Aphelia stared at the toppled giant, surprised, like watching a pine felled before the wind ever rose. In the last instant, she’d only thought of a punch—and he was down.

The speed cut so clean she couldn’t feel power swell or fade, like lightning flashing with no echo of Thunder. Confusion pricked first; action lagged behind.

No—she exhaled, steady as dusk over water. “I did swing.”

She reached inward to feel flesh with thought, and her awareness unfurled like a banner, then poured outward like a river breaking its banks. A thousand phantoms burst through her mind—light and shadow, star and storm.

It wasn’t a person looking at a world anymore. It felt like the world breathing through her, roots of the World Tree threading her veins.

A tremor rose from the soul’s bedrock, like a drumbeat under earth, and shattered that newborn view.

The bloody field on the Golden Plain blazed into mind, a sea of gold spattered crimson like poppies after rain. A pitch-black serpent coiled like night, and Odin strode wreathed in Thunder.

The giant legions folded like stalks in a hailstorm, slaughtered one-sided. The moment her awareness brushed Odin, she flinched; Azure Thunder bit like ice against skin. She pulled her senses back, stung.

Such a battle roared like storm over open steppe. “I need to see it…”

She cut her focus, ready to move, and remembered with a sudden flush—awkward as moonlight on a bare lake—that she was utterly naked.

If only Aether or Arcane Power remained, she could forge the armor she wore before.

The thought flicked like a spark. Something odd surged through her body like quicksilver, and Silvery Armor flowed over her like frost, veiling every line with steel-gloss.

“Heh…” She weighed the cool plates against her skin and understood: she’d gained some power outside her old maps, cloudlike and elusive. It only came when her will called, then vanished like mist.

Joy could wait. She flew for the Golden Plain, heart taut as a bowstring. In that sweep of awareness, she’d glimpsed a familiar silhouette.

On the Golden Plain, the massacre was ending. Most giants lay as broken timbers, feeding the gold like compost, while a few hung pinned by Odin’s spear of Thunder, nailed to earth.

The black serpent unraveled, shedding its vast bulk like a storm returning to cloud. Before Odin stood a black-haired girl, eerily like Aphelia, night-eyed and unbowed.

She wore a black dress like midnight water. She held a scepter like a thorned bough. Defiance crowned her face, as if Odin were only weather passing.

“An interesting hand,” Odin said, voice cold as iron. “You say Aphelia sent you?”

She snorted, the sound dry as gravel. That face so close to Aphelia’s, that shadow-heavy power—it rubbed wrong, like grit in a wound.

They hadn’t fought side by side. They’d just entered the same storm with the same hunger to kill.

“Of course that’s right.” The black-haired girl tilted her head, a teasing spark in her gaze. “I’m kind of Aphelia’s ‘sent’ help.”

Tension tightened the air like a drawn wire. Power gathered quiet as thunderheads, and another clash looked ready to break.

“What—someone… Aphelia?”

A figure burst from the forest’s rim into the wheat, a hawk diving out of green. She still couldn’t rein her strength; she hit and carved a crater in gold. Earth thumped and grains flew.

It was Aphelia.

“I… am I late?” Her voice held wonder, like a traveler seeing home after storm.

“Yo, Aphelia. Long time no see~” The black-haired girl lifted her scepter slightly, greeting like old friends under a tavern lamp.

“Uroboros?!” Aphelia saw the face and stepped back, shock rising like a cold tide.

Impossible. Uroboros had sunk into sleep, drowning deep in her sea of consciousness. Yet this mirroring face, this devil-may-care, sky-scorn aura—

Every line looked like Uroboros.

But this was a different era, a different moon. Maybe the girl wasn’t Uroboros at all.

Her rebuilt mind moved like wind through reeds, faster than she could hold. In a heartbeat, countless thoughts streaked past like comets she couldn’t catch.

“No need to guess,” Uroboros said, smiling wicked as a cat. “I’m Uroboros. Special reasons woke me earlier. I saw a war, so I came to lend a hand~”

Aphelia’s protest caught like a fish on the line. “But—”

“No buts.” Uroboros flicked a glance at Odin, needle-sharp, then slipped behind Aphelia like shade behind a pillar. “You’ve got bigger things to handle.”

“Relax~ My soul origin still lives in your sea of consciousness. Don’t worry.”

Her brazenness drew a helpless smile from Aphelia, soft as starlight. Aphelia shrugged and faced Odin.

“Seems she really is your help,” Odin said, eyes narrowing at the shadowed power, brow creasing like a stormfront. Then her gaze settled on Aphelia’s state, and a smile broke like sun through cloud.

“…Fine. As long as you’re safe, Aphelia.” The bite of Thunder melted into air. Odin patted her shoulder, and her eyes flashed a faint Azure gleam.

Aphelia felt peeled open, like light reading pages under skin. The sense of being seen through prickled like frost.

“What happened? Why were so many giants on you both?”

“Let’s leave first,” Odin said, scanning the field, where blood-flowers opened among gold like cruel blooms. “The giants sent an army to hunt me. Once they notice the wrongness here, they’ll send stronger hunters.”

“Right… And the forest’s burned for us now. Where’s safe, Odin?”

“Follow me. I know a place.”

Azure Aether breathed around Odin, condensing like dew into a spear of light. She shot toward the far horizon, swift as a comet.

Aphelia met Uroboros’s eyes, a brief spark between stormclouds, and they raised Aether, trailing light after Odin’s wake.

Even at near day-a-league speed, they flew almost a full day, skimming oceans like swallows over waves, before they reached Odin’s refuge.

Ruins opened ahead, barren as bone, a city ribcage under a dead sky.

Odin led them in. She cast a vast Aether barrier, a net of pale fire over stone. Only then did her shoulders ease, like a bow unstrung.

“Aphelia,” she said, sitting before them. “Since your power’s back, I should tell you how this world stands.”

“Go on. I’m all ears.” Aphelia’s voice was calm, like water taking light.

Odin handed each of them a golden fruit, its skin warm as sunmetal, and began to speak, slow as embers telling old stories.

Aphelia weighed the fruit, unsure if she should bite. Uroboros didn’t hesitate; she drank its power like wine, leaving only a thin peel curling like a fallen leaf.

It fit her eerie strength—she turned the fruit’s force straight into her body, satisfaction softening her face like honey on tongue. This was no common fruit.

“Until shortly before you appeared,” Odin said, “the world held steady—Asgardian Realm sheltered humans, stood against giants, guarded the World Tree, kept the world turning.”

“Recently, humans bargained for giant aid with terms unknown. They drove giant legions into the Asgardian Realm and wielded a strange power. The Realm’s Rune power couldn’t stand.”

“As the realm’s ruler… because of old reasons, I didn’t return in time.” She let out a bitter breath, sour as smoke. “Sometimes I regret my childishness. But there’s no medicine for regret.”

“By not being there, I dodged the blade.” Her gaze dimmed, like ash over coals. “If I’d stood with my Runes, I might have died—only regret left on my tongue.”

Aphelia leaned forward, voice warm as dawn over frost. “You still have a chance to change it. I’ll help you. Uroboros… will help too.”

She shot Uroboros a gentle look that held steel. Uroboros sighed and nodded, like a cat forced from a windowsill.

“Mm… Thank you, Aphelia.” Odin’s smile was quiet, rain after heat. “I’m sorry to drag you into this. If not for you, I’d have died in that forest, and never touched this strength.”

Aether coalesced in Odin’s palm like a captured breeze. Though new, she played with it fluidly, as if she’d rehearsed for years.

“Then,” Aphelia asked, gaze steady like a mountain line, “do you have a plan to reclaim your Realm?”