Hearing Aphelia’s words, Heron couldn’t help but smile. Her smile was light as a river breeze, until Aphelia’s cheeks warmed with mild embarrassment.

“That’s why we needed to meet you, Aphelia. Take it. It’ll be your strongest army; nothing in this world will surpass its force. Go, reclaim what’s yours.”

A seed, a mote of light, dropped into Heron’s hand. She placed it into Aphelia’s palm without a flicker of doubt, without a shred of longing to keep it.

As the seed appeared, every soul around them stilled; even the air seemed to crystallize. The Uroboros within Aphelia clicked its tongue in awe. To her, the meaning bit deep; the power called her name.

Even without absorbing it, she felt the potency with ease, raw and tidal. The soul-deep fit made her nearly cry out, like the last puzzle piece sliding home into perfect wholeness.

A shiver rose from her soul, strangely soothing; and the comfort bred fear of its Origin. The Crimson Fire had felt like this. The Holy Sword she held as a Hero had too. Neither had ended in the beauty imagined.

The Holy Sword’s curse forced her to face demons. Power came first; burden followed. Even if she never sought them, the Sword marked her, a beacon to every demon eye.

The rest needs no retelling. “Leading humanity to triumph” marched on rails laid by others, and she wore the title “Hero” like a costume they tailored.

The Crimson Fire was worse. Once inside, it fused to her soul, inseparable, a burning scar. Unseen hands ferried her down the long river of time, right to this moment.

Almost every power she owned came shackled to weight. Willing or not, the burdens found her even before the power did. She had to move forward, carrying stones.

“This power…”

Life pulsed inside the mote of light; she lifted her head, doubts brushing her gaze, and yet her heart already held the answer.

Now, any gift they could place in her hands wouldn’t be another shard of the Aether Civilization. Its limits against the Origin stood exposed. To face Sigdrifa, to face the Origin, she needed power that could meet it as equal. In Heron’s telling, only one power fit.

“It’s the Swarmheart we separated at the beginning, together with pieces of your soul. Take it back, and you’ll command the Insectoids as before. With a race that runs rampant through the stars, Sigdrifa’s clumsy mimicry won’t matter. In the world you came from, true power was rare, and technology was only crawling.”

Heron nodded, a shore against the tide, confirming Aphelia’s guess.

Plainly, this was the desperate move after the war, when the Aether Civilization crumbled, unable even to guard Aphelia. They copied pieces of her gene sequence into other Valkyries, and they tore this power from her body.

“Across countless millions of years, just to return this to your hand. Epoch after epoch, I waited. Each civilization was too crude to rouse you. Only today.”

Heron’s eyes brimmed. She had drifted through ages, through a thousand civilizations. Even as the core that held this together, she was near her limit. In life, she’d been the Aether Civilization’s strongest, the human closest to the Origin. But spirit isn’t endless.

Human spirit has edges. Flesh may endure, but spirit cannot sprint forever. It tires, it ages, like rings in a tree, and it withers. If Aphelia hadn’t left Heron that “beacon” before her “death,” this great lattice of minds would’ve failed long ago.

A handful of epochs, all spent waiting, all for this single dawn.

“Swarmheart… it makes my soul ache to join it; even the Crimson Fire warms with joy. With power this strong, Heron, you could’ve kept it for yourself. Back then, when I parted it, I must have chosen you as heir, didn’t I?”

She didn’t take it in. Calm settled first; then she lifted her gaze to Heron. She wasn’t that Aphelia anymore, the one who drowned in power. If this didn’t truly belong to her, she wouldn’t force it, no matter the fit. The Crimson Fire in her hand held endless paths as well.

Falling for power again wasn’t the road she’d choose.

“Does this power belong to me now? Not to the Zerg Queen I was, but to Aphelia as I am?”

That was what she meant. The woman standing before Heron wasn’t the peerless Zerg Queen of old, but Aphelia who guards the things beside her. She may have been that queen, but now she is simply Aphelia.

Heron’s laugh was soft, like rain on bamboo. Of course it’s yours. Whether you’re the Zerg Queen or Aphelia, it was cut from your soul. We’re only returning it. With the Swarmheart, your soul becomes whole. Accept it. It won’t press a mission upon you. You are you, unchanged from the start.

With the words laid that far, Aphelia had no reason to refuse. She closed her fingers around the light. The mote burst into a storm of streams, circling her like fireflies. A roar from some feral age rolled in her ears, and the world flipped.

The vast mind-collective thinned into air. The great stone stele faded like a skyline mirage. Even Heron’s shape unraveled into sand on the wind. Before Aphelia, a wide, magnificent scroll of history unrolled. Power streamed into her body, and the scenes kept changing.

A universe bloomed from chaos. In boundless galaxies, worlds burned out. Each planet’s tyrant changed, again and again. Even the mightiest became dust in history, forgotten as civilizations shed skins.

How long had this cycle repeated?

Aphelia couldn’t say. Wrapped in those lights, time lost teeth; only the cosmos ahead felt eternal. Whoever changed all this—no one knew when she appeared, or where. Before Aphelia stood only a hazy silhouette.

… She watched the figure shift planets, carve rivers in the stars, press deeper into the dark. Then the figure glanced back, eyes catching Aphelia’s, red lips parting as if to speak.

Doubt rose first, then thought. She shouldn’t be speaking to me. Aphelia couldn’t see the face, yet her heart painted a woman of peerless grace. She moved; the gaze moved with her. Coincidence stretched thin; it felt like intent.

Time travel no longer surprised her. Even a voice across ages wouldn’t shake her. But this one was unreadable. If she wished to speak, she offered only the first flicker, then silence—just watching, steady as a mountain.

“Can you… see me?”

Her thought rose like mist. The gaze’s owner smiled and nodded.

So she can see me?

“Did you bring me here, to show me this—the universe’s evolution, the rise of species?”

She probed gently. Was this a pre-set vision, or a lingering soul? Voices across time weren’t impossible, but they were hard to believe.

Is everyone I meet an immortal? No matter the year, they somehow find me.

At her question, the figure nodded, then shook her head. She only pointed to the planet before them—birth, death, strength, weakness flowing. In that moment, she seemed fused with the cosmos itself, calm and shoreless.

What was that supposed to mean?

Frustration pricked first; then she breathed. This dance of gestures made meaning hard to catch.