Before Uroboros could object, Aphelia gave her a “kind” look, silk over steel. Uroboros sighed like wind through reeds and nodded.

“Mm… Aphelia, thank you. I’m sorry for dragging you into this quarrel,” Odin said, voice low as dusk under pines. “Without you, I’d have died in that forest, and never had the chance to hold this power.”

A thread of Aether gathered in Odin’s palm, mist blooming like frost at dawn. She’d only just gained it, yet her hands moved as if she’d practiced for years, steady as a river’s flow.

“So, do you have a plan to take back your Asgardian Realm?” Aphelia asked, gaze clear as starlight on a still lake.

“Of course. I have a first draft,” Odin said, and her tone shifted like weather over the sea. “Aphelia, let me ask again. Earlier you spoke in the heat of the moment. What we’re about to attempt… the odds are nine deaths out of ten.”

She fell silent. Her azure eyes softened like dusk on water, full of hope, yet afraid of the answer.

“Will you truly walk with me into this mad revenge, even if it’s nearly certain death?”

“Of course. Even if it’s nine deaths out of ten.” Aphelia smiled, bright as sun through rain, and Uroboros chuckled behind her, shaking her head like a cat flicking off dew.

Odin’s vision blurred, a mist over a quiet lake. She lowered her head at once, hiding the ripple.

“Then to explain the plan, I have to start with this world,” she said.

Guided by Azure Aether, the three of them shifted in an instant, like swallows cutting air. They stood atop the dome of the sky, tens of thousands of meters up, the world spread below like a painted scroll.

“This is the first layer of the world,” Odin said, pointing as if tracing constellations. “It’s the topmost tier where the Asgardian Realm rests, at the crown of the World Tree.”

“We stand in what was once Valhalla, the palace where the einherjar lived,” she went on, voice carrying a winter hush. “It’s fallen silent now. As the layer most soaked by the World Tree’s power, the Aesir were born able to draw Runes from that sap, and so took the lead—balancing humans and giants like a fulcrum between storms.”

At the word Valhalla, her face dimmed, like a candle guttering in wind. She steadied, then pointed toward the ocean they had crossed, a sheet of ink under the sky.

“That is the Sea of the Underworld. It was ruled by my kin, Hela. She fell into sleep ten thousand years ago. No call can wake her. But if anyone dares to invade those waters, they will learn what ‘Underworld’ means.”

Aphelia swallowed her question, letting it sink like a stone. She looked down at the dark sea; without Odin’s words, she would never have guessed that placid surface touched death.

Uroboros only yawned, a cat bored by thunder.

Seeing it, Odin took them across the sea in one sweep, cloud to cloud. They hovered above the forest from before; from that height, Aphelia finally saw it clearly. Those colossal trees held within their hearts countless faint lights, like embers under ash or fireflies in a deep well.

Odin’s azure eyes warmed, soft as lantern light in fog. “This is Alfheim, the realm of the fae. I took shelter here because they’ve always been friendly to the Aesir.”

“When the giants first invaded, they were too weak to fight,” she said, breath a thin reed note. “Yet under their queen, they chose sleep as a price. They raised a warding veil to shield the Aesir, to keep giants and humans apart, like mist secluding a hidden vale…”

She sighed, a leaf falling. If that barrier still held, she wouldn’t have been found by giants, let alone driven to a cliff’s edge.

“I don’t know how the fae fare now,” she murmured. “Their queen hid them to avoid giants and men. I hope they’re safe.”

She shook her head and guided them onward, drifting down over the Golden Plain. “No need to say much here. Aphelia and I first met on this Golden Plain. It symbolizes harvest and plenty, the breadbasket that fed the Aesir,” she said, gaze tightening like a drawn bow. “But giant blood stained it like rust on wheat. Who knows when it will heal.”

Seeing pain and hatred carve Odin’s face like frost on stone, Aphelia sighed. Some grudges are bone-deep, she thought, and only blood can wash them clean—until giants are torn to pieces like old banners, this won’t end.

