The Lord of the Blood River stole life like a flood breaching a dam; any creature with fluid within cracked open under his will, bodies collapsing into red runoff.

Anything alive carries liquid; humans are mostly water, vessels of tide and flesh, and before him they had no shield, like reeds before a storm.

For the humans of the Aether Civilization, it wasn’t an impossible puzzle; the wound was his sudden arrival, like lightning knifing a clear sky.

In the first shock, there was no time to react; terror burst like overboiling foam, and people dissolved into countless pools, streaming toward him like tributaries.

They gathered at his feet, swelling into the vast River of Blood, a scarlet delta spreading under a moonless night.

Heron’s face tightened, a shadow crossing like passing cloud; she remembered the Lord of the Blood River’s terror like iron frost biting bone.

Even with Aether, humans remained human, a flame inside a clay lamp; essence doesn’t change, especially with stronger enemies howling like winter wolves.

The root of the Aether Civilization was Aether; when Aether failed before the foe, the tower built on it sank into mire, a city swallowed by rain.

A powerful interstellar civilization was hammered into rubble, like constellations shattered by hail; even Heron, bright as a comet, couldn’t save the whole.

After star systems were broken like glass, the Root Executors crushed Aether Civilization’s vassals like scythes through straw; only strong tech realms held like stone.

Those who couldn’t reach outer space were seedlings in a wildfire, without any way to fight back against the hot wind.

“Don’t even start on those so-called Lords of Ruin, Lords of Locust Plague—each Root Executor came for devouring life, like jackals circling a herd.”

“Every death of a human or humanoid who wielded Aether fattened them like wolves after a kill; early on we barely resisted, like a cracked shield.”

“By mid-war, I couldn’t shelter the whole civilization, my arms like a broken canopy under a monsoon.”

Heron’s eyes held grief, a dusk light over drowned fields; she had raised the Aether Civilization like a garden, now hacked down.

When the Root Executors descended on the star system like black rain, her people were slaughtered; ‘corpses everywhere’ became a cruel proverb of ash.

More terrifying, most left no bodies, only red mist; even souls were ground to dust in the hands of the Root Executors, like sand in a fist.

By then the war was a one-sided massacre, a butcher’s night with no dawn.

On the old planet, wars ended once they crested, like tides turning; war was for gain or defense, a blade weighed by harvest.

If a land became scorched earth, it meant failure; after that, there was no profit to reap, only burnt fields without seed.

That was the consensus among most civilizations in Heron’s era, a pact like winter truce; many nations already held the means to ash their own ground.

So they seldom launched wars, their hands cold on the hilt; but the Root Executors were different—this wasn’t war, it was Origin’s carved edict of slaughter.

If it’s slaughter, there’s no ‘gain’ to chase; even if the Aether Civilization’s homeland became dust among stars, it was all the same gray.

The only difference was how much force to spend, like choosing a hammer or a storm.

Countless soldiers who followed Heron vanished like sparks in rain; not everyone could reach her height, a peak above clouds.

Even the Valkyries were rare as meteors; under a cruel war, those below top-tier fell almost entirely, like wheat under a scythe.

The Valkyries themselves met death and wounds, names scrubbed from stone; some had no chance to resurrect, erased by Origin like ink washed clean.

“Origin lifted the Aether Civilization like a sun in spring, then smashed it without mercy like an ice hammer—what was it thinking?” Aphelia’s voice was low as smoke.

“Heron, did you break with Origin? Did it pay a great price to destroy you, like fire consuming its own house?”

“A great price?” Heron smiled and shook her head, a ripple over still water; an hourglass appeared in her palm like a pale moon.

She crushed it; sand spilled like golden rain, drifting onto the ground like desert stars.

“You’re wrong, Aphelia. We’re like this hourglass—something Origin can end with a flick, like wind snuffing a candle.”

“Do you feel any threat from the ants at your feet, like dust on your boot?”

Clearly, there was no threat, only quiet specks under sun.

“I don’t know the true reason Origin wanted us erased,” her tone was a muted bell, “but I’m sure of one thing.”

“You are the most special of all Root Executors, a lone keystone in a dark arch; without you, I’d have given up long ago.”

