Bella coughed into her tiny palm and scratched the back of her head, her expression the very picture of innocence.

"I told you, bad news first won’t make sense!"

Aaron stared at her flatly. "Oh great empress..." He spoke through gritted teeth. "How the hell is this good news when the bloodline is unstable?!"

"Tsksk." Bella shook her head slowly, the way a disappointed teacher might look at a student who had failed the same test twice. "The kids these days can’t be content, can they? You received a high graded bloodline, but you’re still complaining."

His eyelids twitched.

"I guess you’re right, empress." His voice was dangerously pleasant. "I was wrong for complaining without knowing better. Can your majesty kindly tell me the perks and benefits of owning an UNSTABLE high graded bloodline?"

He put every drop of emphasis he had into that ’unstable’, intent on making her notice the word.

It should have been more intimidating. The problem was that Bella was standing in Alyssa’s small, unassuming body, floating in the air with her tiny arms at her sides, looking for all the world like something you’d want to place on a shelf and protect from harm.

Every time Aaron looked directly at her, some portion of the fear he was supposed to feel simply evaporated.

It didn’t help that her primordial aura no longer had any effect on him either. He was technically a primordial half-ling now. If he still cowered at the mere presence of one, that would have been more than a little embarrassing.

Fortunately, Bella appeared to be in a good enough mood that she let his sarcastic tone slide without comment.

She smirked and began to explain, her voice calm and unhurried.

"A high graded bloodline from the primordial race is exactly as it sounds. It belongs to a primordial that used to be higher than the norm. In status, power and intellect.

Owning their bloodline is almost always a good thing, though since yours is unstable there is going to be some problem, but not what you would expect.

Having an unstable high graded one is still better than owning a normal low graded bloodline, mind you."

The sarcasm drained out of Aaron’s face immediately after listening to the last part.

He had gone in expecting the worst. Some part of him had quietly assumed that Karen had pulled something on him — handed him a bloodline that was defective in some meaningful way, either out of mischief or simply because she could. But apparently that wasn’t the case at all. He found himself leaning in slightly, listening with genuine interest now.

"Due to the instability, some of your bloodline abilities are either locked or uncontrollable... such as your primordial aura. You currently have it locked, but you can unlock it. However, if you unlock your aura, it will burst out unrestrained and you will not be able to contain it. Do you understand what I mean?"

Aaron nodded slowly at first. Then he stopped and shook his head.

He understood the words she was using well enough. But understanding them in theory and actually grasping what they meant in practice were two very different things. There was no frame of reference in his head to attach her explanation to. It just floated there, technically comprehended but not really felt.

Like the difference between an automatic and a manual car. The driver knows that the manual has a clutch, but actually driving one and knowing are two different things.

Bella heaved a quiet sigh. "I guess you’re a visual learner." She murmured something under her breath after that — something about humans and their limited brain capacities.

Aaron heard it perfectly well. He chose, very deliberately, to say nothing. He had no interest in either being bullied or accidentally proving her point, after all.

Then something shifted inside her.

It was subtle at first, like the tension in a rope that had been pulled just a little too far. And then it snapped.

Claire and Eva made identical sounds of shock before their legs gave out entirely. Both women dropped to their knees at the same moment, teeth clenched, faces tight with visible strain.

A purplish aura had exploded outward from Bella’s tiny body without warning. It poured into the room in every direction, uncontained and indiscriminate. Around them, pieces of furniture cracked and gave way under the pressure — a chair splintered, a small table groaned and buckled along its legs.

It wasn’t mana. Not exactly. It wasn’t simply pressurized air either. It was something else. Something that Aaron’s mind reached for and couldn’t quite grab hold of. Some fundamental force that existed outside the categories he currently had available to him.

And then, as fast as it had arrived, it began to pull back. The aura retreated, flowing back into Bella’s small frame in a slow but steady tide. The pressure in the room lightened. The cracked furniture stayed broken, but nothing new gave way.

When it was over, barely a trace remained. A thin, almost imperceptible thread of it still clung to the air around her.

"Saw that?" Bella said. "The overwhelming pressure I radiated was my full aura, and currently it’s at 5% of the real amount."

She paused to let that settle. Then she drew back even that remaining thread, reabsorbing it completely until there was nothing left at all.

The transformation was immediate and almost disorienting. One moment she had been something ancient and terrifying contained in a small body. The next she looked like a harmless little doll standing in the air. Soft features, tiny frame, not a trace of danger anywhere on her.

Aaron actually shivered.

An apex predator had just turned into a sheep in the span of a single breath. It was deeply unsettling in a way that was hard to put into words. He made a quiet mental note never to judge someone by their size again.

Bella caught his expression and smirked. "This is you right now. No aura. 0%."

She raised two fingers.

"However, due to your unstable bloodline, you only have two options at all times. 0% or 100%. There’s no in-between. You cannot keep it at 10% or 20% or 50... it’s either all or nothing. Also, do not try to test it yet. Your lovers survived because I took back my aura fast enough, but you’re inexperienced. They may die."

The word landed heavily in the room.

Aaron’s expression had been shifting through various shades of concern and surprise throughout the explanation, but now it settled into something quieter. More serious.

"So you’re saying that just releasing my aura is enough to kill humans now?"

He looked up at her directly as he said it. There was no fear in his eyes. No anxiety. Just a steady, focused light — ambition and gravity both sitting in those dreadful slitted pupils at the same time.

"You may be right," Bella said, with the easy shrug of someone discussing the weather. "Aura is a strong weapon of the primordials, something that is impotent against others of our race but an ultimate weapon against those of the lower races. Though if you think that your aura would be comparable to mine, then think again. I am the empress of serenity, and the real aura you saw was merely the amount that I could project using this fake body."

Aaron stared at her for a long, quiet moment.

Then he clicked his tongue. "Stop bragging." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Bella blinked. And then she laughed — a light, genuinely amused sound that was a little at odds with everything she had just demonstrated. "Well, aura is one thing, but you were mainly worried about your wings and human identity, correct?"

He nodded, and as he did, he turned to help Claire and Eva back onto their feet.

Both women were clearly still rattled. Their faces were pale and their breathing was controlled in the careful way of people trying not to show how shaken they actually were. Even speaking looked like it cost them something.

There was nothing to be done about it except give them a moment.

Bella continued as if the brief interruption hadn’t happened. Her tone was brisk and practical now, ticking through a list.

"Your eyes cannot be changed. Use sunglasses or shades, whatever you youngsters call it these days." She raised a finger. "Your scales are invisible, so that’s pretty much hidden. Don’t let strangers touch you, of course. Must be pretty hard for you since you love to sleep with random sluts, but oh well."

Aaron coughed sharply and found something very interesting to look at somewhere off to the side. He did not dignify that last part with a response.

He knew she could rant for hours if he brought up the topic of Karen and their random ’encounter’.

Bella let the moment hang just long enough to be satisfying. Then she moved on.

"And finally... the worst one, your wings."

She looked at him. The sweetest smile appeared on her face.

"I can cut them off for you. What do you say?"