The sky upended into a sea of fire, and the black shards swelled into crimson fireballs like meteors blooming.

They lit cluster after cluster of crimson glow across the void, lanterns strewn through a cosmic night.

The despairing black ring was drowned, a sunken crown smothered by the blaze.

Above Earth, people on nearly every continent watched, hearts held taut like bowstrings.

“Now that’s a true miracle…”

Countless Valkyrie trainees lifted their faces, and the Crimson Flame swept their world clean.

Black mire and beasts blew away like ash in a storm.

The remnants Sigdrifa hadn’t cut down melted like spring snow, vanishing the instant sunlight touched them.

The black mud poured out by Origin steamed off, a fog burning to nothing.

Crimson fireballs thudded into the ground and raised roaring pillars of flame.

Yet those fires only ate the mire; nothing else caught, as if the blaze chose its prey.

When mortal hands brushed that flame, their wounds eased like knots untied by warm rain.

“Heh, Aphelia, nicely done… but don’t get cocky. Origin’s never that simple.”

Sigdrifa finally released her grip on the Earth Vein, smiling as she stepped off the great tree of Origin.

Forcing the Earth Vein had drawn a brutal backlash, her vast Aether bled near dry, wounds patterned through her like cracked ice.

She had no time to mend them.

Leaving the tree wasn’t simple either.

That link into a colossal Aether river was a rough mooring, a storm-rope tied to the soul.

She’d shoved her spirit and flesh to hold an entire planet’s impact, a mountain trying to dam the sea.

Without power beyond a True God, she would’ve been dust under that planet-scale surge.

She’d bought Aphelia precious hours with nothing but her own strength, a lighthouse against the tide.

She kept human casualties low while she shouldered the backlash alone.

The wrecked body and drained mind made her black out the moment she let go.

Unaware, she slipped through cloud layers and fell like a plucked feather.

Violet saw it in the same breath.

Scarlet Aether wrapped her like a quick-forged cuirass, and she vaulted into the air.

She caught Sigdrifa with both hands, a sharp click of tongue, then hugged her tight like cradling a swan.

So light!

That was Violet’s first thought.

For a warrior, Sigdrifa weighed like paper, not steel—far too light for someone who fights.

Violet watched her own weight for a woman’s grace, sure, but the body of a fighter trends heavy, a blade with a thick spine.

Valkyries had been remade in the Aether era, numbers set above mortal lines.

Muscle density ran higher by design, and only then did Aether expand the range of strength.

Some Valkyries like Hrok leaned special, their muscle figures above the norm.

But they’d already shed parts of brute muscle’s nature, never bloating into a cartoon of brawn.

Even so, Sigdrifa felt lighter than girls who prized a willowy look.

By memory, Brynhildr hadn’t had this problem.

Her body took the deepest modifications, and held the most Aether.

When Aether turns to flesh-bound attributes, the weight rises, like gold braided into a coat.

Violet didn’t know Sigdrifa was wearing Aphelia’s body instead of a shaped Valkyrie frame.

Aphelia’s way of holding power had always been tool-first, hand-on-hilt.

Her flesh hadn’t been remade to Valkyrie levels.

Violet carried Sigdrifa back to the ground, where the brutal quakes had finally stilled.

She found an unused cockpit from a walking mech and laid Sigdrifa inside, like placing a relic in a shrine.

She studied her a long beat, eyes narrowed.

“Something’s off… Forget it. If Aphelia’s locked with Origin head-on, maybe Hrok can still be saved!”

She gave up prying answers from Sigdrifa’s body.

Scarlet Aether braided into a slender Demonic Spear and drilled toward the ground’s fissures.

Its target was the Earth Vein below.

Hrok was still within.

The backlash had ended.

Hope might still have a pulse.

Guided by scarlet Aether, the slender spear bored through heavy crust like a red needle through leather.

Interference from Aether buffeted her, waves slamming a skiff.

Violet grit her teeth and poured more power through her fingertips.

Blood beaded and flicked from her hand like crimson seeds, but she caught the Aether chains and drove them downward again.

This time, the scarlet spear tore through the interference like ripping wet silk and reached the Earth Vein.

Aether became Violet’s eyes, a lantern lowering into caverns.

She searched the Earth Vein, an ocean that braided through the planet.

Finding one person in that vastness was a needle-in-stars task.

On the Origin Motherworld, the Earth Vein flooded nearly everything.

Aether was thin now; she couldn’t wield much.

Thankfully, Hrok was a bright target in that river.

“Hro…k?!”

Hrok stood as a humanoid crystal, wrapped tight by the Earth Vein’s Aether like amber around a leaf.

She was trending into a core of the Earth Vein, a heart forming.

Violet couldn’t pull her out.

Her body wasn’t strong enough to cross the Aether sea below.

She left the slender Demonic Spear as a marker, a pin on a map.

For now, she could only pray Aphelia finished the fight up above, and fast.

In space, the black fragments had been burned clean by Aphelia’s Crimson Fire, a kiln’s work done.

Only a black ring remained, floating above Earth like an eclipse rim.

A strange feeling bubbled in Aphelia’s chest.

Could a foe as great as Origin be beaten so simply?

She couldn’t accept it in one swallow.

“Go look. Those black shards can’t scratch that layer you’re wearing.

Touching Origin a bit should be fine. Relax, you’ve still got me.”

Uroboros sounded sure, sleek as a cat.

Aphelia could only give a bitter smile.

The shards couldn’t hurt her, true, but no one knew what that ring was.

Even if Uroboros died, she’d just find a new host and slither on.

Safety wasn’t her worry.

Aphelia was overthinking it.

Uroboros had gone through the baptisms of Crimson Fire and Swarmheart, woven into Aphelia’s body like thread in cloth.

If Aphelia died, Uroboros wouldn’t fare much better.

They were one life now.

Still, Aphelia had been played too many times.

Caution stuck like a thorn.

She flew toward the ring, a hawk closing on prey.

Her strength could face Origin head-on now; no point in gnawing worry.

Within a hundred meters, no reaction.

Within ten, still quiet.

Within one, she could see the inscriptions along the inner rim, clear as carved bone.

Nothing stirred.

“Wait… it’s metal? Shouldn’t it be some kind of force?

Uroboros, any idea what’s going on?”

She dared a hand out, shell layered over her palm like beetle chitin.

Cold bit her skin.

She grabbed the ring with both hands.

It felt hard and chill, her first thought snapping to metal.

“I don’t get it. Origin never shows in any fixed form, beyond keeping the ring shape.

If it shifts into something else, that’s normal.

Right now… I can’t say.”

Uroboros looked troubled.

She slid into view and tapped along the dark-gold ring, knuckle beats like rain on bronze.

No response.

Odd.

Origin shouldn’t be this fragile.

What was this huge metal ring?

“There’s writing on the inside. I can’t make it out.

Uroboros, can you read it for me?”

Aphelia frowned, and sketched the characters in the air with Aether, lines glowing like fireflies.

She could see the symbols clearly, but their meaning stayed mist.

Maybe the old relic beside her would have a surprise.

“Writing… what writing?

Aphelia, stop—don’t draw that cursed stuff out!”

Uroboros reacted in a flash, grabbing Aphelia’s hand mid-stroke, voice cracking like a whip.

“What happened?

Uroboros, you’ve got a lead already?”