Yet the skeleton did the one thing that stunned all three. He clasped his hands behind his back and took Odin’s Thunder head‑on, like a weathered stele in a storm.
Lightning flared, and Odin’s spear drove straight into its eye socket. Thunder crawled over bone like wild fireflies. The skeleton lifted a hand and clamped the shaft.
“How?!”
Odin shoved the spear on instinct, but that bare-bone arm held like a chained beast. The white palm screeched, iron on slate, and stopped her thrust cold.
Aphelia burst forward without a blink. Bracer Gauntlets bloomed crimson on her arms. Crimson Flame poured along black tendrils, and her punch hammered the thing’s chest.
The impact tolled like a temple bell. It didn’t sound like bone at all. A steel bulwark seemed to stand before her.
Yet the blow still worked. The skeleton blasted away. Crimson Flame caught on it like silk threads, tethering it to her gauntlets.
Even Aphelia felt the tremor running through the Bracer Gauntlets. She wouldn’t waste it. She gripped those crimson threads, roared, and yanked the flung skeleton back.
“Now, Odin!”
Crimson Flame consumed the bones, not to ash them but to bind them like ropes. Fire filled its skull, gagging that shrill howl.
Seeing that, the two stopped holding back. Vast Aether shattered Niflheim’s fetters and crossed space. Around Odin, it massed into a raging storm‑cloud. She melded with the Azure Aether and slammed in.
Around Uroboros, countless tendrils surged up. Under Odin’s Aether, they became a brood of black titan‑snakes. They coiled to strangle the skeleton. Even Uroboros herself sank into that tide of serpents.
As the three‑way strike fell, the skeleton didn’t shriek. Silver giant coffins ripped up from the earth instead. From them marched skull after skull—human and giant alike.
As if driven by an unseen will, they drew weapons from the argent coffins. They howled, then rushed the three standing in midair.
A clamor like that couldn’t go unnoticed. The instant the skeletal host appeared, all three saw it. Their assault didn’t slow. It sharpened. They meant to finish the skeleton before the swarm dragged them under.
They likely didn’t notice it, but their acts had already aligned with certain images. Blinding Thunder wove into an endless thornbush. Black serpents formed a cross of punishment. Crimson Flame became divine wrath that burns the guilty. Another Judgment took the stage.
Aphelia seemed to become the Crimson Flame itself. She sealed the skeleton in fire, utterly. The effect showed. That seemingly unbreakable frame began to melt.
As she poured more in, Crimson Flame climbed to roof the sky. The airborne skeletons stalled in place, cowed by that red sea they now feared.
“Stop!”
Just as the bones were about to burn away, a clear shout rang from the forest. Aphelia and the others didn’t relent. They even pressed harder.
Seeing they wouldn’t stop, the owner of the voice snorted. In that instant, even Aphelia felt the world hitch, like some nameless gear slipped. When they came to, the skeleton bound in midair had vanished without a trace.
“Cease!”
Odin reacted first. She forced blinding Thunder back into herself. Aphelia swallowed the backlash and dispelled the Crimson Fire around her. But Uroboros had already taken part of both blows. She couldn’t pull back. The black coils were about to crush Aphelia.
Odin moved to help, but Azure Aether detonated beside her. A white silhouette flashed in and barred her path.
“You! Move—”
“You think I’d move?”
The figure sneered. A scepter hung in their hand, and they leveled it at Odin.
Aphelia now stood in a nine‑deaths‑one‑life bind. Uroboros couldn’t stop the force. She peeled out of the black serpents and tried to rein them in. It was useless.
Aphelia wanted out. But everyone was all‑in. They’d barely muzzled their power to avoid friendly fire. Now the pull of it pinned her. She couldn’t break free.
Breath trembled, then steadied. She exhaled, shut her eyes, and reached back to the forest, to everything that had happened.
Back then, to break the giant, she’d fused with the Crimson Flame while half‑broken, becoming a piece of the fire. If she could do it again now, she could slip the strangling coils.
Remember. What did you feel when you sank into the Crimson Fire… That anger. That despair…
“Huh… what just—?!”
Heat licked their back. The white figure halted mid‑strike and turned.
Within Uroboros’s strangling coils, Aphelia’s body was gone. Crimson filled the heavens like spilled blood. A wavering silhouette floated there and quietly stared at them.
The silhouette of Crimson Flame didn’t linger. It surged straight at the white figure facing Odin.
“Hmph!”
With that snort, frost bloomed across the sky like the skeleton’s wail made solid. Heavy ice flakes rose to challenge the Aphelia of Flame.
Their scepter lifted high. A colossal ice storm tore upward. Even the other skeletons dove back into their silver coffins to avoid the stray bite.
They chose worldly power to meet Aether‑like Crimson Flame head‑on. The last to try were two giants with godforged weapons. They ended as ash in this crimson fire‑domain.
Aphelia—no, the silhouette of Crimson Flame—let out a crooked laugh at the challenger. She sank back into the fire‑domain. The sea of flame that had painted the sky vanished in an instant.
The massive blizzard crashed through. It was a heartbeat late. It smashed only the place where the red phantom had been.
The foe vanished. The white figure slammed their scepter, and the air shuddered. Niflheim answered the blow. Even space rippled.
Odin and Uroboros raised Aether and braced, wary of being swept out of Niflheim by the spatial riptide. Even so, Aphelia did not reappear.
“Guardian! Don’t push it!”
Seeing the white figure ready another quake, Odin barked. Azure Aether descended again.
“I’m the one pushing it?”
The white figure—the so‑called Guardian—turned slowly.
Before Odin could act, countless ice lances exploded from all sides. They stabbed from eight directions, an execution meant to end her in one stroke.
“Hah! You’re not the only one with tricks!”
Her vast Aether became raging Thunder and surged out. It wasn’t mere lightning, but the world’s idea of Thunder. The lances burst to powder.
She stopped there and didn’t press. Her voice went cold. “Guardian, I came to see the RhineFairy, not you, you walking corpse.”
“See the RhineFairy? How does an Aesir traitor have the face to say that!!”
The white figure snapped, hysterical. Their voice braided male and female, unreadable. Veins rose on the hand gripping the scepter. Rage peaked.
This time, before they could vent, a teasing laugh breathed by their ear.
“Traitor or not—what’s that to you?”
The sound wailed like a demon out of hell. A chill ran their spine. They swung the scepter back on reflex.
The strike split the red phantom cleanly. Yet, though the body was halved, that crooked smile gnawed at the white figure’s mind and muddied their heart.
