Their answer came as one clear note, and the Valkyries broke like streams into squads, rushing along pre-laid channels to their sectors.

Brynhildr had long foreseen a beast tide rolling in, so drills had become second nature.

Today was their first real tide.

She dropped command without a fuss, hope bright as a lantern, waiting for them to shine.

From high above, the scene swelled vast: ink-dark shadows boiled like mad ants, swallowing a jade-green forest in a heartbeat.

When the swarm passed, green was gone, only splintered limbs of trees lay like bones.

Ahead of the charge, a silver-white barrier thrust up from the earth, a broad shield over the land.

The Valkyrie squads reached the edge of the Aether Ward.

They kicked on those crude siege engines, faces steady as lake ice before the onrushing mass.

Fifty meters. Thirty. Ten. Five.

Once the herd crushed the red line, a crisp shout rang in every ear.

“Loose!”

Aether flared from the Valkyries, but they primed the strange array underfoot first, not the engines.

Two hundred streams of Aether poured down, and the ground beneath the beasts broke like cracked pottery.

Hidden arrays woke in a breath; power lit buried Runes, and a blinding white rose like dawn.

Braided Aether sharpened into blades, curtains of light erupting under the beasts, slicing them into great, tumbling chunks.

Many died without knowing why, buried under the glow, reduced to meat and mist.

They were the front fodder—only fuel for the first cut.

Under chain after chain of light curtains, countless beasts fell; from above, darkness bloomed into sudden daylight.

The Valkyries watched the near beasts turn to pieces, faces as still as carved stone.

“All units, Heavy Valkyries forward.

Cut Aether supply.

Lances ready!”

Her voice rode Aether and landed clean in every ear.

Hands lifted off the Runes as one, and the light beyond the Ward began to fade, still sweeping more beasts away as it sank.

Armored Valkyries stepped in, unhooking the spiked morningstars at their hips; the heads split, becoming twin hammers in ready hands.

Aether surged down their arms, filling the iron like stormwater, pressure building.

Spear-bearers braced left and right, flanking their heavy sisters.

The silver-white Valkyrie lance sprouted blades on both sides, scythe-wide arcs held tight, guarding heavy chests and bellies.

The last in each team had longbow, alchemical guns, and spell scrolls already scattered at hand.

Inside the Ward, the Aether Eye became their sight; each support Valkyrie linked in, sharing a slanted, top-down view of the field.

That Aether Eye was born from Brynhildr’s battle with Sigdrifa.

Back then, most Valkyries under her were fierce alone but thin on command, and Brynhildr hadn’t trained that vein.

They paid for it with wounds.

The fight with Origin repeated the lesson.

When she fused with Sigdrifa again, this idea took root.

“Ah… what a shame.”

Regret first, then breath.

Brynhildr looked down at the neat, flowing squads, then up at the Aether Eye hanging in the bright air, and sighed deep.

It wasn’t displeasure—quite the opposite; she was glad, their speed clean as a blade’s edge.

Only a bit over two hundred, yet they carried her might and the tactics and weapons distilled from countless fights.

They were a cutting-edge spearhead; toss even one squad into the Asgardian Realm, and they’d stir a storm.

What she mourned was that eye in the sky.

In her old world, with that era’s craft and power, it would have floated in the void as a watching star.

Unless the enemy crossed the void in force to tear it down, they’d always trail the Valkyries by a beat.

Her former Valkyries never got to use it.

Now she stood in another world, timelines tangled, worldlines knotted.

No trail to follow.

She’d dreamed of taking these elite back home, but the thought was smoke.

Even tracing the path she came by, the void swallowed all, leaving no thread to catch.

Below the Ward, after the first charge, the command-beasts in the swarm began to sense it—something wrong, a cost too steep.

They knew what “heavy losses” meant.

Yet when the Valkyries bared lances with scythe-wings, the herd went rabid, launching a second thunderhead.

How could they let humans carrying their comrades’ bones live?

Tear them apart—this burned in one frenzied mind, and madness spread like fire in dry grass.

Beasts that meant to slip past the Ward’s flanks wheeled and charged, uncaring as their own were trampled to paste.

“Knew they’d take the bait.

Support line, Aether tower shields!”

A sly smile curved the commander’s mouth.

She raised a finger, setting the example, and a giant, transparent Aether tower shield bloomed, bracing the open gap in the Ward and taking its place.

The flanking Valkyries had already laid their enchantments, waiting for the mad to smash themselves on steel, snared by Brynhildr’s traps.

This time, the front wasn’t only fodder.

Calf-sized insect brutes surged, limbs ghastly, throwing themselves at the “exposed” Heavy Valkyries.

“Hmph… naïve.

Heavy Valkyries, free strike!”

Her shout barely needed Aether.

The heavies were already swinging, hammer after hammer, a firm wall in front of their sisters.

They drove iron into vitals—skulls, hearts, joints, eyes, even the shameful parts—swift despite their name, heavy only in impact.

One hammer, one pull, and a clean patch opened at their feet as a beast dropped.

One hammer, one pull, blood and organs streamed out like torn banners.

Meanwhile, the scythe-lance Valkyries reaped left and right, Reaper-blades taking every straggler.

They moved with the heavies in tight rhythm, broad arcs and brutal force pressing elite creatures into dead corners.

Just with steel alone, scythe and hammer paired and swept the field fast.

Then the sky woke.

From the churning herd, winged monsters burst up.

Ground assaults bled them too hard, so the frenzied beast scraped up its meager wit and sent the sky down like rain.

From behind the heavies, gun barrels wreathed in silver-white thorns slid forward.

It wasn’t the first time.

The gunners didn’t even glance ahead; with the Aether Eye, they needed no earthly aim.

“First volley—fire!”

On the word “fire,” silver-white muzzles bloomed with cross-shaped light.