The temperature continued to plunge, and the winds grew more and more frenzied, howling through the streets of the siege capital like hungry wolves.
Faster than everyone had hoped, only one day later…
The Winter Beast had reached Falcon Scott.
Well… actually. They reached the Winter Beast before the creature arrived at the siege capital…
The remains of the field army sent to the Antarctic Center gathered into a formation after marching across the giant crater, leaving everything behind them.
In front of them were a vast field of snow and the towering peaks of the mountains.
There were around twenty thousand mundane soldiers, some of them piloting the mighty war platforms, and a thousand or so Awakened gathered, walking in the direction of their possible death.
The members of the First Army had priority to be evacuated in relation to the civilians, but very few used it. Most had remained and were now preparing to face a dreadful foe.
Neither mundane soldiers nor the Awakened had any hope of actually damaging a Corrupted Nightmare Creature. Perhaps not even any of the Ascended present would manage it…
With the exception of a few.
Leading the front of such an agglomeration of soldiers were four figures that overshadowed the rest.
One of them was Reynolds.
He wore a suit of armor of immaculate design, its pristine white surface giving it an almost otherworldly appearance. The material resembled wool in texture, yet it possessed the remarkable ability to retain body heat, making it as practical as it was elegant.
Black lines ran down from his shoulders to his feet, cutting through the armor's immaculate whiteness like dark streaks of ink. A black cape hung from his back, swaying gently with each step he took.
He walked with confidence. His strong, fierce eyebrows were slightly furrowed, his gaze fixed ahead as he continued to march forward. There was no hesitation in his movements. Every step spoke of a man who knew what he was capable of.
At his side walked Sylvie, clad in armor unlike the one she usually wore. Her familiar, gleaming silver armor had been replaced by one in a darker tone, its black surface adorned with intricate red and blue patterns that stood out against the darkness.
Her back remained straight, her steps measured and unwavering. Her hands were slightly clenched at her sides, and a faint tension could be seen in her jaw. Yet none of it diminished the presence she carried. There was something distinctly predatory about the way Sylvie moved—an effortless grace that concealed a dangerous sharpness beneath the surface.
Her golden eyes remained fixed on the path ahead, gleaming beneath strands of wheat-pale hair that framed her face.
The Blessed of Beast God did not need to appear imposing to command attention. She possessed a different kind of presence, one that made her seem both graceful and dangerous, as if every movement she made was a conscious choice and every step brought her closer to the moment she would finally unleash the predator lurking beneath her composed and delicate exterior.
To her right walked Sunny.
His posture was slightly hunched, his hands buried in the pockets of his completely black armor. It was a magnificent piece of equipment, offering exceptional protection without sacrificing the freedom of movement necessary for combat. Its dark surface reflected little light, making it seem as though the armor itself swallowed the world around it.
Despite his seemingly careless posture, no one would have assumed that he was nervous.
The Heir of Death walked at the same pace as the other three, his steps neither hurried nor slow. Yet despite his unassuming appearance, his presence was enough to send a chill down the spines of those who dared to look at him for too long.
The Devil of Antarctica was focused.
Creating a brutal contrast to Sunny, Arthur walked in the middle of the group with the confidence of a king, as if the very ground beneath his feet belonged to him alone.
His posture and the way he carried himself were the complete opposite of the Devil of Antarctica. Where Sunny's presence sent chills down the spines of those who looked upon him, Arthur inspired hope. There was no need for him to speak or make any grand gestures. The mere sight of him was enough to make people believe that, perhaps, things would turn out all right.
His golden eyes remained fixed on the path ahead, while his hair was concealed beneath the helmet of Djinn of War.
The Attribute was activated in its complete form.
Dark purple plates covered his entire body, their imposing surfaces connected by intricate golden lines that traced their way across the armor. At the center of his chest appeared the symbol of a golden spear pointing upward. Above it, right over his heart, lay the figure of a human heart, held in place by golden lines that seemed intent on crushing it.
It was a peculiar sight. But the most remarkable thing about Arthur was not his armor.
With every step Paragon of Purity took, the very fabric of reality seemed to shift around him. The ground beneath his feet remained unchanged, yet the space surrounding his figure trembled faintly, as if his mere presence disturbed the natural order of the world. Waves of invisible influence spread outward with each measured stride, reaching far beyond the four figures walking together.
And those who felt it were not left untouched.
The hearts of the Awakened watching from a distance stirred with every step Arthur took. Their admiration deepened, their resolve strengthened, and a newfound courage settled within them. Fears that had weighed heavily upon their minds became a little easier to bear. Doubts that had plagued them moments before began to fade.
With Paragon of Purity walking before them, they found it a little easier to believe that they might survive it.
Looking at the four figures before them, the Awakened felt an urge to attempt the impossible.
---
Jet couldn't help but curse at the heavens. The cold was worsening with every passing moment, making her movements feel clumsier. Still, she clenched her teeth and kept drawing.
Due to her concentration, she made an unconscious decision to ignore the dozens of Nightmare Creature corpses lying around her. Their bodies drained of blood and empty of their shards.
On the ground, nearly twenty Transcendent Shards could be seen arranged in a specific pattern. The creatures' blood painting them red and blue while connecting them through lines of the same substance.
Having performed the action so many times, it took Jet only a few minutes to finish the process. Soon, the set of runes was complete.
Jet rose from her crouched position and took a few steps back, her raven-black hair moving with the wind that was picking up.
Her icy blue eyes focused on the views around her, and she could only observe snow and corpses… Though a little in the distance was a mountain containing a volcano within it.
In that place, Nightmare and Saint were destroying the volcano's foundations. But Jet wasn't interested in that at the moment, as it wasn't her task.
Summoning a Memory in a shower of silver particles, a simple bottle appeared in her pale hand.
The bottle itself was a Memory, and Sunny had created it somehow… Jet was confused about how he managed to create a Memory, but the contents of it were also confusing in themselves.
Inside the simple bottle was blood… but it wasn't simple blood.
There was blood from three people mixed in the bottle.
One of the samples belonged to herself and had a simple red color.
Another of the samples was Sylvie's blood. It was still red but had a slight golden tone to it.
The last belonged to Arthur, and it was a purple-red color.
The mixture of the three bloods was going to work to activate the rune network Jet had just drawn, added to the rest of nearly thirty sets of runes she had drawn previously.
'Phew…'
Jet didn't quite understand how Sylvie was going to influence the array using her blood…
What she explained was that she could feel a connection with her blood, and using that method, she would take care of activating the rune array… How? Jet didn't know…
Still, her part of the work was completed the next moment when she poured a few drops of such blood mixture onto the already-existing set of runes…
They reacted with a slight vapor upon contact, and the color of all the blood changed slightly, becoming more purple than before.
