The human elder lurking among the giants wasn’t about to waste the chance. He yanked his longbow to full draw. Three uncanny arrows ripped the air with a keening howl, shearing Odin’s hair and brushing past her cheek.
Hmph!!
The whistle at her ear snapped Odin back. A heartbeat’s lapse wouldn’t wound her. She reached for Thunder to answer. Before it gathered, the elder screamed.
On a battlefield, a man falling is nothing. Yet his shriek froze the nearby giants.
After loosing three arrows, the elder meant to melt into their ranks. He never got the step. A great gape opened in his abdomen. Not a drop of blood seeped from that ghastly wound.
His face locked in agony. He clutched his own throat like a drowning man clawing for air. His lips went iron-blue, and still he didn’t let go.
The giants wouldn’t just watch him die. They grabbed for his hands to pry them open. He exploded with strength no giant could match. He strangled himself where he stood.
Those callused hands turned to iron clamps, biting deep into his neck. Blood beaded and ran between his fingers.
The sight stunned every giant present.
This human wasn’t a nobody. He stood here, on the campaign against Odin, because he mattered among humans.
And now he died in such an eerie way. For the giant legion that had charged again and again without gain, it was another hammer-blow. Eyes lifted to Odin hanging in the air, hate burning like coals.
Right now, they had only hatred to hold onto. Only hatred to keep their roar high and their courage reckless unto death.
But… they chose to believe Odin had caused that wound.
In the shadow, a soft chuckle seemed to drift.
Across the golden wheat, the first black blossom of blood unfurled.
The huge shape that had lain in the grain burst into motion. Even unseen to naked eyes, Odin felt it from above, a current under the field. She knew what coiled beneath the wheat.
Something cold and lightless, an unnameable thing. It reaped giants across the plain like scythes at harvest. This vast legion fed a darkness as bottomless as the Abyss.
By now, even a blind man would notice the terror at their side. The giants hacked wildly. Their blades found nothing. They couldn’t touch what ate their lives.
As if it weren’t there at all.
Odin saw it clearer and clearer. A pitch-black serpent sprawled over the Golden Plain.
It gnawed with abandon. Where its shadow passed, not even bones remained. All was drawn into that massive body as sustenance.
Sensing her gaze, the black serpent paused. Its dark pupils met Odin’s eyes, as if in greeting. Then it plunged back into the plain and butchered the giants without mercy.
Panic broke the giants. Before the heaps of corpses, valor and prowess snapped like dry twigs. Their minds collapsed.
If the enemy could be seen, they could at least fight to the last. But when you can’t see it, can’t even feel the edge land, what can you do?
Worse, against this foe the giants had no resistance at all. Their proud anti-Arcane hide tore like thin paper under its assault.
The reek of blood pooled over the plain. The legion that had always been unstoppable now shattered, routed and broken.
Heh… what an interesting hand of aid…
Odin wouldn’t just hover and watch. Blinding Thunder wreathed her warhammer and blades. She dropped like a meteor into the giant ranks, a tiger loosed among sheep.
Elsewhere, in the forest, Aphelia’s body-forging finally finished.
Crimson Fire and sky-blue Thunder circled. A form of Primordial Soil took shape in silence.
Hu…
She let out a long breath. Relief first, then alarm. The moment her feet touched earth, Aphelia crossed her arms and glanced around, cheeks flushing hot.
No wonder. Freshly reforged, she was bare as a newborn. Skin pale as snow, exposed to the breeze. Anyone not an exhibitionist would squirm.
She hurried to find clothes. Impossible. Crimson Fire and azure Thunder were both raging forces. No common cloth could withstand that battering. Everything she wore had gone to ash.
And in that exact awkward beat, the forest stirred.
A tall giant, weapon in hand, lurched out, panting hard, slick with blood. In the same instant, their eyes met.
ROAR!
He saw a human—Aphelia. He bellowed and charged, blade windmilling. Pain drove him madder, like a beast gone rabid.
Aphelia didn’t have time for shame. She set her fists.
Before she could throw a punch, a hole bloomed in the giant’s chest. A crisp imprint of a fist marked the ruin.
She stared, startled, at the falling hulk. A heartbeat ago she’d only had the thought to strike. The giant was already down?
The speed was so absurd she hadn’t even felt force gather or vanish. She couldn’t tell if her strength had truly moved.
And yet…
No. I did throw a punch.
Aphelia drew a deep breath. She reached with her mind to feel her flesh. Her awareness unfurled—and in an instant, it raced outward to the far horizons. A thousand strange vistas flashed through her skull.
Unlike before, she no longer saw as a person looking at the world. It was as if the world looked through her. She was the world.
Before she could savor that vantage, a tremor rose from her soul and cut her short.
No doubt—the blood-soaked battle on the Golden Plain stamped itself into her mind.
The black serpent. Odin draped in Thunder.
The giant legion being slaughtered one-sidedly. It all poured into her sweep of awareness. The moment her mind touched Odin, that warrior snapped her head up. Sky-blue Thunder pricked Aphelia raw. She recoiled at once.
They’re fighting on that scale already. I need to go.
She pulled her mind back. She braced to move—then remembered her biggest problem. Heat crept up again.
She was naked in every sense.
If only I still had Aether or Arcane Power. I could at least shape my old armor.
At the very birth of that thought, a strange current ran through her. Silvery Armor flowered over her skin, sealing that flawless body from collar to heel.
Heh…
Staring at the Silvery Armor that now sheathed her, Aphelia knew it. She’d awakened a power—something beyond what she used to understand.
It was mist and moonlight. Nowhere to grasp. It came only when she willed.
No time to revel in it. Aphelia sprinted for the Golden Plain. In her sweep a moment ago, she’d seen that utterly familiar figure.
On the Golden Plain, the black serpent’s slaughter alongside Odin neared its end. Most giants had become corpses, feed for the gold sea. The few left were skewered by Odin’s thunder-lance, nailed to the earth.
The serpent shed its massive frame. In front of Odin stood a black-haired girl, eerily similar to Aphelia.
She wore a long black dress and held a scepter. Her face burned with defiance. She didn’t seem to put Odin in her eyes at all.
Interesting aid, indeed. And you’re telling me Aphelia sent you?
Odin snorted. They’d fought side by side only moments ago, but that face so like Aphelia’s, paired with this pitch-dark power, chafed her.
They hadn’t truly fought together. Each had plunged in for her own slaughter.
That’s right. You could say I was “sent” by Aphelia~
The black-haired girl cocked her head, eyes mocking as she looked Odin up and down.
The air tightened. Power gathered. A fresh clash seemed ready to rip the sky.
Who… Aphelia?
At that instant, at the seam of forest and wheat, a figure burst out and broke the standoff.
She vaulted from the trees and clearly hadn’t mastered her new strength. Her landing punched a crater into the golden field.
Aphelia, in the flesh.
Am I… late? She looked between Odin and the black-haired girl, wary and a little amazed.
