If you treated this thing as one whole and hunted for shelter like climbing down from the skin of the world, you’d end up trapped beneath the Aether storm for a lifetime, like ants under glass.

After rising to her current realm, Aphelia had learned the ways most Aether moves—like rivers under wind—and that included the storm boiling before her.

The storm’s nature stacked Aether in layers, turning break-through into agony; from point to plane, it forged a wall like mountain stone. Aphelia chose the opposite road.

If the storm piled layers to make a surface, then don’t batter the surface. Break a single point. Shrink the breach to a needle’s eye, and pour all strength through.

The method was simple as a knife. Doing it would be hard as carving jade in a blizzard.

“Aphelia, I can’t use Aether for now, but my calculations still work. A storm like this is near impossible for two to break, even if you’re strong…”

Hrok didn’t finish. Aphelia cut him off with a laugh, warm as lantern light in fog.

“Relax. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t have come down.”

They finally agreed to move, when Aphelia halted mid-step. A chill rushed her spine like frost over steel. Her eyes widened. Her Aether drew tight to an edge, a bowstring ready to snap.

It wasn’t just her. The maiden Reaper hiding in warped spacetime felt it first. She’d meant to rest among ruins, yet that sudden breath made her spring up like a cat from ash.

The strange clock on her throat whirred fast. The Star Mirror that watched Aphelia flared open like a lake under stars.

“Impossible. How could this be!”

The Demon King woke with a start, the sleep ripped from him like a torn veil. He went to the maiden Reaper, saw the Star Mirror bloom, and stared through it toward distant Earth.

He saw, and his breath hitched. “Damn it. How is this possible?!”

Heron and the Consciousness Collective, drifting within a rift in spacetime, were just as stunned. They saw Aphelia craft a body that could hold a soul, and their minds went near mad with joy.

It meant the long drift without flesh would end, like dawn finally prying open a night that had lasted eras.

Yet joy flipped to dread. What should have been a celebration turned into a sight to drive the entire Aether Civilization to frenzy. That aura—the one that made the Consciousness Collective cower—had returned to this planet.

Not on the surface. Inside the world. Right in front of Aphelia.

“How… no. No. Fighting the Origin within the Earth Vein isn’t the same as fighting in space. We have to get Aphelia out. Who can open a portal that far? No—everyone who can open portals, step forward.”

Heron watched malice spread through the Earth Vein like ink in water. Panic pricked her like needles. This Origin’s breath was stronger than before—no, truer—almost identical to the Origin that destroyed the Aether Civilization.

If that Origin descended, what then?

Heron wasn’t unprepared. But to face a strong Origin now meant ruinous cost. The Consciousness Collective had long wearied of the cold drift, where the border of life and death blurred like mist over a river.

Back then, rallying them to fight the Origin was easy. Hope was a word without weight. Only a bloated half-life carried them through an icy cosmos, and there was nothing left to lose.

First, they lost their bodies. Then senses, then feeling, until humaness itself thinned and faded. In the Collective’s high unity, the realness of being human slid away like sand through fingers.

Many lost themselves outright, becoming pieces of others, or dissolving into the dark. Under that crushing sky, most Aether-souls craved release, like seeds begging the fire.

For the Consciousness Collective, the greatest enemy was the Origin who shattered their civilization and hunted them across epochs. Their chosen release was to die in endless battle with it, and many Aether-souls endured by clutching that thought like a blade.

Heron felt the same at times. Yet as a leader of the Aether-souls, her resolve ran deeper. The Aether Civilization was born and flourished in her hands; there was no reason it should end in them.

So she kept walking through the cold, carrying the Collective across the silent stars.

And just now, Aphelia had shown them the making of flesh—and succeeded. How could these dead of the Aether Civilization not blaze with joy?

Flesh, lost for near hundreds of millions of years. With flesh, they could live again as human, on the wide ground of a world.

The scent of air. The warmth of sun. The music of spring water. The taste of meals. Pleasures for human senses felt a breath away.

Ask Aphelia, and the soul’s outstretched hand might grip reality again, grip a world where everything could be felt. With hope so close, who would choose to let go?

For many Aether-souls, hope rekindled like embers finding wind. The word felt wrong, yet for them, it fit.

Now Aphelia was their greatest hope. Anyone who tried to steal it became enemy to the whole Aether Civilization. And in the same breath, fear—a stranger for epochs—returned to their hearts.

“Heron, it’s impossible. Do you forget the last time we tried to interfere with a planet’s Earth Vein? Not even a motherworld—just a dying star. The array we shaped together detonated its core. We won’t reach the deep Earth Vein. The planet will rebel before we arrive.”

A young, indistinct soul answered Heron’s call, split from the Consciousness Collective, and bowed, bringing news sharp as winter.

“Exactly, Miss Heron. We’ve been souls too long. Even if we try to carve arrays as physical beings do, we can’t. That’s why motherworlds reject us. To them, we’re dead—ghosts drifting the universe. Ghosts can’t touch reality.”

After the youth and the elder, more souls stepped forward—those who could draw portal arrays. They all brought the same bitter truth.

No portals. Earth would lash back. The Origin would counterstrike. Everything said the Aether Civilization was powerless here.

Watching their arguments circle like birds over carrion, Heron suddenly felt estranged from her own people.

Some even proposed sitting back and watching the tigers fight. Let Aphelia and Hrok die under the Origin’s force. Then swoop in and seize their bodies like thieves in stormlight.

Moments ago, they had felt overwhelming power and heard Heron’s grim truth. Even so, they still wouldn’t abandon the idea of taking Aphelia’s flesh.

“In that case, you won’t draw space any longer. If space can’t help, we’ll help from time. Get out. Omega Squad, detach from the Consciousness Collective. It’s your hour.”

Heron’s voice went cold as iron. Power swept the arguing dead away like leaves in wind. Another surge poured into the Collective and woke a squad, shapes sharp and clear, soldiers fully armed.

“Omega Squad, your mission is simple. Help Aphelia however you can. Interfere with the Origin’s cursed time to delay its power reaching her. I don’t care how. I don’t care the cost. Keep Aphelia alive. Understood?!”

The squad saluted in unison, like blades raised to the dawn. Then they turned transparent and vanished.

“Aphelia… please, don’t let anything happen to you.”

Heron watched the vision inside the Earth Vein blur like ink in rain, and whispered, heavy with worry.