Seeing Aphelia stir, Wende finally exhaled, like a leaf letting go of rain.

Only after Aphelia waved did she unsling her wine flask, a clink like river stones.

A thin thread of Aether bled from her palm, settling Aphelia’s pulse like warm sunlight.

“Cough… am I back, or did we die, Wende?” Her voice trembled like a reed in wind.

“Not dead; neither of us,” Wende said, steady as a stone in a stream.

Aphelia glanced at Wende in her blue-green dress. Her hand reached out, searching heat like a sparrow for a hearth.

She felt the warmth, then gazed up at the vast tree overhead, her cheek sunk in moss-softness.

“Honestly, it’s the first time I’m this happy to feel warmth,” she whispered, like frost thawing.

Wende laughed, a bell of water under eaves.

“If it’s warmth you want, life’s long,” she said, a lantern easing dusk.

They tasted the strange aftertaste of surviving and laughed, two birds shaking rain from their feathers.

After a quiet stretch, weariness folded over them, and they leaned together like roots finding soil.

“Hey, Wende, can I ask you something?” Aphelia’s tone drifted like woodsmoke.

“Of course. Ask,” Wende said, her smile a dawn over still water.

“Who are you, really? To this world, to this era… Miss Wende—no, that might not be your real name.”

Her doubt fluttered like a moth circling a flame.

Wende didn’t seem surprised; she smiled softly and closed her fingers on empty air like catching snow.

Not a cool-hued Rune answered, but a strand of Aether no different from Thunder.

She crushed it to silver grit, let it bloom into strange forms, then watched it vanish like cloud.

“My name is Odin—the head of the Asgardian Realm, keeper of lightning, the one who once led this era’s world.”

“Yet Asgard is drowning beneath a final wave, and I, its chieftain, don’t wish to return to save it.”

Odin gave a bitter smile and looked up into a jeweled sky, her eyes a storm of mixed tides.

Aphelia wasn’t shocked; she only smiled, gazing at the same bright sky, calm as a moonlit lake.

She’d suspected Wende for a while—she hadn’t expected her True God to be the era’s ruler.

Maybe… she should call her Odin now.

“Then don’t,” Aphelia said with a silk-wrapped blade of a smile. “The era has its own current; even the strongest is small against that tide.”

Surprised and pleased, Odin’s gaze warmed, like sun on iron.

“You’re right. Maybe Asgard’s fall is the era’s shove,” she said, a crack in stone for a smile.

“I once drove the era, made Asgardians lords of the world, yet I still think we gods should step down and give the future to humans.”

She spoke of her revival and the new power with no clinging, calm as a mountain watching weather.

“What about those giants? You seemed shocked they’re here,” Aphelia asked, her words drifting like smoke through branches.

“They’re the opposite of Asgardians, born hungry for ruin and slaughter,” Odin said, a winter wind over old scars.

“For some reason, humans drove them this time, making them the vanguard against the divine realm.”

She drew a heavy hammer and a sharp blade from nowhere, iron moon and iron fang in her hands.

Her eyes filled with pain like rain soaking charcoal.

“These were my kin’s weapons. Since they fell to giants, my kin likely met disaster.”

“So then…” Aphelia sighed, like wind through broken halls.

She could already feel what Odin would do: revenge.

Even if she won’t save the Asgardian Realm, the dead tug hearts like tides; quiet won’t last.

Aphelia knew—she was the same.

“Yes… I’ll take revenge,” Odin said, voice level as steel laid on an anvil.

She stowed the two weapons into the void, a river swallowed by night.

Aphelia knew this calm was only the eye of a storm.

“In the past, we restrained our use of Rune power. When the giants struck, the Asgardian Realm had no answer,” Odin said, thunder low in her throat.

“Now I hold this new power. Giants won’t match me—no, not even their whole tribe.”

Her last words ground like teeth, as if the killers of her people stood within arm’s reach, ready to be torn like rotted bark.

Aphelia recognized that look too well; it was a mirror dark with old fire.