“In the distance lies the Asgardian Realm,” Odin said, pointing where a golden glow rose like sunrise behind haze. “We can’t just appear inside it. If the giants’ strong ones sense us, we’ll tip them off.”

Following her finger, they glimpsed a palace of gold standing far away, a sun caught on earth. With their sharpened sight, neither Aphelia nor Uroboros should have trouble seeing it. Some strange power swathed those halls, or the Realm itself laid a ward upon that gold like lacquer.

“That used to be my residence,” Odin said with a laugh like a blade turned inward. “Of course, the giants have seized it by now.”

“It’s another heart of the Asgardian Realm beyond the World Tree,” she continued, tone flat as iron. “I poured most of my strength into it. Nearly all Aesir lived within the Golden Palace. Inside, your growth surged like a horse at full gallop. No exaggeration.”

“Growth in power?” Aphelia asked, brows drawing like wings. “But you wield Runes. Isn’t that borrowing from outside things?”

Even when she’d been far from full strength, Aphelia had been able to use the Rune Odin gifted her, like striking a match already lit.

“Ah, sorry for the confusion,” Odin said, a rueful smile flickering like a candle. “In truth, driving a Rune still relies on our inner strength.”

Besides Azure Aether, another force gathered in her palm, clear yet solid, like roots weaving from air and knotting around her hand.

“To use Runes directly, you have to eat the World Tree’s fruit,” she said, voice crisp as winter. “That’s the foundation.”

“If the Tree’s nourishment is the switch that starts a Rune, then what the fruit grows inside us is the vessel that holds the power,” she added, lifting the root-like light. “Since I activated the Rune before giving it to you, you didn’t need the whole process.”

“I see…” Aphelia’s thoughts flickered like sparks. She recalled arcane devices powered by Mana Crystals. In a way, they were alike: the World Tree’s fruit was the device, and the human body became the Mana Crystal that held Arcane Power.

“Still, Runes can’t compare to Aether,” Odin said, gaze far as the horizon. “Aether overturns the world. I don’t know what you’d call it where you’re from. ‘Aether’ simply surfaced in my mind once I held it.”

“We call it Aether too,” Aphelia said, her smile a thin moon. “It must tap the world’s essence, or the name wouldn’t mirror ours so neatly.”

“I see,” Odin murmured, nodding like a tree in steady wind. As the Realm’s former leader, once the strongest in this world, she had earned the right to speak of such heights.

“This is only the first layer,” she said. “My sketch barely grazes it. The Realm holds lands for many divine clans, and their civilizations, like islands in a bright sea.”

“Once, a never-stopping river ran between the Golden Plain and the Realm,” she went on, voice tightening like ice. “It was a defense. Humans somehow dammed it by unknown means.”

“First layer?” Uroboros cut in, words sharp as a gull’s cry. “What is your world like?”

Odin didn’t answer at once, caution drawing about her like a cloak. After seeing Uroboros’s eerie power, anyone would be wary. Even Aphelia had been the same at first, trust a locked door.

If Uroboros hadn’t bled for her, Aphelia thought, she still wouldn’t have opened it.

Odin looked to Aphelia, a question in her eyes. Aphelia gave a wry smile and nodded, like yielding a path in tall grass.

“Yes. Our world isn’t a normal continent,” she said. “It hangs in the void, three distinct spaces of equal size, bound tight by the World Tree like three pearls on one thread.”

“In the void?” Aphelia remembered mages’ domains, tiny pockets pried into that emptiness, fireflies inside a jar. But this was a whole world—three worlds woven into one.

“That’s right,” Odin said. “The World Tree fixes us, roots sunk into the void like anchors in deep sea.”

“If the World Tree is destroyed, the two upper worlds that hold billions will vanish in an instant,” she said, voice bare as bone. “The void will swallow them clean, leaving no trace they ever existed.”

“So even if humans fought up from the second layer into the first, they don’t dare harm the World Tree,” she finished, eyes cold as night. “Break it, and they lose any place to live—much less the means to mend it. Only the Aesir can do that.”