Jet let out a sigh she didn't know she was holding and dismissed the Memory while looking toward the mountain in front of her.
The next moment, from one of the lower openings, the figure of a black steed emerged, galloping at great speed with a taciturn Shadow riding it.
Jet paled a little.
"I'm never getting on a horse again after this is over…" With a bit of amusement, she added, "If I survive…"
---
Standing before all the soldiers, Arthur took a deep breath.
Before him… a cloud of snow descended from the mountains, slowly obscuring the sky. It was as if a swirling white wall were gradually erasing the world. With every passing second, the wind intensified, and the biting cold grew increasingly unbearable.
The blizzard was closing in.
Arthur sighed, glanced over his shoulder, and said to Sylvie:
"Are you ready?"
Sylvie hesitated for a moment, looking at him with a slightly worried expression.
"No…" She closed her eyes and focused on sensing her blood, which was scattered across a perimeter of nearly two hundred kilometers…
The distance was absurd, but there was no other choice if they wanted the Winter Beast to be within the array's range.
Thanks to the Beast God's blessing, Sylvie could sense the presence of her blood almost anywhere—though there was always a limit, and she was rapidly approaching it.
She could sense her blood in thirty-four locations… but one was missing. As long as that part of the chain remained incomplete, she could not activate the array.
"Jet is still missing one…" Sylvie said, her voice fading slightly amidst the howling wind.
He tried to erase from his mind the thought that maybe something bad had happened to Jet and turned to Sunny.
"How do you feel?"
Sunny clenched his teeth and responded a few seconds later.
"My head is about to explode!"
Arthur couldn't help but feel a bit of pity for his friend. Definitely, his situation wasn't much better than Sylvie's.
Sunny's task was to maintain the connection with Saint and Nightmare at such a distance… which wasn't small…
Shadows like Saint and Nightmare are directly bound to his soul cores. While they have their own independent bodies and sentience, they rely on Sunny's perception and shadow connection to be actively commanded and maintained.
Sunny right now was using a new technique he had developed for this moment.
He called it Shadow Conduit.
It was based on the idea that by placing his shadows in a chain, he could technically stretch his perception further out in a specific direction, allowing him a proxy-extension to interact with his Shadows further away.
Sunny placed one of them a little over thirty kilometers away, and the next thirty from the first… in such a way, upon finishing with his six shadows, he could extend his perception two hundred and ten kilometers away…
This obviously in a straight line… which was what had been complicating things for Sunny, because a certain Corrupted Titan was in the center…
Fortunately, this was something they had foreseen before starting the plan, and between the two of them, they made a Memory that could help him. But it was costing him an enormous amount of essence.
Sunny closed his eyes and leaned further forward.
"They're reaching the last zone… Hgh! In a few minutes, everything should be ready."
Arthur simply nodded, deciding not to speak about the pain his friend must be feeling.
"We'll have to wait for it to finish before starting."
He turned around and looked at the rest of the soldiers ready to lay down their lives in the fight. Clenching his teeth, he spoke in a loud voice.
"Everyone get ready! Don't forget that we're only here to distract the creature! As soon as the plan is complete everyone—and I repeat, everyone—will head to their assigned places!"
The cold faces of many of the soldiers hardened at his words. Their determination surging from the depths of their beings while they prepared their flamethrowers.
Moments later, everyone shivered, feeling a merciless chill permeate their bodies. Still, the MWPs walking at the sides of the column extended their arms, sending long streams of fire crisscrossing above the formation. It was as though a flaming cage was created around the brigade—for a few moments, the cold receded slightly.
The billowing clouds of snow were instantly melted, and drops of water rained down on the shivering humans.
For as long as the war platforms had fuel to keep the flames burning, the army still had a chance to wait to reach the depths of the unnatural snowstorm.
---
Jet's breathing was rapid, and vapor left her nose every time she exhaled.
The air in the area was very cold—so cold that if she stayed still for too long, she could freeze and become an ice statue.
'At least I'd be a very pretty statue…'
Her thoughts were already starting to become unhinged from the cold. Still, Jet knew there was no chance of that happening to her.
Mainly because a damned Corrupted Terror was attacking her at that very moment!
'Damn it!'
Jet jumped back with her body slightly hunched. Her boots sliding a few extra centimeters due to the amount of snow, almost making her lose her balance.
Using her experience, she didn't fall to the ground, but she did create an opening for the creature.
Firmly planting her right foot in the snow while her left slid, she feigned that she was going to fall.
The Terror, with its multiple eyes, observed the moment and didn't hesitate to lunge. Though it couldn't have done otherwise anyway. Its nature as a Nightmare Creature forcing it to consume the Flame of Desire that belonged to Jet.
Its tongues, emerging from its strange mouth without any teeth or fangs, shot toward the depths of its throat with the speed of its movement.
Jet clenched her teeth, and her War Scythe went from a support position to an attack position in a matter of moments. Yet the opportunity she believed she had vanished instantly.
The Terror moved so fast that she couldn't fully recover from the opening she had left. Using its two-meter-tall body and its weight similar to that of a Rhino, it launched itself with the intention of crushing the small human.
Jet's icy blue eyes widened slightly, and twisting her body through pure willpower, she managed to avoid being completely crushed. Still, one of her legs wasn't so lucky.
With a dry, cracking sound, the creature fell on her right leg, crushing it in the moment. Leaving it as if it were a sheet of paper.
Jet let out a scream of pain as she felt her entire leg being crushed, but there was something more urgent!
The Terror's tongues returned to their place at the moment of impact, and a green-yellow substance began to form. Drops of such substance fell to the ground, and upon impact, the snow and rock below melted…
'This is going to hurt like hell.'
She saw no other option and commanded her War Scythe to change form. It appeared as a misericorde—a long, thin dagger.
Her Aspect Legacy cut her leg with a single stroke, staining the rocky, snowy ground with her own blood.
The Terror opened its jaw, and the green-yellow substance gathered quickly, shooting out in the direction of Jet's pale face.
She moved her face at the last possible moment, but drops of such substance stuck to her cheek, ear, and her raven-black hair. A single drop reached one of her icy blue eyes, and it began to melt it the next moment.
Jet felt the pain throughout her entire body. Her severed leg, her face and eye being melted, and mainly her essence draining at a rate higher than normal.
'…Shit.'
Even with all that, she didn't give up. Clenching her teeth, she commanded her Aspect Legacy to return to its War Scythe form.
