Wait—the Crimson Eye? You want me to use it in the Void? Are you trying to get me killed?!
The red‑haired elf froze, then her face twisted like a stormed sea. She ignored wounds and fatigue, sprang off the deck, and glared daggers at Lena. Instinct drove her hand up for a slap. In the old days, anyone who dared say that to her would’ve been floored with a single strike.
But this was Lena—Sigdrifa’s long‑time aide, a veteran set like an old pine in winter. Her loyalty was iron, her knowledge vast as a library of waves. For a time, she led Sigdrifa’s knights with unquestioned faith and ocean‑deep insight.
“How could I be asking you to die? You think I don’t grasp how precious the Crimson Eye is?”
Lena’s thoughts skimmed like swallows, circling everything tied to the Crimson Eye. She rarely forgot the lore of rare treasures, especially those borne by her own. The elf’s devotion to Sigdrifa had earned her that artifact, the Crimson Eye. It should’ve been a green‑haired elf at first; the gift turned her tresses scarlet, bright as fresh blood.
They call it the Crimson Eye because it binds to the eye itself. It doesn’t flood a user with brute strength. Instead, its nature carves pain into the first touch—pain by the hundreds, by the thousands, a mountain of needles pressed into sight.
The red‑haired elf still remembers that night Sigdrifa bestowed it. Her mind howled to claw both eyes out, and that was only the left replaced. The Eye amplifies every sense. It spikes human perception to thousands of times sharper for a breath. In that state, forget removing an eyeball—one light brush hurts enough to weep for hours.
This isn’t a jest. She thought willpower alone could shoulder it, a cliff against a tide. But Sigdrifa didn’t weigh such things. In Sigdrifa’s creed, if you pledge to me, be ready for the cost. A sovereign doesn’t bend to a subject’s limits, does she?
From Sigdrifa’s vantage, it’s not all wrong. She never lacked faithful like this red‑haired one. If one breaks, another takes their place. To Sigdrifa, the red‑haired elf was simply a more loyal subordinate, not an irreplaceable star.
The field was a butcher’s wind. Flesh flew, limbs littered the ground, corpses mounded like hills, and it still couldn’t slow the mad harvest. Black‑armored and white‑armored soldiers fought like waves crashing, under high banners snapping like fire, blades singing through blood and flame to guard their belief.
At the center, two generals traded blows, unbothered by the meat‑grinder whirling around them. Their weapons rose and fell, every clash a bell in a temple of war.
By this point, war had boiled white. No clever stratagems. No talk of tactics. Only breath, steel, and the pounding of hearts.
Amid that cauldron, a black‑armored soldier hacked out a red path with twin long knives. He pressed toward the duel’s core, relentless as a winter river.
Blood seeped into his black plate. He swapped blades again and again as edges curled, but his steps never faltered. He only grew more ferocious, cutting friend and foe alike. Even the two generals turned their eyes to this aberrant flame.
“Hmph. You humans will be wiped out today!”
“Aphelia, you’re insane!”
Golden‑haired Lilo braced behind a long sword red as living fire, facing Aphelia like a mountain against storm. She couldn’t fall. If she fell, every road to salvation burned to ash.
“I’m not insane. I’m just crafting a better world.” Aphelia flicked her hair, indifferent as moonlight, and drew a pitch‑black dagger from a silver coffin on her back.
“My sister was twisted into that because of you humans. To find me, you executed the elves, hung every head on the city walls. Lena’s skin was burned raw by your pyres—no place left whole. Tell me, am I insane?” Aphelia laughed softly, like a lover’s whisper sweet as honey. The sound slid into Lilo’s ears like silk.
“You can’t slaughter the entire capital and turn them into your power!”
“Shh. Listen.” Aphelia lifted a finger for silence, gaze rising like a bird scanning the horizon.
“Listen to what?” Lilo’s caution pricked like thorns. The Aphelia before her wasn’t the kind one she knew.
