Odin couldn’t hold it in and shouted. The Aesir aren’t anyone’s soft target; the Divine Realm is ringed by Runes from countless sages. Many even bound their lives to the World Tree. Slaughter half the Aesir in a heartbeat, and it’s like hewing down half the World Tree.

“In truth, she did it in one strike. We still don’t know how. Hearts just detonated across half of Asgard’s people—your sisters included… Then that person took them. After that, even we couldn’t perceive their existence at all.”

Guilt flashed across Urd’s face. She hated to say it, but truth is a blade that must be drawn. Better the short cut of pain than a dull, endless wound.

“So that’s why I couldn’t find them. They really are dead…”

Tears brimmed in Odin’s eyes. She, too, had sisters—less gifted than her, yet they held her up through an age-long night.

“Why take them? She’s that strong. What use could the Aesir be to her?”

Anger rose like a furnace stoked by grief. Even the dead should find rest.

“I don’t know… Maybe only when Aphelia wakes will you get your answer. From that stranger’s power, she held something sharing your source—Aether, and a deep well of it.”

Urd waited until Odin’s fury sank from a boil to a simmer. She needed Odin clear for what came next.

Odin forced her breath steady. She was once lord of a godly realm, emotions and all—but with reins tighter than iron. Rage means nothing until she finds the one who did this and names the price.

“Aether… Just how much Aether do you need to crush half the Aesir’s hearts in one squeeze? Uroboros—maybe her avatar—showed that kind of terror, but not like that stranger…”

On the Golden Plain, even Uroboros had to turn into a black serpent, lurk within a legion of giants, then coil them tight before harvesting them like a reaper’s sweep.

But from what Urd showed, the stranger didn’t prepare at all. A flick of the wrist, and it was done.

“That’s where we know too little. The Aesir never touched Aether. How could they begin to understand it?”

Urd shook her head. They were Norns of fate, not omniscient. Before Aether, their sight hit a heavy fog; they felt the pressure, but not the pattern.

“That’s why Aphelia is beyond precious.”

She spoke softly, rose, and brushed Aphelia’s cheek with her fingers.

“She’s not of our world, yet tangled with it. More precisely, she’s entwined with Aether. For us Norns, this is the first time we can’t read a living thread at all.”

As her voice fell, the Crimson Flame on Aphelia’s brow flared higher, like a shell cracking, something within about to be born.

“Strange, isn’t it? A goddess of fate who can’t read one person’s fate.”

Urd gave a bitter smile. Runes flickered along her hand; she slit her wrist. Red drops fell around the altar. Sigils woke, lighting one by one, flowing toward the Crimson Fire at Aphelia’s brow.

“Odin, if you can, never make her your enemy. The source of Aether points to Aphelia. With her alive, you still have a chance against that stranger…”

Pure white light began to halo Urd, as if snow turned to fire. Blood streamed from her wrist, drawn by some gravity, pouring unstopped into the Crimson Fire.

“Urd, what are you doing?! You’re feeding it your Rune power—stop! You’ll die!”

Odin cried out. But at some point Belldandy stepped in her way, staff leveled.

“Belldandy, what are you—move!”

“Stand down, Odin. This is the future Sister Skuld saw. It’s set.”

Belldandy’s face stayed calm; her staff didn’t waver.

“Odin, maybe this is our Urd’s fate… Those who read the past must always sacrifice for the future. A thousand years ago, and now the same. Leave this to us.”

Urd smiled. The white radiance swelled and swallowed her and the altar like a tide of light.

If Aphelia knew what was happening, she’d have fought tooth and nail to stop it—another Enkidu, bleeding out in her place.

But she couldn’t stop it. No one could. Under Urd’s vast offering, the Artifact Spirit gestating within the Crimson Fire finally took shape.

Urd’s figure thinned, faded, vanished into the white. In that last heartbeat, Skuld and Belldandy’s minds blurred. Through the pall of light, a storm of visions flashed in Urd’s eyes.

“So that’s how it is…”

Her murmur drifted as she dissolved.

“No!”

Odin shoved Belldandy aside and rushed the altar, but Urd was gone. In her place, the Crimson Flame between Aphelia’s brows roared higher, light straining to break through.

The Crimson Flame exploded. The shockwave hurled Odin back. Heat devoured the altar in a blink; even Aphelia’s garments turned to ash in the blaze.

That power tore a rift straight through Niflheim. Through the wound, the dead stirred, rising like a tide against a cliff.

They still couldn’t rush in. The Scarlet Inferno around Aphelia was too terrible; even its fringe singed Odin’s soul as if to burn it clean.

“Aphelia!”

Seeing the dead about to pour into Niflheim, Odin threw caution aside. Azure Aether surged. She shouted to Aphelia and moved to seal the rift, to drive the dead back.

The call struck home. Merged with the crimson sea, Aphelia snapped awake. Her fogged mind rang, as if someone rapped a knuckle on the skull.

“Return!”

The red ocean collapsed inward, streaming to her forearms, coiling around two emerald sparks. It shaped into fresh Bracer Gauntlets.

No demon-face, no human-face this time. A matched pair that clashed by design. The right arm ran wild, winged with blade-bright fins. The left was restrained, rounded, nothing wasted—offense and defense made flesh.

Silver-white armor wrapped Aphelia’s body. Crimson tracery, like dragons in full roar, wound across the plates.

More arresting still were the two girls floating behind her—alike, yet opposite. They wore deep-red eastern robes and hovered at her shoulders, still as crafted dolls.

As the others stared, an undead squeezed through the rift into Niflheim. The whole realm seemed to stutter.

“Bastard…”

“Get out—”

Before the words left their mouths, the Crimson Flame erased the undead to ash. The rift sealed under the hands of the girls behind Aphelia. Their task done, they slipped back to their places, eyes shut, chins dipped.

“No need to tense up… It’s handled.”

Aphelia smiled at the stunned pair and reached out to wave a hand before their eyes.

“W-wait! Miss Aphelia, how did you do that?!”

Before Odin could speak, Belldandy rushed in, staff up, wary as a cat.

“Hey, easy. I just burned a dead thing…”

Aphelia raised both hands to show she meant no harm. The two girls in crimson snapped their eyes open and glared at Belldandy, murder-bright and ready.

The air tightened again. Odin had to choke down shock and grief both and step in.

“Belldandy, stand down! Urd didn’t sacrifice herself so you could throw a tantrum!”

“Aphelia, you too. Calm down. Your… your Artifact Spirit—have them stand down.”

Freshly awake, Aphelia blinked at them, baffled. She hadn’t meant wrong. But after Urd’s death, of course the two would bristle at her.

“Fine. Odds are something happened while I was out. Odin, give it to me straight—everything.”