Fenrir felt the air ice over, like frost crawling across glass. Even borrowing a wisp of divinity across distance was blocked. Some will had hooked this timeline. Whoever it was, it boded ill for her.

Static shimmered over her body like TV snow, a halo of white noise. Her face darkened like gathering stormclouds. She’d never had this happen—forced out of the void like driftwood spat by a tide.

To wield the Stellar Goddess Aphelia’s power fully, she’d entered a subtle state. She split body and soul without cutting their thread, riding the knife-edge between contact and separation.

If the soul neared return, she pushed them apart with the stellar force. If they neared true severance, the stellar force drew flesh and soul back together, like a pendulum checked between beats.

So Fenrir existed between presence and absence, like a mirage that reflects but can’t be grasped. Sight could find her, so she counted as “there.” Touch could not, so she remained untouchable.

Even striking her “phantom” would only scatter smoke. On the material side, Fenrir lay beyond reach, like dew that breaks under a fingertip yet never wets the skin.

Because of that state, she could draw out the Stellar Goddess’s power cleanly. As heir, she enjoyed a sliver of the goddess’s shelter. It felt like a divine prank, but still divine.

For mortals, even a god’s joke is law. If it’s godword, it sketches a rule into the world, like thunder carving a line across the sky.

Of course, the Stellar Goddess isn’t native to this world. However mighty, she can’t fully cross the border. The world itself bristles against foreign interference, and its reprisals wear many masks.

So every time she borrowed the Stellar Goddess’s power to cross to another worldline, Fenrir hid like a fox in thorns. She slipped past her world’s gaze, breath held to a thread.

To depart, she thinned herself to near-nothing, like ink rinsed from silk. After the jump, she had to swell back to full presence instantly, or be erased in the lattice of lines.

Losing yourself in the corridors of worldlines is lethal. Fenrir’s method was a cunning extreme, a side door pried open. It worked, but it demanded a constant, wind-candle thin existence.

Not every traveler pays that price. The Stellar Goddess stands at the opposite extreme—union of heaven and human. Soul and flesh are one bell, struck from a single bronze.

She can choose which side bears catastrophe. Destroy body or spirit, and the other side receives and resolves it, like ocean taking the force meant for stone.

Such a being doesn’t bleed out existence when crossing. In a new world, she doesn’t lose her name. She’s a singular star, not a spark to be blown away.

And Aphelia has brushed that realm with her fingertips.

Body and soul. Flesh and spirit.

The ancients said: only when soul and flesh completely unite can one reach “heaven-and-human as one.” They tempered body and spirit across peaks and seas to fuse breath and bone.

Aphelia grasped this at the brink. Sigdrifa had ripped tendon from bone. Thorned Aether abraded her soul. She was about to vanish in that power, like snow under salt.

She remembered her “master’s” words—heaven-and-human as one. In a heartbeat of pain between life and death, the mantra clicked. Soul became flesh; flesh became soul; legend turned to practice.

Matter and spirit converted like day and night trading places. It’s a deed akin to birthing a god. Not all can reach godhood. Few, by striving, touch this field.

Fenrir wasn’t among them. Not for lack of talent, but for lack of chance and time to grind herself to that edge.

“This is bad. Really bad.”

Snowflake static bloomed brighter over her skin. Some will was about to yank her existence out by the root. Time shrank to a knife-point. She had two paths.

Stay, and beg Aphelia’s help to face that will. Aphelia crushed the Origin in a blink. Maybe she could pull another miracle from the stars.

The thought rose, and she cut it down. To block worldline transmission and force her out—what kind of thing could do that? That “It” was beyond imagining.

Aphelia had raced far in a short time. That didn’t mean she could stand against It yet. Not head-on. Not now.

On the flip side, if Aphelia didn’t provoke that will, it couldn’t overreach to touch her. It couldn’t strike first. Within those bounds, Aphelia could grow and someday challenge it.

Which left only one answer.

“No helping it, Aphelia… just hold on for now.”

Fenrir clenched her teeth. The snow on her skin thickened like rime. She swallowed the pain and thinned into pure shadow. Only the golden stellar Rune on her brow blazed.

Its radiance poured over the entire Earth Vein, draping her fading outline in light like a cloak. The thread between body and soul frayed thinner, straining toward the limit.

Soon, the existence named “Fenrir” would vanish from this world. Countless tangled worldlines unfurled before her eyes, like a loom dumped into chaos. Her world blurred into crossing threads.

Between those crossing lines, she found a gap—her step out.

“Now!”

The star at her brow flared, a rainbow lancing the night. Her soul and body slipped free together, then condensed at once. Her presence swelled, flint into flame.

An existence that should have gone out blinked back on. The world’s backlash rose like a tidal fist. Before it fell, Fenrir’s silhouette sank into the void and was gone.

At that moment, far in another world, golden-haired Aphelia paused, a small start in her eyes. She drifted in cold space, darkness gathered to crown her glow.

She was gathering cosmic elements, piecing a new planet like beadwork. Her interest shone in every measured gesture, kiln-quiet and patient.

“Eh? That little girl… what could make her beg like that? I’ll take a look.”

Aphelia halted her work. The half-formed planet and elements froze in place, as if time itself held its breath. Gold light flowered around her.

A slim, plain sword settled into her hand, as bare as a strip of iron. She shut her eyes. In less than a second, her arm moved, and a rift scored the dark.

She reached into the tear and hauled Fenrir out by the wrist. A pursuing force surged in the seam. Aphelia only smiled, summer-soft and sure.

The plain blade gave the gentlest sweep. The chasing power shattered, like dust struck by sunlight.

“Heh. Ragged again. What hole did you poke in your world this time?”

She cradled the limp Fenrir against her. Starlight in her palms melted into a mild glow, knitting wounds from long soul-flesh separation, and the scars left by the chase.

She asked it like a fond elder sister smoothing hair from a brow.

Fenrir couldn’t answer yet. Not refusal—just a body no longer under command. Words wouldn’t form. Even moving a fingertip dragged like lead.

That’s the side effect of keeping soul and body split without reuniting. She’d done it many times, yet never adapted to the aftershock.

The peeling is too awful, like skin lifted by cold iron. She had to tend her existence every heartbeat, or her will would twist, and she’d lose herself.