The next moment, the Terror began spinning its body in her direction. Its jaw closing but opening immediately—instead of multiple tongues, black tentacles appeared and began heading toward Jet's neck.
Her Aspect Legacy finally returned to the typical War Scythe form, and she didn't hesitate to move it rapidly in a succession of attacks to cut the tentacles in her direction. But as she did, she couldn't avoid the movement of the Terror's body.
If she did nothing else, she was going to end up being crushed by the creature's gigantic body.
Silver particles began to form in Jet's left hand as she continued cutting all the possible tentacles. But there were so many that she ended up being overwhelmed the moment one tangled in the upper part of the War Scythe.
The Terror exerted force, and the weapon slipped from Jet's pale hand.
Her icy blue eyes watched the scene in despair.
The impulse to say something dramatic to the airs reached her mind, and she almost opened her mouth to apologize for having failed… But she never got to do it.
The next moment, a silver arrow traveled through the airs and impacted the Corrupted Terror's skull at the nape of its neck…
A second later, the creature became completely motionless.
Jet took advantage of the moment, and her normal Scythe finished materializing in her left hand. Using all her remaining strength, she brought the Scythe down and impacted at neck height.
Still, her attack never got to bear fruit when the Terror's skull was completely pulverized the next moment.
Jet's single functional eye blinked immediately while millions of pieces of flesh, blood, brain, and skull impacted against her with the force of a small explosion.
Her face was sent backward by the force and impacted the rocky ground with a dry thud.
Her consciousness on the verge of shutting off…
Before that happened, she managed to hear the neigh of a horse while a pair of cold arms wrapped around her tightly. At the same time, a green substance began entering through her mouth…
Slowly bringing her back to herself…
---
Behind Arthur, the column of shivering soldiers stubbornly stayed inside a cage of flames. The infantrymen were all encased in suits of powered armor, which were all hermetic and insulated, capable of withstanding the most hazardous environments. The Awakened were all much tougher, and many of them possessed protective Memories on top of that.
And yet, they were all suffering from the terrifying cold. It was just too insidious, finding a way to pass through all forms of defense. Even he felt miserable because of the snowstorm. Much worse, the cold was getting worse and worse with each passing heartbeat.
'Come on, Jet, you can do it…'
As if responding to his thoughts, Sunny turned quickly to look at him at that moment.
"Jet did it!" He practically shouted. "Give the order!"
Arthur let out a breath he didn't know he was holding while feeling a weight leave his back.
He smiled and turned to look at the column of shivering soldiers.
"Send everything you have now!" He ordered with a shout.
The expressions of the soldiers changed immediately, and absolutely everyone present began summoning Memories that created fire.
Many of these were obtained thanks to Arthur and Sylvie using their resources, so the quality of such Memories was worthy of belonging to a Legacy Clan.
Thousands of Memories of all types materialized in a matter of seconds, many Awakened even summoning multiple at the same time. The mundanes sending everything the flamethrowers had left in their tanks.
In the blink of an eye, a sphere the size of a building made of pure orange fire began to form in front of everyone.
Moving to the side, Sunny, Sylvie, and Arthur watched Reynolds take the lead while raising his arms slightly.
The sphere of fire began to react erratically for a few moments but immediately began responding to his father's Aspect.
He brought his hands forward, and the sphere shot toward the blizzard in a flash. At the same time, it changed shape.
Multiple flames that broke off from the sphere were extinguished upon contact with the curtain of deadly cold brought by the Winter Beast, but the rest had no problem penetrating the outermost part of it.
The sphere began spinning on itself until, from one moment to the next, it changed shape abruptly. The sphere came apart, but in its place, a tunnel that extended into the depths of the blizzard appeared.
Without Arthur having to utter a single word, Sylvie activated the runic Array.
She could sense her blood even across vast distances. Maintaining that connection, however, was difficult, but the real challenge lay in keeping her Dormant Ability active without interruption while Jet inscribed the runes across the frozen wasteland.
Sylvie had found a way to link them together using her blood as a conduit. She manipulated the ambient Mana, weaving countless fine strands between the scattered runes. The threads were so thin that they were almost impossible to perceive.
One by one, they connected the individual inscriptions of runes, turning an enormous stretch of frozen land into a single, unified Array.
Now, all that remained was to activate it.
At that moment, Sylvie commanded the Mana threads to expand. The nearly invisible strands thickened, growing denser and denser until each was as thick as a human arm. Across the vast expanse of snow, the scattered runes responded to her command.
The blood smeared across their intricate patterns began to glow, its crimson color swallowed by an eerie, violet radiance.
Then, as if the Array itself were attempting to erase every trace of its existence, the blood ignited.
Fire.
All thirty-five runic formations erupted at once.
A heartbeat later, thirty-five colossal pillars of violet flame surged skyward, their bases rooted in the frozen earth while their upper reaches disappeared into the heavens. They stood dozens of kilometers apart, yet their combined radiance illuminated the entire region, painting the snowfields and mountain peaks in an unnatural shade of purple.
For a moment, it seemed as though the sky itself had descended upon the earth.
Within the two-hundred-and-ten-kilometer perimeter, the world was transformed.
The pillars did not merely burn. They radiated an oppressive, infernal heat that spread across the wasteland, swallowing the surrounding cold in expanding waves.
Snow evaporated from the ground. Ice cracked beneath the sudden change in temperature, and the air shimmered with the violent distortion of heat.
Then the two forces collided.
The Winter Beast's blizzard surged against the encroaching inferno, its murderous winds carrying enough cold to freeze almost everything. The violet flames answered with an unrelenting tide of heat, their radiance pushing back against the white storm.
Neither side yielded.
The blizzard roared. The pillars blazed.
For the first time since the Winter Beast had descended upon the region, its frozen domain encountered something capable of challenging its absolute dominion.
Farther away, soldiers huddled behind their defenses felt a faint warmth seep through their armor. Fingers that had grown numb began to stir. Their breath no longer froze quite as quickly before their faces.
Then the earth began to tremble.
At first, the vibrations were almost imperceptible—little more than a faint shudder beneath the snow. The slopes of distant mountains began to rumble. Loose snow slid from their peaks, cascading down their sides in pale curtains.
With every passing heartbeat, the tremors grew stronger.
The snow blanketing the lower slopes began to melt, revealing dark stone that had remained buried beneath ice for untold ages. Thin streams of water trickled down the mountainsides, quickly turning into torrents as the temperature continued to rise.
Then the ground broke.
A deafening roar tore through the region as mountains split apart, their rocky foundations fractured by the relentless tremors. Great fissures opened across their slopes, glowing with an incandescent light that grew brighter by the second.
