Odin gave a sheepish smile, like sunlight breaking through river mist. The three stopped before a ribbon of water, planning to rest for a breath.

“Forgotten, huh? It’s fine… Odin, do you remember a Valkyrie named Hrok? She carried a—”

“A massive black coffin, right? But when I knew her she didn’t use a longsword.” Odin’s voice was warm as embers.

“She swung a mace, blunt as a falling meteor, a battlefield butcher without mercy.”

Suspicion pricked first; Aphelia’s eyes narrowed like blades, and she cut a glance at Uroboros. Uroboros whistled, airy and innocent, like a sparrow pretending not to be there.

“So you do know her… Wait, Miss Odin, are we talking about the same person? The Hrok I know uses a longsword, with swordcraft at the very peak.”

“She’s the same with anything.” As if reading Aphelia, Odin shook her head, then explained, voice calm as a steady river.

“She’s a master of weapons. Even Aesir generals from the Asgardian Realm respect her control.”

“From short arms to long, from cold steel to Rune weapons, no exception—she wields them like extensions of breath.”

“If she wishes, she’ll draw a blade-wave using a mace. No problem.”

And that’s not all. Odin pinched her spear, swung through air with a clean arc. No Aether stirred, no Rune traced light.

An air blade hissed out and cleaved a boulder, blasting it to dust and grit.

“See? Without relying on Aether or Runes, this is my highest tier. To hit it, I must use my spear—my life-bonded weapon. But Hrok?”

Respect edged Odin’s face like chiseled stone. “With any weapon, she goes beyond this. In that giant black coffin lies the very concept of ‘weapon’.”

“‘Concept of weapon?’” Aphelia frowned, worry cold as shade. “If it’s a concept, then Hrok’s already a True God, right? Concepts are the power of a True God.”

“Right. It’s her exclusive weapon, the concept embodied, pure and sharp. As long as she wants, she can draw any weapon from it.”

“Add her skill, and on the battlefield she’s a butcher, a scythe through grain. In that lane, almost no one catches up.”

Odin sighed, like wind through old armor. “Mighty, but too one-sided. Rigid things break easy.”

“If not for Valkyries guarding her, she’d never have grown this far. By the way, Aphelia, did you know them once? You sound familiar with them.”

A tightness bit Aphelia first, like frost on fingers, but she recovered and answered. “In the part of my memory that returned, there’s information about them. Maybe I crossed paths with them. I know less than you do, Odin.”

Aphelia waved a smile, light as drifting petals, hinting these were just threadbare clues. Odin telling her so much might help patch the torn fabric of her memory.

“Glad it can help. But now isn’t for reminiscing. Dusk’s about to fall like a drawn curtain. We need to make for our destination fast.”

Both Aphelia and Uroboros frowned, doubt cold as a pebble in the shoe. They glanced up at the bright sun, gold like a coin, then at Odin.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s true.” Odin met their stares with a bitter smile, then led them toward the far ridge, stride steady as a drumbeat.

With her already moving, Aphelia and Uroboros followed. They didn’t quite get Odin’s nonsense, but they wouldn’t lag behind.

“Remember, this is the Land of the Dead, a world of morning birth and evening death. Even as leader of the Aesir, here I must obey the rules of the RhineFairy.”

“If we don’t reach the Rhine River before night, I’ll dissolve into the death-rule like salt in water.”

Clearly, finding the RhineFairy comes first. But Uroboros noticed something. She cut them off, hand up like a shadowed branch.

“Odin, didn’t you say this Land of the Dead is a world of morning birth and evening death?”

As they moved to sprint, black power rose around Uroboros like ink smoke. She watched the front with wary eyes, careful as a hunter on ice.

“It is. The rule here is morning birth and evening death. Daylight flips life and death—time for the living to return.”

“Night belongs to the dead, a long, long darkness. Each side can exist only in its own hour—”

“Then now, looks like the rule’s broken, huh?” Uroboros stared ahead with a cold smile, power coalescing into keen arrows in her hands. She aimed at the hidden shape.

