“Any point in human history? Maybe. But I can’t steer this power—every entry and exit drags me like driftwood in a riptide. Even if you claim I seized it…”

Aphelia’s brows knit, a small knot tightening in the rain of her thoughts. If she truly carried the so‑called Spacetime Anchor, she should be able to guide it. Yet each time she entered or left a timeline, some other force hooked her like a fish and reeled her in or cast her away.

As for Asgard, she’d been shoved off that stage by a sudden gust, all to push Sigdrifa out of that moment. She stumbled out without knowing why, then washed up on the present line like a leaf on a river.

That led to a thorn that wouldn’t stop pricking her thoughts.

“Right, Brynhildr—if I have the Spacetime Anchor, does Sigdrifa have it too? I saw her in Asgard like a shadow in a mirror.”

Brynhildr shook her head, clean and decisive, like a blade cutting fog.

“She can’t possess the Anchor. She reached Asgard only because we, in the past, once woke in that era and recorded its temporal coordinates. With her power, brief jumps to marked times are fine, like stones across a stream.”

Relief loosened Aphelia’s chest like frost melting on a window. If Sigdrifa also held the Anchor, it would be ruinous—a hound on her scent before she could grow, a hunt with no dawn.

Even so, with her strength, Sigdrifa could still step onto those marked times. In Asgard, Aphelia never knew when that shadow had arrived; the curtain never rustled.

Sigdrifa lurked behind the scenes, pulling strings like a spider in the eaves. If not for the battle in the Land of the Dead forcing her onto the stage, Aphelia might never have seen her silhouette. Rather than spar with a lurking blade, Aphelia would rather clash in sunlight, steel to steel.

In the end, she was too weak—like a paper boat in a gale.

Aphelia’s fists tightened, knuckles pale as winter stones. Unlike the two legendary Valkyries, she hadn’t walked countless eras. In times like her own she could scrape by, but in strange ages she was a clock out of sync, gears grinding, unable to mesh with the world’s machinery.

At a glance the gap looked thin as mist, yet in Asgard that mist hid cliffs. A gulf of era‑sense, a gulf of strength—either could kill like a single blade. Now she had to face both, two edges at her throat.

“Aphelia, you’re worrying yourself into a storm,” Brynhildr said, her tone grave as iron bells. “Yes, because Sigdrifa is my avatar, she inherited my knowledge and memories. She can sit steady in most eras, even use an era’s wind to fill her sails. But such meddling isn’t permitted by the Origin.”

Her severity struck like a gong, and Aphelia blinked—surprised not by the content, but by the weight behind it.

“Come to think of it, I never explained the Origin to you. My fault,” Brynhildr added, a small, rueful smile like sunlight through thin clouds.

“How to put it… It isn’t a person, nor a life. Not organic, not inorganic. Not Arcane Power, not Aether. Any single label is a net with holes. We have another, more precise name for it—the Origin.”

“We describe it as a concept only because we choose to give it a shape in our minds. In truth, it’s presence within presence, and nothing within nothing. To those who never meet it, the Origin is air—unseen, unheld. To those who do, it’s the far shore you chase all your life, a horizon that calls.”

Brynhildr paused and traced a pale circle in the air, pure Aether glowing like moonlight on still water.

“Our world, the entire cosmos, wells from the Origin. Picture a master painting—the first dot on the canvas is the Origin. But the last dot that completes the image is also the Origin. It isn’t just the start; it’s the end. To us, the future is fog. To the Origin, from the moment of our birth, every road—no matter how it winds—leads to the same final gate.”

No time in the Origin? The thought struck Aphelia like cold rain. If such a thing exists, what do we matter—humans, all things? If start and end are fixed on rails, then no matter how you struggle in the middle, you arrive at the same terminus—despair or release.

Catching her mood like a seasoned sailor reading the sky, Brynhildr sighed and shook her head.

“I knew you’d go there. When I learned of the Origin, I fell into the same winter. It took me a long season to thaw it.”

“Then…” Hope flared in Aphelia’s eyes like an ember seeking dry tinder.

“I can’t give you my answer,” Brynhildr said gently. “You’re not me, Aphelia. Even if you were forged as a backup vessel, you are you. You’re a person who stands alone, a path through your own forest. Don’t walk my old footprints—look at the state I’m in. The Origin records all things, but what it holds for you may not be what you want.”

She smiled wryly and shook her head, like one who knows a key cut for one lock won’t turn another. Even if she spoke her insight, it would be hers alone—the result the being called Brynhildr found within the Origin. No one else can take it. It won’t fit another hand.

Aphelia frowned, then eased, knowing Brynhildr wasn’t being small‑minded. She motioned for her to continue, a silent lantern raised.

“As I said: if you can reach the Origin, and in the long river of time fish up your own power, then even Sigdrifa can’t touch you. She’s fated never to reach the Origin.”

“How so?” Aphelia asked, the question quick as a thrown stone. If Brynhildr reached it, how could someone as strong as Sigdrifa not?

“That’s her inborn flaw,” Brynhildr said, calm as deep water. “She split off as a fragment of my persona after I reached the Origin and understood myself. Though she bears my strength and my memories, she remains a part. If a person is split in two, how can the halves hold different Origins? If they did, that being wouldn’t be tolerated by the Origin—no mere rule, but the manner of existence beneath it.”

I see. Clarity clicked in Aphelia like a lock catching.

If the Origin records the genesis of all things, then Sigdrifa’s genesis is Brynhildr. No matter how she grasps for power, the path she walks can only end at a door named “Brynhildr.”

Cruel as winter, but Sigdrifa is destined to be Brynhildr’s avatar, never the root.

That also explains why she made Aphelia as a spare vessel. Not a contingency so much as a gamble—to seek, in Aphelia, a way to sever her tether to Brynhildr as origin.

“Exactly. You’ve seen it too,” Brynhildr said. “She made you with that in mind. But here’s the rub: in your current state, you’ve worked a small miracle within the Origin. The being named Aphelia has become independent. You belong neither to Brynhildr nor to Sigdrifa. And that’s precisely what Sigdrifa can’t fathom—the why.”

Aphelia blinked, then her eyes lit, dawn breaking over dark water.

“Then I still have a chance to surpass Sigdrifa?!”

Brynhildr nodded with a smile, an answer warm as a hearth.

Good. Against a storm like Sigdrifa, there was a road that ran farther. She could become stronger than one who had no Origin at all.

Joy rose in Aphelia like spring sap, yet her heart was a tangle of flavors. If this was her road, then she must find a way to the Origin. Only by reaching it could she find the name “Aphelia” within it—her strength, her path—and step past Sigdrifa, who had no root.

“Wait, Brynhildr—your Valhalla Project, don’t tell me—”

“Yes,” Brynhildr said, sure as a hammer on anvil. “The Valhalla Project exists to get you to the Origin. To stop Sigdrifa’s madness, and to help you find your own Origin. We must carry it out in this era, here and now. Only in this time are we free of interference; here, she can’t find the coordinates.”