Heron brushed the sand from her hand like tide clearing shells and smiled at Aphelia, a lantern in fog.

“The most special… but I only controlled that strange race, like a shepherd with a fierce flock,” Aphelia frowned, her brow a storm line.

“Compared to the Root Executors, I was small; meddling with a star system took ages like glaciers, not a gesture that shatters suns.”

She didn’t doubt herself; she doubted the scale, that beings who ruined star systems like tearing paper stood above past True Gods like mountains.

“Was I really their match, a river against a desert wind?”

Heron’s laugh was soft, a chime in night. “At first, those Root Executors couldn’t erase star systems with a wave, not like thunder out of clear sky.”

“They raided key worlds of Aether star systems, like locusts stripping fields, and stole vast life to climb, like ivy up stone.”

“In battle, we learned their power was shared, a web of fire; they grew together, like linked hearts beating faster.”

“That means you were growing too, Aphelia, your ember fanned by the same storm.”

Heron’s mouth curved into a flawless smile, a crescent over black water; this was how she endured, a seed under frost waiting spring.

Aphelia, this unique existence, gave hope that the Aether Civilization could rise again, like dawn returning to old mountains.

Mid-war, Aphelia fell into sleep, a deep lake under ice; ‘sleep’ wasn’t precise—she spun a cocoon from her past Insectoid shell.

It was a giant pod like a nutrient cradle; inside, she digested the enormous power brought by other Executors, like roots drinking floodwater.

Unlike the others, Aphelia had slipped Origin’s leash, a hawk free of the tether; think human brain versus supercomputer, a candle versus laser.

Those still linked to Origin processed energy faster, a furnace versus kiln; from their arrival to late war, they grew braver, like iron tempered hot.

“If the late war hadn’t been unsustainable, a ship taking water, I wouldn’t have woken you early,” Heron said, voice a tired tide.

“But once you woke, your power showed me the truth, a mirror catching lightning—that Origin hunted us to hide you.”

“The Root Executors were a veil, smoke over a moon.”

In the late war, Aphelia struck like a hawk; Heron understood Origin wanted the Aether Civilization erased because of Aphelia’s singular spark.

“With only half a corpse of the Lord of the Blood River, you used that Insectoid hatchery like a black womb to birth a complete Lord of the Blood River.”

“Its power and essence matched the one we tore apart, like twin stars; yet its will linked to you, a thread through night.”

“That means you can manufacture Root Executors, a smith of storm-bearers; now you see your uniqueness, a hidden forge in a glacier.”

Heron grew excited, her form flickering like heat-haze; the present wavered, a mirage over dunes.

Aphelia only frowned, a ridge under thunder; it wasn’t disbelief in Heron, but the shock, a tidal wave against a harbor.

If she truly had that ability, why did the Aether Civilization perish, a forest cut to stumps?

Detached from Origin, Aphelia shouldn’t have been a threat, a knife sheathed; even if Executors killed ninety-nine percent, some humans should have survived like seeds.

So, did Origin act directly, a mountain falling, a god-hand?

Heron saw the doubt and sighed, a reed bending to wind. “Time wasn’t enough, a candle burned down,” she whispered.

“The Aether Civilization’s fall was set like winter; even if you killed all the Root Executors, humans already had no room to live in this universe, a fish in dry riverbed.”

“In the end, we used Insectoid bodies to preserve human souls, jars under ground; even I had to commit my soul, a vow cast in iron.”

“Only then could the whole survive long, like a hive humming in night.”

Heron smiled bitterly, a taste like salt; as planetary governor, she walked to ‘extinction,’ a queen laying down her crown.

To continue the civilization, she made a heavy choice, an anchor dropped; it was the only choice left, the last bridge over fire.

Without it, they’d be erased in Origin’s cleansing, a broom sweeping ashes.

That’s the Aether Civilization now, a vast, highly centralized collective mind, like a sea of lanterns; they gather all Aether into that sea.

From a certain angle, they interfere with reality, like wind on reeds; that’s why Aphelia can see them again, why she sees Heron here.

“Even this stone stele was seized from Origin by you, Aphelia,” Heron said, a bell over water. “It’s our lighthouse now, our beacon in the cosmic night.”