Deep in the forest’s heart, by a glass-clear pool, the girl gazed at the night—golden hair spilled like honey, starlight dusted the water, and Aphelia fell silent, spellbound like a moth before a lamp.
“Ah… Aphelia, sorry I didn’t warn you. How did you sleep?” Wende turned with a soft smile, like a breeze turning a leaf, and waved hello.
Heat rose in Aphelia’s cheeks like dawn on frost. She scratched her head, shy as a fawn, and drifted over to sit at Wende’s side.
“Sorry, I dozed off—fatigue hit like rain. Where are we? I remember the plains, wide as a sea of grass…”
Nerves tightened in her chest like a drawn bowstring. She lifted her eyes, followed Wende’s gaze, and the sight seized her voice like a stone in the throat; she stared at the sky, stunned as a deer in moonlight.
Wende had expected that awe, and her laugh rippled like water; she patted Aphelia’s shoulder, light as a falling petal. “Well? Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Ah…”
Across the velvet-blue night, a river of stars cut a bright ribbon, countless points gathered like fireflies in flight, and it became the brightest “star” in the sky; the crickets sang like tiny bells, and Aphelia’s restless heart smoothed like a windless lake.
She stood there dazed, like a child at first snow; she had never truly looked up at the roof of the world. In this new age, her first glance was a painting poured from heaven.
Wende didn’t intrude; she dipped her hand into the quiet surface, and the pool quivered like silver scales under the shower of light; in her eyes, emotions tangled like vines climbing bark.
“It’s truly beautiful. In my memories, scenes this pure are rare—like pearls scattered sparsely on sand.”
After a long breath, Aphelia exhaled, content as a pilgrim finding spring water. This view alone felt enough.
“In the Asgard of the past, this kind of sky wasn’t common either,” Wende murmured, nostalgia drifting like smoke. “So I’d slip out now and then, like a sparrow from a eave, and come here to watch the Milky Way spill like a pale river.”
“Speaking of Asgard… Wende, I don’t really remember what that is.” Aphelia weighed the moment like a stone in palm, then spoke. “Could you explain it?”
“Asgard, huh… alright, I’ll tell you what Asgard is.” Her tone fell steady as a drumbeat in mist.
“As an outsider, you might not know—Asgard is the native divine domain of this land, handed down from the world’s first dawn; by now… mm, it’s been hundreds of thousands of years.” Wende’s words flowed like old sap, and she didn’t mind Aphelia’s wide-eyed look.
“It was born leaning on the World Tree—ah, sorry, on the trunk of the World Tree. So the people within the divine domain are sheltered like birds in a colossal canopy; from birth, they carry godforce in their veins. Sounds magical, doesn’t it?” Her smile flashed like sunlight on ripples.
Wende could laugh; Aphelia couldn’t. From those few lines, a mountain’s outline rose—this era was truly divine, a time under gods like stars under a moon.
The green-haired woman, Enkidu, had lived near the end of that divine era, her time already dusk-purple; to give humanity full hold on the world, she paid with life, cutting the last thread between god and man like a blade through silk.
But Wende lived when gods ruled like storms on high; being born with godforce sounded like a fairy tale stitched from gold leaf.
Then a shock struck—Wende pinched the air, quick as a falcon, and a cerulean Rune bloomed in her hand like frost-fire.
You could see the currents twist like braided smoke in her palm; the dancing sparks shouted their name like thunder in a hollow.
“This is a Rune of Thunder. Don’t be surprised—people of Asgard can all do this, and I can teach you.” Her words fell light as snow.
Wende tossed the Rune, casual as throwing a pebble, and Aphelia grabbed it with both hands, startled like catching a falling star.
“Eh? I can control it…” Wonder rose like a tide; as Wende said, the Rune passed with a flick like handing a torch, and the grasp settled in a heartbeat.
Sparks ticked in her palm like hot rain. Through the Rune, Aphelia felt the power, clear as cold spring—this was different from her age, where power meant Arcane Power or Aether; this Rune held pure, gathered “Thunder” like a storm cupped in glass.
“Of course you can~ Runes just cut a slice of a concept, like taking a leaf from a forest. Know the concept, and anyone can use the power~” Wende’s laughter chimed like beads on string; she reached again, and this time a water-blue Rune rose in her hand like a drop of deep sea.
