Without power drawn from the Origin, even a civilization-wide mind like theirs would drift like a ship without a compass on a moonless sea. Worse, the Origin rejected the Aether Civilization’s collective outright; a thing so uncanny wouldn’t be allowed to take root.

This wasn’t a normal way for a civilization to exist. In this moment, the Aether Civilization staggered like a zombie in rags, clinging to life like a cockroach after fire.

Everything they did was a slap at the Origin’s dignity, a pebble thrown at a mountain. So that vast, high-centered collective had to back off, to wander the star-sea for ages, fleeing the Origin’s hunt.

“Back then, Aphelia, you defeated every one of the Root Executors,” Heron said, voice steady as winter rain. “You seized their bodies and used Insectoid war-organs to hatch them. You turned most Root Executors into our weapons. Only then did the Origin reveal its final blade.”

This time, Heron offered no images. Even her own face clouded, like thunder piling behind a ridge. Anything that could sour the look of someone who dared defy the Origin wasn’t a small thing.

Aphelia felt a knot rise first, then spoke carefully. “Are there beings stronger than the Root Executors?”

Relief crossed Heron’s features like sun through fog. Secrets buried after that war had been sealed in bedrock; even Heron had to obey rules etched under every soul. Some things could only be said when a Root Executor asked.

She couldn’t explain why; only she knew the cost. But she could answer.

“Aphelia, those beings… I don’t know what to call them,” Heron said, words like stones placed one by one. “Maybe they can’t be named, can’t be told. I only know they come from the universe’s origin history. Born from histories unknown to humankind, and in those same histories, they return to the Origin.”

She hurried to spill the truth, like water before it froze. She braced her mind against the surge, lest the tide crack her. She’d seen minds shatter under that impact, thought to flesh to dust, beyond any rescue.

Born from histories mortals never knew… Aphelia had seen a few like that. The so-called Reaper. The palace that caged the Demon King. Secrets coiled like mist behind those gates. She didn’t even know how she’d entered that place; there was no way to confirm it now.

But one such thing still lived in her.

“Uroboros, wake up.”

She called inward. Since stepping into Heron’s domain, Uroboros had stayed hidden. Now was the time. She was kin to the Demon King’s lot; if answers lay anywhere, they lay in Uroboros’s coils.

All this flickered by in a heartbeat. Aphelia kept listening to Heron’s history, calm as frost. When Uroboros woke, the picture would fill in like stars after dusk.

After repeated calls, Uroboros finally answered, voice cool as a blade. “Aphelia, wrap me in your flame and cut me off, or I can’t stay long here. That Aether master will notice me.”

So what if she did? The first spark in Aphelia was defiance, then she yielded to caution. She didn’t get Uroboros’s fear, but she still shrouded her with the Crimson Fire, a curtain against Heron’s sight. Heron wouldn’t probe her mind, but her spirit was a lighthouse; Uroboros was too strange to go unseen.

With the Crimson Fire as a veil, Uroboros’s spirit linked to hers, threads woven tight. Through Aphelia, she could see the world clearly. The sudden sync tugged Aphelia’s thoughts and left her briefly adrift.

“Aphelia, what’s wrong? You look unsteady.”

“Ah, it’s nothing, Miss Heron. Please, go on.”

Heron noticed the flicker, but Aphelia was steady as a stone after. Heron let it pass, then continued.

“Their power is… peculiar,” Heron said, gaze far as a horizon. “Most of them hit like storms of pure mind. Mortals can’t even look at them. A glance is a sledgehammer to the psyche. We don’t know why. Likely they leave structural changes in the brain, and those changes become the shock. We had no time to study. But their ways of attack—that’s the heart of it.”

In Heron’s memory, their methods were simple as a knife. Nothing flashy. Yet her mind held only the scars, not the blade. She remembered being struck, but not how. She remembered enduring, but not the way. That absence was the true terror.

“Frankly, now that I’m only a soul, I shouldn’t be hit by that kind of shock,” she said, voice low as embers. “And still, every memory of their attacks is gone. How they struck. What the wounds were. Blank. The one thing left is you, Aphelia—dragging them into a seal. And the seal lasted a very, very long time.”

It was strange as winter lightning. With Heron’s strength, she shouldn’t forget. Yet only this remained, anchored by Aphelia. Back then, Aphelia rallied the Insectoids and the Root Executors, fought to the last spark, and sealed those beings into the river of time.

After that, Aphelia hovered at death’s edge like a leaf on black water. The Aether could do less and less for her. She almost died in front of them all.

“So I started the Valkyrie Plan,” Heron said, and a bitter smile flickered like a crack in ice. “The last five carried your genes. We made the final edits. We embedded the strongest sequences. With Insectoid organs, we kept your memories and shards of your soul. Your main soul, and the body you wear now, walked into future civilizations. And we waited for the day you’d wake.”

It was the answer Aphelia had chased like a hunter after a white stag. At last, she knew why she’d become what she was, and why such an enemy waited on the road ahead.

Calm spread through her, quiet as dawn on a lake. She’d imagined a thousand punishments for those who made her this way. Yet here and now, she couldn’t hate Heron—the woman who held up a civilization, then dragged her into a war. Heron hadn’t meant to harm her. When they stood on opposite sides, Heron didn’t strike to kill. She even nurtured her. Maybe that was why Aphelia had helped the dying Aether Civilization.

But was Heron acting only for her? Not entirely. At the start, Heron meant to use her as a card against the Origin, even as a war machine.

In Heron, Aphelia felt something both strange and familiar, like a scent from childhood carried on rain.

“Miss Heron, then what can I do now?” Aphelia asked, weariness first, then steel. “Sigdrifa waits in my era. She commands a mighty legion and rules the world I knew. My companions are bleeding. Maybe I can kill Sigdrifa with my life, but the ending won’t change.”

She sighed, soft as falling ash. The former Zerg Queen was unmatched; the Aphelia of now was only Aphelia. All she still held was the Crimson Fire and Uroboros.

At that, Heron laughed, light as wind through bamboo. The ease of it made Aphelia flush.

“That’s why we needed to see you. Aphelia, take this. It’ll be your strongest army. Nothing on this world is stronger. Go take back your power.”

With her words, a seed like a point of light dropped into Heron’s hand. She set it in Aphelia’s palm without a breath of hesitation.