Hero—what a laughable title, a tin crown that cuts the brow.

Across the ocean of human history, every age breeds Heroes like sparks on dry grass. Yet the Hero is always the one burned first, no exception, a moth that dares the flame and ends up at odds with its own flock.

The first man to speak of the sun at the center was treated as a horned devil, a serpent-tongued heretic sent by Satan. The square became a furnace, smoke climbed the sky, and he died in a pillar of fire to feed human vanity. Only later did the wind turn, and the world cleared his name like rain washing soot from a stone.

But for him, would that gentle rain mean anything to ash?

Those too far ahead get cast out like a bright bird driven from the nest. Those too unlike the pack get circled and bitten. Those too dazzling get shuttered like windows against noon. No mystery there—it's the oldest current in human blood. We’re herd creatures, and herds prize sameness like winter prizes stillness. The different get different treatment, which is why Heroes in our annals rarely die with garlands; they die like broken banners in a storm.

Aphelia still remembers an Eastern line Lena once pressed into her palms like a warm pebble: When Heaven lays a great charge on a person, it first grinds their will, wears their bones, starves their flesh, empties their purse, and thwarts their every step. That was the warning when Aphelia first wore the mantle of Hero, and it has sat in her chest like an ember ever since.

But the feeling came first—doubt like cold water—and the thought followed like mist: if Heaven truly assigns the task, can it excuse every bruise along the way? To call the herd’s malice Heaven’s decree feels crooked to Aphelia, who has already stepped beyond any True God, like a mountain that outgrows its map.

So what?

Perhaps the old Aphelia complained, raged, even wept like rain on a night roof. After falling a thousand times, she learned a rock’s lesson. On this earth, you’re your own bedrock. If she’s strong enough, the crowd in front of her is just a headcount, like grains on a beach, and a number can’t block a tide.

The corner of her mouth lifted, a soft crescent like a sliver of moon. She’s long past the age of caring too much. Now, when she says she once was a Hero, Aphelia smiles, a knowing ripple. By results alone, the Eastern saying landed true; she outlasted tempests and iron, and now bears the charge Heaven might claim, a weight like the sky itself.

Nothing shakes her anymore; she stands like a pine in winter wind.

Night fell like ink, and Aphelia drifted into sleep, her breath even as a lake at dawn. Even with vast Aether, fatigue pools like shadow, and simple sleep refills her lamp. But Uroboros, stitched to her spirit by a silver thread, did not sleep easy. Through Aphelia’s dream, something rose like a whale from the deep, old things dredged from silted memory.

Is this... Aphelia’s memory? No—the source should be Brynhildr. Familiar, yet distant, like a face seen in ripples.

She looked down and found herself above an iron-blue sea. The sky was a forge, and warships bloomed out of jumps with a whoosh, one after another, until steel covered the heavens like stormcloud. They ringed a single battered ship dead center, a wounded whale. At its heart stood Brynhildr, a white flame in the gale.

Uroboros surged forward, a ghost on a thread, not bound by space or time, moving like wind through reeds. A tightness gripped her, the ache of a forgotten name. She felt it—something vital had slipped her, and the answer flashed here like fish-scales under sun.

Founder No. 3!

Brynhildr fixed her gaze on the figure over the sea, cold as winter stars. The pure-white Aether around her bled into a suit of pitch-black armor over a snow-white robe, light sheathed in shadow. An Aether blade hummed in her hand, needle-straight toward Founder No. 3, and killing intent spilled off her like frost from a cave mouth.

Founder No. 3 shuddered, a reed in a sudden gust. That stance—just like the Demon King of old, that unspeakable monster from a place with no name, copied clean onto Brynhildr like ink pressed from a seal.

While he blinked, Brynhildr shot forward like a black arrow. Her pupils were winter glass. There was no mercy in them, only a moon-cold gleam.

He was a veteran, a cliff hammered by waves. Instinct made him whip his spear, a snap like lightning. Death’s cut turned by a hair’s breadth—he lost only an arm, and the sea took it like a gull.

Brynhildr wheeled, grip tight on his long spear, letting pure-white Aether gnaw up the haft like frost up a branch. She lunged again, a shadow-swift strike.

“Wait, we can talk—”

She didn’t slow. Seeing the tide wouldn’t turn, Founder No. 3 flung open his crimson coffin, a blood-red bulwark unfolding like a macabre flower, just to catch that blow.

“Who told you to be so sure?” Her voice fell like a hammer.

The black Aether blade drove through his heart like night through a window. Blood fled his veins and ran to the blade, a red river drawn to a dark moon.

“If it’s useless anyway, take it as your burial gift.”

“No—don’t!”

With his lone hand he clawed for the hilt. The Aether blade wrapped in pure-white light began to tremble, and from the blade’s abyss little rays leaked out, like dawn cracking rock.