“Let’s return to Asgard.” She stood, calm as a pillar; light flickered in her heterochromatic eyes like twin lanterns, and in a blink, countless Runes filled the air around them like a drifting galaxy.
“Earth. Water. Wind. Fire…” The ring of concepts thrummed like a choir; Aphelia sensed each Rune’s meaning, clear as seeing seeds within fruit—tiny worlds spun before her eyes like toy orreries.
“Asgard isn’t just a divine domain; it’s the crystallization of this world’s concepts,” Wende said, her gaze lingering like a traveler looking back at a home ridge.
“That’s why those born in Asgard live with the world’s concepts like fish in a river. We don’t need borrowed systems; we’re the world’s favored children, and most human tribes survive under our shade like grass under a great tree.”
“And anyone who holds goodwill toward Asgard can guide Runes with ease~ like learning to breathe where the air loves you.”
“So? Do you feel a spark of expectation toward Asgard?” She smiled, hospitable as a hearth—her eyes shone like autumn water, and Aphelia froze, caught like a moth in lampglow.
“Pfft~ do you have to look that stunned?” The unguarded laugh snapped like a twig, and Aphelia jolted back to herself; she smiled, sheepish as a cat, let the Thunder Rune go like a floating leaf, and asked:
“Then… Wende, what did you mean when you said I was late?” The question fell heavy as rain.
Wende’s face dimmed like a cloud crossing the moon—yet before she could speak, she lunged and tackled Aphelia down, like a hawk striking to shield its mate.
From the dark behind, a gust knifed in like a scythe; a tree as thick as two arms was severed in an instant, wood chips spraying like ice hail. If Wende hadn’t thrown her down, Aphelia would’ve taken that terror head-on with her strength not yet restored.
“Careful, Aphelia!” Wende stayed atop her like a shield, and the cerulean Rune shattered with a crack like summer lightning, spearing into the shadow as a lance of Thunder.
And then Aphelia realized the soft weight pressed to her face—a warmth like down, a softness brushing like ripe peaches; embarrassment flared, hot as coals, and breath tangled in her chest like netted fish.
“Come on, Aphelia, up—eh? You’re nosebleeding! Are you hurt?” Wende glanced down, worry rising like smoke; two red threads ran from Aphelia’s nose like twin streams.
“Ah—no, no, I’m fine. What is that thing?” Her voice fluttered like a startled bird.
Another gust scythed overhead, cold enough to bite bone like winter’s teeth; both of them shrank back, dodging the stroke like deer leaping a ditch.
“Damn…!!” Wende flung two water-blue Runes, hard as stones, at the shadow; then she hauled Aphelia to her feet like pulling a sapling, and they ran deeper into the forest, feet drumming like rain.
The shadow saw the Runes and sent another wind like a razor—this time it struck ice. A tight wall rose, sealed like a frozen river, blocking the path with a glacial barricade in the night-black woods.
“Hah… hah… Wende, what is that?” Breath scraped like sand; they darted through dark trunks like minnows through reeds, and only at a short remove did Aphelia dare to ask.
“An ice giant—Asgard’s mortal enemy,” Wende said, the words falling like stones. “I don’t know why they chased us here…”
They barely had time to breathe when spears of ice shrieked toward them like white swallows, aiming for kill points with winter’s precision.
“Thunder—” Wende lifted a Rune, but the Crimson Flame had already surged like a banner; a dense scarlet shield bloomed before them like a sunrise.
“I keep needing your help—let me take a turn.” Aphelia’s hands burned with Crimson Flame, spreading like a living tide; instinct drove it, and the ice lances hit and steamed to nothing, erased on the surface like chalk in rain.
Wende saw the Crimson Flame and a flicker of doubt flashed like a shadowed lantern—something remembered, quickly smoothed; her Rune boomed, and it shaped into a longbow of Thunder, bright as a storm’s heart, firing into the forest’s dark with arrows like lightning reeds.
Bolts cracked in the night, and cerulean light flooded the black wood like daybreak; their attacker stood revealed like a statue in frost.
He was a giant, meters tall, grotesque as a nightmare carved from glacier—skin like hard ice, bulk like a hewn cliff, a face torn and incomplete like weathered rock. In his hand, a massive warhammer hung like a fallen star.
Wende’s three arrows of Thunder seemed to glance off like rain on stone; they left no wound, no sway, only sparks skittering across ice like fireflies over glass.
