Strange. Has heavy firepower stopped mattering to humans? That can’t be. This camp doesn’t feel guarded by a Valkyrie at all—otherwise the passage outside wouldn’t be a blood tide of casualties.
Unease pricked Aphelia’s chest; she shook her head. The sight before her felt skewed, like a temple fresco smeared by rain.
She didn’t use this era’s weapons. What she knew came from Brynhildr—who barely bothered with firearms. In Brynhildr’s time, such clumsy tools were dead weight.
Back then, even guns drew their rounds from condensed Aether. Gun or bow made little difference; it was habit and rhythm. Brynhildr simply lifted her longsword, a ribbon of steel whirling like a sword-dance in moonlight, and crowds followed like fireflies to flame.
Who knows. Maybe a monster slipped in anyway?
In the dark, Uroboros’s slit pupils narrowed, then melted back into human black—like shutters closing over starlight. Using that sight to pierce falsehood here felt wasteful. The gift weighed on her; keeping it lit with no lead tugged at her core, so she let the veil settle.
Nothing on this planet could really threaten her and Aphelia. At worst, Uroboros could fuse with her for a time—two serpents twining—and lend Aphelia the power of an Ouroboros body. Dangerous, yes, and untested. But if Aphelia could cradle the Primordial Flame, then that body would be a tide rising beneath her feet.
Power doesn’t add like one plus one. Uroboros’s strength had been sealed for reasons buried like fossils. As her soul knit closer with Aphelia’s, those strengths slipped past the seals, along with memories shaking the dust off like wings.
She had to admit: she liked how this felt.
When her kin vanished and she wandered the cosmos, she lost her north star. She drifted like a self-exiled comet through a cold sea, alive or dead—who knew—moving with no harbor in sight.
The Ouroboros were too strong. To keep balance, their numbers were a handful of sparks. From birth, Uroboros never knew her parents—if she even had any. Still, if she existed, there had to be others. The universe is a great ocean; possibilities ripple without end.
With that thought, she drifted. At first, the newborn in her was all curiosity; every corner of the cosmos showed a new mural and soothed that fierce hunger to know. But even beings like her grow tired of a very long voyage.
The drifting stretched on. She can’t even remember why she sealed her memories; maybe to stop hope from breaking her again. She chose sleep—wake only when she crossed into a new galaxy. Each awakening felt like surfacing to find you’d missed the ships of your own kind.
Every time she opened her eyes, the world had reshaped itself like dunes under wind.
Earth’s human civilization caught her eye the most. Across epochs, rulers changed, but the march of culture burst like spring blossoms.
In a few centuries, she watched their science sprint. From fields like green quilts in antiquity, to feudal chains in the middle ages, to the steam’s iron breath in modernity, then silver-lit futures of high tech. Such dates are for humans; small beings need “time” as a compass to place themselves under the star river.
Uroboros had no such clock. For her, time is a different animal—born from the universe’s deep waters.
During that span, her power sealed itself by degrees. Perhaps it was her hope in their changing civilizations, perhaps her fascination with humans as a tribe. For the first time, she wanted to join them. At first she played god, tilting storms for fun.
In the end, she stepped off the altar. She walked into the human world, lived and died through cycles, and arrived at today.
You’ve got a point. Blasting a passage might not stop monsters. This hill was reinforced inside, but a strong beast could tear it open. Forget it. Let’s go in. Maybe we’ll find something interesting.
Aphelia nodded, agreeing with Uroboros. The power of the Origin was always strange. It had made the Lord of the Blood River and the Lord of the Locust Swarm; breaking common sense again wouldn’t be a surprise.
They followed the tunnel down and reached the entrance to the base below. Up close, the so-called gate was a different beast—steel layered like cliff faces. As Aphelia stepped near, the defense system locked on; attacks surged at her like hornets from a nest.
Now this looks like a normal level of defense. With this, ordinary monsters shouldn’t breach the people inside. But soldiers tossing their weapons like litter? That’s not something a trained hand would do.
Aphelia didn’t even call on Aether. Her mind alone froze the sweeping rain of bullets and missiles; they hung like insects in amber, stopping a meter from her skin, caught by an invisible grip.
If people of this era—or Valkyries—saw this, they’d gasp. That storm of rounds could weave a full iron curtain. A Daemon Beast would have its hide shaved raw under that wash—one of humanity’s fierce fire systems. But if you can’t hit, it’s nothing but thunder without rain.
Uroboros moved in time. Her arms unfurled into black smoke, twin serpent-shadows lashing out faster than a lightning blink. She bit the two turret clusters jutting from the rock and chewed them into shards. If she remembered right, this thing belonged on human destroyers—a close-in defense barrage. Which lunatic ripped one off and stuffed it in a mountain?
This thing… I think they call it Steel Tempest. It was meant for sea weapons, close-range defense. Who knows which madman wedged it into a hillside. Since that crowd showed up, the oceans aren’t under human rule anyway. Call it making do.
Her serpent-shadow arms churned and tore both Steel Tempests free, ripping them from the stone like weeds. For humans, they’re ultimate killers; in an open field you’d be pulp in under a second. For Uroboros and Aphelia…
Hey, don’t dismantle it yet. Violet and the others might need—ugh, forget it. It’s done. Uroboros, can you crack this gate’s system? I’d rather not break anything else.
Aphelia lifted a hand, then let it drop as metal screamed. Uroboros nodded with a smile. She flicked her wrists; the serpent shadows snapped like whips and smashed the turrets into powder. Under her power, Steel Tempest was plastic toy, brittle in winter.
The shadows bled into smoke. It seeped through the ports left by the pulled guns, threading seams like mist into moss. Don’t ask how she learned this trick. A few heartbeats later, the gate clunked with unlocks; steam hissed from both sides like a dragon’s breath.
Authentication complete. Authentication complete. Auth—
Uroboros cut the voice mid-syllable. She smiled at Aphelia and gestured, courtly as a noble in a lantern-lit hall.
After you, Lady Aphelia.