And then came the eruptions.
Volcanoes scattered throughout the two-hundred-and-ten-kilometer perimeter awakened almost simultaneously. Molten rock exploded from their craters, launching enormous fountains of lava into the sky. This lava later turned into obsidian and struck other mountains; part of it headed toward where the Beast of Winter was located.
Rivers of incandescent stone poured down the mountainsides, devouring everything in their paths as clouds of ash and steam billowed into the heavens.
The violet pillars continued to blaze around them.
For a moment, the entire region became a spectacle of impossible violence: rivers of lava crawling across the earth surrounded by towering columns of purple fire, while the Winter Beast's blizzard raged against both, desperately attempting to smother the inferno that had invaded its domain.
It was as though the world had been caught between the birth of a new sun and the death of an eternal winter.
Yet despite the sheer magnitude of calamity brought by the Array, the blizzard refused to disappear.
Its winds weakened with every passing second, but they remained merciless. The cold still clawed at the land, devouring warmth wherever the flames failed to reach. Even thirty-five pillars of violet fire, countless eruptions, and an entire region turned into a sea of molten rock and obsidian could not completely suppress the Winter Beast's power.
That part of the plan was a success, and Arthur didn't even try to suppress the dark smile that took its place on his lips.
Before the four Masters, the corridor of flames began to solidify. The opening was narrow. The cold beyond it remained lethal. And the Winter Beast was still waiting somewhere within that endless white expanse.
But the path was there, and Arthur's gaze settled upon it.
The moment he had been waiting for had finally arrived.
It was time to move.
He quickly turned around and looked at the rest of the soldiers who weren't doing anything. To them, he ordered:
"Retreat and secure the rune locations! Absolutely nothing can happen to them!"
The soldiers—most of whom were mundanes—didn't hesitate twice and launched themselves in their directions. They all already had an assigned zone, and it was time to go out and fulfill their second task.
Their main objective had simply been to act as bait so the Winter Beast wouldn't turn around and decide to attack Jet. But now they were going to have to cover the rune Array with everything they could, in addition to trying to strengthen it by contributing more Shards.
Jet had purposefully left a few Transcendent Shards in each of the drawings to use later in case the Array's essence began to run out ahead of time.
The rest of the Awakened and Mundanes controlling the towering MWPs continued with everything they had, creating more fire to strengthen the path.
The nearest pillars of purple flames providing great help to his father's task. Yet even with it, he was running out of essence at an elevated rate… He was a simple Master at the end of the day. A strong one at that, but nothing more.
Compared to the other three Masters present, he had nothing that made him special.
Arthur, without looking at Sunny's and Sylvie's conditions, already knew they weren't going to be able to contribute anything in the next fight.
Everything was going to depend on him…
Taking a deep breath, he went to take a step but stopped at the last moment.
'Should I… should I say goodbye?'
The thought made him blink rapidly several times, and at that moment, Regis's voice sounded in his head.
'Don't look at anything else, Arthur. What we have to do is in front. If we succeed, everything will be fine.'
His jaw clenched slightly.
Regis was right. If they did their task, everything would turn out well.
The next moment, a Memory materialized on his shoulders. It was a simple white cape with a white hood surrounded by fur on the outline of the hood, with a gold button emblem where the hood and cape meet.
He sent essence forward to activate the Memory's single enchantment, and finally, Godstep carried him toward the interior of the corridor created by orange fire… taking him away from his father, Sylvie, Sunny, and the rest of the soldiers.
The first thing Arthur felt upon entering was nothing. Neither the heat brought by the pillars or corridor, nor the sepulchral cold brought by the Winter Beast.
The Memory with the hood placed was isolating him from the world, making him feel nothing from it while at the same time preventing external phenomena from affecting him.
Each use of Godstep carried him deeper into the blizzard, leaving him with no options to retreat if he regretted it… Not that Arthur was going to do so anyway.
He didn't advance much, either, until the situation changed… but at that moment, he didn't begin to feel the heat of the tunnel gradually diminishing. Instead, with every heartbeat, the cold began to become more present.
The tunnel created with such a method ceased to exist from one moment to the next with a simple use of Godstep. It had been created with normal fire and empowered with the essence of an Ascended. Which meant it was never going to be able to overcome the force brought by a Corrupted Titan.
The pillars of purple fire had three main purposes. Such as generating the earthquake to cause the volcanoes to erupt lava into the skies, closing the Winter Beast in a cage that would be stupid to ignore, and finally weakening the blizzard in its outer zone.
Due to this, the tunnel managed to penetrate about five kilometers into its interior. Still, that amount was never going to be enough to reach the Winter Beast.
The moment arrived when Arthur had to face the brutality of the cold and the deadly wind brought by the creature, and it didn't take even a second to feel how his entire being began to freeze.
It was just too insidious. Even using the Memory that was one tier lower than the creature, he could feel the presence of the cold trying to stop him.
Arthur began to feel more and more miserable with each use of Godstep. But there was no way back for him now.
He didn't realize when it happened, but in less than a few seconds, he had already traveled another five kilometers more… At that moment, he truly began to feel all the effects the cold generated in him.
His bones began to freeze, making him feel clumsier. Small layers of ice began to form on his cloak. Even his thoughts felt slow and frigid.
To his horror, Arthur realized that the frigid slowness of his thoughts was also not just in his imagination. If the Corrupted Titan was capable of affecting intangible things with its powers, why wouldn't it be able to affect minds?
Nothing within the Winter Beast's snowy domain could avoid being pervaded by its power.
The closer he got to the heart of the snowstorm, the more murderous the cold became, the stronger the winds grew, and the harder it was to make even a single step forward or even feel the Aetheric Pathways. Even the Aether in the environment was frozen.
It felt as though an irresistible force was pushing Arthur back and at the same time trying to sap him of his very life, battering his body with blades of wind and ice.
'It's time, princess,' Regis said mentally.
Arthur at that moment decided to stay still while [Cloak of Absence] began to dismiss.
The wind and cold continued impacting against him, trying to create more ice barriers over his body.
In the distance, he could see the presence of the pillars of purple flames rising to the skies, but they were beginning to weaken with each passing moment…
Arthur blinked and decided to accept the full potential of Former King in his entire being.
When his eyes opened again, something about them had changed.
His golden irises, tinged with purple, were devoid of even the faintest trace of humanity. There was no warmth in them, no curiosity, no emotion. Only an unnerving indifference, as though the world before him had been stripped of everything that might have made it worthy of his attention.
Everything was trivial. Futile. Unworthy of notice.