She remembered the self that was all revenge, bowing to power like a shrine.

Each new strength fed the Crimson Fire of hate, until it burned her down to ash.

Stop her? The thought rose like a bubble from deep water.

“I can faintly feel the world’s force now,” Odin said, standing, her shadow tall as a spear.

“When you revived me, I felt a road to the world’s Origin, a resonance with nameless will.

I believe this new power still hides seams to mine.”

She rose, and azure Thunder pooled in her hand, light sharpening like a blade of ice.

“Aphelia, you’re my benefactor. I won’t expect you to come with me,” she said, her voice a steady drum.

“You haven’t recovered your memory, and this revenge may be a reckless suicide.”

“Even with new strength, this battle won’t end in days. Giants sprawl across the land like weeds.

They’ve invaded even this Underworld Forest. I can’t promise victory, not honestly.”

Thunder in her palm tightened to a core, like a star hammered small.

Within it, Aphelia sensed a trace of pure-white Aether, the same hue Sigdrifa bore.

“But if I succeed, I’ll take back the era,” Odin said, light skating her eyes like frost.

“The Asgardian Realm will stand above all things once more, shoulder to shoulder with the world.

Then all I have, you’ll have, whether or not you join my mad revenge.”

Runes flickered through her blue-green eyes, a flight of signs like migrating birds, then steadied on pure Thunder.

“Still, I hope you’ll be my companion and stand with me,” she added, voice bare as bark.

“This isn’t Odin the avenger asking, but Wende, the last of an extinct people.”

The blinding light in her grasp finished its birth, a sun seeded from storm.

It wasn’t azure Thunder, nor Sigdrifa’s pure-white Aether, but a force born of Aether and greater than it, a symbol of existence.

Odin offered that radiance to Aphelia, like handing over a key carved from lightning.

It was a ticket into the abyss of madness.

“Ha, you just want to drag me down with you?” Aphelia said, smiling crookedly, a fox turning its head.

Odin gave a sheepish laugh and began to draw the light back, like a tide retreating.

She knew she sounded fevered—once lord of gods, she still carried that vastness.

Facing Aphelia’s refusal, a small loss chilled her, a moth of cold in the chest.

Finding a mind like hers had been rare since she’d worn a crown.

“Hey, I never said no.”

Aphelia caught the retreating hand, grip sure as a clasp on a blade.

Odin froze, startled; Aphelia rose and squeezed back, mischief bright as sparks.

“With a chance this good, why would I refuse?”

She took the radiant light, and under Odin’s delighted gaze, let a nameless will guide it into her chest like dawn pouring in.

“They came for me too. I’m petty,” she said, smile sharp as glass. “I’ll take this ticket to mad revenge.”

Looking at Odin, Aphelia felt something bloom—call it fondness or old hate—like a wildflower in ash.

When Odin reached for her, the self born for battle found a target, and the wish to stand beside her grew.

The light sank into her chest and burst like spring.

The Primordial Soil that formed Aphelia’s body collapsed, her tattered shell blowing to ash.

An emerald core remained, braiding with the light, writing “miracle” in front of Odin’s eyes.

Crimson Fire spread from the Primordial Soil, rising to shape a human form like Aphelia from flame.

The Primordial Soil nested at her core, melding with light, guided by Crimson Fire like rivers filling valleys, rebuilding the body.

Such world-shaking power drew flies.

At the forest’s rim, countless giants stepped out with blades, a ring of iron closing like thorns.

They ignored Odin, their eyes greedy as wolves, fixed on Aphelia’s reforging body.

“Heh—ignoring me?” Odin’s smile cut thin as a knife.

Thunder fell without warning, a white bolt from a clean sky, and the charging giant drifted away as ash.

A heavy hammer and a keen blade sat in Odin’s hands, iron sun and iron crescent.

Her blue-green eyes flashed with mockery and challenge, like lightning behind glass.

“Which of you isn’t afraid of death? Step forward!” Her voice cracked like river ice.