Chapter 69: Chapter 69: Turning Point (Part 4)
*CRASH!*
The crystal glass slipped from the Seer’s trembling fingers, shattering against the marble floor of her observation chamber.
Wine splashed everywhere as she stared at her scrying orb in complete shock.
"She’s... she’s actually..."
The Seer had known for some time that Aurelia was the legendary First Star Valkyrie.
That silver divine power, that impossible resurrection from death - she’d recognized all the signs.
But this was clearly different from all that she has witnessed so far.
That stellar radiance surrounding Aurelia right now... she’d seen it before in her visions.
The unique signature of the one destined to face the Antagonist.
"I-It can’t be..."
Her voice cracked as she leaned back in her chair, her usual composure completely destroyed.
That signature starlight wasn’t Aurelia’s normal Valkyrie power anymore.
This was something else entirely.
... That prophetic aura that marked the chosen champion who would fight in the final battle.
"After all these years of searching... she was right there the whole time."
Everything finally clicked into place.
Why her omniscient abilities couldn’t see through Aurelia’s true nature.
Why the angel’s destiny stayed hidden even from her prophetic sight.
Why every attempt to understand her role in the coming war hit a brick wall.
Aurelia wasn’t just the legendary First Star Valkyrie.
"... S-She’s the Protagonist."
The fated champion they’d been desperately hunting across every dimension and reality.
"The prophecy... but it’s wrong."
The Seer stared at the image, there was an immense confusion mixing with her shock.
All her visions had shown a human Protagonist... Always human.
It’s supposed to be a human. Not an angel.
"... Why is it her?"
Her visions were never wrong. Never.
But that power radiating from Aurelia clearly said otherwise.
The Protagonist was supposed to be human, not a miraculously resurrected angel.
Which led to an even more disturbing question.
If Aurelia was the Protagonist... then what the hell was Nero Walker?
"..."
The Seer’s blood ran cold as she remembered.
Her Eyes of Truth still couldn’t see through his nature - she wouldn’t even dare try anymore after what happened last time.
That terrifying encounter in the void of his consciousness.
The Antagonist’s possessive fury when she’d tried to establish connections within his mind.
The way that primordial evil spoke about him like a lovesick teenager, calling him "her man" and "her darling" with genuine affection.
"... Just who is Nero Walker?"
And why did the Antagonist let him die just now?
The Seer didn’t have answers as she watched the dead man lying in his own blood.
For now, all she could do was observe.
No matter how powerless and frustrated that made her feel.
***
"..."
Aurelia knelt beside Nero’s body with an expression that mixed divine radiance with crushing sorrow.
Her current transformation was beyond anything she’d shown before.
The broken Valkyrie armor had been replaced by pristine multicolored plates that looked like they were forged from actual melding starlight.
Her wings blazed with white divine fire, dream-like patterns flowing across their surface.
A halo of stellar energy crowned her silver hair, which floated around her despite the complete lack of wind.
Every wound was gone - not just healed, but erased completely.
Her golden eyes now held depths that spoke of recovered memories and eons of experience.
She looked like what people imagined when they thought of the perfect angel.
Divine. Flawless. Absolutely radiant.
But despite all that overwhelming power, her face showed nothing but sadness as she stared at Nero’s lifeless form.
All her memories had returned now.
All the losses. All the failures. All the people she couldn’t save.
"... I’m sorry, Lord Nero."
Her voice carried a melody that shouldn’t exist, multiple tones layered together perfectly.
But underneath the divine voice, her words and tone were filled with grief and regret.
"I have failed you as your knight. Just like before... just like I always do."
She gathered his body into her arms in a gentlest manner, holding him like the most fragile thing in existence.
Blood from his wounds stained her pristine armor, but that blood staining her body only served as a remembrance of her failure as a sworn Valkyrie.
"Lord Nero shouldn’t have had to protect me..."
’It wasn’t worth it.’ She left that hanging on her lips; her stellar radiance flickered as emotion threatened to break through her composure.
"You should have stayed safe while I handled this. That was my duty. My purpose..."
Slowly, she moved his body to a safe spot, away from the battle zone that was about to transpire.
Her movements were gentle and reverent, like someone who’d performed this heartbreaking ritual too many times before.
Like a knight who was about to lay her king to rest.
"Sleep well, Lord Nero."
