Haiyin’s mouth hooked into a cold smile, frost drawing a blade across her face. Since they scoffed at a Valkyrie’s power, she’d let them taste it. Aether coiled around her spear like storm-vines. Her pupils knifed down small; thought kicked into a gale.
Thought Acceleration.
The skill settled into her like a hawk finding a thermal. It once flared only in crisis, speeding thought to shield the self. Now her battle intent rose like a tide and it lit on command. The three beasts lunging at her slowed, like flies in amber, slower… slower…
“Figures. Inlaid Runes from the Aesir…”
Haiyin’s gaze sharpened, steel under moonlight. In that flicker of sped thought, she finally saw power hidden on those elite beasts. In the past, even top beasts wouldn’t rush into the Aether mist, like moths scenting fire and swerving. Standing at the peak, fit to lead nonhuman clans, they knew entering the Aether mist was a grave of white glass.
Valkyrie fire coverage could blast even the Aesir; the rumor burned like a brand. These beast tides were a ragged mass held by numbers and twisted force, storm without a heart. The elites who dared the Aether mist decades ago became a lesson carved in bone.
Brynhildr had grabbed that pack like chicks by the scruff and flung them from the Aether mist, strength like a storm-lifted wave. Then she rolled an absolute Aether torrent through, a white flood under a noon sun. The elites who’d broken in, and a wide ring around them, turned to pure-white crystal. Yes. Like sand melted by a thermonuclear dawn, they fused with the ground, crystallized under Brynhildr’s Aether.
That strike cowed the Asgardian Realm and the raging beast tides, night pressed down on wolves. Mid-tier elites, the ones with a spark of wit, wouldn’t near the land Brynhildr had scorched, as if winter sealed it. After the Aether torrent swept through, it was a dead zone. Go there, die there. The lingering Aether could kill them a hundred times over, ash riding the wind. No one else dared step in, either.
Low-tier beasts veered around it, fear quivering along mangy hides. Cannon fodder with minds like bare earth, almost no thought at all. Yet survival still flickered, a coal under ash. It drove them to crash about, seeking relief from knife-itch pain. But in Brynhildr’s bombardment zone, they broke and ran, tails tucked like river reeds in storm. Some twisted mid-charge to flee.
And now, beasts dared rush the Aether mist again?
Haiyin tightened her spear with a cold laugh, ice ringing in iron. Power gathered along the shaft like storm-light pooling. She wouldn’t just kill the three coming at her. She’d strip those Runes clean, fragile as frost leaves. The Aesir had meddled in the beast tide, even set sights on Valkyries, bold as rabid dogs.
“Hoo…”
Her Thought Acceleration blinked off, a shutter over sun. She drew back to cast the spear, to reap the three with an Aether blade and a fast thrust. A silver-white shadow darted in from the side, moonlight through a slit. It pierced clean through the elites’ skulls and knocked those hulks off balance midair.
That snapped Haiyin back into sped thought, a gust through pines. After checking, she let a rueful smile slip, rain on steel. Reinforcements were one of theirs, an “older sister” she knew too well. The odd weapon—half whip, half spear—was hers. One strike, and the supple whip-sword curved through three skulls like a silver snake.
Only one woman among the Valkyries fought with a weapon like that.
“Haiyin…”
Medusa smiled and clenched her spear-whip. She jerked hard, raw force like a cresting wave. The three elites were yanked from the air and slammed down, earth leaping like a drumhead. Her arms didn’t look burly, willow under silk, but they held terrifying strength. Even three beasts as big as five or six Valkyries apiece got dragged to earth. Their skulls twisted round like broken prayer wheels.
They couldn’t even manage a proper howl. They hit the ground and lay wrecked, twitching like dying eels. Twisted heads leaked a mix of blood and brain, red and gray in ooze. Medusa snapped the spear-whip, and the smear flew off in the rush of air. Aether flame licked it clean, and silver-white shone again along the shaft.
“…Why won’t you follow orders, hmm?”
Medusa smiled at Haiyin, eyes crescents like a patient sister, a hearth in winter. To Haiyin, it dragged up childhood shadows, a cold cellar smell under old wood. The last time she saw that smile, she was little and wild. She’d raised hell during a memory playback and dirtied Lady Brynhildr’s clothes. Medusa hauled her off and “taught” her, a lesson better left buried, thorn under skin.
