Oppression pressed in like deep water. Emptiness yawned wide and cold. The void clenched her throat, suffocating.

The darkness behind looked ready to swallow Aphelia whole. When she truly slipped free of the planet and drifted into the field called the cosmos, she felt how tiny she was—an ember in endless night.

True Gods? Human powerhouses? In the boundless black behind her, they were nothing at all.

As Aphelia entered the void, the dragon-like Daemon Beast clamped on her finally loosened its jaws—not by choice, but because life deserted it. Its pupils dulled. The twisted breath of the Eldritch Gods bled out of that vast carcass.

Even to the naked eye, she saw hard scales crumble into ash. The ash drifted toward a colossal shadow—the shroud that had long hung above the world, a banner of death.

For a heartbeat, words froze on her tongue.

The Eldritch Gods veiling the skies looked, at first glance, like a creature woven from warped flesh. She blinked—and saw countless transparent souls instead, thrashing inside a massive vortex.

In her eyes, the thing called the Eldritch Gods kept shifting, matter into mind, form into formless. It felt unreadable, like a monster stitched from scraps of what she could barely grasp.

Worse, within that chaos pulsed a lucid and crushing will.

It dawned on her that “Eldritch Gods” was just a human tag for the ungraspable. Its essence lay past sight. Each time she probed with power, a flood of unrelated memories surged in and forced her hand to stillness.

“What are you?” Fear edged her voice first. Then she spoke. Crimson Fire seeped over her skin, a cloak of embers, and under the Eldritch stimulus her power jittered restlessly.

“Me?” An airy voice rose. To her ears it came out of boundless dark, echoing around her. The twisted presence seemed to turn. It had no eyes, yet a gaze fell, steady and weighty.

Not one gaze, but thousands. She had once been a Hero, basking in the fervor of crowds. This was different—cold as grave water, high and inhuman, appraising her like an item on a tray.

The more it watched, the tenser she grew. Anything that could hold such a slanted vantage on humans wasn’t a thing the ordinary mind could read.

“Honored Valkyrie, heir of ancient civilization, accident-struck traveler from other timelines, Hero adored by millions—or Aphelia. In which name do you question us?”

As that airy voice spoke, the shifting mass finally steadied. It became a colossal vortex where countless souls roosted. They spoke together, yet as one.

She felt laid bare, skin to soul. Cold sweat beaded. Her Crimson Fire flared, a shield of blaze, blocking that sickening stare for a heartbeat—then failing utterly.

Before such a presence, lies and clever words meant nothing.

“If I say I’m asking as Aphelia, only Aphelia?” Discomfort gnawed first. She forced her spine straight and met the incoming gaze.

The souls in the vortex seemed to expect her. With machine clarity, they answered without pause.

“Then you will receive an answer from us—an answer we have owed you for a very long time.”

It caught her off guard. She had expected the twisted thing to strike her. Instead, they had dragged her into this black domain just to talk of an answer? It made no sense. If their aim was so simple, why had Daemon Beasts ravaged the world?

She edged back, wary. The twisted presence didn’t stop her, yet its glacial stare never left.

“Do not try to break out, Aphelia. You are too weak for us, for now. Force a break and your power will bite you back.”

The airy voice sounded almost like advice, yet its flatness carried no warmth. Her body and mind recoiled from it.

She split off a strand of Crimson Fire and hurled it toward the planet below. It failed to move more than a few meters before it vanished in this black field. A sharp ache stabbed her mind-sea.

The strand she sent out was gone. Not devoured. Not displaced. Gone in the truest sense—snuffed from her control, erased from her senses without a trace.

That Crimson Fire was near enough her soul. Anyone tearing it away was like a bright blade driving into her heart.

If this twisted presence could peel her soul, why talk at all? They could keep nibbling until the “strongest of humanity” fell at their feet.

Doubt pooled thick in her chest. The souls seemed to see through it and spoke again.

“We did not consume your soul. It is the rule of this world. When we meet again like this, the world’s rules will not tolerate us coexisting. If you try to leave this range, the rule-torrent outside will drown you. In the words you know… call it Aether.”

Their words cleared much, and crowded her with more questions.

If Aether cannot tolerate the two of them coexisting, why does her Crimson Fire still burn? In her sense, the Crimson Fire stands above Aether, yet its nature remains an expression of the world’s rules, kin to Aether.

She heard another layer in their meaning. If coexisting is forbidden, does one side “vanish” so the other can slip free?

At that thought, her Crimson Fire flared hard. She pushed stray impulses down and asked, voice tight.

“…Then explain it. What is this answer?”

At once the souls voiced a crisp assent. The airy voice flowed on.

“It is the answer to saving this world. The only success across countless timelines. It is also our redemption. With your power now, even if we hand it to you, you cannot use it.”

“So this ‘answer’—is it a kind of power?” She caught the key words and tucked them away.

If their claim is true, if this answer marks the sole success across countless timelines, then far down the future of those lines, a version of her has already done it.

If so, the existence before her needed to be studied. After the first wave of panic and dread, Aphelia found her calm again and looked with a new lens.

The acts of higher beings are not things humans can always read. When humans face the unreadable, their first instinct isn’t coexistence. It’s erasure. Fear of the unknown is carved deepest into the bone.

“Power? It’s not power. As Aphelia, you have never lacked power. As you stand, you wield the Primordial Flame. There is nothing stronger in this world.”

The airy voice denied her, plain as if speaking of weather.

“Primordial Flame? So these fires are called the Primordial Flame?”

She asked at once. For all the Crimson Fire coiling in her, its origin remained a mystery. If she traced it back, it was merely a flame her former master left her.

“Yes. It is the world’s most primal force. You cannot draw out its fullness yet. But if you keep using it, you will learn its depth. You do not lack power. You lack a choice.”