The name spread faster than the fear.
Yura.
The Frost Cutter.
It was whispered first by monks who studied broken timelines, then by survivors whose breath crystallized even hours after escape. By nightfall, the empire's deepest archives were unsealed, ancient locks melting away under emergency authority.
Rocky stood before the crystal map as it pulsed with cold-blue light. Across continents, marks appeared—clean, circular absences where cities once stood. Every mark shared the same signature.
Perfect temperature collapse.
Instant structural severance.
No lingering mana.
"This isn't natural ice," the chief archivist said, hands shaking as scrolls hovered around him. "It's conceptual frost. The kind that freezes movement itself."
Sylvia's jaw tightened. "So he doesn't kill cities. He stops them from ever moving forward."
Rocky felt his system stir.
A blade like that… wasn't made for war.
It was made for judgment.
"Yura was a chosen one," the archivist continued. "Summoned during the Age of Silent Kings. His affinity was absolute cold—so pure it ignored resistance, armor, even divine protection. He disappeared after refusing an execution order."
"For what crime?" Rocky asked.
The archivist swallowed. "Mercy."
The room fell silent.
Records showed Yura sparing a rebel nation meant to be erased. When commanded again, he turned his blade on the sky itself—freezing a divine decree mid-descent. After that, he vanished beyond the northern limits, taking his katana with him.
The katana's name appeared at last, etched in frost across the crystal.
FROST DIVIDER
A blade that cuts continuity.
Rocky clenched his fist.
This wasn't a madman.
This was a man who had decided the world needed to stop.
Outside, snow began to fall—far from any winter zone.
Risha looked up sharply. "He knows we know."
Far to the north, beyond maps and memory, Yura drew his katana a single inch from its sheath.
And the temperature of the world dropped.
Snow fell where it had no right to exist.
It drifted through torchlight and moonlight alike, slow and delicate, yet each flake carried a biting stillness that numbed skin on contact. The capital's alarms did not ring—there was no explosion, no invasion force—but every mage on duty felt it at the same time.
The world was slowing.
Rocky stepped onto the balcony, palm open. A snowflake landed there and froze midair, suspended as if caught in invisible glass. His summons reacted instantly. Elementals recoiled. Slimes hardened at the edges. Even the Guardian Wolf lowered its stance, fur bristling.
"This is a message," Sylvia said, voice steady despite the cold creeping into her breath.
Rocky closed his hand.
The snowflake shattered—not melting, but breaking like crystal.
"He's close."
The system pulsed again, sharper this time, projecting translucent text only Rocky could see.
KATANA AUTHORITY — FROST DIVIDER
STATUS: ACTIVE
EFFECT: LOCAL CONTINUITY DECELERATION
They didn't march north with banners or armies. Rocky moved fast—too fast for ceremony. By dawn, the capital was far behind them, replaced by a land that grew quieter with every mile.
Sound dulled first. Then color.
Trees stood locked mid-sway, leaves frozen in the act of falling. Rivers curved unnaturally, water halted in smooth arcs as if time itself had been carved and set aside. Birds hung motionless in the air, wings outstretched, eyes unblinking.
Risha's expression darkened. "He's not freezing matter," she said. "He's freezing progress."
At the heart of the stillness stood a figure.
Yura waited on a plain of glassed snow, cloak unmoving, katana resting at his side. Frost traced the ground around him in perfect concentric circles, each one a boundary where motion simply ceased.
He looked… human.
Calm eyes. Pale hair tied back. No madness. No rage.
"So," Yura said, voice carrying without echo, "the summoner arrives."
Rocky stopped just outside the innermost ring. His summons halted with him, as if instinctively respecting an invisible line.
"You erased a city," Rocky said.
Yura nodded once. "It would have become a weapon in ten years. I spared it that fate."
"You severed a chosen one's power."
"He would have shattered a continent in a moment of pride."
Sylvia stepped forward, hand on her sword. "You don't get to decide who deserves to exist."
Yura finally looked at her. Something flickered—recognition, perhaps. Or regret.
"I already did," he said quietly. "Long ago."
The Frost Divider slid an inch from its sheath.
The air screamed without sound.
Rocky felt it instantly—a pressure not on his body, but on his links. Summon connections stiffened, slowed, threatened with fracture.
This blade wasn't trying to kill him.
It was trying to stop him from ever acting again.
Rocky inhaled.
Then stepped forward.
The frost surged—
—and stopped.
His aura flared, not violently, but adaptively, copying the stillness without yielding to it. Slimes spread beneath the frozen ground, vibrating at a frequency the frost didn't recognize. Risha's demonic mana wrapped around Rocky's spine like an anchor.
Yura's eyes widened—just slightly.
"You move," he said.
"I summon," Rocky answered. "Even against concepts."
For the first time, the Frost Cutter adjusted his stance.
Snow cracked.
And the frozen world braced itself—
—for its first true clash since time was cut apart.