"Are you staying with us tonight?" Mary asked, her emerald eyes narrowing as she cast a wary glance my way. The flickering campfire painted her face with warm hues, though her tone carried its usual sharpness.
"I don't want to be alone in the night," I protested, hugging my knees. It wasn't a baseless fear—the Crimson Trail had its way of making every shadow seem alive, every rustling leaf a lurking predator.
Mary huffed, poking at the fire with a stick. "Why are you even scared when you have her?" Her gaze flicked to Aria, who was holding my hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But when Aria's onyx eyes met Mary's, the other girl shivered and quickly looked away.
It was a fair point. With Aria around, there was little in this Forbidden Zone that could genuinely threaten me. The only real dangers were the most powerful Eterna beasts or an overwhelming pack of strong enemies working in unison.
Aria, for all her quiet demeanor, was... well, overpowered.
"Camping," Aria murmured, her gaze falling on the tents we'd just set up. Her voice was flat, but there was an odd curiosity in the way her eyes lingered.
"Have you camped before?" I asked, eager for any scraps of her past she might share. She rarely volunteered information unless prompted.
She nodded. "Yes."
Her answer was as expressionless as ever, but there was something about the way she studied the tents, as if piecing together fragments of memories. I sat down beside her, the ground cold beneath me.
"How's your injury?" I asked, recalling the jagged wound left by the Shadow Stalker's strike. Its miasma had managed to pierce even her Unbreakable Vajra Body—a feat that still unsettled me.
"I purified the corruption," Aria said matter-of-factly, pointing to where the wound had been. There was no trace of it now, not even a scar.
She truly was absurd. Of course, a Prime Eterna like her would have exceptional regenerative abilities, but the speed and completeness of her recovery defied belief.
"But it was strong," Aria added, her tone as calm as if she were commenting on the weather.
"Are you still hurt?" I asked cautiously, my stomach twisting at the thought.
She nodded, her left hand lightly gripping her arm. "My arm almost shattered."
Chills prickled down my spine. She said it with such detachment, as though shattering her arm was as ordinary as stubbing a toe.
She has limits, I reminded myself. She might be a Prime Eterna, but she still had only two cores. She was far from her full potential, far from the twelve cores she could theoretically achieve.
"The air around here feels... different," Kael said, breaking the silence. He sat cross-legged, stroking the head of his Royal Dragon, whose white scales gleamed faintly in the firelight.
Before I could respond, Aria's voice cut through. "Space bending."
Everyone turned to her, eyes wide. Even Prince Valkas, who had been absently poking at the ground, now leaned in with sharp interest.
"Space bending?" he asked, his red eyes gleaming with curiosity.
Aria didn't answer immediately. Instead, she extended her right hand and pooled miasma and divine energy into her palm. A faint shimmer surrounded her hand before the air in front of her fractured with a sound like splintering glass. A kaleidoscope of colors spiraled outwards, refracting the firelight in surreal patterns.
"W-what?" I stammered, my voice barely audible over the crackling fire. The fractured air seemed to twist reality itself, the jagged lines distorting the space between us.
"Space bending," Aria repeated, her voice as steady as always. She flicked her wrist, and the fractured space smoothed over as if nothing had happened.
"I think..." Gail began, his voice hesitant but thoughtful, "that due to the presence of an Eterna being the space-time axis here is twisted. A powerful being like Aria could manipulate it deliberately, far more easily than we could imagine."
The fire crackled, filling the heavy silence that followed. The idea was unsettling—space itself warped under the influence of a being like Aria, making reality feel fragile and pliable in her presence.
Aria, for her part, sat quietly, as if she hadn't just demonstrated something utterly mind-bending. She tilted her head at me, her expression unreadable.
"Camping," she said again, as if to punctuate the moment.
I could only stare at her, my thoughts a whirl of awe and unease. If this was what she could do now, with only two cores... what would she be capable of when she reached her full strength?
As we sat in the small clearing, the firelight casting flickering shadows on the trees around us, I noticed Aria's head tilt toward Prince Valkas. Her dark, fathomless eyes locked onto his open hands, her gaze sharp and unyielding.
