The moment The Eternal Deceiver appeared—wearing the same face as Aster—he wasted no time and neither did Mia.
SHK! SHK! SHK!
Aster exploded forward—double swords flashing in perfect sync, a storm of silver and black arcs that tore the Antarctic air apart. The blades left trailing afterimages of fractured space, each swing heavy enough to shear glaciers clean in half.
The Eternal Deceiver smirked—then simply faded, body dissolving into grey mist as his voice echoed from everywhere at once.
"I am here..."
"What the he—"
BANG! BOOOM!!!!!
Aster's sentence never completed.
A kick slammed into the side of his skull with the force of an exploding star.
Reality itself seemed to buckle around the impact point. He spun like a ragdoll, body crashing through ice ridges in a deafening cascade of shattering frost, finally slamming into the flank of a distant mountain.
CRUNCH!
The peak cracked—a massive fissure racing upward as snow avalanched in slow-motion thunder.