His gaze swept across the blizzard raging around him. The howling winds battered his armor, carrying the merciless cold of the Winter Beast, yet Arthur barely acknowledged their existence. To him, they were nothing more than a minor inconvenience, an insignificant disturbance lingering at the edges of his awareness.
Then his mind expanded.
One layer of thought gave birth to another, and another still, each operating in parallel while remaining connected to the rest. They exchanged information, dissected observations, and reached conclusions at a speed that would have been impossible for an Ascended mind.
While one layer examined the world around him, another analyzed its smallest details, and countless others processed the results, refining and expanding upon them with every passing instant.
Nothing escaped his perception.
The flow of information became a deluge.
It poured into his consciousness like a dam whose floodgates had suddenly been torn open—an overwhelming torrent of sensations, calculations, and insights that threatened to drown out every lesser thought.
Yet his mind did not falter. It adapted, separated, and organized the endless stream with ruthless efficiency. And as the countless layers of his consciousness continued to expand, one thing became increasingly clear.
Arthur was no longer merely an Ascended.
The possibilities offered by his abilities lay bare before him, each one a tool waiting to be wielded. The limits that had once constrained his mind seemed to have lost their meaning.
He was something far older than the name he carried.
A king who had already lived and died.
A divinity that had once walked the world.
And now, reborn beneath a different name, he was once again approaching the throne Fate had reserved for him.
But for those unfortunate enough to stand in his way, he would be remembered by his titles.
The King of Nihility.
The Blade of Fate.
The Master of Aether.
And finally…
The Spirit of Reality.
A title that belonged to a being who had once stood far beyond the limits of history.
A title that belonged to Grey.
Yet at that moment, it seemed as though such an entity had risen from the depths of the Shadow Realm to exert its will once more.
As his eyes scanned his surroundings, an invisible wave rippled outward from his feet in every direction—reality itself bending before its Master's presence.
A multitude of events unfolded in the span of a single breath.
Realmheart sprang to life in a flash, feeding information to the layers of thought within his mind. Every movement of the Aether—no matter how violent or minute—was calculated in one layer and relayed to the next.
Djinn of War activated its Godrune Trait, causing the lines tracing the purple plates to glow with that same hue. It looked as though tiny serpents were slithering through the labyrinthine pattern formed by the plates.
The intensity of the movement accelerated with every passing instant, until suddenly…
…Destruction erupted like a volcano.
Frenzied, ravenous, and terrifying waves of amethyst flames burst from the armor, forming a circle that spiraled skyward around his figure.
The flames did not begin by consuming anything physical; instead, they struck the first thing they encountered: The cold and the winds unleashed by the Winter Beast.
Destruction acts as an all-consuming force of entropy that obliterates physical matter, energy, and all phenomena. Meaning that it accelerates entropy to wipe away physical existence.
Soon, a capsule of Destruction formed around Arthur, consuming the cold and the winds that threatened to slow him down.
At the same time, the amethyst flames sought to expand at every moment, hunting for more fuel and attempting to consume the blizzard itself entirely.
It all happened in the span of a single breath.
Aetheric Pathways opened up before him. Many were completely frozen, or their particles failed to vibrate in the sequences required to traverse them. Yet there was always one left open—especially for the Being of Aether and Flesh.
Arthur chose the path that would lead him to his desired destination. He did not force his way along it; the path simply opened its gates for its Master, allowing him to glide through just as a leaf travels down a river, already knowing where it will end up.
After a sequence of Godsteps, the scenery shifted, and a flood of new information poured into his mind—a mind adjusting to the euphoric sensation of limitless capability. Every thought was conceived, deliberated, and manifested with maximum efficiency.
The pieces began to align in his mind, and with a single glance, a realization became crystal clear.
Arthur had reached the center of the blizzard.
The snowstorm manifested by the Winter Beast was like a rolling cataclysm, with devastating winds carrying a seething mass of swirling snow and tiny ice particles. Close to its heart, the ice particles were like a myriad of razor-sharp blades, shredding anything that had not been frozen by the unholy cold already.
Each of the countless shards of ice had been a part of someone slain by the blizzard once, perhaps.
And yet, absolute peace reigned in the heart of the storm. A vast area beyond the invisible fortress wall of suffocating cold was entirely devoid of wind, snow, and ice… everything was flawlessly still, as if nothing could move in this frigid kingdom, not even the winds of the blizzard itself.
With the skies above illuminated by the thirty-five pillars of purple flame, the view was crystal clear to Arthur. Rivers of glowing lava were transforming into crystal, while in other areas they turned to obsidian. The heat of the underground rivers of molten rock was powerless against the profane power of the Corrupted Titan…
The Winter Beast itself was floating above the ground in the middle of its frozen kingdom.
The creature… was eerie and grotesque, unlike anything he had ever seen. Yet a simple glance was enough for him to understand that a being of such a form simply should not exist. He would take care of making sure it didn't.
The Winter Beast was an expansive, ethereal structure made of ice, as if countless torrents of water had frozen when they exploded outward from a hidden source. Its body was strangely organic…
Although the titan's body was made of ice, it also looked like a living creature. The twisting pillars of ice vaguely resembled parts of a mangled body… limbs, organs, torn intestines, broken bones, and desiccated flesh. It was as though a giant being had been meticulously disassembled into countless parts and then violently fused together in macabre disorder.
There were dark shapes of other Nightmare Creatures fused into the ice here and there as well, still and lifeless.
The ice was pale and bleak, but the Winter Beast itself was nevertheless full of color.
That was because numerous flowers bloomed on the ice, their petals an intense azure color. The contrast between their vibrant beauty and the appalling body of the creature beneath was hideously striking.
Vast plumes of snow drifted from the flowers like pollen, shrouding the Winter Beast in a frosty haze.
…At the very heart of the eerie abomination, barely visible through the ice, a small shadow was encased in it. Resembling remains of a human being.
Arthur did not hesitate to use Godstep again, bringing him close to the Winter Beast's grotesque form. As he appeared before the Corrupted Titan, the contrast between their figures was like an ant deciding to confront an elephant.
The Godrunes Trait deactivated the very next moment; its capacity to generate Destruction had been exhausted while battling the relentless winds and deadly cold of the blizzard.
The Titan's influence over the elements surpassed even Arthur's command of Aether in his state as an Ascended Titan—yet fortunately, he could no longer be considered a mere Ascended Titan.
His body had already begun to take on subtle traits of Transcendence, and the influence of the Former King permeating his entire being elevated him to a higher level. And yet, paradoxically, he remained an Ascended.
