“I see. Then it really is as you said, Aphelia—power that brushes the world’s bones.”

Odin nodded; as the helm of the Divine Realm and once this world’s peak, she carried storms in her gaze and years like iron rings.

“This is the first layer of the world. And my sketch barely scratches bark; inside the Divine Realm lie the clans’ domains, their bright and bitter civilizations.”

“Once, a ceaseless river ran between the Golden Plain and the Divine Realm like a moat of night, built for defense, until humans dammed it by some unknown hand.”

At that, Uroboros cut in before Aphelia could breathe, her voice like a coil tightening in the dark.

“The first layer? What is your world, really, shaped like under its skin?”

Odin didn’t answer at once; caution rose like frost on steel, natural as breath after seeing Uroboros’s uncanny power.

Even Aphelia had bristled at first, trust shut like a locked gate, her doubt coiled like thorns.

If not for Uroboros’s self-wounding aid, Aphelia’s trust would still be ice on a winter river.

Odin looked to Aphelia; Aphelia gave a wry nod, a leaf bending to wind she couldn’t stop.

“Our world isn’t a simple continent,” she said, voice steady like a lantern. “It hangs in the Void, three different layers of equal span, bound root to crown by the World Tree.”

“In the Void?” Uroboros echoed, eyes like knives on water.

At that word, memory pricked Aphelia; mages’ so-called domains flashed up, tiny pockets carved in emptiness like bubbles in deep black, yet here was a whole world—no, three—stacked like moons.

“Yes,” Odin said. “Our world is anchored by the World Tree, its roots nailed into the Void like spears.”

“If the Tree falls, the two upper worlds that cradle billions will vanish like breath on glass, erased without even a footprint left in the dark.”

“So even if humans fought up from the second layer to the first, they don’t dare harm the Tree; break it, and they lose ground, air, and dawn—besides, only the Aesir can mend it.”

Her words rang with iron, yet her face was shadowed, the meaning bare as a blade in sunlight.

“They hunt me like mad hounds,” she said, pointing toward the Divine Realm, “which all but proves the World Tree’s taken a wound beyond easy repair, too deep for common hands.”

“Even with Aether in our grasp, the fruit’s power still sings,” she went on, voice low like a tide at night. “Through the link between the fruit and the Tree, faint as a thread of smoke, I feel it—the Tree’s strength is ebbing.”

“If it’s ebbing,” Aphelia blurted, fear rising like cold water to her throat, “then it’s as you guessed—a mortal wound? We need to move, fast.”

She dreaded the Void, a shoreless sea; the rules of time here were fog on fog, and to drift without a guide was to drown with eyes open.

“Not necessarily mortal,” Odin said, steady as an anvil. “We must reach the next layer to learn what humans did, but one thing’s clear—if it can funnel so many giants through, the Tree’s already scarred.”

Cold-azure Aether pulled like a tide, and in a blink they hung above a broad gray ocean, the surface dull as tarnished silver.

As they returned, Aphelia felt it at once—an odor of death, a chill like ash settling on the heart.

“Paths between layers are few,” Odin said, her words stones dropped in still water. “Aside from the World Tree, only a handful exist, most inside the Divine Realm; for us, only the Sea of the Underworld remains.”

As if answering her, the gray sea heaved like a waking beast, and a vast hole opened beneath them, black as a starless well.

“This is the road from the first layer down,” Odin said. “Through the Sea of the Underworld, we go straight to the third layer—the Land of the Dead, Niflheim.”

She glanced back, thunder in her tone. “Move. If they catch us, it’s blades in the rain again.”

“Move—how?” Aphelia stared at the bottomless dark, her heart a drum; she’d gained strange power, yes, but mastery still slipped like fish.

Before she could stall another beat, a shove hit her back like a falling wave, and Uroboros’s gleeful voice nipped at her ears.

They dropped, stomachs lurching into hollow air, and vanished into the sea’s yawning mouth like sparks into night.

The commotion was a beacon; giants in the Divine Realm turned as one, a forest of spears bristling in a gale.

Odin’s laugh was a cold bell; she flicked her hand and hurled several massive spears of Thunder, bolts like speartips plunging toward the rushing giants, then vaulted after the others into the dark.

This time, the giant legion wasn’t cattle to slaughter; several leaders strode out, power coiling off them like heat-haze.

Aether met their uncanny arts in midair; Thunder burst like a sun cracking, and a sea of lightning fanned out like shattered glass.

The bolts didn’t carve through the ranks, but they bought time like coins tossed to a ferryman.

The leaders raised barriers to shield their legion, standing like cliffs against surf, forced to halt and hold the crackling flood.

By the time they reached the sea, the hole had closed like a healed wound, leaving only darker water, a roof of black cloud pressed to the horizon.

“Damn it, they slipped us again,” the lead giant snarled, fist crashing into a nearby tree and snapping it like a twig.

“Hmph. Run to the Land of the Dead,” a human powerhouse said, his sneer thin as a knife. “Even Odin won’t sprout wings there.”

“In the Land of the Dead, rules bind all—death’s equal as winter; gods and ants meet the same snow. She thinks that place means safety, but with its lord there, she’s walking into her grave.”

They stared at the roiling dark sea, smiles like frost creeping over stone.

Beneath that darkness, after the plunge, Aphelia was first to arrive at their goal—the so-called Land of the Dead, Niflheim.

“This place… is the Land of the Dead?” she breathed, the words a spark in mist.

Around her, a revel blazed like a midsummer fair; she froze, eyes wide, taking in streamers, lanterns, and whirlpools of color.

People brushed past her like a tide of petals; music and fireworks flared, and someone laughed as they set a flower crown on her hair before melting back into the crowd.

“Hey—” she reached out, but the crowd pressed like a river in flood, and she could only sigh as she drifted, leaf-light and helpless.

No one cared for her intent; the revel roared on, self-swept like wind in tall grass, showering her with bursts of confetti like sudden rain.

One phrase fit: they’d let themselves go, unmoored and unbound, kites with cut strings.

In a way, they had no reason left—like the dead, they moved without weight, without shadow.

After several tries, Aphelia fought free of the current, only to be carried to a gilded palace, bright as sun on coin.

Clearly, this hall was the storm’s eye; laughter rang louder within, and fireworks cracked like thunder, yet her gut recoiled like a horse at snake-scent.

Crimson Flame and cold-cerulean Thunder flickered at her fingers like twin fireflies; her power felt steady, so she pushed the golden doors, slow as dawn over stone.

“How—” The word died as she stared.

She glanced back outside; the revel kept roaring, a braid of cheers, laughter, and sharp reports knitting the air.

But inside, where the noise swelled even greater, the vast palace lay empty, desolate as a ruin scoured by years.

Compared to the bright carnival without, the gilded hall was a skeleton of itself, wind-worn and hollow, yet the clamor poured on like a phantom tide.

Instinct said slam the doors and run; the contrast was a wound of wrongness, a red flag snapping in storm.

And yet—

“I really am asking for it,” Aphelia muttered, a bitter smile ghosting her mouth, stepping into the barren vastness and pulling the golden doors shut like a lid on a coffin.

Some pull told her that if she didn’t look, regret would stain her bones forever.

And truth, like a blade, answered her step.

“Well, well—if it isn’t Ophelius,” said a voice from the withered throne, slow applause falling like cold rain, as a familiar figure walked down with a mocking smile and a chill like a winter blade.

“The Demon King?!”