What followed was a vision no tongue could net, like dawn spilling ink across the sky.

Uroboros searched for words as light flooded heaven and earth, like a white canvas splashed wild with color, a tide drowning sight. It felt alien, yet her buried memory rose cheering, like drums in a sealed cave.

Wonder came first, then motion. Aphelia’s memory held such… unsayable landscapes, like storms painted in silence. Uroboros felt newborn, wide-eyed at the colors, while old unrest throbbed as her hand drifted toward them, like a moth to flame.

The colors didn’t answer her touch. They sat like a law etched into stone. They existed because they must, like the Ouroboros kind coiled around the world’s rim.

Such unreasonable life existed because the pattern demanded it, like rain falling because clouds can’t hold more.

“And what about us?”

From the endless color, she seemed to hear that question ripple back, like an echo in a deep well.

Just as her fingers neared, a call yanked her free, like a hook through a dream. The drop of emptiness hit hard, and a soft touch lit her shoulder, like a feather in the dark. She snapped awake to Aphelia’s face, bright as a candle at dusk.

“Uroboros, you alright? You slept like a stone,” Aphelia said, her smile warm as spring sun.

She nudged Uroboros, then pulled a half-pressed ration from her pocket, like a brick of dry earth. She broke it, ate one piece, and held the other out, like a small moon in her palm. Violet and the Valkyries must have given her these, like sparrows sharing crumbs.

Uroboros touched her brow and waved it off, like wind dismissing smoke. As the last of the Ouroboros clan, she shouldn’t need ordinary food, like a serpent fed by starlight. Their body drank ambient energy by nature, and her own Aether kept her full, like fire eating its own fuel.

“I’m fine… just a headache, like thunder stuck in a jar. Guess I hadn’t slept this deep in ages. Too relaxed. Is it morning yet?”

She drew a slow breath, like mist entering lungs, and stood. Dawn only limned the ruins with ash-gray light, not enough to paint the world. Even so, with her and Aphelia’s sight, the dimness was a curtain they could see through.

Aphelia had pulled her up at first light, like a bell before the market opens. She meant to dodge whatever the Valkyries planned, a quiet glide around storms. Uroboros let the thought settle and smiled, rueful as frost on a blade. Ouroboros blood, yet she could still dream—like a serpent finding a river.

“Good. Our mental link cut off last night, like a thread snapped by a gust. Not a big deal, but my mind flags it on reflex. If you’re fine, get up. We’ve got work.”

Aphelia offered her hand, soft as silk rope, and drew her from the rafter’s shadow. Under the pale sky, they cloaked themselves in Aether, like dew on armor. Aphelia took the lead, a white lantern moving, and Uroboros followed close, like a black river flowing beside her. They even banked their Aether, like fire covered by ash, so they wouldn’t disturb the Valkyries in camp, especially Violet and those few unusual ones.

With their power, the Valkyries couldn’t have found them anyway, like sparrows chasing thunder. The problem was the planet itself. Origin’s grasp and the war had wounded it deeply, like a heart scarred by claws. If their Aether shook the world’s crust and woke something, that would be bad, like drums waking sleepers.

“Aphelia, where are we heading?”

“To the underground military base Shilwen mentioned,” she said, voice clean as steel. “Before they wake, we’ll check what supplies still hide there.”

Aphelia’s body flared white and surged, like lightning cutting a cloud. She broke the sound barrier; a sonic boom cracked the gray sky, and her path drew a bright scar, like chalk on slate. It wasn’t Aether—her flesh alone bore the force, a strength she’d carried since becoming a True God, like granite learning to sing. Back then she’d risen too fast, and speed fought her balance, like wind wrestling wings.

Uroboros smiled and became a shadowed serpent, a ribbon of black ink. She chased after Aphelia at fierce speed, like night chasing dawn. If anyone still lived on this barren waste, they’d have stared at the twin meteors—a black and a white streak—cleaving the sky.

They landed before a hill, quiet as owls. At its foot lay soldiers torn by the last battle, bodies twisted out of shape, like iron warped in a forge. Against Origin’s bred monsters, ordinary troops had almost no chance, like reeds against a flood. In the center, charred marks bloomed, as if something had burst open, leaving a black flower of ash. Aphelia could guess most of what happened, like a reader tracing burned pages.

“As expected. They weren’t ready. Comrades turned into grotesque things right in front of them,” Uroboros said, voice low as gravel. “Aphelia, I don’t get this device. Think it still works?”

She had rifled past bodies and an overturned warcarriage, like a jackal among fallen banners, and pulled out a computer not too broken, like a shell with its pearl intact. She tossed it to Aphelia, easy as flipping a coin. With Brynhildr’s gift of knowledge, Aphelia read its state fast. It had survived by chance beneath the dead, like a seed under snow.

“Of course. Uroboros, stop rummaging. Let’s see if there’s anything useful inside. We can cleanse the bodies after,” she said, her tone steady as rain.

She stepped toward a passage up the hill, blocked by boulders like teeth. Aether wrapped the computer, a veil against mishaps. Aether was thin now, like air on a high peak. They couldn’t keep using Uroboros as a relay for the Valkyries, and Violet’s strength hadn’t recovered enough for long talks, like a harp missing strings. This machine was precious, like a well in drought.

“Hmph— such a thoughtful elder sister,” Uroboros teased, eyes bright as coals. “When will you be that thoughtful to me, Aphelia?”

Her Obsidian Scepter popped into her hand, like night birthing a spear. She leveled it with a light touch, and black fire bloomed across the corpses, clean as winter’s bite, leaving nothing but heat and silence.

“Thoughtful? I’ve tied my life to yours,” Aphelia laughed, sharp as flint. “How much more do you want?”

She raised her palm and pushed. The blocking stones quivered and shattered into powder, like cookies crushed beneath a heel. She kept the passage intact for normal folk; she wouldn’t blast a canyon open. She and Uroboros could drop through; the Valkyries might not, like swans in a storm drain.

Dust fell like soft rain, and they walked inside. Though days had passed, the tunnel still shone with steady light, a string of pearls along the walls. No corner hid from sight, like a stage stripped of curtains. Aphelia nodded over and over, pleased as a craftsman.

The main systems seemed untouched by the monsters, like roots surviving a fire. More likely, when they appeared, the commander sealed the entrance fast, letting rock choke the mouth, like a cork in a bottle.

Monsters don’t plan neat blockades; they break like storms, not like masons.

“I don’t know this era’s explosives,” Uroboros murmured, pupils narrowing into serpentine slits, like blades in a sheath. “But your guess fits. Look there—someone set a defensive line. It ended poorly.”

Her eyes weren’t a snake’s, not truly. As an Ouroboros, she carried sight that peeled back veils, and bound to Aphelia, it sharpened further, near a gaze that strips illusion, like wind that scatters fog.

Aphelia followed her finger. Sandbags stacked like low dunes. A machine gun crouched atop them, and rocket launchers lay scattered, like bones on a beach. These heavy weapons had been abandoned outside, and behind the sandbags, no bodies waited, like a theater with no cast.

“So strange. No taste of Aether. No Arcane Power residue. Where did they go?” Aphelia said, voice tight as wire. “You don’t seal an entrance and then run, right? Without Valkyries, heavy fire mattered.”

She stepped to the line. No great cracks marred the walls, no monstrous gouges, no blood-scent or bodies, like a storm that left no puddles. Aether’s glow swept through and found nothing, a lantern on empty ground.