Arthur took this into account, utilizing his multiple layers of thought. His mind was superior to anything else in existence, but his body remained his greatest concern.
One that didn't remain in Arthur's mind for long.
Invoking Dawn's Ballad. The transcendent double-edged sword came to life in his right hand as a purple hue appeared over the translucent, teal-colored blade.
Arthur, using Godstep and creating a platform of solidified Aether, stood before the eyes of the eerie and somehow beautiful creature.
His golden eyes, devoid of all humanity, centered on the small human shadow that lay at the very heart of the abomination.
The Winter Beast shifted slightly; the bluish mountain of its body loomed over the snow. Some of the twisted ice columns—vaguely organic in appearance—also stirred… slowly unfurling, as if preparing to lunge forward and welcome the wretched human who had chosen to venture into its domain.
And that was exactly what this fight was going to be centered on.
It was a battle of domains…
The Winter Beast with its dominion over ice, snow, windstorms, and extreme cold against Arthur and his control over Destruction.
The Rune came alive on his back, sending a current of pain that ran through his entire body, but even so, it failed to be registered by his mind. There was no need to feel pain.
The amethyst flames, instead of centering on his body in a wild manner, were all directed toward Dawn's Ballad.
The sword with the [Living Ballad] enchantment absorbed the ability into its interior, raising its effectiveness even higher.
Enchantment Description: "This sword can absorb the user's abilities to enhance its effectiveness in combat."
Looking at the creature with no expression in his eyes, Arthur pointed the sword toward it. The movement was precisely slow but at the same time so smooth and perfect that in anyone's eyes, it would have looked like he did it in an instant.
The teal-colored blade gained a very intense purple color the next moment. Gathering destructive energy that spun on itself and sought to expand right at its tip.
Without blinking… an enormous current of Destruction erupted from the blade of the sword. Traveling at a speed capable of creating afterimages…
At the same time, countless spikes of ice extended from the creature's body in the direction of facing the purple energy head-on.
Both matters confronted each other… creating an explosion capable of bringing down mountains at the moment of impact. But in such a moment.
Destruction was winning—
—But not for long.
The explosion was so large that all across the Antarctic Center, the ground shook. Avalanches rolled down from snowy peaks, and several mountains collapsed. The ice encasing the frozen ocean split open, and towering waves of black water rolled from below.
Mount Erebus shuddered and quaked, gargantuan stones exploding into the frigid air like cannonballs. A terrifying crack split one of its slopes, and after another cataclysmic quake, the entire side of the mountain crumbled.
But Mount Erebus was quite far from where the two were fighting. Still, the rest of the closer mountains suffered an even worse fate.
Mountains kilometers high were completely obliterated with the shockwave. Tons of rock traveling in all directions. Some impacted the Winter Beast's body, while others traced trajectories to impact the small human who was facing it.
At that moment, Regis finally left his core, manifesting in all his glory. A cloud of destructive purple energy began to form in his jaw, and he didn't hesitate to launch it toward the projectiles in his direction.
The destructive energy fed on the rock fragments, but there was so much that for a moment it seemed it couldn't keep up. But it did.
Regis, taking his Destruction form, took care of it as his number one task.
The lava accompanying the flying rocks turning into black crystal or obsidian at the moment of contact with the Winter Beast's merciless cold, only to become more food for Destruction.
The battle of small domains continued to be dominated by Destruction.
It advanced like a plague, searching for what else it could consume. It discriminated against neither the cold, the ice, nor the deadly winds. Still, it also seemed unable to keep up.
The Winter Beast's control over its domain exceeded all capacity Arthur could exert over Destruction. It was no surprise at all when Destruction began to be pushed back.
It continued consuming everything that made contact. Yet the amount present exceeded its very capacity.
Arthur continued exerting pressure and more pressure, trying to bring out his entire being in the confrontation. While mentally, he began a battle against himself…
The plan was never to defeat the Corrupted Titan using this battle of domains. He knew perfectly well that he was going to lose, even with all the nerfing the Winter Beast was currently under.
The difference in strength was simply too great.
Arthur could barely hold his ground thanks to the combined might of Former King and Destruction. Every moment spent resisting the Winter Beast pushed his body closer to its limits.
But at that moment, Arthur was not exactly Arthur.
He was little more than a vessel through which a will different from his own was manifesting. His body moved, his power responded, and his mind continued to function, but the one making the decisions was no longer entirely himself.
And Arthur couldn't allow that.
The fear of eventually becoming someone like Gray had always remained buried deep within him. Not in terms of power, but in the way Gray had gradually distanced himself from the humanity that defined him, allowing his existence to become something far removed from the person he had once been.
He didn't know if it was a consequence of rank or the things Grey had to experience, but he did know something very key.
Arthur had spent too much of his life fighting to protect the people he loved to accept such a fate.
So the possibility of something even worse had finally pushed him over the edge.
The thought that, one day, Grey might reincarnate within his body, that the man whose path he feared following might eventually take his place entirely, was the last straw.
And so, deep within the depths of his own mind, something began to stir.
Arthur's consciousness slowly rose from the bottom of his being, struggling to emerge beneath the countless layers of thoughts that had accumulated over it. Each one obscuring his sense of self beneath an endless stream of calculations and decisions.
For a moment, nothing changed—
—Then something noticed.
One of the layers turned against the emerging consciousness, treating it as an unwanted intrusion. Others soon followed, their reactions swift and merciless.
They descended upon it like an immune system attacking a foreign pathogen, attempting to isolate and eliminate the intruder before it could spread any further.
But there was a fundamental flaw in their reasoning.
Arthur was not the intruder. He was not the foreign element that had infiltrated an otherwise complete existence.
He was the one who belonged there.
So if his own mind had come to regard him as an enemy, then he would simply have to remind it who its master was.
Countless images erupted within his mind, tearing through the layers without mercy. Some were so vivid that they seemed to solidify, becoming the very foundations upon which his consciousness began to rebuild itself.
They were memories of his family.
His mother smiling at him with genuine pride as she congratulated him on passing his school exams. His father praising him for excelling in his training. Ellie throwing her arms around him and hugging him with all her strength after he returned from a journey.
One memory gave way to another, each emerging from the depths of his consciousness.
Jet patting him on the back after a successful sparring session. Winter teaching him archery while Jesse showed him how to move without making a sound.
Randall and Dale offering him advice on how to build relationships with others, while Davies persistently tried to set him up with his daughter.
Countless moments, some significant, others seemingly insignificant. Memories that would have meant little to anyone else, yet had become inseparable from the person he was. They were all part of him.
