Transmigrated as the Villainess Princess - Chapter 227

Chapter 227: See You Again (6)
Ahcehera stood at the edge of the platform, her hands tightening into fists as she watched the calibration scans complete on her newly upgraded mecha, Syverian.

The armor gleamed under the sun of Xefier, its frame resonating with pulses of the S4+ core, a rare technology only granted to elite commanders. Syverian was unlike any war machine version she had ever piloted, it wasn’t just a weapon. It was an extension of her.

Since awakening from her coma and returning to the battlefield, something inside Ahcehera had shifted. She could feel it every time she moved, every time she fought.

Her sword, once the extension of her soul, now felt foreign in her grip, and though she kept it mounted on her back like a relic of a past self, she no longer reached for it in battle.

Instead, she adapted, channeling her martial prowess into wielding chains tipped with sharp, dagger-like blades, an elegant and deadly choice that allowed her to dance in close combat with a vicious grace.

The chains moved with her breath, slicing through Zerg flesh and demon constructs alike, responding to her every command with unnatural fluidity. She did not drop her martial arts training. In fact, it evolved. She had to rework everything, relearning combat patterns better fit her new physique and the strange restrictions placed upon her body.

The power of light, once her greatest asset, no longer answered her call. She had tried, once, in desperation, to summon the divine force that had saved her countless times before, only to feel an emptiness in its place, a void that screamed of finality.

Her magic was gone. Not sealed, not sleeping, gone. It was as though the universe had deemed that part of her irrelevant in this current timeline. She wasn’t the same Ahcehera who could turn night to day with a flick of her wrist or light the sky with celestial fire.

That version of herself had perished the day her bond was severed, the day the Marriage Bureau declared her a widow, the day the agony of that loss rewrote her soul. Eros had been there through it all, a silent constant in the whirlwind of change.

Always a step behind, never intrusive. He didn’t smother her with comfort nor press for anything she wasn’t willing to give. There was something about his presence, steady, warm, unshakable, that grounded her, even when she didn’t want to be grounded.

In the chaos of her change, Eros was the only piece that stayed firm. They fought side by side, their synchronization on the battlefield as natural as breathing. When she pushed forward, he covered her blind spots. When she faltered, he was already there to intercept.

It was an understanding built not on declarations or promises but on shared battles, unspoken trust, and the quiet companionship of two warriors who had seen too much and survived too long. And yet, despite that closeness, Ahcehera never saw him as anything more than a best friend.

She couldn’t. Her heart, what remained of it, was no longer capable of blooming in that way. There were days when she’d look at Eros, seated across from her in the command chamber, light from the star maps casting shadows across his face, and feel an ache that she couldn’t explain.

But it wasn’t love. Not in the romantic sense. It was a bond forged in the trenches of war, in the echoes of loss and the silence that followed near-death. It was enough for her, and Eros, ever patient, never asked for more.

In her downtime, if it could even be called that, Ahcehera poured herself into retraining. The chains she used weren’t ordinary weapons. Each segment could detach, redirect, and amplify kinetic force through magnetic pulses.

She practiced with them in solitude, sometimes for hours, her movements fluid and methodical. Syverian’s neural link allowed her to integrate her chain techniques into the mecha’s close-range modules, creating a terrifying hybrid style that blended machine power with human instinct.

She designed custom programs to reflect her combat rhythm, bypassing standard maneuvers entirely. Her officers called it revolutionary. She called it survival. She no longer fought with divine light, and she no longer needed to. Her body had become her weapon, her mind the forge.

Every scar, every loss, every agonizing moment since Rohzivaan’s disappearance had been turned into steel.

Still, in quiet hours, when the stars blinked faintly above and the warfront reports paused, Ahcehera sometimes closed her eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to cast a healing circle, to summon protective runes, to breathe light into a dying soldier’s body.

Nothing came. The absence was complete. And she had stopped asking why.

The world had changed. The galaxy had changed. She had changed. She wasn’t chosen by the light anymore. She was forged by shadow, and that was enough.

On the battlefield, her presence was a storm. With Syverian’s upgraded system, she could deploy from orbital carriers within seconds, landing in the middle of carnage with thunderous precision. Eros often followed with his mecha, a modified unit he named Archblazer, built with a focus on long-range energy weapons and aerial dominance.

Together, they formed the spearhead of most Western Front operations. Commanders feared sending them in only because they knew when Ahcehera and Eros were dispatched, the situation was already near-collapse. Her name once inspired awe because she was the light-bearer.

Now, it inspired dread in her enemies because she became the vanguard of despair. One night, after a particularly brutal mission clearing a newly emerged Zerg nest on planet Kravin-4, Ahcehera sat in silence in the observation deck of the space base orbiting the planet.

The stars outside felt closer than usual, as if they, too, watched her with quiet reverence. Eros entered, not needing permission, and joined her without words. They stared into the void together, shoulder to shoulder.

“Your movements today were different,” he said eventually, breaking the silence. “Sharper.”

“Syverian’s response time improved by 0.3 seconds,” she replied flatly, but her eyes didn’t leave the stars.

He glanced at her, then nodded. “You’re adapting.”

“I have no other choice,” she whispered. “It’s either adapt or disappear.”

Eros didn’t argue. He knew better than anyone that she had already disappeared once. What stood now was a shell rebuilt from grief and duty. But it was still standing. And that meant something.

After a moment, he reached into his coat and handed her a small device. “A recording came through from the Ashian Belt. High priestess Amelith confirmed a rare anomaly. It could be a clue.”

She took it, her fingers brushing his. No electricity. No spark. Just warmth. Steady and familiar. “I’ll check it in the morning,” she said.

“We’ll go together,” he offered, and she didn’t refuse.