The researchers shuffled aside like reeds in a sudden gale. Under the shelter of the Crimson Fire, they finally had a chance to peer through the microscope. What they saw hit like a clap of thunder.

“What’s going on? The cells of an Eldritch God… stopped dividing?”

Through the lens, Aphelia saw the black strand’s lattice clear as frost on glass. Unlike the earlier frenzy of division, these cells looked pinned in amber, metabolism frozen.

“Wait. Let me see.”

Violet stepped to the scope, her gaze a calm lake before a storm. At her signal, Aphelia eased the Crimson Fire and pricked the sample with her scarlet Aether. The cells inside the black strand shifted like a field in sudden wind.

Wrapped in the Crimson Fire, the strand changed, as if plated in armor, throwing back a black sheen. Yet before Aphelia’s flame, it was thin as paper, easy to scorch to ash.

The changes were only structural, like ice refreezing after a ripple. Division did not return.

Relief settled in Violet’s chest like a stone finding the riverbed. Their earlier guess broke like brittle clay, and she finally drew a steady breath.

“Aphelia, our guess was wrong. But we need more experiments before I can tell if this fits my new idea.”

“Our guess was wrong?”

Aphelia’s brows loosened like clouds thinning after rain. At a time like this, being wrong felt like a blessing. Since Violet wanted more trials, then they would push the work further together.

Violet rose and patted Aphelia’s shoulder, her touch warm as dusk. She began to direct the team, turning chaos into order like lines laid on a loom. More reagents and instruments flowed into the lab like caravans to a busy bazaar. Other researchers, stunned by the heat of it all, stepped forward to offer hands.

Everyone involved burned with bright excitement, like sparks in a forge. The black strand might be the key to unlock the secret of Eldritch God cells.

If they could read this cell’s script, humanity could step forward again on the current foundations, like a bridge gaining a new span.

Watching the researchers lose themselves in work, Aphelia smiled and sighed, a soft ember in her voice. Humanity wasn’t past hope; this was their glimmer. Even fearing the unknown, they still walked forward.

The research blazed for days, like a wildfire that refused to die.

Neither Aphelia nor Violet had expected it to run this long. Matters with Hrok went unattended, and they would owe her an apology after the smoke cleared.

Aphelia didn’t come away empty-handed. To keep the trials flowing, she split the Crimson Fire into countless threads like a weaver at a thousand-looms. She met the researchers’ requests in rhythm, and her control rose a step without her noticing.

Violet was the same. Her wide learning fed the work like spring water to thirsty roots. Without her, the team alone would never have moved so fast. Hearing the progress and the earlier events, the United Government rushed envoys to the cutting-edge lab in the American war zone.

In that window, Aphelia and Violet finally stole a breath.

“Aphelia, are we really doing the right thing?”

In the meeting room, after they sorted the data like grains from chaff, Violet watched Aphelia flop into the sofa and asked with a rueful smile.

“Huh? What’s wrong with it? Humanity’s at a knife’s edge. They can’t lean on us Elders forever. I don’t want to chase Daemon Beasts across the world.”

It was half-truth, half-smoke. Aphelia didn’t say everything.

Thrown into this era by accident, she wasn’t sure what she should do. From past patterns, anything tied to humanity was likely her aim. But on Daemon Beasts, she kept a quiet reserve.

That reserve came from her honed intuition, a hawk that had saved her a thousand times. She chose to trust it. Beneath the war with Daemon Beasts and the invasion of Eldritch Gods, something hidden lay like a reef under dark water.

Unraveling the Daemon Beast cell was only the first thread.

“No, Aphelia. I mean, we just pushed humanity forward again, indirectly. Is that… really good?”

Violet moved to Aphelia’s side, worry shading her delicate face like clouds over wine-red dawn. On world-shaping matters, they had always leaned on Brynhildr’s judgment. Perhaps habit ran deep, so even facing a not-yet-whole Aphelia, Violet asked anyway.

Hearing that, Aphelia turned slowly, her heart a quiet drum. She lifted Violet’s face, met those wine-red eyes, and spoke gently.

“That’s not our call, Violet.”

“But we were made to save humanity. Helping them advance should be right. Yet when I look at today’s humans, I feel lost… I really don’t know…”

“You don’t know if these humans should advance, do you?”

Aphelia’s sigh drifted like mist over a river. This question could be simple as a pebble, or tangled as roots.

She recalled Brynhildr’s memories, a civilization guided by Valkyries like stars steering ships. Because of this very question, the path twisted, two goddesses turned against each other, and it all burned down.

Human development has no single best answer, only roads crossing in fog.

“Violet, how do you think the Ancient Civilization climbed to that towering height?”

“They must have advanced quickly too, but not like the path humans walk now…”

Aphelia cut in, frank as a blade through silk. “Ancient humans also weathered pain like today to reach prosperity. Wherever there’s development, there’s shared patterns. One or two people can spot the keys of progress. But the growth of a civilization is the era’s tide. If it won’t advance, it gets drowned by the flood.”

“But today’s human civilization is different! They have their own tech already. With guidance from the Ancient Civilization, they became what they are. That’s not right! Even with rapid progress, at best they only become Ancient again. How do they face the Eldritch Gods?”

Violet pushed back, her worry sharp as winter air.

Progress rushing ahead while the foundation lags feels like patchwork, a quilt of mismatched scraps. Human tech that ought to grow stands stalled. What thrives are the shadows of the Ancient.

That’s not what the Ancient wanted, at least not what the Elders hoped for. If the Ancient were enough, why leave the Valkyries for today at all? Why birth this era’s human civilization? Even the Ancient stood fragile before the Eldritch Gods, so the Valkyries were kept as living crystals of that legacy.

For change’s sake, the sages of the Ancient withheld a full inheritance. They gave the Valkyries only emergency strength, enough for humanity to plant its feet in the first crashing wave.

“That is a problem. If we can see it, today’s leaders and thinkers can too. If they keep on like this, it’s drinking poison to quench thirst. But you can’t deny it, Violet: humans always learn by doing.”

Aphelia’s hand flicked, the gesture light as a falling leaf. On this, she stood wider, like a hill above fields.

Without failure, there is no true gain.

With Brynhildr’s memories and more, Aphelia had watched many worlds turn. In a sense, she was witness to their dawns, their climbs, and their falls.

As an observer, she saw the bones of the problem clearly. After the next ruin left by Eldritch Gods, or in Brynhildr’s Valkyrie-led world, or in Enkidu’s end of the divine age—each civilization shared a trait. Human development moved inside a fixed frame like fish kept to a tank.

The strong granted power as they thought best, and forced “correct” methods into human hands. Yes, follow those methods and the gifted power works, and the civilization grows. But that growth meets a ceiling like a sky of iron.

Why? Because the strong’s “correct” may not be humanity’s “correct.” Humans advance by finding their own power, using it and breaking it, learning through errors until their road appears under their feet. Only then does a civilization carry true momentum.

You could say today’s humans, because of the fracture of eras, carry a hidden edge like a blade in the sleeve. Their future could be without bound.