Just as the skeleton was about to melt into flame, a clear shout rang from the forest’s depths, like a pebble flicked across still water. Aphelia’s team didn’t loosen their grip; they pushed harder, a red tide rising.

Seeing the three refuse to stop, the voice’s owner snorted, cold as frost on iron. For a heartbeat, even Aphelia felt the world hitch, like a clock that skipped a tooth.

When they came back to themselves, the skeleton bound in midair had vanished without a shadow, like smoke swallowed by the wind.

“Stop!!!”

Odin snapped back first; blinding Thunder sheathed itself inside her, like lightning swallowed by a storm. Even Aphelia forced down the Crimson Fire around her, swallowing backlash like bitter medicine. Uroboros, already holding part of their assault, couldn’t pull back in time; the black coils were closing to strangle Aphelia like night tightening.

Odin moved to help, but Azure Aether detonated beside her, a cerulean boom in the air. A white figure flashed in front of her like frost cutting a moonbeam.

“It’s you! Let—”

“You think I’ll make way?”

The figure laughed coldly, staff raised, ready to strike Odin like winter breaking bone.

Aphelia felt the edge of death like ice at her throat. Uroboros couldn’t halt; she split away from those pitch-black serpents, reaching to rein them in, hands closing on smoke.

Aphelia wanted to break free of the coils, but everyone was pushing full force, holding their power tight to avoid friendly fire. The pull of power caught her like undertow; she couldn’t slip the tide.

“Huff…”

At that brink, she shut her eyes, and let memory rise like embers. In the forest, wounded to the marrow, she had merged with the Crimson Flame, becoming a shard of fire, a spark inside a blaze. If she could bring that back, she could slide out of this choke like lightning through rain.

Remember. What bled then—what anger, what despair—what storm inside your ribs?

“Huh… what happened?!”

Heat licked from behind like noon sun on ice. The white figure halted, turning, eyes narrowing.

Within Uroboros’s crushing ring, Aphelia’s shape was gone, as if swallowed by a red sea. The sky was filled with crimson, like blood poured into clouds. In that scarlet, a wraith drifted, gazing at him, calm as a lantern on a river.

The Crimson Flame’s shadow didn’t pause. She rushed the white figure before Odin, a comet streaking through dusk.

“Hmph!”

His snort cut sharp, like a skeleton’s shriek. Heavy ice flurries bloomed across the sky, winter blossoming to meet Aphelia’s Crimson Flame head-on.

His staff lifted high, and an ice storm rose from the ground like a white forest. Even the other skeletons ducked into silver coffins, fleeing their own blizzard.

He threw this world’s power against an Aether-like Crimson Flame, ice against ember. The last fools to try that had been two giants with godblades; they became ash in the crimson fire domain, snow melting on lava.

Aphelia—no, the Crimson Flame’s shadow—cackled, a fox laughing in firelight. She slid back into the blaze, and the endless sea of fire that painted the sky vanished like a curtain dropped.

The ice storm slammed into emptiness, late by a breath, roaring at ghosts.

Seeing the enemy gone, the white figure struck the air with his staff, like a bell rung for a funeral. Niflheim shuddered in reply; even space rippled like a pond.

Odin and Uroboros threw up Aether, bracing like trees in a gale, so the spatial turbulence wouldn’t sweep them out of Niflheim like leaves.

Even with the quake, Aphelia didn’t return to sight. She was a spark between worlds.

“Guardian! Don’t go too far!”

The white figure—the Guardian—turned slowly, like ice grinding on stone. Azure Aether poured down again, a blue rain.

“I’m too far?”

Before Odin could move, countless ice lances burst from every side, needles of winter aiming to skewer her in one stroke.

“Hah! You’re not the only one with that trick!”

Aether surged and became rampant Thunder, a storm released. Condensed from pure Aether—almost the world’s concept of Thunder—it shredded the lances to powder, snow beaten by lightning.

She didn’t press. She spoke, voice cold as iron in night. “Guardian, I’m here to see the RhineFairy, not to meet a corpse’s shade like you.”

“See the RhineFairy? A traitor of the Aesir—how do you even dare say that?!”

His scream was a split voice, male and female braided, a reed pipe beside a war drum. Veins rose on his hand gripping the staff, anger burning like a blue flame.

Before he could vent, a mocking whisper curled to his ear, like smoke from a censer. “Traitor or not—what’s it to you?”

The sound was a wail from Hell’s ghoul, a cry that iced the spine. He swung his staff back on instinct, like a hunter swatting a shadow.

The blow cleaved the crimson shadow cleanly, the cut neat as frost on glass. Yet that eerie grin on the split face tangled his nerves like thorns.

At his flank, from the sundered crimson body, an ocean of fire burst out, floodwater made of flame. The blaze wrapped him tight, filling his vision with red, like sunset closing its fists.

He raised both hands to block the oncoming Crimson Flame, bracing as if against a wave—yet inside the blaze there was no heat, only silence.

“Dammit, a trick?!”

He took the sea of fire for illusion, blind to how those two giants had drowned in it like moths to a lamp.

He lifted his staff, ready to shatter the fire with a spatial tremor, easy as flicking dust from a sleeve.

From the flank, a crimson claw thrust from the blaze, spearing for his chest like a hawk diving. The talons slit the air with a shrill howl; he blocked in a heartbeat. The staff shifted; an ice-blue Rune flared before him, a sigil like a frost-star.

“Another illusion?!”

A wall of ice rose, clean and hard, cutting the crimson talons. In that moment, the claw dispersed like mist, and the piercing howl faded like wind dying.

Free of doubt, the white figure struck the air again; ice-blue Runes bloomed like winter flowers. The air’s temperature plunged to the bottom, breath turning to shards.

“Heh heh heh…”

The crimson sea laughed, a fox in a snowfield. In his vision, countless crimson claws unfurled from every side, reaching for him like thorns in a briar.

Outside the blaze, Odin and Uroboros moved as one. Aether-forged weapons flashed like stars, cutting and weaving as skeletons swarmed like crows.

A spear of Azure Aether carved a clean sanctum in midair, a blue clearing that forced the skeletons back from their tightening ring.

“Tch. Vicious lot. What even are these things?!”

The black snake-whip snapped and guarded like a viper’s body. Back-to-back, Uroboros panted, voice quick, breath misting.

They’d crushed these skeletons once already. But the moment they broke, more stepped from the silver coffins, each with a different weapon, and their assault hit harder, a new tide.

“They’re… they’re Niflheim’s wardens!”

Azure Aether became a thunderstorm, bolts falling like spears of rain. In a flash, Odin blasted the skeletons around them to dust, then drew a deep breath like a swimmer breaking the surface.

“They were dead already. Those silver coffins are portals. When they die, they revive inside and walk out again.”

Uroboros blinked, a shadow crossing her eyes, then muttered, voice low as dusk. “Why does that power sound so familiar…”

No time to think; the skeletons pressed in again, a ring of bone. This time they had to pour in more force, muscle and will, just to break the tide.

Uroboros didn’t dare imagine the next step if the skeletons kept growing stronger, like winter deepening. If they were almost spent now, what then? Push them back by inches?

And after that?

If Aphelia’s duel inside the crimson sea hadn’t found its end, Odin and her both would be neck-deep in trouble, like ships in storm.

No. This can’t go on.

Her eyes hardened, night settling in them. Black power spilled from her like ink, creeping over nearby life like roots in soil. With her strength, the creatures she breeds won’t be any less than these skeletons, a new swarm rising from shadow.