Even saying that, Aphelia’s pallor pricked at Odin’s nerves like a cold thorn. After weighing it, she didn’t argue with Uroboros. She led, rushing deeper into Niflheim.

Even the debris of the battlefield lay behind like scattered bones; they had no strength to care.

“Aphelia, please, don’t let anything happen...” Fear rose first, then motion. Odin muttered, her own state frayed like torn cloth, yet she didn’t slow. She pushed faster, guilt beating like a drum inside.

Did Odin know the skeletal frames and that white “guardian”? She did—too well. As mistress of the Asgardian Realm, ruler atop the world, Niflheim’s chill was no stranger to her.

She had lied to Uroboros—cornered, helplessly. Fear was the blade: if Uroboros learned the truth, she might pull away at the crucial hour. Aphelia’s fleeting surprise told Odin enough: they knew each other; this meeting was pure accident.

So when Uroboros asked for help, Odin dragged her into the whirlpool, ready to fall together. Against those skeletal frames, Odin had no answer—not for lack of knowledge, but because knowledge bound her hands like iron.

For all who live—human, giant, or Aesir—life and death are impartial as winter and spring. Only span differs: humans brief, giants and beasts middling, the Aesir long as mountain shadows.

Long life breeds great power, and the stronger one is, the less one yields to death. Valhalla rose within the Land of the Dead for that reason—soothing or breaking the defiant dead who dreamt of escape.

Credit where due: that human leader of the Valkyries saw the hinge of the world’s cycle as clearly as moonlight on water.

Dust to dust, earth to earth. The dead shouldn’t linger among the living; to do so twists the world’s gears, warping its rhythm like sand in a clock.

Yet the root hunger for life throbs in every species, high or humble. Before Valhalla, Niflheim already stood. Without Valkyrie aid, it stayed unbroken—why?

Because of the white-shadowed guardian, and those tireless skeleton frames, cold sentries in the snow.

The Land of the Dead is the Land of the Dead. Aside from the three RhineFairies, all within are deceased. Here, the dead can’t kill the dead; only the RhineFairies, as hosts, may act.

So the guardians they forged from unwilling souls are giants in this domain, like glaciers that never melt.

Free of life and death’s cost, they hone terror day after day through ages. If Aphelia—the “monster”—hadn’t slain that white figure here, the skeletons would have worn the two of them down to dust.

At that thought, Odin let out a heavy sigh, like wind through a graveyard. You seized a god’s authority in the Land of the Dead—may it not cost you, child...

In Aphelia’s sea of mind, a different world burned. She sat cross-legged in a Crimson Fire ocean, breath held, spirit focused, refining an ice scepter before her.

As the blaze wrapped the scepter, droplets beaded on it and slid under the fierce crimson glow like rain off steel.

Aphelia herself drenched in sweat, a figure pulled fresh from water while seated in a furnace.

The ice-forged scepter fought stubbornly against the flames. Its master gone, it still acted like it had a will, spewing frost to smother Aphelia’s Crimson Fire. It forgot what surrendering to that sea truly meant.

The crimson ocean had fused into Aphelia’s soul; in truth, the Crimson Fire was Aphelia. Before the scepter could struggle, the fire surged again, laying walls like fortifications that cut off its frost. Break one flaming rampart, and three more waited behind.

It was a duel of will, ember against ice. The first to fail would be eaten, fuel for the victor’s blaze.

That’s why Aphelia lay unconscious. She’d used the crimson ocean before without fainting, but the white figure’s final strike was a knife edge. It forced her to dive wholly inside and wrestle the ice scepter.

Crisis and opportunity braided together. A threat to her soul meant the scepter was at least a half-artifact, likely holding an Artifact Spirit. Devour it, and her Bracer Gauntlets would climb another tier.

At that thought, Aphelia poured more soul-force, turning herself into a furnace, smelting the scepter like ore.

In Niflheim, Odin and Uroboros ran without pause, drawing near their goal like arrows. With the sun sinking behind them, Odin gritted her teeth. Azure Aether poured out like a tide, and in the last moment pushed all three through a hazy barrier.

To her surprise, the fog-like screen didn’t resist. It didn’t even twitch; it simply let them in.

Even as mistress of the Asgardian Realm, she never had that. Back then, gifts bought the three RhineFairies’ “conscience” and “invitation.” How they invited her—well, let your imagination paint that scene.

Beyond the misty veil stood a sky-piercing tree, ringed by clear rivers that shone like glass. Inside the core, everything felt different. The line between life and death blurred, a flower glimpsed through fog.

“So this is the life-death reversal you spoke of, Odin? This is... wild.” Uroboros stared wide-eyed at the world beyond the screen.

As sunlight vanished, the living forest turned in a heartbeat to stumps. Lush leaves drifted to dust. Grass looked trampled by war, leaving cracked earth. Beasts became stark bones, thrown across a barren field.

The living fell into silence, a hush like winter graves. From the dry ground, countless pale dead clawed upward. Under the full moon’s wash, their broken bodies knitted, regaining the shapes of the living.

The re-risen dead cheered, but even in clamor they held back from the barrier. In their eyes Uroboros saw it, familiar as an old scar. Fear.

What could make the dead fear? She didn’t dare chase that thought. She turned to ask—then saw Odin’s steps go hollow, about to spill. She lunged, caught Aphelia, and propped Odin up.

“Hey, hey, stay with me.” Black tendrils uncoiled, bracing Odin like roots. Her weakness tightened Uroboros’s chest—not for Odin’s sake, but because in the Land of the Dead’s core, losing their guide meant disaster.

“Cough... don’t worry. See? The ones who should come have arrived.”

“Odin, after all these years, you’re still such a mess~”

A gentle voice drifted down like falling petals. They looked up to a mythic beauty in a gauzy white dress. Staff in hand, she alighted before them as soft as mist.

“A RhineFairy...?” Her otherworldly air fit the name, yet no power ripple washed from her, which made Uroboros wary.

By instinct, those with great power couldn’t hide before her. She was born of rules evolved; even when Mist Bloom stole the source and lodged it in Aphelia, that inborn sense remained.

Yet this woman had no aura at all—more mortal than mage—yet felt familiar.

“It’s not your turn to say those things... Where are your other two sisters? Your guardians wounded my friend...”

“Wounded? What joke is that?” The white-robed woman laughed softly. She pointed at the Crimson Fire burning at Aphelia’s brow.

“She’s been chosen by the Primordial Flame. My half-artifact is almost refined by her. Those guardians hurt her? Odin, your humor’s improving.”

She shook her head, smiling. Her staff tapped the ground. The surrounding river rose like silk, forming a bridge, and carried the three toward the giant tree.

“Chosen by the Primordial Flame?! But... this fire looks nothing like the distant fire, and legends say the Primordial Flame is hidden in the depths of Origin...” The first to cry out wasn’t Uroboros, but Odin. She stared at Aphelia in disbelief.

The RhineFairy sighed, helpless as wind over reeds. “You are... hidebound. Who do you think handed you your power? Seems a hundred years of wandering didn’t clear your head.”