Wende smiled at Aphelia; after walking through life and death together, the space between them thinned like morning mist.

Who are you, really? To this world, to this era. Miss Wende... no, that’s not your true name, is it?

At Aphelia’s question, Wende didn’t flinch; her calm was a lake at dawn, unruffled and clear.

She smiled, reached into the empty air, and caught not an azure Rune, but a fist of Aether crackling like Thunder.

She crumbled it with ease, like brittle frost, then kneaded it into a hundred strange shapes that drifted off like sparks.

My name is Odin, head of the Asgardian Realm, the one who commands lightning, the ruler of this era’s sky and soil.

But Asgard faces drowning ruin now, and as its leader, I don’t want to return and save it.

Odin gave a bitter shake of the head and looked up; stars burned like cold salt scattered across velvet night.

Hearing that, Aphelia wasn’t surprised; her smile was a thin crescent, turned toward that same jeweled sky.

She had long suspected Wende’s mask; she hadn’t expected her True God to be the very god steering this era’s tide.

Maybe... she should call her Odin now; the old name faded like smoke over snow.

Then don’t save it, she said; a tide pushes an era on its own, and no lone swimmer overrules the sea.

Surprised, Odin’s gaze warmed with a trace of praise, like sun through cloud; then her smile sagged into rue.

You’re right. Perhaps Asgard’s fall is the era’s wheel turning; I once pushed that wheel and made Asgard rulers of the world.

Even so, I think gods should step down from the altar like leaves leaving a high branch, and give the future to humans.

She looked at her new life and new power without clinging; her calm lay across the moment like early frost.

And the giants? Aphelia asked; you looked startled to see them here, like wolves in a temple grove.

They are the Asgardians’ opposite, born with hunger for ruin and slaughter, like wildfire in dry grass.

Somehow, this time, humans drove them forward, and they became the spearhead against the divine realm.

Odin drew a heavy hammer and a keen blade from nowhere, like relics surfacing from a dark river.

These were my kin’s weapons, she said; in giant hands, they’re tombstones, and my people have likely met their night.

Chapter 198

Then let it be so, Aphelia sighed; Odin’s pain rang like a bell in a storm, and the next step was clear as a blade.

You can say you won’t save the Asgardian Realm, but when the fallen were yours, the heart won’t sit still like stone.

She is like that; Aphelia is like that too, two candles leaning toward the same wind.

Yes... I’m going to take revenge, Odin said, stowing both weapons into the void like sinking them in deep water.

Her calm was the sea before a typhoon, flat and bright, and all the more dangerous.

Once, we restrained our use of Rune power; when the giants struck, the Asgardian Realm had no shield, like a city of paper.

Now I have this power; the giants won’t be my match, not even their whole race, not even their iron tide.

Aphelia watched that fury bare its teeth; it was a mirror of her past, a wolf she used to feed.

Hatred used to be her only fire; the stronger she grew, the hotter it burned, until she was ash on her own altar.

Her chest tightened; a thought rose like thunderheads: should I stop her?

I can faintly feel the world’s power now, Odin murmured; when you revived me, I felt a path to the Origin open.

It was a resonance with that nameless will, like a mountain answering a drum; this new power holds more yet to mine.

She stood, and that azure Thunder returned to her palm like a coiled serpent of light, growing sharper with each breath.

Aphelia, you’re my benefactor; I won’t ask you to come, she said, voice low as rain under leaves.

Your memories are scattered like birds, and my revenge may be reckless suicide, a cliff in fog.

Even with new power, this fight won’t end in days; giants blanket this land like storm clouds.

They even break into this Forest of the Underworld; I can’t promise you victory, not with the sky this dark.

As she spoke, the Thunder condensed tighter; within it, Aphelia sensed a thread of pure white Aether, the scent of Sigdrifa.

But if I succeed, I’ll take back this era; the Asgardian Realm will rise over all things, standing shoulder to shoulder with the world.

Then all I have, you’ll have as well, whether or not you join my mad vendetta, like sharing the same dawn.

Her azure eyes flashed with countless Runes, a river of signs, then settled on Thunder, bright and bare.

Still, I hope you’ll be my companion, to fight beside me; not as Odin asking, but as Wende, the last of a fallen kind.

The blinding light finally took shape, a seed of radiance, sharp as a new star.

It wasn’t azure Thunder, nor Sigdrifa’s pure white Aether; it was born of Aether, beyond Aether, a power that meant existence.

Odin offered the light to Aphelia without hesitation, like extending a bridge over a chasm, and waited.

This power, shed from Thunder, Aether, and Rune, was her ticket into the mad abyss, stamped by fate.

Ha, trying to drag me into the water like a fisherman with a bright lure? Aphelia said, smiling sideways.

Odin gave a sheepish smile and began to withdraw the light, like closing a hand over a moth.

She knew her request was a blade-edge; a would-be martyr can only speak so plainly.

Still, the loss tugged like cold wind; a like-minded companion is rare, and her throne had been lonely as ice.

Hey, I never said no, Aphelia said; she caught Odin’s unwithdrawn hand like hooking a comet by the tail.

Odin froze, startled; Aphelia gripped her hand, rose, and grinned like a fox in moonlight.

With a chance this good, why would I refuse? The road was fire, and her feet were ready.

She took the radiant light and, under a nameless will like tide under a ship, pressed it into her chest.

Since they came for me, I hold grudges like flint; I’ll take this ticket to mad revenge and stamp it hard.

Seeing Odin reach out stirred something old in her; the battle-born self woke like steel ringing in a forge.

The light seeped into her chest like dawn into fog, and then it burst open, bright as midsummer noon.

The Primordial Soil that built her body unraveled, a sandcastle meeting the wave; her broken shell turned to ash.

A green core remained, merging with the light; before Odin’s eyes, that union spelled miracle like ink on snow.

Crimson Fire bloomed from the Primordial Soil, shaping a human form like Aphelia, petal by petal of flame.

The Primordial Soil nested in her core fused with the light; guided by Crimson Fire, it spread to fill the new vessel.

Power like that shook heaven and earth; flies came to the scent, drawn like crows to a battlefield.

Giants slipped from the trees around them, steel in their fists and hunger in their eyes, and closed the ring.

They didn’t even look at Odin; their gaze clung to Aphelia’s remade body like frost to glass.

Heh—ignoring me? Odin asked, voice flat as a blade; the answer fell from the sky in a bolt.

Thunder split a charging giant to ash, clean as a stroke through paper, without warning and without mercy.

Odin caught the heavy hammer and the sharp blade, one in each hand like twin storms.

Her azure eyes brimmed with mockery and challenge, bright as cold fire; she faced the pack of giants.

Whoever isn’t afraid of death, step forward! Her voice rang like iron on iron, daring the storm to break.

Lightning flared through the forest like a white river, and the giants charged, weapons windmilled high.

Odin laughed instead of frowning; the azure in her eyes deepened like a sky before rain.

Endless Thunder fell in sheets from the clouds and swept the frenzied giants, a scythe cutting wild grass.

She walled the remaking Aphelia behind her, steel and storm, a fortress of light in dark timber.

Meanwhile, back on the plain, an armored giant surveyed his vast host like a wolf on a ridge.

Smugness curled his lip; he jabbed commands like spears, sending waves of giants to crash against the forest.

He thought himself certain of the forest’s prey, as if victory lay asleep and chained at his feet.

But when the forest flared with Thunder, his calm shattered like glass; he vaulted to the saddle.

He spurred his warhorse into a gallop, dust rising like smoke, and led a flood of giants toward the storm.