She brushed a piece of dark hair from his peaceful face, her touch leaving traces of starlight that made him look almost ethereal.
"..."
For a moment, she just knelt there beside him, her radiance dimming as grief overwhelmed everything else.
But then...
"Well, well, well."
A mocking voice cut through her mourning like a knife.
Aurelia’s golden eyes snapped toward Vex’ahlia, who was struggling to stand despite the divine burns covering her body.
"I thought the name ’Aurelia’ was just a coincidence. Some random angel with similar naming. But looking at you now..."
Vex’ahlia’s mind raced through every piece of ancient knowledge she had read before...
The divine authority that bent reality to Aurelia’s will.
The presence that carried the weight of battles fought since the beginning of time.
This was THE Aurelia.
The First Star Valkyrie.
The legendary First Captain who died during the Heavenly-Demon War.
"... But that’s impossible," Vex’ahlia muttered. "The stories say you died during the war."
Her experience and instinct was screaming at her to run.
The aura radiating from Aurelia wasn’t necessarily more powerful in raw quantity than before.
But the quality was incomparable.
Where there had been impressive technique, now there was perfect mastery.
The air around Aurelia hummed with authority that made Vex’ahlia’s centuries of magical knowledge feel like finger painting compared to a masterpiece.
And most terrifying of all - the way Aurelia was looking at her now.
Not with desperate determination like before.
But with cold, killing intent so intense that it made her skin tingle.
’I need to leave. Now.’
She was trying to hide her fear behind her calm and mocking facade.
Self-preservation was kicking in ever since she knew that she’s actually dealing with a prehistory being as Vex’ahlia began backing away ever so slowly.
She could study this impossible situation later, when she had backup and proper preparation.
Fighting the actual First Star Valkyrie head-on would be suicide.
And judging by the dangerous and mysterious aura surrounding the angel, she wasn’t stupid enough to try and test the waters with her life on the line.
Her Nelfier Bone Staff was silently preparing the teleportation magic, creating a short distant rift for immediate escape.
Just a few more seconds and she’d be gone.
But just as the teleportation circle began to stabilize...
"Don’t even think about escaping."
The words carried such absolute authority that reality itself seemed to freeze.
Vex’ahlia’s eyes widened as she felt space locked around her, the dimensional rifts collapsing before they could activate.
"What–"
*Shing...!*
The sound of something impossibly sharp cutting across the battlefield faintly echoed.
"..."
For a moment, nothing seemed to happen.
Vex’ahlia looked around in confusion, her teleportation magic still trying to work despite the spatial locks.
Then she noticed something wrong with her body.
Her left side... felt strangely lighter.
And by the time she looked at her arm...
It was gone starting from her shoulder.
"AGHHHHHHHHH!"
The scream tore from her throat as she realized her entire left arm was gone, severed cleanly at the shoulder.
But the clean amputation wasn’t the one that made her scream.
*Sizzle... sizzle... sizzle...*
It was the mysterious stellar energy that was actively burning the injury, preventing her natural healing while purging the dark magic that made up her existence.
The pain surging through her wasn’t just physical
It was spiritual, psychological, and existential.
The starlight was "purging" her very soul.
And the pain that came with it was incomparable to the pain she had ever experienced throughout her life.
"W-What is...!"
Like a venomous tonic, the mysterious stellar energy was eating up the darkness of her being and "punishing" her for her sins.
Every life she’d ended.
Every innocent she’d corrupted.
Every moment of cruelty across centuries of existence.
All of it crashed down at once, magnified by divine judgment that felt like molten metal being poured into her brain.
"No... NO! T-This can’t be...!"
But even through the agony, fragments of ancient lore had surfaced as realization finally dawned on her.
Amongst the countless titles Aurelia earned throughout the eons, there was one that stood out and made her one of the antithesis of darkness.
One of the band of existence of dark souls... the title was none other than,
’T-The Angel of the Purging Light...!’
"Oh... oh shit..."
Oh shit, indeed.
That specific title made her blood freeze despite the burning pain.
She now finally understood the gravity of what she’s dealing with.
This was purification in one of its purest forms.
Divine judgment that would burn away every trace of darkness from existence.
Complete annihilation of everything that was "impure" and "evil".
It’s a complete erasure of her very foundation.
Soul death.
***
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