“Hey, all done? You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Her voice drifted like a breeze through reeds, light but careful.

A sigh slid from Aphelia like steam off hot tea as she looked at Uroboros.

Annoyance pricked first, then words. “If I really died, you’d be in trouble, wouldn’t you?”

Uroboros put on bravado like a paper shield. “Not at all, I wouldn’t be bothered, how could I be bothered?”

Odin, curiosity sparking like flint, shouldered past her and asked cleanly. “Aphelia, those beasts outside? Why’d the noise cut off? Did you knock them all flat?”

No way she killed them, she thought, headache cinching like an iron band. Those things aren’t the kind you kill; they exist to disgust, not to die, the sort only the Land of the Dead would house.

Even if killing was possible, please don’t let her have killed them, she prayed, a chill skimming her spine like frost.

But Aphelia’s gentle smile set off a bad drumbeat in Odin’s gut. Her voice trembled like a taut string. “You just floored them, not killed them… right?”

Aphelia scratched her head, sheepish as a child caught with sticky fingers. “Sorry. I killed them.”

Odin stared, disbelief flashing like lightning behind her eyes. “Those were soul‑eaters. They look solid, but they’re just Niflheim’s gatekeepers, projections from the place itself. Are you sure you turned them to ash?”

“Yeah… what’s wrong?” The answer fell like a pebble into a deep well.

Odin pressed a palm to her brow, breath leaking out like a punctured bellows. Remorse cooled Aphelia’s chest like night rain; new power had made her forget restraint, and her strike had gone past the line.

“Fine… dead is dead,” Odin said, weariness folding over her like a heavy cloak. “It’s done. I’ll persuade those three stubborn old men when we get there. Come on, get ready to enter Niflheim.”

She drew her spear across the barrier, and an entrance opened like a slit of dawn. Light spilled from the crack, a thousand scenes shimmering like scales, as if a thousand worlds breathed within.

Instinct pushed Aphelia one step back, her eyes wary like a cat at a dark doorway. She wouldn’t walk ahead of them.

“What’s wrong, Aphelia? Why not go?” They turned in unison, voices overlapping like twin ripples.

“You go first. And please don’t make me lead, ever again.” Her smile was mild, her stance firm as a rooted pine.

Deep in Niflheim, beside a river that winked like a blade, three white‑robed maidens watched and laughed softly. The water lay mirror‑still, reflecting the three entering figures like ink strokes on glass.

When the trio passed through, the world before them was unlike the stone wasteland, a sudden spring after winter. Green meadows rolled like velvet. Trees speared the sky. The forest hummed with life like a hidden choir.

“Odin… is this really the Land of the Dead?” Aphelia tasted the air, cool as spring water, and her shoulders loosened like unknotted rope. Even Uroboros let herself sink into the quiet like a warm bath.

Odin didn’t relax; she sighed like wind through pines and pointed her spear toward the trees. “It is the Land of the Dead. This is its core. The other regions aren’t like this. If all of it were this lovely, it wouldn’t bear that name.”

“Fair enough… so who are we here to find?” Curiosity flickered in Aphelia, small and bright like a lamp under rain.

“Long story,” Odin said, letting the words move like a slow stream. “We’ll walk and talk.”

“The core of the Land of the Dead—Niflheim—guards the World Tree’s path to the Second Layer,” she went on, voice steady as a drum. “It’s home to the RhineFairies and, now, the only area the dead cannot tread.”

They moved through the forest, the green pressing in like a soft tide. Animals darted in thickets like quick shadows, and no predator dared set eyes on these three ‘weak women’ who walked like storms in disguise.

“‘Now’? So there used to be another such domain in the Land of the Dead?” Aphelia plucked a fruit with a thief’s ease and bit in, sweetness bursting like sun on her tongue.

“You’ve got a big heart,” Odin muttered, tapping her forehead like a teacher’s knuckle, then answered. “Indeed. Back then, the Valkyries’ temple also sat in the Land of the Dead. Not just here—shrines stood in the human world too. Sadly… before the incident, the brave Valkyrie had already left this world with the Valkyries.”

Memory washed over her like old wine, warm and bitter, and she sighed with regret.

“Left this world—as in… literally?” Aphelia’s question rose like mist.

“Literal,” Odin said. “They vanished overnight, while we knew nothing. Our later checks found intense spatial ripples in every shrine, like torn fabric. We can only conclude they left this world.”

“Why leave?” Uroboros cut in, curiosity snapping like a twig. “Aren’t they your kin?”

“Of course not.” Odin smiled and shook her head, firm as a seal pressed in clay. “They were human, through and through.”

“They proved human worth to Asgard, a banner of pride flapping like fire in a storm. Because they existed, the giants, humanity’s old mortal foes, didn’t dare harm humans lightly. The Asgardians gave them respect.”

“Maybe they left to avoid standing between blades,” she added, pain quiet as ash. “Awkward on both sides.”

It was clear to anyone: helplessness and heartache weighed on Odin like stones.

A thought flared in Aphelia like a struck match. “Do you remember the leader’s name and face?”

Odin’s fond expression stalled like a jammed gear. “Sorry, Aphelia… it’s like I never saw her. Her name and face won’t hold in my mind. Besides the memories of fighting shoulder to shoulder, I’ve only got a blurred white silhouette.”

They stopped by a river whose skin rippled like silk, choosing to rest, breaths settling like falling leaves.

“So you forgot. That’s fine… Odin, do you recall a Valkyrie named Hrok? Often used a longsword, carried a—”

“A massive black coffin, right?” Odin answered, a small smile sparking like flint. “But when I knew her, she didn’t use a longsword. She used a spiked mace, a pure butcher of the field.”

Aphelia’s eyes narrowed like a drawn bow, then slid to Uroboros, who whistled like a carefree sparrow.

“So you do know her… Wait, Lady Odin, are we talking about the same person? The Hrok I know uses a longsword; her swordcraft reaches the peak like a blade on heaven’s edge.”

“She’s the same no matter what she holds,” Odin said, shaking her head, calm as an old oak. “She’s a master of weapons. Even Asgardian Realm warlords admire how she controls an arm.”

“From short arms to long, from cold steel to Rune weapons, she moves through them like water. If she wants, she’ll cut a sword wave with a spiked mace.”

Odin pinched her spear and swung through empty air, no Aether blooming and no Rune humming. A blade of wind sheared into a boulder, and the stone burst like dry bread, dust blooming in the sun.

“See? Without Aether or Rune, this is my peak, and only with my life‑bound spear,” she said, breath steady as a metronome. “But Hrok?”

Admiration lifted her face like dawn. “Whatever weapon she picks up, she’s stronger than this. Inside that enormous black coffin lies the concept of ‘weapon’ itself.”

“The concept of a weapon?” Aphelia frowned, the line etching like a cut. Concept meant True God to her ear, a realm like sky beyond sky.

“Yes,” Odin said. “It’s her exclusive armament, the pure embodiment of ‘weapon.’ If she wills it, any weapon comes to hand. With her craft, she’s a butcher on the battlefield, a scythe in a field of heads. Few can ever catch her in that domain.”

She sighed, the sound thin as paper. “Strong as she is, that strength runs one way. Like Hrok herself—steel that refuses to bend snaps.”