And the show wasn’t over; Odin tightened her grip on the spear and sliced the empty air like a scythe through wheat. No Aether stirred, no Rune glimmered. A blade of wind sprang forth, cleaving a boulder and blowing it apart like brittle ice.

See? Without Aether or Runes, that’s the strongest I can push it. But I need this spear—my life-bound weapon—to do it. Now, Hrok?

Even Odin couldn’t hide the warm spark of admiration in her eyes, like dawn catching steel.

She can do better than that with any weapon. That massive black coffin holds the very concept of “weapon.”

The concept of a weapon?

Aphelia’s brows knotted like storm-bent reeds. If it’s a concept, then Hrok’s already a True God, right? Wielding a concept is a True God’s power.

Yes. It’s her exclusive arm, the concept made flesh. If she wills it, any weapon answers her hand. Add her craft, and she’s a butcher on the field, blood-slick and tireless. Few could ever catch her shadow.

Odin sighed, wind across a cold ridge—powerful, but too one-sided, like a war-blade that chips when overstrained.

Like Hrok herself—hard wood snaps in a gale.

If not for a Valkyrie’s shelter, she might never have lived to now. By the way, Aphelia, did you know them? You look like old paths cross.

Aphelia stiffened, like a string plucked, then let the tension ease.

In the shards I’ve recovered, there’s something about them. Maybe we crossed paths. I still know less than you.

She smiled and waved it off, like brushing ash from a sleeve, grateful for crumbs that might feed her memory back to life.

Glad it helps. But this isn’t a night for memories. Dusk is slipping down; we need to move.

Aphelia and Uroboros both frowned, faces tipped to the bright sun like flowers tracking light. Their heads felt fine. Then they looked at Odin.

Don’t stare at me like that. I mean it.

With a wry smile, Odin led them toward a far-knuckled ridge, footsteps steady as drumbeats.

This is the Land of the Dead, born at dawn and dead by dusk. Even as the Aesir’s chief, I obey the RhineFairy’s law. If we don’t touch the Rhine River before night, I’ll dissolve into the rule of death like salt in tidewater.

So finding the RhineFairy came first, heavy as an anvil. Yet Uroboros lifted a hand and barred their path like a black branch.

Odin, didn’t you say this world is born at dawn and dead by dusk?

As they bent to sprint, black power boiled around Uroboros like ink seeping through paper. She stared ahead, all caution and coiled wire.

Exactly. Day flips the scales. The living return for a breath of time. Night belongs to the dead. Each exists only in its own hour.

Then it looks like that rule just snapped.

Uroboros smiled thin and cold, frost on a blade. Her power tapered into arrowheads, sighting a shape hidden like a fox in scrub.

Nothing moved; the silence felt like a slap. She sneered and loosed. Before the arrows could land, an iron giant coffin tore out of the ground like a surfacing whale. If she hadn’t sprung back, it would’ve shattered her jaw.

Heh. Odin, take a look. This is your born-at-dawn Land of the Dead?

She gestured at a skeleton frame in the distance, her power gathering like a tightening net.

RhineFairy puppets…? No. That shouldn’t be a dead thing.

Odin stared, surprise ringing like a struck gong. The silver-white coffins whispered clues she didn’t like. The skeleton shocked her more. Azure sheen ran over her spear; Thunder coiled close. She chose to speak with steel.

The skeleton wasn’t mindless. Icy-blue flame bloomed in hollow sockets like twin foxfires, and it howled, knife-sharp.

It had no throat, yet its cry hit like a gale front. Frost skated wherever the sound washed, and the three had to brace with all they had.

What is that thing?

Aphelia raised Crimson Fire; her gut tightened like a fist. Her fire usually ate the world, yet now it only held the rime in a grinding stalemate. The strange frost locked against the blaze and refused to fade.

Leave it to me!

Thunder cracked the sky open; Odin’s shape vanished like a lightning blink.

In the next heartbeat, her spear howled away in a full-force throw. Odin herself rode Thunder and appeared over the skeleton, both hands heavy with Azure Aether, hammering down.

Uroboros didn’t stand idle. Black power writhed like tentacles, a tide in the dark. It punched through the ice and coiled the skeleton, clinging like maggots to bone, pinning it fast.

Under a strike like that, even Aphelia wouldn’t bet on leaving unscathed. Yet the skeleton did the unthinkable. It tucked both hands behind its back and took Odin’s Thunder head-on.

A white flash tore the air. Odin gripped her spear and drove it straight into the skull’s socket. Thunder crawled over the bones like electric ivy. The skeleton lifted one hand and clamped the shaft.

How?

Odin leaned on the spear, instincts screaming to push through. But that bare arm held beast-strength and stopped her cold. A shrill scrape rasped from white bone fingers, like chalk on iron.

Aphelia surged forward. Crimson Bracer Gauntlets bloomed on her forearms like fire-forged steel. Crimson Flame raced along the black tendrils. Her fist slammed the skeleton’s chest.

It rang like a temple bell in a storm. Not bone—an iron wall stood there. Even so, the blow landed true. The skeleton blasted away, trailing embers. Crimson Flame caught and stitched from its body back to her gauntlets like burning silk thread.

Even Aphelia felt a tremor through the metal, a drumbeat in her wrists. She wouldn’t waste it. She gathered those flame-threads in her palm, roared, and yanked the flung skeleton back like a hooked fish.

Now, Odin!

Crimson Flame flooded the skeleton, not to ash it, but to bind it in red ropes. Fire filled its skull like molten pitch and gagged that piercing howl.

Seeing it strung tight, neither woman held back. Aether surged like a breaking dam. It punched through Niflheim’s bindings and vaulted the gulf. Around Odin, it stormed into thunderclouds; she fused with Azure Aether and rammed the bound target like a falling star.

Around Uroboros, countless tendrils boiled up and, under Odin’s Aether, lengthened into black giant serpents. They coiled to strangle the skeleton, and Uroboros herself dissolved into the endless swarm like ink into tidewater.

With the net closing, the skeleton didn’t shriek this time. Instead, silver coffins speared upward like a forest of pikes. From them marched skeletons, human and giant alike. Driven by an unseen order, they drew weapons from those pale coffins, shrieked in a cutting chorus, and rushed the trio hanging in the air.

Noise like that could wake mountains. The instant the bone host rose, all three marked it. But their hands didn’t slow; they pressed harder, flint on steel. They’d break the bound skeleton before the mob could drag them down.

Maybe they didn’t see it, but their tableau clicked into an old icon. Blinding Thunder knotted into a crown of thorns. Black serpents crossed into a scaffold’s cross. Crimson Flame swelled into God’s wrath, searing the guilty. Another judgment strode onto the stage.

Aphelia all but became the Crimson Flame, a living brand. She sealed the skeleton in fire, and at last the steel-hard bones began to soften and slump like wax.

As she poured in more, crimson light climbed and roofed the sky. The leaping skeletons stalled midair, cowed by a fear etched deep as marrow.

Stop!

A clear shout rang from the deep forest, a pebble skipping across a still lake. But how would they ease up? If anything, they leaned in to burn hotter.