The white figure made his move; the crimson sea of fire answered with a warped laugh. In his sight, a storm of scarlet claws unfurled from every side and raked toward him.
Outside that blazing sea, Odin and Uroboros snapped back into combat. They held weapons wrought from condensed Aether, trading blows with a clacking ring of bone frames.
An azure thunder-spear carved a clean sanctuary through the air and forced back the skeletons closing in like a tightening net.
“Tch, they’re stubborn. What the hell are these things?!”
A pitch-black serpent whip coiled and blocked in midair. With their backs pressed together, Uroboros called out, breath quick, eyes flashing like blades.
They had crushed the bones once already, but as soon as they fell, more walked out of the silver coffins—each bearing a different weapon, each surging back like a new wave.
“They’re… they’re the wardens of Niflheim!”
Azure Aether swelled into a thunderstorm and split the sky; in a heartbeat it blasted apart the ring of skeletons. Odin drew a deep breath, voice steady as stone.
“They’re already dead. Those silver coffins work like gates—whenever they die, they revive in the coffin.”
Uroboros froze for a beat, then muttered, a shadow crossing her gaze like passing cloud.
“Why does that power sound so familiar…”
Before she could think, the bone frames pressed in again like a tide. This time they’d have to spend more power to break the wave.
Dread knotted in Uroboros’ chest, cold as iron. If their strength keeps rising, what will we face next? It’s already costing us to crush them now. After that? Just push them back? After that?
If the battle inside Aphelia’s crimson sea hasn’t found its end, Odin’s and her own situation will spiral like falling ash.
No. This can’t go on.
Her gaze hardened like black glass; power seeped from her skin like ink in water, reaching to erode nearby life. Anything born of her strength wouldn’t be inferior to these gnashing bones.
Back in the Crimson Fire, the white figure was snared too, caught like a bird in thornbush.
Rage burned in him—humiliation too, a bitter frost in the throat.
Moments ago he’d thought he’d dispatch Aphelia with ease. He spun illusions; he was the hunter, and Aphelia the caged prey. A slight push, and she’d be erased. Yet in minutes, the roles flipped like a coin.
Using the Crimson Fire’s phantasm, Aphelia toyed with him like a doll, merciless, a puppeteer behind red silk.
Endless illusions mixed with attacks half-real, half-false. None lethal, none harmless; they mapped bright cuts and dark bruises across his pale body.
Yet this kind of assault left him helpless, like a swimmer caught in rip current.
Whenever he tried to flee, the oncoming mirage turned real in a blink, carving flesh and halting him cold. Then the cycle repeated, again and again, like grinding gears.
“Damn it, come out and fight! Are the Aesir nothing but cowardly weaklings?!”
He tried to bait them with words. To Aphelia, she wasn’t Aesir—and in this fevered state her mind held only stubborn vengeance. Outside provocation? A joke tossed into a storm.
So if he begged, she’d answer.
With a sweep of crimson talons, Ophelius slipped into being beneath him like a shadow breaking from flame. Scarlet Inferno coalesced into a feral human form; both hands became blades and drove for his chest.
The white figure had been waiting for it. Soul, breath—everything lined up like stars. A warden who’d lingered in the Land of the Dead could sense a living aura far better than any half-real mirage.
He could almost swear this snarling crimson form was Aphelia.
The white scepter in his hand sheathed itself in heavy frost. Ice-blue Runes that defined winter flared in the air, ready to turn crimson flame into falling mountains of snow and smash Aphelia.
Victory or defeat hinged on this breath.
The readied scepter proved quicker than Aphelia’s strike; under the heavy frost’s force, it pierced the crimson shape. It looked settled; in his senses, Aphelia’s life-breath was fading like embers in rain.
The scepter even carried that unmistakable tug of life being stripped away. To one who lived in the Land of the Dead, that feeling never lied—and the scepter was no ordinary tool…
Shhk—blade into flesh, silk ripping, quiet as rain on leaves. Behind him, a crimson claw slid from the fire sea and speared his chest from the back.
“Cough—cough! You… you—how can—?!”
Fear and disbelief shook him like wind through bare branches. He turned, seeing the claws jutting through his chest and the shape rising slow from the crimson sea.
Aphelia’s mind was drowned in dark emotion. Kill achieved, she let out a shrill, twisted laugh like glass scraping stone. The claws withdrew in a brutal yank, then plunged into him again.
The more he struggled, the crimson fire trapped him tighter—like bottomless mire, coiling him still. The edges of the sea rang with that piercing cackle, grinding his mind to chalk.
Soon, in that sea of fire, only the dull sound of flesh tearing remained, a drumbeat under scarlet light.
“Hah… hah… still holding up, Odin?”
Uroboros looked ragged. Her pitch-black serpent whip had merged with her arms, turning into vast shields at both sides, sheltering them like iron wings. The dense barrage hammered the shields till her forearms went numb.
Odin, the striker, wasn’t better off. Blood streaked her temple like a red thread. Her thunder-spear didn’t pause, but the incoming attacks fell like storm rain. She could pull Aether in surges, yet her stamina was burning faster than she could refill it.
“Heh… I can hold, right?” Odin forced back the bones, a bitter smile cutting her face.
Uroboros couldn’t help a breath of laughter. Spikes exploded from her snake-shields like black thorns, shredding the skeletons that attacked with mad clatter.
Truth be told, they had the strength to erase them. At first the bones were feeble—gone with a wave. But with each revival they grew stronger, till the two had to burn heavy stamina just to hold the line and stop the monsters from evolving further.
Uroboros had tried to unleash her true power. For some reason—likely bound by Aphelia within the Crimson Fire—she couldn’t. Otherwise she’d have assimilated the skeletons and made them butcher each other, a nest turned on itself.
“Then let’s push harder!”
The great snake-shields shattered; countless shards flew out like black hail to seal the silver coffins. The rest became two midnight longswords in Uroboros’ grip.
“Good. Then we push.”
At this point, holding back was impossible. Odin didn’t care about Niflheim’s rules or the balance of life and death. A massive surge of Aether roared around Niflheim like tides, blurring the world, ready to break the sky.
The battle was about to erupt—then, in the next heartbeat, the silver coffins collapsed. Specters darted out and were erased by the vast Azure Aether before they could flee, like sparks in a flood.
The two, poised to go all-out, froze. Power gathered around them thinned and drifted off like mist.
“Hah… hah! Aphelia—it has to be Aphelia’s success!”
Uroboros shouted first, joy wild in her eyes as she stared at the hanging sea of flame. The crimson vastness was fading, and a shape they knew drifted into view like a figure through dawn fog.
“Aphelia!”
Odin spotted the problem first. She flew forward and caught Aphelia as she fell, a falcon stooping to save its own.
Aphelia was unconscious, yet the aura around her had changed—stronger than before, like a forge rekindled. Freed from her own restraint, the Scarlet Inferno floating at her brow glinted like a sword, cold enough to sting the eye.
“What’s happening, Uroboros?” Odin landed with Aphelia in her arms and pointed at the Crimson Fire at her brow, voice tight as bowstring.
“I don’t know either! It’s new power. She never had this before—how would I know?”
She wasn’t lying; when Aphelia gained the Crimson Fire, Uroboros hadn’t had a chance to study it. Still, she probed Aphelia’s condition, senses sweeping like night wind.
Soon, she had an answer.
“Aphelia’s body’s fine—better than before, even. She’s probably digesting the power. Don’t worry too much.”
