Heron rose with a smile. An azure glow brushed the orderly city like a tide, and the grid of streets melted into a deep, breathing forest. Under a midnight-blue canopy, Aphelia felt her heart lurch—this grove looked like the Elven Forest she once called home.

“Come,” Heron said, voice light as moonwind. “Since you want to see the Origin, follow me. It’ll cure your curiosity. If you want it again, you’ll need the strength for it.”

Heron drifted ahead like a swan on still water. Aphelia hurried after, her footsteps rippling the night.

A prickle of doubt rose first, then thought followed. The Origin—near-omnipotent as Heron had painted it—was it really this easy to witness? Was the Origin not rare, or was Heron simply too strong, saying “let’s see the world’s Origin” and making it so?

If Sigdrifa had power like this, would Aphelia have had any chance at all? The thought stung; she answered it with a rueful smile, thin as frost.

“Aphelia, what was your era like?”

Heron asked it abruptly, like a pebble dropped into a clear pond. Her eyes were steady, winter-still, no excess emotion in their light. Walking this familiar forest, Aphelia’s mood rose and settled, like leaves stirred then quieted by a soft breeze.

The scene felt known, but the companion at her side did not. Aphelia shook her head with a small smile.

“My era’s drumbeat was war,” she said, voice low as dusk. “Before any Demon King invaded, humans were already killing humans—for land, for resources. Principalities swelled and devoured neighbors, then got shattered and absorbed by empires. Humans looted dwarves and orcs; dwarves and orcs raided human borders.”

“When I was little, survival pushed a blade into my hands. My sister—an elf who adopted me—she meant to use me from the start. Still, back then, tucked in a quiet corner, even with wars raging, I was happy.”

Her eyes softened, a glow like lanternlight behind rain. Her days in the Elven Forest had been the gentlest of her life. No rivals to cut down; only training her strength, learning the lore; in elven lands, a human like her could breathe, sleep, blossom.

Leaving that forest drew a hard line across her fate, like ink across a page. She swung her blade and cut what stood before her—human, elf, orc, dwarf, demon—whoever blocked her, fell.

It became a curse-spiral. When she finally tried to stop, she found herself caught in lie after lie, like flies in lacquer. For those lies that tangled her path, she lost friends, lost kin, lost…

Heron watched her bittersweet calm and sighed, a sound like wind over reeds. “Sorry, Aphelia. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine, Miss Heron.” Aphelia smiled, thin but clear. “I’m just speaking from the heart. It’s hard not to waver when you see a place so close to home. Anyway… keep talking about your past. You said you began by breaking the great nations. How did you do it?”

She shifted the topic with a light laugh, like moving a fan. It wasn’t a staged expression; it was that shy ache of being near one’s old village. And more than that, she didn’t want Heron walking into the softest rooms of her heart.

Seeing it, Heron only shook her head and went on.

“I taught ordinary humans to use Aether.”

It wasn’t wholly shocking, yet Aphelia stared as if at a chimera. For true powers, awakening Aether feels natural—like water finding a riverbed. One day you grasp it; there’s no shortcut.

Mortals are different. Ordinary people can’t even train properly, much less touch deeper intent. A True God might force-feed battle-qi or Arcane Power into a body, but Aether in a mortal’s hand isn’t so simple.

If everyone could wield Aether like Aphelia and Heron, the world’s power level would explode. Someone like Sigdrifa wouldn’t even have room to strut. Those high-tier twisted beings? Give Aphelia a hundred copies of herself, and she’d grind them to dust.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Heron said, waving it off, a faint blush warming her cheeks. “Teaching Aether can be simple.”

“If it were simple, I’d go home to my era right now,” Aphelia shot back, eyes sharp as stars. “I’d teach everyone. Sigdrifa would be scrap in front of us.”

“It sounds simple, but it’s not like us,” Heron said softly. “They’re just tasting sweetness. At best, they learn to Aetherize objects—and only at modest levels. The best of my ‘students’ imagined an unnameable horror. The name sounded like ‘Cthu—something’…”

Heron searched her memory, then smiled, cool as starlight. “It was just a showy tentacle beast, far from the legend. Still took effort to put down, and it caused a mess in that era. He was a schizophrenic madman.”

A madman creating a monster that cost Heron real effort—maybe he’d already begun the path of self-mining. Aphelia thought of those modern Valkyries she’d seen. They were leagues below the Elders. Their Aether use barely skimmed the surface.

Could it be—

“Right,” Heron said, nodding. “The girls turned into Valkyries on Earth use the same method. We keep the world’s Aether within limits. The Elders can’t go all out.”

She tilted her head, a falcon’s gaze bright in the dark. “Think. A world whose order rides on technology meets Aether. What happens? Let’s not judge human nature. Just ask: a new power hits the old foundation—what shakes free?”

The question tugged Aphelia back to her own world. The parallels were thick as mist.

In her era, humans hadn’t yet touched Aether’s secret. Order rested on the existing lattice: battle-qi, magic, and magitech. That was the bedrock.

Then Sigdrifa appeared and carried Aether down to earth.

Below the True God, all are ants.

It wasn’t a joke. And above a True God, a master of Aether stands like a mountain in cloud. Battle-qi and Arcane Power are nothing in that wind. The strikes hurled at Sigdrifa—if they don’t get turned into her Aether, Aphelia counts herself lucky.

Her world now churned with conflict, steel grinding against thunder.

“I don’t need everyone to be like me,” Heron said, eyes kindled, a storm behind calm seas. “I need enough bad coin to flood the market of good coin. Let bad coin drive out good.”

“One person’s Aether can’t beat a tank. Then use three. If three can’t beat a fighter jet, use ten. If ten still can’t sink a carrier, use ten thousand.”

Danger flashed in her gaze, a blade glint under moon. The plan itself was dangerous—terrible, even. If Aphelia stood in Heron’s place, she wouldn’t cut a world so hard, so root-and-branch.

But Heron was different. She dug Aether deeper, down to where the Origin could be glimpsed. That was why her resolve ran like iron. If you’re the world’s forerunner, you lead the break.

“Elites are always few,” she said, hands painting the air like brushstrokes. “I don’t deny elite theory. If a world’s leaders are mediocre, that world can’t advance. But for a new era, yesterday’s elites are rotten wood.”

Heron lifted her hand to the star-sown night, constellations bright as spilled salt.

“Ordinary people are the cornerstone. Give them the new power, and they’ll capsize the old ship. They should be the bones of the new era. Compared to elites, the common folk are countless.”

Aphelia nodded, the motion slow and sure, like a tree accepting rain. In any age, nations are built and worlds are held aloft by ordinary people. Elites may be the spark; the crowd is the fire.

And Heron—she was someone who placed her foundations firmly in the hands of the many.