The Crimson Flame rose over the lump of flesh, a scarlet tide climbing its surface. The heat made it thrash, limbs of meat jerking like hooked fish. With each spasm, the floor’s glass shards drove in like thorns. It made no sound; newborn tissue was mute as a sealed bud.

Just watching that eerie flesh writhe inside the blaze made the researchers’ scalps prickle, like frost walking their necks.

They knew the Eldritch Gods and their Daemon Beasts had long slipped past human imagination, yet seeing this with their own eyes, fear pooled like cold water in their chests.

“Th-this, this—what the hell is that?!”

No one spared the panicking director a glance. Aphelia gathered Crimson Fire in her palms, walked up to the thing, and lifted it, tongs of flame in human hands.

As her fingers closed, a blot of black mist lunged at her, quick as a lightning snap. No one could stop it. But to Aphelia it crawled, smoke creeping uphill. What raised her guard was the thing hiding inside.

Crimson Fire flared in a blink. The black mist never reached her; it vanished like frost in sunlight. Only then did they see what the fire held apart.

It was a threadlike creature, a black line. Held off by Crimson Fire, it writhed like an eel on a hook. Under Aphelia’s flame, no struggle could slip it free.

“If you're running tests, get your gear now. This thing might not live longer than an hourglass.”

Her sharp call snapped them awake, thunder over still water. They sprinted to the adjacent lab for rigs and reagents, leaving the glass-strewn floor glittering like ice. Only under Aphelia’s control could this horror be studied.

If even Aphelia, who held the black thread, urged haste, how could they not burn with urgency? Sometimes you don’t need talk. Show power beyond reason, and before the unknown, humans bow like wheat in wind.

Violet hurried up, her face dark as stormwater as she watched the thread wrapped in Crimson Fire. She spoke, full of apology. “You okay, Aphelia? I was careless.”

“It’s fine, Violet. That’s not the point. You said Daemon Beasts only grow, right? I may’ve found the key to their existence…”

Aphelia closed her eyes. Her vast senses pushed through the Crimson Fire, domineering as a tide, and probed the black thread. That one touch blanched her face.

The thread wanted to seize her mind, a barbed hook for her inner sea.

What a joke. It didn’t even have a soul. Only a warped will of the Eldritch Gods nested in it. Why was its intent so fierce? Seizing a mind isn’t simple. In Aphelia’s era, usurpers shadowed a target for years. They mimicked every breath and habit, a mirror fogged with life. Only then could they breach a sea of thought.

But this thread? It tried to invade in an instant, a needle through silk.

Luckily, her soul and mind were one now—no sea to sail, no shore to take. She seized the first move against that law-breaking thread. Crimson Fire surged, burning its split-off invading will to ash. It never even touched her.

She stared at the thread wrapped in Crimson Fire, her face storm-dark. If her soul-mind hadn’t fused with the fire, she’d have been caught by that raid.

Not everyone had her kind of power. Touch this thread, and you might be taken in a heartbeat. A terrible thought surfaced like a drowned moon.

When a Daemon Beast falls, does the warped will inside it hide in the corpse? Does it then seize any creature that dares to touch it?

If so, those Daemon Beast corpses outside can’t be left lying—open wells of plague.

She didn’t know how long she’d remain in this world. The warped will inside these beasts spread like disease. She had to brace for the worst. If every soldier who touched it carried that will, what then? Would the beasts, wearing human bodies, learn human ways?

“Calm. Calm…” Aphelia drew deep breaths, pulling air from a well. She forced her pulse down and rewound everything, from the first kill to now. She couldn’t afford a missed thread.

It didn’t add up. If it worked that fast, most soldiers would already be infiltrated. There’d be no United Government. Under outer threat and inner rot, society would snap like old ice.

An Eldritch God that crafts this isn’t stupid, a chessmaster in the dark.

This “peaceful” invasion is the swiftest and most terrifying. Even Aphelia would choose it to wage war. How could a twisted god not?

Think. What traits did they show? Got it.

The first giant serpent appeared when she was about to burn the lizard-like Daemon Beast to ash. It tore out of the beast and lunged. Crimson Fire was in her hand. She was sure: at its emergence, no other life or will appeared.

Crimson Fire erased it clean, not even ash left, snow in a furnace. There was no window for the god’s will to spread.

What about when she made the slides?

When she watched the cells divide, the black haze wasn’t there at first. It appeared only after a long while. So after heavy damage, even if it appears, it needs time to mature.

While she thought, the researchers returned with their gear. Aphelia split off a maiden in finery to control the Crimson Fire for them, and kept combing her memory for loose ends.

If maturation takes time, the spread shrinks. The clock slows. From her trip to Hrok’s camp and back, half a day passed. Did the cells not mature then? Did they wait until she made slides to begin?

Wait. Something’s off.

Seeing Aphelia’s stormy face, Violet felt the weight. She’d killed Daemon Beasts before. Scenes like this never happened. She opened her mouth, and their gazes met.

“Violet… the Daemon Beasts you beat—nothing like this ever showed up?”

“No. Absolutely not. I went near full power and killed it outright in a Pacific no-man’s zone. Any remains sank to the deep. Nothing like this nightmare…”

Aphelia cut her off, brow knotting like a drawn bow. Something didn’t fit.

“Violet, I think I missed something. Did the Daemon Beasts appear at the same time worldwide?”

“No. They showed up in different theaters with delays. All after the one in the Pacific. Wait… Aphelia, you mean—”

Violet caught up, eyes widening like moons.

At that, Aphelia saw the whole board.

“No wonder they’re Eldritch Gods… they planned even this.”

The beasts in every theater are likely the offspring of the one Violet slew. They used human hands to break humanity. If no one caught it, even victory would be doom. Without finding the Origin, endless Daemon Beasts would keep coming, a hydra with tireless heads.

That’s worse than civil war. You don’t even need puppets. Keep the outer pressure forever, and society collapses like a rotted dam.

“Forget the fighting… invaded species are already vanishing.” Violet’s voice shook. “Keep this up, and the biosphere folds in on itself. You won’t need to touch every species. The clock of this world will unwind.”

Violet clenched her fists. The late-arriving fear shook her, winter after harvest.

“Two Elders, please—over here!”

The researcher peering through Crimson Fire suddenly shouted, yanking both their gazes like a tolling bell.

“What is it?”

Aphelia could barely spare attention. This power pressed on her like a deep sea. She felt, bone-deep, the terror of the Eldritch Gods.