The two girls drove their flames to the hilt, a net of fire that left Sigdrifa no room to slip away. Yet she was a battle-hardened goddess, iron tempered by storms. She once shared the Valkyrie’s memories, which meant the same honed skills and the same crowded vault of experience.
“Sigdrifa!”
“Eh~ I’m right here.”
Ophelia’s punches came so fast they blurred like rain, yet Sigdrifa always found a sly angle. Her hands flicked like starlings, and she even parried at times. Cuts bloomed on Ophelia’s skin, but she didn’t care.
Tendons screaming, bones singing; the grief of losing her lover like winter without dawn. Anger, pain, hatred—each a perfect fuel. They fed the Crimson Fire until it roared higher, and her body answered with rising strength. If there was a power above gods, then Ophelia was burning her life to chase that edge.
Every spark that flared made some shard of memory swell within her mind. The hurt replayed sharper, then turned into a blade in her grip, born for one purpose—slay the enemy.
Even a god’s lamp gutters in the end.
Sigdrifa’s body was crisscrossed with wounds, yet her eyes had found the blaze inside Ophelia. That heat wanted to burn the world clean. If she stalled long enough, the victor would be her.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Heat like a furnace drank the air dry. Space around Ophelia wavered like a mirage, and the same force coiled in her fists.
Now, she attacked on nothing but instinct.
If she couldn’t reach her foe, then she’d erase the space between them.
But simply rushing Sigdrifa was impossible.
Both kept the gap taut like a bowstring. Ophelia pushed to close, and Sigdrifa’s eerie footwork and veteran calm kept it open. If Ophelia used only Crimson Fire to strike, pure-white crystal would bloom from the air like frost.
In experience, Ophelia still trailed Sigdrifa. But in battle sense, after her soul fused with the Primordial Flame, that unfathomable fire gave her a terrifying instinct that outstripped every primate. It felt one breath shy of seeing the future.
If she couldn’t close the distance, then she’d burn it away.
Within arm’s reach, space charred under the Crimson Fire, shattered in an instant, then stitched back together by the same flame. Hitting the target wasn’t enough; she needed a net to guard the return.
She punched, then snapped back to where the punch began.
If Sigdrifa struck first, she had to hit where Ophelia used to be. But Ophelia had only changed the distance. When Sigdrifa swung toward the afterimage, Ophelia swung again. By the time Sigdrifa threw one punch, Ophelia was already on her second.
Trade injury for injury. Stake life against life.
Even Sigdrifa’s eyes flashed at that.
Breaking space then reweaving it—a method she could’ve used, yet had never thought to. That was why their fight had stayed in the realm of fists and feet.
“To grasp an advanced technique mid-fight… how interesting!”
Sigdrifa grinned, a flare of madness in it. She took Ophelia’s blow on purpose. Pure-white crystal vaulted through space and sealed the point where Ophelia would mend it. She answered with a punch of her own.
Right fist locked? Then use the left.
Crimson Fire licked the air. Her left Bracer Gauntlet, meant for defense, felt like a great shield as she slammed it into Sigdrifa’s oncoming fist. Metal met flesh; the ending seemed foregone.
But in the next heartbeat, it was Ophelia who got blasted back.
Even through the Crimson Gauntlets, Sigdrifa’s simple straight punch sent a numb ache up Ophelia’s arm. Her right side lay open.
“You’ve lost, Ophelia!”
Pure-white crystal burst from Sigdrifa’s fist, a knight’s lance born in a blink. It drove straight for Ophelia’s chest.
“Don’t—”
“…in your dreams!”
The two crimson-robed girls reappeared. A wall of heat bloomed from their palms, and crashed into the crystal lance.
Crimson Flame and a pure-white spear met midair. Both sides spent everything. Power blew apart above them, a storm gone rabid, like it meant to sweep all of Niflheim. The pull inside that gale felt strong enough to tear a body in half.
In that heartbeat, space slipped sideways in Ophelia’s mind.
“What… are these things?!”
Shattered scraps of Niflheim rushed toward her, and a countless barrage of memories surged into her skull. They belonged to the age before Niflheim, before the three Fates were born, when a different god lorded over this region.
It wasn’t called Niflheim then, yet it was still the Land of the Dead.
“Right. The Reaper… that wasn’t an illusion!”
She saw the black robe again. The sight split her head like an axe, and she clenched her teeth hard enough to taste iron.
That silhouette was death itself. The memory alone wounded. No living thing could look straight at death as a concept. Only the dead from the Land of the Dead could bear that pain.
Yet Ophelia stared at death, and her skull swelled to bursting. The black robe in her mind grew clearer, then began to gather a body.
“Mmh… interesting. Too interesting! Ophelia, Ophelia, I never thought you carried this power!”
Sigdrifa covered her face, laughing as a black shadow peeled from Ophelia’s flesh. All across Niflheim, a buried force seemed to wake. The endless dead legions froze mid-step.
They didn’t choose to stop. They were made to.
Black mist took shape in the air, and it stirred every mortman’s fear of death. The weight crushed them to their knees.
Even Belldandy, working to mend Niflheim’s barrier, was wrenched from the realm and flung back, as if struck by a hammer.
“Belldandy! Tch, out of my way!”
Odin lunged to save her, but a copper-yellow blade skimmed his cheek and drew a red line. The giant covered in dark red veins raved and hacked, blind to any wound.
Even with a hole through his chest, he lunged again like a rabid hound.
He seemed unaffected, like the helm had passed to something madder and darker. It only treated the body as a weapon to swing, repair, and break beyond repair.
That style forced Odin to tighten up and work his spear in a tight guard.
Once, he’d have risked the body to take the win, and lived. But now that twisted giant had a phantom at his flank—Siegfried.
The thought alone made Odin seethe.
Belldandy’s flight halted midair. Threads of fate in Niflheim flowed in from both sides and wrapped her, like a shell of woven light.
He didn’t know why. But if she was safe, he could focus on the fight. He didn’t get the chance. From Ophelia and Sigdrifa’s battlefield, a black shockwave ripped out in all directions.
“What is that?”
Odin raised his spear to block, but the wave hit like a mountain. It flipped him end over end.
The kneeling dead fared worse. The sweep shattered their ruined bodies and ground them to fragments. The pieces streamed into the black mist, and the shadow beside Ophelia neared a complete form.
All Niflheim trembled. The lush world withered into a charnel ground. Trees rotted. Flowers fell to ash. White bones stood like pillars along the Rhine.
“Again… you’re trying to take my body again?!”
Ophelia dragged her eyes open, blood veining her stare.
The two crimson-dressed girls keened like ghosts. Blood pooled around them, then caught light and climbed into Crimson Fire, a blaze that vowed to eat everything.
Ophelia bared a feral smile. Her Bracer Gauntlets became pure flame. She drove a fist into her heart, and with that stuttering stop, the Crimson Flame flooded her body and raced for her sea of mind.
“Despicable coward—get out of me!”
Her arm of fire reached into her own chest. Under Sigdrifa’s stunned gaze, Ophelia roared until it broke, and ripped the twisted black shadow from her body. She flung it into the crimson sea.
