"Kilan ty rega... za... Greetings, mortal. Recognize me?"

Aaron blinked several times as he stared at Alyssa’s tiny figure.

She didn’t look like a small woman of a weak race right now. No, she seemed much more ancient, much more powerful.

There was something about the way she carried herself that reminded Aaron of someone he had met not too long ago. A woman who was dangerously strong but surprisingly well spoken and likeable.

The Empress of Serenity. Bellanoir.

He had no idea what she had done to Alyssa during the transport, or how he was now sensing her presence radiating from Alyssa’s small frame.

But he didn’t have the time to think too hard about any of that right now.

"L-Lady Bellanoir," he replied quickly, his voice coming out more startled than he intended. "Is it really you?"

Alyssa’s body rose to a standing position in Eva’s palm. Then she stepped forward — right off the edge, into open air.

Eva lurched forward immediately, her hands reaching out on instinct, the same way you’d scramble to catch a small puppy that had decided to throw itself off a ledge. Her heart jumped into her throat.

But her worry turned out to be unnecessary.

The being inside Alyssa’s body was not the clumsy, endearing girl they all knew. This was a primordial. An ancient existence who would not make such a careless mistake.

She found her footing mid-air with complete ease, stepping forward as if there were an invisible staircase waiting for her. And in a way, there was.

Aaron’s mana sense — sharpened further after the bloodline integration — could just barely make out the small platforms of purplish mana forming under her feet with each step she took. Like tiny clouds she was conjuring for herself.

She climbed those invisible stairs and rose until she was level with Aaron’s face, moving with the grace of someone who had never once doubted their own worth.

It wasn’t for no reason that she was called the Empress of Serenity.

"Didn’t I tell you to call me Empress?" she said smoothly.

Aaron’s mouth fell open. "How...?"

Bella smirked slightly and gave a small shrug, raising her hands. "Didn’t you figure it out seeing the mission was partially complete? Though, don’t get me wrong. I am merely curious about the outside world."

Understanding clicked into place in Aaron’s mind and he nodded slowly.

That explained it. That was why the mission had been marked partially complete despite the fact that the empress had refused him so flatly. She had turned down any kind of romantic involvement with him — but that didn’t mean he had been completely dismissed either.

A small wisp of her soul had been split off and fused with Alyssa, allowing Bella to travel alongside Aaron a little longer. This time from much, much closer.

But before he could say anything further, Bella’s expression shifted.

She tilted her head slightly and took a deep breath in through her nose. Then her face scrunched up.

"But..." She whispered.

Like a police dog that had caught the scent of freshly baked cocaine, she began circling around him, nose working steadily, sniffing him from multiple angles.

Then she stopped directly in front of him and looked up into his eyes. Her gaze was cold and completely flat, but there was heat burning somewhere underneath it.

"Mind explaining why your body is drenched in such a foul scent... Aaron Cross?" she said, her voice utterly devoid of emotion.

Aaron gulped. The sound was embarrassingly loud.

He took a step back. "T-That’s just my human odor, e-empress..."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You know what I mean."

"Uhm..."

He dropped his head. And then, in a very small voice, he began to explain.

He told her everything. The white box he had arrived in. The encounter with Karen. The tumble onto the bed. The bloodline awakening that had followed. And then the return to Solaris, where everything now stood.

He left nothing out. Mostly because he had a feeling she would know if he did.

"You..."

By the time he finished, even Bella was speechless. She stared at him with a completely blank expression for a long moment.

She had warned him about Karen. Warned him. And he had been so enthusiastically complaining about her back then, going on and on about how everyone from Earth couldn’t stand people like Karen. He had made it sound like he found her genuinely insufferable.

And now he was standing here telling her that he had slept with the woman??

What kind of double standards were these?

Claire and Eva watched the whole exchange from a slight distance, sharing a look of mixed confusion and quiet worry. Aaron had told them a bit about the primordial race before — an existence so far above any race on Solaris that the comparison barely made sense. And even without that context, they could feel it.

The aura that poured off Alyssa’s body right now was something neither of them could ignore.

Aaron himself felt nothing, thanks to the bloodline integration. But the same couldn’t be said for the two women beside him. They were ordinary humans, and that pressure, even at this reduced level, settled over them like weight.

And it was reduced significantly. This wasn’t Bella’s actual body. She was borrowing Alyssa’s, and even then only partially. Alyssa was still the true owner of her own vessel, with Bella simply taking the wheel for a little while.

Aaron pressed his palms together and bowed his head, "I am sorry, Empress! I slipped up when I saw her beauty, and in addition, she was teasing me too much!"

Bella let out a long, tired sigh. "You humans truly are hopeless. It was my fault for holding expectations."

"But I ain’t a human anymore," Aaron added, a hint of smugness creeping into his voice. He shifted his folded wings slightly to make the point, the dark feathers catching the light — though they were still entirely outside of his control.

He didn’t dare to unfurl them open, knowing that if he did, he would never be able to close them back up.

Not for a long while, at least.

Bella reached out and tapped him on the forehead.

It was not a gentle tap.

"Oww." He grabbed his forehead with both hands.

She had definitely reinforced that with mana. He was nearly certain of it.

"You still are one from the brain," she said simply.

"That aside..." He rubbed his forehead and tried to redirect, "What happened to Alyssa then?"

Bella scoffed quietly. "Your worry is plain obvious. How impudent. Do you want me gone that much, mortal?"

"Noo!" Aaron shook his head quickly. "I am just worried... Have you taken over her body...?"

"Tsk, no." She clicked her tongue and gave a small shake of her head. "She’s in a slumber. It would take her some more time to wake up and adjust to this environment. As a part of the plant race, she cannot just survive in any environment after all."

"Ah." Aaron nodded. That made sense. Alyssa had always been more sensitive to her surroundings than the rest of them. "Then may I ask a question, Empress?"

"Sure."

He exhaled. "I am still a human, as you say." He paused, glancing down briefly before looking back up. "I do not want to abandon my current life, but with this appearance it will be nigh impossible for me to mix in with other humans. Is there any way for me to hide my wings and my eyes?"

Bella hummed softly. She floated closer to him and began studying his face, his frame, the wings folded at his back. Without her full spiritual vision, she couldn’t dig into the finer details of his new bloodline or examine his altered DNA the way she usually would have been able to. But she was a primordial. That counted for something.

It counted for a lot, actually.

Two full minutes passed in complete silence. She moved around him slowly, occasionally tilting her head one way or another, expression unreadable. Nobody interrupted her.

Finally, she pulled back and folded her small arms.

"I have good news and bad news for you," Bella declared.

"Uhm, bad first."

"Well, it won’t make sense then."

"Still, I want the bad first."

"... Sure." Bella shrugged. "It’s unstable."

Aaron blinked. He waited for more. Nothing came.

"...Alright," he said slowly. "Good news then."

Bella’s whole demeanor shifted in an instant. Her eyes lit up and she pumped her small fist into the air with an enthusiasm that was both completely unexpected and oddly adorable inside Alyssa’s tiny body.

"Yay! So!! Karen actually gave you a pretty high graded bloodline!!!"

Aaron’s face broke into a wide grin. That was genuinely great to hear. A high grade bloodline meant potential he hadn’t even begun to scratch yet. It meant —

And then it hit him.

He went still.

His smile faded slowly as the pieces rearranged themselves in his head. The good news. The bad news. A high grade bloodline that was unstable.

He looked at Bella with a dawning expression.

"Don’t tell me..."