Chapter 122: 105 - Milena I

Azalea stared at me, then at Selene, her face a mask of utter bewilderment. The fear of having her secret exposed was now eclipsed by the dawning horror of what she had just revealed—and by the sheer, unfiltered weirdness of the two people standing in front of her.

"Playable character mode?" she echoed, almost disbelieving. "What in the actual cosmos are you two talking about?!" Her voice, though still shaky, carried more confusion than fear now. The mention of Arthur—the Archon of Naschacht—had clearly short-circuited her ability to process anything else.

But Selene wasn’t paying attention anymore. Not to Azalea’s panic, not to her questions. Her eyes, once cold and calculating, had locked onto the ring on Azalea’s finger. They now glittered with sharp, unnatural intensity, like sunlight refracting off shattered glass. It was the gaze of a predator who’d just spotted a long-sought prize: stunned, ravenous, and ready to strike.

"The ring," Selene murmured. Her voice had shed its usual sing-song cadence, now low and resonant, vibrating with authority. "It truly conceals an Archon? A serpent-beast, no less? Fascinating."

She stepped closer—not toward Mytheia, but toward Azalea’s trembling fingers. Her hand reached out slowly, reverently. "Tell me everything. How did you come by such a relic? And more importantly... how does it bind an Archon?"

Azalea recoiled as if struck, yanking her hand back as though the ring were a live coal. "No! You can’t have it!" she gasped, panic flaring again. "It’s the only thing keeping him sealed! If it’s removed, he’ll... he’ll be unleashed!"

I stood frozen for a beat, a cold weight sinking in my gut.

This wasn’t about blackmail anymore. It wasn’t even about data.This was about power. Hidden, immense power—and Selene had zero intention of walking away from it. I had once joked that she’d invented something worse than blackmail. I wasn’t laughing now.

She wasn’t gathering secrets.She was collecting weapons.

"Selene, you need to stop," I said sharply, the steel in my voice slicing through the tension like a scalpel. "You already got what you came for. You know about the Archon. Pushing her further will only make this worse."

She didn’t even glance at me.

Mytheia, still clenched in her other hand, gave a faint shudder—an almost imperceptible tremor, as if it, too, sensed the Archon’s presence and was reacting to the latent energy. A low, thrumming hum pulsed in the air around her.

"Messy?" Selene finally turned to face me, her smile small and cold—almost... pitying.

"Oh, my dear junior," she whispered, "you still don’t understand.This isn’t about avoiding chaos.

This is about mastering it."

Selene’s gaze returned to Azalea, her voice softening—almost maternal, like velvet over a blade.

"I suppose he told you he disappeared," she said, tilting her head. "That he faded into the ether, or fell into slumber, or whatever gentle fiction he conjured to earn your trust."

Azalea blinked. "He—he said—"

"He lied," Selene cut in, her tone firm but disturbingly kind. "That’s what Archons do. They lie. They tell you what you want to hear. Especially when they’re weak, sealed, desperate." She took another step forward. "That thing in your ring... he’s not asleep. He’s watching. Listening. Waiting for you to break."

Azalea’s face drained of color, her lips parting with a faint gasp. Her fingers curled tighter around the ring as if she could shield it from the truth.

"And you’ve already cracked, haven’t you?" Selene murmured. "You just don’t know it yet."

But then—a voice, clear and distant, rang out like silver bells dipped in frost.

"That’s enough, Selene Eryndell."

The air froze. The tension snapped like a taut wire.

From the dim corner of the chamber, a woman stepped forward—not with grandeur, but with an eerie, quiet absence, as though she had always been there and had simply decided to be seen.

She looked... ordinary. Unremarkable. No magical ripple. No pressure. Not even the faintest flicker of energy.Nothing.

And that—that—was what made the hairs on my arms stand up.

Instinctively, I cast Transcription, threading my perception through the ambient mana flow to analyze her signature. What I found was...

Zero.

No resonance. No aura. Not even null-type readings.

It wasn’t just an absence. It was a void.

Only two kinds of beings had no detectable energy: the dead... and the kind of monsters that had erased themselves from the grid entirely.

I didn’t know who she was.

But I knew what she wasn’t: human.

Selene didn’t even blink. "Milena," she said, flatly. "I was wondering when you’d show yourself."

The woman—Milena—offered a smile.

It was stiff. Inanimate. Mechanical, almost. Like someone replicating what they thought a smile should be—without feeling behind it. It didn’t reach her eyes. It didn’t curve right. It just... existed.

And somehow, that hit me harder than if she’d been menacing.

That awkward, expressionless struggle—I recognized it.I’d worn that same mask before. Smiled just like that. Not because I felt anything, but because I thought I was supposed to.

Milena wasn’t like Selene. She didn’t exude control. She didn’t broadcast superiority.She just felt... detached. Not in the arrogant way. In the broken way.

"I was watching," she said. "But now you’re pushing too far. You’ve frightened the girl." Her gaze slid past Azalea, then landed on me.

It lingered there a moment too long.

I didn’t flinch, but my shoulders tightened. Something primal in me pulled back.

Selene’s eyes narrowed. "Frightened? Or awakened?"

"You blur the difference too often."

Azalea stumbled back, clutching the ring with both hands. "Who... who are you?"

Milena didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped between them—between Azalea and Selene—with a strange finality. Her presence wasn’t commanding, but absolute.

I moved closer to Azalea, my voice low. "Don’t provoke her."

Azalea trembled. "You mean she’s like him?"

"No." I kept watching Milena, reading every micro-movement. "Worse."

Selene exhaled, the barest edge of annoyance creeping in. "Very well," she said. "I’ll withdraw... for now. But you know how much I hate leaving things unfinished."

"You won’t finish this one," Milena replied quietly. "Not the way you want."

Selene stared for a beat, then turned on her heel, coat sweeping as she strode out, Mytheia still clutched in her hand like a dagger disguised as a relic.

As her footsteps faded, Milena turned back to us.