Every conversation, every lesson, every shared moment of laughter and hardship had left its mark, shaping the person he had become. And as those memories resurfaced, they began to piece together something that the countless layers of thought had failed to erase.
The foundation of Arthur Leywin.
Not Paragon of Purity.
Not Grey.
Not the Spirit of Reality, nor the King of Nihility.
Simply Arthur.
A young man who would do whatever he could to keep his family safe.
Each memory reinforced the foundation of his being, giving rise to massive pillars that pierced through the surrounding layers. Towering structures rose from those foundations, growing beyond anything that had attempted to suppress him. One after another, they broke through the boundaries of his mind, extending their influence into every layer they touched.
The hostile thoughts that had once sought to eliminate him now found themselves confronted by something they couldn't dismiss.
Arthur was no longer a foreign presence struggling to survive within his own mind.
He was reclaiming it, but for a brief moment, that reclamation manifested in the world outside.
The stream of Destruction pouring from the tip of Dawn's Ballad weakened ever so slightly.
The power of the Winter Beast's Domain grew increasingly unbearable with every passing moment, its pressure threatening to overwhelm everything caught within its reach.
Then, between one breath and the next…
…a deadly torrent of freezing winds descended upon Arthur like an avalanche.
---
Outside the blizzard.
Thousands of soldiers began mobilizing the moment the signal was given. Their movements becoming slower with each passing moment due to the sudden absence of heat.
Awakened and Mundanes alike moving with everything their bodies allowed to reach their places and guard the Array…
…But not everyone made it in time.
Some were too far to reach by conventional means. That was why most used Echoes or different types of PTVs designed by the government to traverse the mountains and reach their destinations.
The PTVs were similar to the Rhinos but at the same time much smaller, making their mobility higher. Still, the journey didn't turn out to be simple.
Nearly hundreds of mundane soldiers ended up meeting their end at the hands of Nightmare Creatures that had hidden in the perimeter. The rest meeting their ends by other means.
Some groups of soldiers riding their vehicles were heading at maximum speed, but from one moment to the next, the ground beneath them began to vibrate, causing them to crash into rocks protruding from the routes.
Watching the scene with wide eyes, they couldn't avoid the fate of the mountain below them splitting in half and being devoured by the current of lava that flowed like a freshly cut vein.
Other groups moved on roads far from the mountains, but none had the means to prevent melted rocks from falling on them. Crushing them with their weight.
Not even the Awakened were saved.
Multiple died from running out of essence while dodging everything thrown at them, while others simply didn't have an Aspect that could save them from the situations.
The only ones unaffected were the four Masters and two Shadows moving at great speed among the debris, broken ground, and creatures with dexterity and skill superior to normal.
Jet, already recovered, stayed to protect the runes as far south as possible. Around her, multiple Nightmare Creature corpses lay on the ground while she extracted their shards to keep feeding the Array.
Sylvie, in her dragon form, on the verge of running out of essence, took care of protecting all the southern ones, while a few kilometers in the center of both was Saint doing the same.
Sunny took the west under his care while Nightmare covered between him and Jet. Finishing with Reynolds and the rest of the Awakened covering all the Northwest, North, and Northeast.
Still, no one could keep up.
The soldiers who were supposed to arrive to help them didn't arrive even minutes after the fight had begun.
All of them on the verge of running out of essence and with their abilities limited. Wounds on their bodies bothering them, and mainly the sepulchral cold brought by the Winter Beast becoming more present with every breath.
The pillars of purple fire continued extending toward the skies, but it was painfully obvious that the intensity of such fire was much lower than at the beginning.
Not only were they running out of essence and ambient Aether to sustain themselves… but the pressure exerted by the Winter Beast was increasing with every instant.
None could fathom the possibility that within such a blizzard… Arthur was still fighting against such an abomination.
But none of them had the energy to think seriously about all of it.
The presence of the cold didn't just affect them but also the Nightmare Creatures that thought themselves very clever by hiding in the perimeter of such a catastrophe.
Some resisted for a few instants and were left frozen like statues, but others reacted before and managed to escape.
Which was positive for them, since on their retreat path were thousands of soldiers running for their lives…
The scene seemed terrifying.
At a certain point, the soldiers no longer wanted to know anything about the Array and began moving as far from it as possible, seeking to save their lives. Only to encounter other groups of creatures…
It was no surprise when a Corrupted Monster faced a simple Awakened who had reached their destination and was recharging the runes.
Sadly, she didn't notice the presence behind her and couldn't even scream the moment some fangs closed around her head. Ripping it off in one go and causing her corpse to fall onto the drawing…
Breaking it and causing the pillar of purple flames to disappear…
Seconds later, a pillar in the South disappeared, followed by another in the West. The sequence continued when one in the East disappeared, accompanied by another seconds later a few kilometers away.
None could keep up, but everyone knew what was going to happen if they didn't stop it…
The curtain of deadly cold, winds capable of cutting mountains, and ice as fine as particles began expanding outward from the Array.
The next pillar of purple flames didn't break due to the negligence of some soldier, nor by a Nightmare Creature… it was the blizzard itself that transformed the pillar into the opposite element.
The process was abrupt. One moment there was a pillar of infernal flames, and the next a pillar of translucent ice remained in its place. The process repeating in multiple places of the Array simultaneously…
Only one thought circulated through the minds of the Four Masters at that moment…
'Get out of there, Arthur!'
---
Arthur was having fun.
A wide smile was on his face. It was a satisfied smile. A ridiculous smile.
His muscles were aching from the force he was using. His seven augmentations coursing through his entire body, and even so, it wasn't enough to dodge all the minuscule pieces of ice heading in his direction.
Many hit his legs, causing him to lose his balance slightly, only for another to impact his shoulder and the process to repeat.
Still, Arthur had already reached a point where he didn't need to defeat the Winter Beast. Just by buying time and continuing to last, the civilians would be evacuated, and eventually, the rest would give him up for dead and abandon the place.
Sadly, the Winter Beast's blizzard also affects the mental link he has with Sylvie, making it so he can't even say goodbye to her…
Arthur knew perfectly well that his end had already arrived. There was no hope of defeating the enormous creature in front of him.
The realization brought Arthur a strange sense of relief. Knowing that he was going to die here did not make him any less willing to fight. If anything, it only made him more determined to prolong his life for as long as possible.
His smile widened slightly, though something in his golden eyes had changed. The excitement was still there, but beneath it lay a quiet acceptance of the inevitable.
The Winter Beast was in almost perfect condition. It had wounds all over its body, generated by the impacts of the rocks and lava, in addition to some zones of its body being consumed by Destruction, and many of the numerous azure flowers on its body no longer existed. But its power seemed to have increased.