"Aria, don't stare," I muttered softly, tugging on her sleeve. She blinked and turned her gaze back to me, but her lips parted.
"Calluses," she said, the single word dropping like a pebble into the hushed night. Then, turning back to the prince, she added, "You use sword."
Her observation made him glance at his hands, as though he had forgotten they bore the marks of years of training. "I do," he said, his voice laced with a hint of pride. "I still train, though not as much as I used to."
Aria blinked rapidly, an almost childlike curiosity flashing in her expression. "Sword," she said simply, "Can I have?"
Her request was so abrupt, so startling, that it rendered us all silent for a moment. Even I stared at her, unsure whether to intervene or let the scene play out. Valkas, ever the princely diplomat, recovered quickly, though his brows furrowed in confusion. Wordlessly, he reached into his spatial ring and withdrew his sword.
It was a fine blade, sleek and elegant, with a hilt encrusted with a single red gem that glimmered faintly in the firelight. He extended it to Aria, handle first, watching her with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
Aria took the sword, her small hands surprisingly steady on the hilt. She let go of my hand and rose, stepping into the center of the clearing. For a moment, she simply stood there, the sword catching the fire's glow as she inspected it.
Then she moved.
Her stance shifted fluidly, one foot sliding back as her body turned ever so slightly. The sword rose in a smooth arc, its tip cutting through the air with precision. Aria's movements were simple, understated—but there was something unnervingly exact about them, as though every swing, every step, had been calculated to perfection.
The fire popped as she performed a final, deliberate slash, the blade whistling faintly through the air. Then she stopped, lowering the sword and examining it for a moment before walking back to Valkas.
She extended the blade to him without a word.
But the prince didn't take it.
The sword slipped from her grasp, the hilt dropping toward him, but his hands remained frozen at his sides. His jaw hung slightly open, his red eyes wide and unblinking.
"Y-you," he stammered, finally breaking the silence. "What the hell was that sword technique?"
Aria tilted her head at him, her expression unreadable. "Sword technique," she echoed.
"Yes!" Valkas exclaimed, his voice rising with disbelief. "That was… no, it couldn't be. Those movements were flawless. They were…" He trailed off, his gaze darting toward me, searching for confirmation that he hadn't imagined it.
"Aria?" I asked, my voice tentative. "What did you just do?"
Her gaze shifted back to me, calm as ever. "Sword arts," she said simply. "From my world."
"But they're…" Valkas began, his words stumbling over themselves as though his mind couldn't keep up with his mouth. "That wasn't just swordplay. That was mastery. Years of training. Refinement. No—decades! You can't just… do that."
"I can," Aria replied flatly. "I devoured."
"Devoured?" Valkas looked as though he might faint, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword as if it might anchor him to reality.
"Voracious Mind," I whispered, understanding dawning like a slow, creeping dawn. My Diamond Grimoire flickered open of its own accord, its pages turning to record the details of what I had just witnessed. "She's not just powerful. She's absorbed martial arts—entire disciplines—from her world."
Valkas's expression shifted, disbelief giving way to something deeper, a mixture of awe and unease. "Devouring knowledge... as if it were instinct," he murmured.
Aria tilted her head again, her childlike demeanor a jarring contrast to the overwhelming precision she had just displayed. "Sword good," she said, her voice soft and even. "Yours is sharp, but technique matters more."
Valkas laughed, though there was no humor in it. "Technique," he repeated, shaking his head. "You say that like it's so simple. Like it's just... breathing."
Aria blinked at him. "It is."
The clearing fell silent, the weight of her words settling over us like a dense fog. Even the fire seemed subdued, its crackling reduced to a faint whisper. I looked at Aria, the strange enigma of her power and innocence intertwined.
"She's terrifying," Mary whispered, echoing my own thoughts.
Terrifying. And yet, as I watched her stand there, still clutching the edges of her flowing dress as though she were a child playing pretend, I couldn't help but feel a pang of pride.
"She's my summon," I said softly, the words barely audible even to myself.