Bella was awake. Yet she wasn’t.
She stood in a place that was not ice, not snow, not her domain.
It was water.
Endless water, simmering softly under a pale blue sky.
She realized she was not seeing through her own eyes.
She was watching through another perspective.
Aegis stood at the edge of the Sea God’s Palace balcony, far weaker than she had ever seen him last time.
His shoulders still bore stiffness, as if he had not yet grown accustomed to his power yet.
Naida stood beside him obediently.
Not as a towering guardian. Not as a warrior.
Just Naida.
She leaned on the railing, her long silver hair drifting like silk in the sea breeze. Her fish like tail lazily swaying in the water below.
"You’re thinking too hard again, your grace," she said lightly.
Aegis didn’t answer at first.
"I don’t want this place to be just strong," he finally said. "I want it to be alive. A home. Not another battlefield."
Naida turned to him, with eyes shining.
"That’s why It chose you," she replied without hesitation. "Not because you are strong. But because you care what happens after the war."
Aegis frowned slightly. "You make it sound like I had a choice."
"Hehe..." Naida laughed gently that echoed across the water.
"You did. You always do. You just choose the hard path every time."
The memory changed.
They were in fragments.
Aegis’ hands glowed with divine gold as he synthesized creatures for the first time.
Naida watchee with open awe, clapping like a child.
Followers bowed, and called him Sea God, while he looked uncomfortable and told them to stand up.
Naida scolded him gently.
"Your grace, you can’t stop people from believing, you know. If you save them, they will worship you."
Aegis replying flatly,
"Then I’ll just have to make sure I never become a god that abandons them."
The emotion hit Bella like a blade to the chest.
This was not how memories should feel.
They were too intimate.
Too warm.
Too foolish.
She realized with a strange ache that every scene was painted with Naida’s emotions.
Admiration. Trust. Love.
Unquestioning, self-sacrificing love.
The perspective was wrong.
She wasn’t watching Aegis.
She was watching Naida watching Aegis.
The memory broke again.
Now it was chaos.
The sunny sky suddenly collapsed with a thunderous crack. Then a Black hole formed
From it, crimson light flooded everything. The Sky, The fragmented Floating Islands.
The Red Emperor’s vast shadow enveloped them all.
Naida stood alone at the very forefront. She was radiant and trembling, but smiling.
Aegis was screaming her name from behind.
Her final thoughts were not fear.
They were regret. But not for dying, for leaving him alone.
Bella felt them:
Her despair that she refused to show.
The helplessness that she couldn’t express.
The love that blazed even until the very end.
When the memory finally broke, Bella gasped. She clutched her chest as if she had been stabbed by a knife.
Her breath came out ragged.
"Aegis," she whispered just then.
Carla, wgo was already beside her, became alarmed.
"Bella? What happened? Your face— you look like you saw a ghost."
Bella didn’t answer immediately.
But gradually she told her everything.
About Aquabyss. About Naida. About the Sea God. About the Red Emperor.
About the calamity that nearly erased the world.
Carla listened in awestruck silence. Her face turned paler with every word.
"So that disaster— was because of him?"
Bella nodded. "And she died protecting him."
Carla swallowed hard, "Then why do you have this memories? These aren’t your memories."
Bella looked down at her trembling hands.
"I don’t know. Ever since that spirit power awakened, these visions won’t stop."
She clenched her fingers. "But one thing is clear now."
Carla raised an eyebrow, asking. "What is that?"
Bella raised her head, her eyes no longer cold, but burning.
"Aegis didn’t die in that calamity. He survived it."
Carla gasped. "Are you sure, Bella?"
Bella closed her eyes, recalling the last fragment she saw.
A broken sky.
A lone figure standing amid ruin, shedding tears of blood, refusing to kneel.
"Yes," she said quietly.
"And if he survived that, then the world hasn’t seen what he will become yet."
After a long time, Carla felt terror.
Not for the Red Emperor.
But for a man who had already lost everything once, and was still standing.
---
A day later, within the Aquabyss Domain.
"Your Eminence, we have detected several floating islands approaching our perimeter," Billy reported, kneeling before the Sea God’s Throne. His crimson wings were folded neatly behind him. "The map changed overnight. All of them can see our island now."
Aegis sat upon the majestic throne, one arm resting against the carved coral armrest, his gaze unfocused. His mind had been drifting somewhere far deeper than the ocean itself.
At Billy’s words, his eyes sharpened.
"...New neighbors?" he asked.
"I wouldn’t call them that yet," Billy replied cautiously. "Their movement patterns are deliberate. And they appear... very interested in our domain. Especially the endless water."
Aegis let out a low hum and fell silent.
The sound echoed faintly through the grand hall.
After a moment, he rose from the throne.
His presence alone caused the water veins running through the palace walls to glow faintly.
"Is the army ready?" he asked.
Billy and Milly exchanged a glance, then nodded without hesitation.
"Yes, Your Eminence," Milly said. "They are ready to move at any moment."
"Good," Aegis replied.
"Then let us meet these ’neighbors,’ shall we?"
A smile formed on his lips, but it was dark.
His words also held no warmth.
Only certainty.
The Aegis of the past, the one who hesitated, who endured silently, was gone. Within him, something colder had taken root.
Not madness. Not cruelty. Just the silent Abyss..
If survival demanded blood, he would not blink.
If growth required conquest, he would not hesitate.
As alarms echoed softly across Aquabyss, the domain shifted into motion.
The three Phoenix sisters took command.
Water Swordsmen lined the currents. Diamond Fist Barbarians anchored the seabed like living fortresses.
Above them all, the Sanguine Imperials spread their wings.
But Aegis did not join them.
Instead, he turned away.
He summoned the Sea God’s Tower.
The ancient structure responded to his will this time.
The moment he stepped inside, the outside world vanished.
Darkness welcomed him.
Then came Light.
[ Third Trial Begins... ]
Aegis clenched his fist, saying quietly,
"It’s time."
He needed answers.
About the Sea God.
About the Red Emperor.
About the fate waiting at the end of this path.
And this time—he would not accept silence.