It wasn’t the leaping giant who reached Odin first. It was Siegfried. The brass-bright Sword God chopped onto Odin’s thunder-spear. Azure Aether snapped into Thunder, raced down the blade, and cracked the air open.

Siegfried didn’t chase. He struck once and slipped back. The giant dropped past his shoulder. A heavy greataxe hammered Odin’s spear, and even she slid a step, heel grinding back.

Great force, with sluggishness as its price.

Blinding Thunder flared before the giant’s eyes. It wasn’t meant to strike. The spear that had propped the axe whipped back. Odin moved like lightning. Her retreating heel became a pivot. She dipped and spun like a gyroscope, then drove the spear for the giant’s eyes.

A stab of alarm. So defense isn’t her focus—she means to maim!

The giant had only that thought. The thrust came too fast. He got a palm up, but flesh wasn’t an Aether-forged spear.

Screech!

Siegfried’s blade cut in from the flank and caught the strike. Spear and edge rasped with a teeth-aching shriek.

“Hmph! Still just petty tricks, Odin!”

Light bled along Siegfried’s sword. He feinted a reverse-cut. Crouched, Odin smiled coldly. Her left hand splayed, then yanked as if hauling an invisible cord.

“Yeah. I’m still the queen of cheap tricks.”

For a heartbeat, the world froze.

Azure Aether condensed into nodes and tethered to her five fingers. Dazzling arcs skittered through the air. Matching nodes bloomed on Siegfried and the giant, right where the Azure Aether had hit before.

Before either could react, her yank slammed them together. Balance vanished. Their weapons slipped out of line. They pitched over Odin’s crown, chests bared like opened armor.

The Azure spear had waited long enough. It lunged up without a flicker of doubt.

Even Siegfried and the giant couldn’t break apart by borrowing each other’s weight. Thumb-sized Azure nodes branded on them dragged with titanic force. They crushed the two together like colliding tides.

Panic hit. The giant rammed his right arm into the Azure thunder-spear. The result was never in doubt. The stink of char filled the air. The spear punched through, and Odin ripped it free—bone and muscle tearing loose.

Yes. She tore it off.

Bone scraped with a knife-on-plate rasp. The giant howled. The impaled arm came off in a brutal wrench. The two, spared a heart-shot, were flung away and crashed into the legion of the dead.

“Tch. I thought I’d at least cripple one.”

That node-trick was something Odin had forged in her mind-sea. Azure Aether formed mutually attracting nodes. Nothing moves Aether better than Aether. Not Siegfried. Not that giant.

The giant’s hero’s choice—losing an arm—saved them both. Better a limb than a heart. If the spear pierced a heart, not even the World Tree could pull them back.

Odin couldn’t spam node-power either. Each use compressed a surge of Aether and hurled it into the foe. Extraction isn’t endless. Not while she was also pounding the dead.

Her thought snapped. Another figure burst from the ranks.

Siegfried came first.

The brass-bright blade rose again, faster than before. He almost broke her guard.

“Thunder—tch!”

Before she could intone, the brass-bright blade seemed to swing twice in a blink. It skated past her spear and kissed her cheek. A thin line of blood bloomed.

She swept her Aether spear across her front. Bolts of Thunder rushed in close and drove him back. Only then did she steal a breath.

“Hah... hah—hm?!”

She hadn’t drawn two full breaths before a beastlike roar tore out of the dead ranks.

From the endless dead, a savage colossus rose. Corpses near him shredded at once under some unseen force. His armor cracked and fell like husk, revealing cable-twisted muscle beneath.

The charred stump of his arm began to regrow.

“Damn it.”

Odin drew back to hurl her spear. The brass-bright blade pressed in again. A vicious, shadowed swordcraft forced her to cede ground. Siegfried’s eyes were blood-veined, locked on her like a hunter on prey.

“Hmph... beyond human already? Then come on. Round two.”

Thunder burst like a storm breaking. Odin gripped twin spears and charged.

High above, the other battlefield burned even fiercer.

Crimson Flame and pure-white crystal raged against each other. Their wielders did the same. Aphelia fought like she didn’t need a heartbeat, trading wound for wound. Each gash opened, and Crimson Flame filled it, buying her searing moments of edge.

The two girls drove their flames with everything they had, giving Sigdrifa no room to slip. But she was a battle-worn goddess. She once shared memories with the Valkyrie. That meant brutal skill and a sea of experience.

“Sigdrifa!”

“Yeah—I’m right here.”

Aphelia’s punches blurred past sight. Sigdrifa still answered from crooked angles. She even parried now and then and cut shallow lines. Aphelia didn’t care. Pain was tinder.

Tendon-ripping pain. The grief of losing the one she loved...

Rage, hurt, hate—endless dark fuel. They fed the Crimson Flame until it roared. Her body hardened. Her power swelled. If there’s a power beyond gods, Aphelia was spending her life to scrape its edge.

Each flare of fire magnified some shard of memory. The pain replayed sharper, brighter, right before her eyes. Then it hardened into the blade in her hands, existing for one thing alone—to cut down the enemy.

Even gods run out of oil. Even lamps go dark.

Sigdrifa wore a map of wounds. Still, she saw the fire inside Aphelia—the blaze so hot it wanted to burn the world. Let time pass. That fire would eat its bearer. Victory would be hers.

“Aaahhhhh!”

Scorching flames wanted to cook the air to ash. Heat-haze warped space around Aphelia. That same distortion gathered in her fists.

In this moment, instinct drove her more than thought.

If she couldn’t hit the target, she’d cut the distance itself.

But simply closing on Sigdrifa was a dream.

Both kept a held gap. Aphelia tried to narrow it. Sigdrifa widened it with uncanny footwork and veteran timing. Attack with Crimson Flame alone, and pure-white crystal bloomed from air to match it.

Aphelia couldn’t match Sigdrifa’s years of battle. But instinct? After her soul fused with the Crimson Flame—this unfathomable Primordial Flame—her intuition outstripped any primate’s by far.

That instinct bordered on foresight.

If she couldn’t cross the gap, she would erase it.

At short range, space blistered under Crimson Flame. It broke in a blink, then reknit in the next. Hitting wasn’t enough. She wove a guard into the strike.

She punched, then snapped back to the punch’s origin in the same breath.

If Sigdrifa attacked first, she’d aim where Aphelia had been. But Aphelia had only changed the span of space. As Sigdrifa struck, Aphelia was already throwing a second fist.

Trade hurt for hurt. Wager life for life.

Even Sigdrifa’s eyes lit at that savage craft.

She could have broken and mended space herself. She just hadn’t thought to. That was why their duel had lingered at fists and feet.

“To grasp a higher technique mid-brawl... interesting!”

Mad delight spread over Sigdrifa’s face. The defender took Aphelia’s punch on purpose. Pure-white crystal vaulted the gap and locked the locus where Aphelia knitted space. Sigdrifa threw her own punch.

Her right was sealed? Then use the left!

Crimson Flame swept the air. The left Bracer Gauntlets, meant for defense, became a heavy shield. It slammed into Sigdrifa’s straight. Steel against flesh. The outcome looked certain.

The next heartbeat, it was Aphelia who flew back.

Even in Crimson bracers, that simple-looking straight made her arm go numb. Her right side hung open.

“You’ve lost, Aphelia!”

Pure-white crystal burst from Sigdrifa’s fist. In a blink, it became a giant lance and drove for Aphelia’s heart.

“Don’t—”

“...keep dreaming!”

Two girls in crimson finery reappeared. Blazing walls of fire bloomed from their palms and crashed into the crystal lance.