“Pitiful. And pathetic.”

Brynhildr dropped back onto the deck, boots striking wood like drumbeats, not even glancing at the elements churning behind her like a boiling sky. She stepped into the ship’s arcane array, sigils glowing like constellations.

“Nameless, start it.”

“Is your body really alright?” The words worried like rain, but her hands were already weaving, quick as swallows.

“No problem. In a moment, a perfect window. We’ll teach these ingrates a lesson, and we take the gap like a tide.”

She closed her eyes, and the whole warship became a giant pump, drawing the pure-white Aether from the sea like a whirlpool swallowing moonlight. The elemental shield shrank, a pearl growing smaller but harder, layer on layer like glass cooled in a kiln.

“Damn it, damn it! Bring out the holy relic the Pope granted us!” Archbishop Caesar raged like a bull in a chapel. “These mere constructs can’t withstand a relic’s might. They were born from a relic’s power anyway!”

He was panting, greed and fear mixing like smoke. The Aether here was so white and thick it felt like legend. The reports had been true, and the constructs had betrayed man like wolves leaping the fence.

“B-but, that’s for—”

“No buts!” He kicked the soldier aside, a boot like a stone. These fools never bend, and that’s why they never rise. Kill the demon who betrayed mankind, and the laurels would fall like summer rain.

He stared at the warship’s thickening white Aether and felt his heart shrink like a fist. Only the Demon King had ever held so dense a light. At this level, who would believe they weren’t demons?

He had watched Founder No. 3 fold in a heartbeat. That only hardened his resolve to fire the relic. Even if he gained nothing, blame wouldn’t stick like mud.

Soon they rolled out a heavy cannon shaped like a cross, iron bones under a skin of dust. Dried blood speckled it like rust. Caesar cursed, shoved the crew off like reeds, slid his hands into the recessed grips, and slowly adjusted its angle. The muzzle lifted, steady as a sundial, toward the black warship.

Brynhildr gave Nameless a nod, a flake of snow falling. Nameless raised her voice for the last prayer, and light swelled where Founder No. 3 had fallen, bright as noon on ice.

“We beg the Supreme Mother, Gaia—open the Gate of Undying!”

Spiral runes of dimension bloomed in the air like whorled shells, propping the rift open until space itself creaked like old wood.

“Good thing Her Majesty chose to withdraw.” On the command ship behind Uroboros, beside a stately empress still as a marble statue, a spatial mage let out a breath like fog. The field’s distortion was extreme, a spiderweb in a gale; a touch, and all of it would collapse like wet paper.

Uroboros disliked the term spatial mage; the taste felt wrong on the tongue, as if their civilization should be beyond charms and candles. Still, that was only her ripple of thought.

The mage stared and felt fear crawl his spine like ants. Even he wouldn’t cast in that maelstrom. That would be suicide, a moth rushing a bonfire.

At last, Founder No. 3 understood Brynhildr’s cruel craft. Force the pure-white Aether to coat the Aether blade, then seal the blade with brute strength for a short span. Fight in close and let that white light seep into his body like salt into earth. Then unseal, and let the blade’s backlash bloom, an inward explosion to finish him and throw shrapnel into their pursuers.

“Damn it. I won’t—” His voice broke like a wave.

Brynhildr poured her whole mind into the Aether, focus honed like a needle. The battered warship groaned but bore them, a black gull riding a gale, straight for the dimensional rift.

The cannon fire behind was the growl of distant thunder. She didn’t spare it a glance. Unless they brought a holy relic to bear, the trap she planted in Founder No. 3 would stall the chase like fallen trees across a road.

Gradually the bombardment thinned, drizzle after downpour. Brynhildr almost laughed at herself for worrying. They’d never truly unite; their suspicion was a deeper sea than this one. They came for profit, and for fear; that was all, like jackals circling a lion.

“Archbishop Caesar! The fleets of all nations ask we set an example, and lead the pursuit of Brynhildr—” The runner heard his own words and bit them off, as if tasting blood.

“Remember, she’s no longer the world’s Hero. She’s the traitor of the whole world.” Caesar said it flat, as he finished his final calibration, voice like a knife laid on a table.

“If they need a standard, send the Founder No. 3 family’s men. They’ve been itching anyway.”

“Yes!” Relief washed the runner like shade. He turned to bolt, but Caesar’s voice hooked him back.

“Wait. Tell them to fly the Holy Theocracy’s colors. Say it’s... for friendly identification. Go.”

The runner fled, feet drumming like hail on planks.

Caesar’s hands tightened on the cannon’s grips. He drew a bead on the Heroes’ fleet, a hunter sighting a stag between trees.

“Let’s see where you run now.”

“Brynhildr, they’re closing in!”