The woman watched from far beyond the borders of Aurora—so far that the wind carried no scent of its forests, yet the shine of Shellia's barrier still faintly reflected in her eyes.
Those eyes… green like emeralds when calm, red like blood when her fury rose.
Her violet hair flowed like poison silk around her shoulders, and her fingers—delicate yet sharp—drummed on the arm of her throne of jagged obsidian. A hundred demon sigils floated around her, flickering in and out of existence like embers dying too quickly.
"Again," she hissed. "Again, they failed."
A shimmering projection appeared before her, replaying the memory of everything that unfolded at the Holy Order's training grounds. A high-ranking demon—one of her proudest creations—had crashed through the sky with the power of twenty wings and thirty gleaming eyes.
He should have been unstoppable.
Yet Shellia… that girl with dark hair and vivid blue eyes…
She had destroyed his miasma.
She had purified the battlefield.