It could be perfectly noticed that in the distance, only five of the pillars of flames remained. They thought that these would weaken the Titan—and they did. But it was never enough.
Arthur was never enough to face such a calamity.
'Princess… could you avoid being a masochist at these moments?!' Regis practically shouted in his mind.
He couldn't respond while Godstep moved him away from a mountain of ice heading in his direction.
'Are you recovered already?!' Arthur asked in an altered voice, his expenditure of essence and fragments already becoming more notable.
Godstep carried him away from the attacks the Winter Beast launched at him… it even seemed like the creature was playing with its food.
Something that Arthur, with his physical and mental exhaustion from having fought against Former King to gain a degree of control, failed to notice was that the Corrupted Titan was moving…
…In the direction of Falcon Scott.
'I'm at fifty percent, but we can make one last attempt!' Regis responded while leaving his core.
He immediately headed toward Dawn's Ballad in Arthur's hand, while the latter positioned himself to make his last stand.
Around him, the curtain of strong winds and deadly cold continued spinning. A ridiculous amount of sharp pieces of ice continued heading in his direction at great speed.
Arthur's physical state was not very good.
The essence cost of keeping Djinn of War generating the maximum possible heat was costing him dearly, leaving him with only ten percent of his reserves remaining.
His leg, arms, torso, and even face had wounds that, due to the low density of Aether within the storm, were slow to heal. The plates of the armor staining with his own blood.
And as if that weren't enough, he was close to running out of fragments in his Titan core. If he continued using Godstep, his core would break to absorb the fragments from the next one.
His breathing was ragged, and a small ice dagger pierced one of his eyes.
Still, his will to keep fighting was more present than ever. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth so much.
His grip on Dawn's Ballad tightened upon feeling the last layer of Former King finish turning off… Now even his thoughts were going to start becoming slower.
Arthur took a deep breath, trying to calm his trembling hand while one of his eyes focused on analyzing how to face the grotesque figure in front of him.
Destruction really didn't lose, but there was so much to consume that controlling it without Former King was going to be impossible. The flames had more chances of consuming him than the Titan.
Still, if he got to use it, his fragment reserves were going to decrease in seconds, causing one of his cores to break…
Using Former King again wasn't an option either. His mind was in a weak equilibrium that the Attribute could perfectly worsen.
His abilities like Static Void, Former King, and Realmheart were ineffective against the power brought by the creature…
Leaving only Godstep and Aether Manipulation.
The first was saving him by being combined with the second. Multiple platforms were created in awkward places for the Titan to attack. Yet it ended up doing so anyway.
There was no escape. And the worst part was that he couldn't get close in any way.
Arthur had already identified the Titan's weak point, yet he still couldn't get close enough to attack the human shape at the heart of the eerie ice creature.
If he managed to land a strong enough blow in that zone, maybe he could defeat it… or at least buy time.
Still, the objective was very complicated.
'Come on, Regis.'
As soon as he communicated the phrase, Arthur had already moved.
A platform of Aether formed in the air, and at that spot, he appeared with his Djinn of War stained with his blood and Dawn's Ballad in hand.
A rain of sharp pieces of ice moved in his direction at great speed.
Arthur took a step back into the void, and just then, a platform manifested beneath his foot. Twisting his body while jumping backward, he created another platform and managed to dodge most of the pieces.
But a few impacted his foot, causing the plates of the armor to twist inward, crushing his foot.
Clenching his jaw harder, he continued moving at great speed, creating platforms and using Godstep in the most efficient way but always trying to get closer to the ice creature.
He didn't always manage to get closer. Many times he had to retreat and abandon some Aetheric pathway to enter another more distant but safe one.
Djinn of War continued enduring blows in the best possible way, but being an Attribute of his same rank, many of the Winter Beast's attacks ended up piercing it.
A piece of ice pierced his abdomen, while another destroyed his left hand. In a matter of seconds, his body began to resemble a colander.
Still, he continued and continued.
After what seemed like an eternity, Arthur was close. Close enough to recognize that the creature… was unlike anything he had ever seen.
Just witnessing it made him feel appalled, as if his senses were trying to reject the existence of such a being.
Noticing his proximity, the Winter Beast stopped floating above the ground in the middle of its frozen kingdom.
'That's new,' Regis commented.
He had never been so close to the creature before, so this was apparently going to be his first and only opportunity.
Arthur, still with a smile on his bloody face, didn't hesitate to use Godstep again, launching himself toward the ice creature from above. But just then, countless spikes of ice extended from the creature's body and tore through his armor.
Not paying it any attention, he immediately grabbed the thickest of the ice spears and pulled himself lower across its length.
In the place where his hand touched the ice, the gauntlet of the Djinn of War disintegrated into a haze of ice, and two of his fingers broke off.
Arthur sensed the twisted pillars of ice flowing forward to encompass him. The unbearable cold permeated his entire body, sending waves of pain through his soul.
His golden eye hardened from the pain.
Everything that touched the Winter Beast's body ended up frozen, and Arthur at that moment was almost crawling through the fragments of frozen water that conformed the ice creature.
Other fingers of his hand broke and were accompanied by others on his feet. Soon, both feet had not a single finger left, while his left hand was cut to the wrist.
Even with all that pain and the multiple ice spears that continued penetrating Djinn of War, Arthur continued his path toward the figure.
His death at this point was signed—it was only a matter of knowing if he would take the Winter Beast bastard with him.
Regis in Dawn's Ballad prevented the sword from freezing on impact, producing a weak current of Destruction not enough to consume the abomination's body but strong enough to prevent the sword from breaking.
The Djinn of War was cracked and fractured all over. The fingers of his feet didn't exist, and neither did his left hand. His face was missing most of its skin, revealing his teeth and slightly protruding canines. His left eye no longer existed either.
But that was fine.
A new platform was created before touching the abomination's body, but it was pierced by a ridiculous amount of ice spears.
Arthur tried to maintain his balance, but both feet ended up making contact with the spears. With a dry sound… both feet turned to ice and broke off, taking with them the better part of the shin.
The pain was already becoming unbearable, his mind on the verge of collapse from forcing itself to continue.
'This is…'
His thoughts were becoming slower with every moment, and even forming them was starting to become complicated.
'…My end.'
His body, reacting without the need for his thoughts, raised his right hand slowly. In its grip, Dawn's Ballad remained firm. Changing his grip, Arthur gathered all his remaining strength and went to throw the sword in the direction of the human shape at the heart of the Winter Beast.
However, Arthur never got to complete the action…