As expected, this world didn’t hold for long. Under Aphelia’s gaze, it shattered again, its fragments raining down toward her like broken glass in a storm.

Pain ripped through her body, fiercer than before. Power surged with it, twin currents pounding her mind toward chaos like waves in a gale.

Before she could draw a breath, the boundless dark was swallowed again by that strange sea of consciousness. Another cycle was already rolling back like a tide.

Not even a breath to spare!

Yet Aphelia looked exhilarated; her black eyes went feral, a wolfish glint carving her face. In some sense, she’d stepped beyond the human frame.

Before her, the world reforged, then broke again. The boundless dark swallowed the Crimson Fire like a lone skiff in a squall.

Hearing. Sight. Smell. In a world splintered to scraps, what meaning do they hold? If none, cast them aside like shed leaves.

So beneath pain like a storm of knives, Aphelia stripped away surplus senses and kept only the bare core. Better to drown wholly in this power and pain than let useless signals muddy the heart.

Trade pure pain for pure power—no bargain beats that.

Heh—she learns fast.

At a corner of the boundless dark, a certain awareness watched and let out a quiet laugh.

Of course, Uroboros. If she can’t grasp something this simple, she should die here. Letting her out would only blight the world.

Another awareness argued from the dark, boasting bright in the tone.

Sure, sure—just keep watching, don’t interfere. She’ll walk herself into ruin sooner or later.

Uroboros sounded indifferent, a curl of mockery in the words, as if needling the braggart. The other didn’t seem to catch it—and basked in it.

Then we’ll see.

With that, Uroboros slipped into the dark, leaving the other awareness to keep silent watch on Aphelia.

On the Golden Plain, Odin kept sweeping a vast sea of Thunder around her—cruel, austere, and beautiful as she gifted death to the giants.

Even the mightiest giant looked like a helpless child before those bolts, beaten with no chance to strike back, forced to scatter from Odin’s pursuit—no, call it what it was: indiscriminate slaughter.

Aether, this newborn power, met giants who’d never touched it—like firearms facing cold steel. The backward side could only suffer one-sided killing.

And the one wielding it was Odin, master of the Asgardian Realm, lord of all gods—the one who once ruled this age.

In this moment she was the lone god under heaven and earth, endless lightning in her grasp, power as the pure definition of godhood.

The so-called fearless giant hordes, before Odin, were no different from grass under a scythe.

Giants weren’t mindless. Even the dullest beast knows pain—let alone these giants who’d joined humans to overturn the Asgardian Realm.

From the shadows, a streak of light flashed.

A god-bane arrow? Odin smirked at the black shaft in her hand. To Asgardians of the past, a weapon like this was venom. It severed their bond to the World Tree, shattered the Runes—a nightmare for Asgard’s gods. But to Odin, now bearing Aether…

Parlor tricks… huh? Now that’s interesting!

Before she could strike back, a sky-filling rain of arrows rushed her, loosed from all sides. Giants raised the strong bows slung from their saddles, hardly bothering to aim—just hauling to full draw and flooding the sky.

The god-bane arrow in her hand clearly wasn’t meant to wound; it was a beacon to fix her position.

The one who shot it wasn’t a giant. He stepped from their ranks—a white-bearded elder in beast-hide robes, eagle eyes locked on Odin as if at a sworn enemy. He raised his longbow again, a challenge offered.

Interesting. Then fight me!

The surging azure Thunder faltered. A feral force strained to break its cocoon within Odin’s body. A vivid crimson—akin to Aphelia’s fierce blaze—bled into the lightning.

In an instant, the whole sky turned to a world of blood.

Countless bolts branched like roots across the heavens, devouring the rain of arrows. Odin stood at the storm’s core, her pale face inked by strange crimson veining.

For a heartbeat, the sky froze. Only the crimson lightning kept spreading.

The killing intent in her eyes flared hotter, a blade of frost behind fire.

The stillness broke. Countless giants lifted their heads, as if the crimson storm had been a hallucination. The sky looked normal again—yet the hot ash sifting down told them it hadn’t.

They raised their strong bows again. Elders wove through giant ranks, eagle-eyed, hunting for angles, waiting in shadow for the next strike.

Odin wasn’t about to stand there and take it. As she moved to act, a chill breathed at her back—a needle-in-the-spine feeling that made her hesitate.

Honored Lady Odin, need a hand?

A cold female voice whispered by her ear. She snapped around. Behind her—only a silver ring.

What are you?

Odin swept Thunder to swat the oncoming arrows, eyed the ring, and smiled coldly.

Hmph. I’m not a thing, “Lady” Odin. There are limits to looking down on people…

Keep talking and I’ll crush you.

She had no patience for banter with a ghostly trinket. She turned, and the ring darted before her, blocking her view like a coin flicked to the eye.

If you don’t trust me, I’ll show you what I can do.

With that, the ring streaked straight into the massed giant host before she could act.

Yet… nothing happened. Everything stayed ordinary. Giants kept hurling volleys. The white-bearded elder sought his angle, ready to catch Odin off-guard.

In that instant, something black flickered across Odin’s sight. On the Golden Plain, ripe wheat bowed, pressed flat by an unseen weight. Suspended in air, Odin saw it all; the giants standing amid the grain seemed blind to it.

For reasons she couldn’t name, the void thing crushing the field chilled her spine. The Thunder in her hand slowed like a faltering heartbeat.

The human elder hidden among the giants wouldn’t waste a chance. He yanked his bow to full draw. Three strange arrows sliced the air with a fierce whoosh, shearing Odin’s hair as they grazed past.

Hmph!

The keening at her ear snapped her back. She wouldn’t be harmed by a brief lapse. Before she could call Thunder to avenge it, the elder screamed—a ragged, awful sound.

On a battlefield, one more body is nothing unusual. Yet his misery froze the nearby giants.

After loosing three arrows, the elder moved to melt back into the ranks. Before he could, a huge gap opened in his abdomen—yet no blood seeped from that ghastly wound.

His face twisted with pain. He clamped his own throat, clawing at himself like a drowning man, skin bluish, hands not letting go.

The giants wouldn’t just watch a human ally die. They tried to pry his hands away. The elder unleashed a strength even giants couldn’t match—and strangled himself on the spot.

His callused hands were like unbreakable iron clamps, biting deep into his neck until blood welled.

The horror left the giants stunned, a field of statues in wheat.

This human wasn’t some nobody. He stood on this field against Odin because he held weight among humankind.

And now he’d died in a way so uncanny it struck the giant host like another heavy blow, after charge upon charge with no result. Eyes turned to the airborne Odin, flames of hate filling their gaze.

In this moment, hate was all they had—hate to bind their broken ranks, keep courage high, and charge on, fearless of death.

Yet… they assumed Odin had caused that wound.

From the shadows, a soft laugh seemed to drift, thin as smoke.

Over the golden wheat, the first black blossom of blood unfolded.

The huge shape that had lain in the field began to dart wildly. Even if the eye couldn’t catch it, Odin felt it from the air—her senses fixing on what slithered beneath the grain.

It was a cold, dark, unnamable thing. It reaped giants across the plain like harvest time, feeding a darkness endless as an abyss with the great host.