They sighed and followed.

Once outside the soldiers’ ring, her fearsome name cut a path. His murder-ready look helped. Most soldiers drifted aside like reeds in wind.

As they drew near the lab, the crowd thinned. Only two guards watched the door, with patrols drifting at the edges. The young officer spoke then.

“Lady Brynhildr, thank you.”

“Thank me? Aren’t you afraid? I just killed your kin. Don’t mistake me for human.”

Her voice carried a wry lilt, smoke curling from a flame. Amusement stirred under the ash.

“No. Without you, my brothers and I would’ve died out there. If you hadn’t killed the Daemon Beast, our tank would’ve been its meal. The moment you appeared, it stopped hunting us. We were one breath from its jaws.”

His voice climbed, bright and shaking, fingers tightening on the rifle like frost grabbing a branch.

He didn’t say the rest—that, wreathed in Crimson Fire, Aphelia looked like a war goddess at the hinge of life and death. The sight struck him like a bell and left him devoted.

He was a devout believer. When the beast leaned in, he prayed to God. Aphelia arrived on that prayer like thunder on a parched field.

Aphelia laughed, a low ripple. She’d heard this gratitude before. Back as a Hero, she saved countless lives—commoners, clergy alike. In the end, one “witch” smeared ink over her gold.

“Then let it go. I killed the Daemon Beast because that’s my work. I didn’t mean to save you.”

“Even so, you saved me.”

He stopped short, voice raw, breath hot in the cold air.

Violet sighed softly, like a harp string touched. She didn’t mind admirers gathering around Aphelia. In the ancient age, before Brynhildr became the ultimate weapon, she had real allure.

“Don’t treat me as human. Didn’t you hear? I kill without blinking. Lead, or I’ll kill you like that one.”

Aphelia’s voice cut cold, a knife on glass. Words stuck in his throat. He flinched, swallowed, and moved on, guiding them to the lab doors. He briefed the guards and handed over the keycards.

When the guards heard Aphelia had slain a Daemon Beast, they stepped aside at once, opening the way like gates in a storm.