“Listen. They’re cheering for me—cheering that I found them the best shelter in this chaos.”
“Bastard!” Lilo ripped her blade free. Fire dragons roared from the edge, sweeping toward Aphelia in wave after wave. She’d decided. Even if she had to erase Aphelia here, she would guard her people.
“My, my. A king who won’t listen to her people.” Aphelia stepped lightly on Lilo’s blade, pressed down, and drove it back into the earth.
She caught a soul in one hand, face alight with thrill, and spoke to Lilo like a child showing off a treasure.
Lilo saw it—pain braided tight around that soul, begging for release. In her ears, her people cried like a winter wind over graves.
Yet she no longer held the strength to stand against Aphelia. Aphelia’s “royal power” had turned. The blessing of Frigga, the happiness‑bringing goddess, had blackened into the Serpent of the End, devouring every soul it could coil around.
From Aphelia’s feet, a shadow‑serpent spilled like ink. Life shriveled wherever it slid.
“Aphelia, I’m begging you—stop. You’re not that person!”
Lilo roared her last hope, a flare against night.
After a heartbeat, Aphelia whispered, “Okay.”
Joy flooded Lilo. A figure fell into her arms—did this mean Aphelia would stop? Was this… salvation?
Her chest—was something piercing through?
In disbelief, as if she’d seen it coming all along, Lilo lowered her head. Aphelia smiled, and drew the pitch‑black dagger from Lilo’s breast. Blood spattered across Aphelia’s cheeks, an eerie blossom of beauty.
“I’m the executor of the World Will. Why do you keep stopping me?”
“Nero, if you’d listen, I’d keep my promise.”
“If you humans weren’t so vile, I wouldn’t do any of this!!!” Aphelia sounded like she wept, and laughed, and shattered in the same breath, mad as a storm.
“Serpent of the End, I’ve offered all the sacrifices you asked for. It’s time to honor your vow.” Aphelia kissed Lilo’s brow, then spoke softly to the black shadow.
“Here, by the number of the end, I declare the Primordial Flame extinct. I declare the First Primate Epoch closed. You, sovereign of the Second, descend to this world!”
The serpent‑shadow swelled in an instant, its immense body unfurling like night over oceans. It wrapped the whole world, then vanished. And with it vanished the world’s remains.
Aphelia robed herself in black. A laurel crown rose above her brow, a sign of the maker. She lined the corpses like a forest after storm, and tried to pour life into them.
Nothing changed. Wounds closed like petals, yet the bodies stayed cold as stone.
“What is this…” Aphelia slumped to the ground, staring at corpse after corpse. She remembered the last words of that god she’d erased to dust: “You can’t save them. Life happens only once, hahahaha!”
Life only once—did it mean this…
Then why live at all?
From Aphelia’s body, a black wave billowed out, no breath of life, only the purest ruin, like winter swallowing a field.
“World, be buried with me.” Her flawless white hand disappeared under the black surge, and that was her final thought.
What is this—
Fenrir jolted awake from the Earth Vein, pain spiking in her skull like ice picks. After all these years of walking worldlines, the pain used to be harsher. Why was she failing now?
But what truly terrified her wasn’t the pain. It was the memory, real as thunder. By rights, someone like her—who roams the lines of worlds—shouldn’t dream. So what was this? Why did it blaze into her mind?
The ache coiled tighter. She drew deep breaths, steady as a mountain. A golden star glimmered at her brow, and a great power crossed countless worlds to descend upon her.
Before it could settle, that power felt a gaze—some will, fixed and cold, locking it in place.
“What’s going on…”
Fenrir sucked in a breath. The Stellar Goddess had cut the link. Unilaterally.
Her outline rose from the Earth Vein, a phantom body surfacing like mist. It started to solidify, but before it finished, strange colors crawled over her half‑real flesh—like the snow static on an old TV, a blizzard made of light.