“Wait, wait! Medusa—sis, I had a real reason not to return. Don’t rush to punish me. Look at this!”
To make it stick, Haiyin flicked her spear, Aether thrumming like a bell under water. The Runes hidden on the elites flared into view, sigils glowing like fireflies. Seeing those marks still saturated with power, even Medusa slowly opened her eyes, pupils beast-bright, gold in shadow.
“Power. Yes. From those Asgard rats. The engraving habit matches, lines like river bones. The biggest difference between Aesir and humans is how they inscribe. That’s born from body structure, sinew and soul. Humans can’t carry such complete drawings the way Aesir do. Not even if a whole clan dies for it. And there’s divinity mixed in… Asgard’s rats. Bold, aren’t they…”
Medusa seized a strip of beast hide, pupils wild and bright, scanning the Runes like a hawk over waves. Aether flowed in a delicate weave, spider-silk on dew. Without damaging the Runes or breaking their lattice, she parsed out almost all the power tucked under the hide.
Haiyin didn’t stop her “sister.” Among Valkyries, aside from Lady Brynhildr, Medusa’s analysis sat near the peak, glacier clear. The Runes might feel disguised to Haiyin’s eye, snow painted on stone. To Medusa, they had nowhere to hide, leaves in winter wind.
So, Medusa caught the core.
“I see. You stayed for beast hides carrying Runes. No, the loli’s version wasn’t that. So the Aesir set you up?”
Medusa grabbed the hide and gestured forward, a swan wing cutting air. She signaled Haiyin to follow, feet like reeds slicing water. The Aether mist behind them thinned fast, breath on glass fading. Outside it, beast roars grew clear, drums beyond fog. The maddened herd had waited too long on the edge and craved to break through, pain boiling like pitch.
“No. Not a setup. That thing targets Valkyries directly. I’ve got a strange bug here, like a parasite with teeth. If Loli hadn’t used a sealing round, I’d have been badly hurt under its power. Medusa, speed up, wind under heels. Otherwise the beasts will hit the limit distance any second.”
Haiyin shook her head hard, air slicing like a blade. She glanced back at the Aether mist, dissolving at speed like a tide pulling off a shore. Worry pricked her ribs as she looked to Medusa, guilt a shadow under breath. Her delay had dragged Medusa late too, sand in the gears.
Medusa didn’t look back. Her pale index finger pointed at the sky, a swan feather marking fate. She smiled.
“An iron curtain falls from the heavens.”
As her words fell, the Aether mist behind them vanished, a candle snuffed to smoke. The beasts, who’d kept meters back out of fear, seized their chance, blood heat rising like steam. Seeing the two women pulling away lit their frenzy. Some leapt the instant the mist cleared, claws cutting air like knives.
“Roar—oooh…”
As one elite beast crouched to spring, a jet-black shadow speared through its torso, pinning it to the earth, iron stitching soil. The wound looked grievous, a hole through half the ribs, red like dusk. But its vital point wasn’t there. It scrabbled to rise, breath like broken bellows. Then, in those feral eyes, a deep cold washed the sky, night ink poured over day.
The next moment, the Iron Curtain descended.
“Isn’t that an Iron Curtain javelin? Lady Brynhildr actually okayed these doomsday toys!”
To Haiyin, it looked like a savior in steel, rain after drought. Those weapons weren’t deployed lightly; they killed too widely, wildfires under wind. Now they fell in batches, spears like rain. They couldn’t recreate a certain superweapon from Brynhildr’s era, so they used manpower to simulate a barrage, thunder in rows. The result was surprisingly good, drums rolling across cloud.
Only a few hundred iron spears fell from the sky, wolves under a hail. But that was just the opening bar, lightning before storm.
“Blow these wolf pups to pieces!”
The voice crackled through Aether comms in their armor, hot as a forge, sparks in rain. No doubt, the speaker was the commander of this war—the one-eyed Valkyrie. With weapons this strong, even she couldn’t hide her thrill. She shouted it on the open channel, words striking like war drums.
