“Don’t you know how you lurch to extremes? You’re the Reaper who rules the Land of the Dead, Brynhildr’s keeper of the coffin. Your eyes aren’t blind. If you’d seen Aphelia’s end—the girl who just left—you wouldn’t be asking me.”
But the dusky‑skinned woman didn’t flinch at the Demon King’s bite. She lifted her chin toward the jeweled night, thoughts drifting like smoke, then spoke.
“Demon King, we’ve fought for so long the years feel like sand. Do you really think that Aphelia can cross ages and end this bleak cycle?”
She said it softly, yet in her dimmed eyes the same starfield bloomed like frost on glass.
The Demon King shook his head, then nodded once, like a tide turning.
“I can’t say what her future is. But if you can’t see her ending, then among these 108,941 runs, she’s the only spark of hope.”
At that, the woman’s lips tilted. She stepped back to his side, drew out her pocket watch like a cold silver moon, set it to his brow, and turned the hand without a tremor.
“Then for that lone hope, trade me your last scrap of humanity. Even if this world forgets you, I’ll carve your name upon the world’s end.”
“Ha. Spare me. Being etched on the end of the world sounds like a terrible ending.”
His last laugh rang out. The watch spilled pure white light like snowfall. Under its shroud, the Demon King’s body sifted into ash and blew off the barren throne.
When it was done, the woman tucked the watch away with grave care. She drew up her hood and took his seat upon the desolate throne, with only the blazing stars as witness. In the Land of the Dead, nothing else remained to prove he’d ever lived.
A blink of daze, a gasp of return—Aphelia came to herself before Odin and Uroboros.
A wilderness of stone clawed at her gaze—jagged boulders, lifeless and gray. The two stood under the rocky overhang. Odin held a Spear of Thunder on the high ledge, watching like a hawk.
“Hey, we’re already in the Land of the Dead. How long are you gonna pretend to sleep?”
Uroboros’s teasing voice brushed her ear like a flick of a tail. Aphelia jolted, grabbed at both their sleeves, and sprang up.
“Wait—where am I?! Where’s the Demon King, the Reaper?!”
Odin dropped from the ledge with a soft thud and caught Aphelia’s hands, her grip warm as a hearth.
“This is the Land of the Dead, Aphelia. Clear your head. Whatever you saw before, it was false.”
A thread of Aether flowed from Odin’s touch like cool water, and Aphelia’s breathing steadied.
“So… false?”
Confusion first, then doubt like grit on her tongue. She lowered her head and muttered.
If it was false, why did it feel so real? The Reaper in that cold cloak. The arrogant Demon King who, at the end, shone like a saint. And that—
That radiant sky. She shook her head. She’d only looked through a dome, yet the endless stars had carved themselves into her mind like a blade.
“It wasn’t false… it couldn’t be.”
No proof—only a memory stamped into her soul. A lie shouldn’t leave marks that deep.
She rose, heart still aching, and peered out through the massive cavern mouth.
“We’re in the outer ring of the Land of the Dead,” Odin said, coming to her side like sheltering shade. “We have to go deeper to reach Niflheim.”
Threads of azure lightning unwound from Odin’s fingertips and drifted into the air, marking zones across the bleak wastes like ghostly pennants.
“Fits the name, all right,” Aphelia said with a small laugh. “Dead as stone.”
“Once we enter Niflheim, you may think otherwise.”
The azure lightning misted out, a veil rolling over the wastes.
As the mist seeped, the giant rocks quivered like sleepers in a bad dream. Aphelia’s wry smile twisted. No life, huh? It was everywhere.
Inside those crags, hulking beasts—indistinguishable from the stone—snapped open scarlet eyes and swept their gaze around. Cloaked in Aether, they couldn’t see the three.
“Well? Any change of heart about the Land of the Dead?”
Aphelia huffed a bitter laugh. Monsters like these only made the place worse.
“Change of heart, my ass…”
“We’ve got to cross here to reach Niflheim’s gate,” Odin said. “Don’t worry. They won’t be a threat. In a sense, they’re hopelessly lazy.”
Aether feathered into wings on her back, each plume a sliver of storm.
“Hopelessly lazy? Wait—Miss Odin, what are you doing?!”
Odin stepped behind her and gently eased her toward the lip. Cold wind whooshed past like knives. Even Aphelia felt her stomach drop.
“Of course… we fly.”
“Nooooo!”
After a very stimulating flight, the three of them cleared the beast‑choked zone safe and sound—yeah, right.
“I just—”
Aphelia hung in the jaws of a rock behemoth, mood tangled like knotted thread.
How did that happen? Blame the oddball called Uroboros.
They’d been gliding smoothly. The beasts didn’t stir. Aphelia had already let out a breath. Then Uroboros sliced past above them at a ridiculous speed.
Her pass lit the fuse. The herd exploded. In a blink, jaws snapped shut on Aphelia and yanked her from the sky.
“Damn that Uroboros…”
Even Aphelia swore, cheeks hot with fury and embarrassment.
The beast couldn’t hurt her, but that freakish bite held fast. She couldn’t pry it open at once. And inside its mouth was nothing like that placid stony hide.
“Why are there tentacles in your mouth?!”
Aphelia’s red‑faced roar echoed. Odin winced, equally mortified, yet she didn’t dare loose Thunder.
Ugly as they were, these brutes were the pets of the three maidens who guarded Niflheim’s magic gold. Kill them, and those three would hold a grudge forever. Even a former lord of the divine realm wouldn’t live it down.
Aphelia wasn’t about to wait helplessly. Odin hesitated. Uroboros floated above with a spectator’s smirk. And those tentacles kept prodding. Heat surged behind Aphelia’s eyes.
“That’s—enough!”
Crimson Flame erupted. The ever‑reliable blaze didn’t fail her. A searing inferno swallowed the beast’s head, and its shriek ripped the air. Aphelia tore free on the blast.
She couldn’t fly, so she hit the ground hard. The herd saw their kin fall and thundered at her like an avalanche.
Seeing the surge, Odin hardened her heart. Azure Aether pooled in her palm like stormglass, ready to crack into raging Thunder and scour the plain.
Packed like waves, the beasts left no gap. If she didn’t break them, she couldn’t dive to haul Aphelia up.
“Odin, which way?!”
Crimson Flame curled around Aphelia’s hands. She was set to punch a path through. If the monsters wanted to cling, she’d cut them loose with fire.
The Demon King’s memory still burned. Irritation spiked like sparks. She needed to vent.
Odin sighed and pointed toward a canyon of black rock on the right.
“Head east! We’ll meet you there!”
“Got it!”
Even as she spoke, Crimson Flame surged into a sweeping sea of fire. Aphelia shaped the blaze into Bracer Gauntlets and charged, hammering the onrushing giants like meteors.
She’d never cut loose with the Crimson Fire like this. For some reason, with anger as tinder, her power finally roared without chains.