She called out, but nothing moved in the direction she targeted—silence like a slap.

Seeing none step out, Uroboros snorted. Whoosh—arrows whipped from around her with a hiss.

But before they fell, a steel giant coffin rose right in front of them like a tower. If Uroboros hadn’t leapt back fast, it would’ve smashed her jaw.

“Heh. Odin, take a look. This your morning-and-evening Land of the Dead?” Looking at the distant skeleton frame, Uroboros kept her power tight around her, a sneer curling like smoke.

“This… a puppet of the RhineFairy? No, that can’t be a dead one…” At the silver-white coffins, Odin had glimpsed a clue, like runes scratched in frost. But the skeleton surprised her more.

Thunder, cold and azure, wrapped her spear; she was ready to settle it by hand. The skeleton wasn’t slow either.

Seeing them about to strike, ice-blue flames sparked in its hollow eyes. It unleashed a shriek, sharp enough to peel bark.

Though it had no vocal cords, the sound became a brutal shockwave. Where it rolled, frost spread like winter grass, forcing all three to brace hard.

“What is this thing?!” Aphelia’s Crimson Fire rose like a crimson sun, yet shock flickered as she faced the frost.

Her fire that burned through all met only stalemate here. The eerie frost locked with the flame like antlers interlocked, refusing to fade.

“Leave it to me!” Thunder cracked overhead with a blinding flash. Odin vanished from the ground like a swallow in storm.

The next heartbeat, her spear flew full-force, a comet of steel. Odin herself rode Thunder, appearing above the skeleton, fist clenched on Azure Aether, and struck.

Uroboros didn’t stand idle. Her black power surged like hidden tentacles, broke the ice layer, and coiled the skeleton tight.

Like maggots on bone, it bound the frame and kept it from moving.

Even Aphelia wouldn’t claim she’d walk away unscathed from such a blitz. But the skeleton did something that shocked all three.

It calmly clasped its hands behind its back, then took Odin’s strike head-on. Thunder flared.

Odin held her spear, driving it straight into the skeleton’s eye socket without a miss. Residual Thunder crawled over the bones like blue fire.

The skeleton raised a hand and gripped the spear tight. “How can this be?!”

Odin tightened her spear, instinct pushing her to thrust. But that bone hand held power like a great beast.

It blocked her attack by brute force. A rasping screech scraped from the white palm, metal on stone.

Seeing it, Aphelia didn’t hesitate. She lunged, Bracer Gauntlets blooming crimson on her forearms.

Crimson Flame roared down her black tether and hammered the skeleton’s chest. The sound rang like a struck bell on brass.

Heavy and wrong for bone, a steel bulwark stood between her and the target. Still, her punch did its work.

The skeleton was blasted away, and Crimson Flame kindled along its frame. Like threads, flame bound to her gauntlets, a tether of fire.

Even Aphelia felt the tremor echo up the metal, but she wouldn’t waste the chance. She gripped those crimson threads, let out a roar, and yanked the flying skeleton back.

“Now, Odin!!!” Crimson Flame didn’t burn it to ash. It wove like rope, binding the skeleton tight.

Even the skull was packed full of flame, stopping that needle-scream. Seeing it, neither held back.

In a blink, vast Aether broke Niflheim’s bindings, leaping space. Around Odin, it became a raging thundercloud.

She and the Azure Aether seemed to fuse, and she rammed the skeleton. Around Uroboros, countless tendrils erupted like roots.

Under Odin’s Aether, they shifted into black giant serpents. They coiled to crush the skeleton, and even Uroboros herself flowed into that endless swarm.

As the three closed in, the skeleton didn’t shriek this time. Instead, silver coffins thrust up from the ground in a forest of iron.

From each stepped another skeleton, one after another. Not just humans—giants rose too, creaking towers of bone.

As if driven by a hidden force, they drew weapons from the silver-white coffins. Each loosed a piercing howl, then rushed toward the three in the air like a storming tide.