A sharp crack split the air.
Tony's head whipped around, and his breath caught.
The ground around John had frozen solid, a sheet of ice spreading outward in ripples from his feet. The frost moved fast—too fast—consuming grass, rocks, even the trunks of nearby trees.
In seconds, the whole area had turned white and silver. Trees stood like crystal sculptures. Blades of grass glistened like glass needles. Small animals, caught in the spreading freeze, turned rigid mid-motion before collapsing into glittering shards.
The temperature plummeted so suddenly Tony's breath fogged in thick clouds. The ache in his fingers and ears was instant and sharp, even though he stood dozens of steps away.
And John—
Where his brother had been standing was now a figure of ice. Smooth. Transparent. Motionless. The light refracted through him in fractured beams, making him seem less human and more like something carved from frozen quartz.
Above, the clouds shifted, heavy and unnatural. It was as if an entire winter had been compressed into this one patch of land.
Eccaruss's voice was low and steady. "The first calamity has begun."
The wind didn't simply fade—it froze, locked in place. Even the faint smell of the soil was gone, replaced by a sterile chill that cut deep into bone.
Tony pressed a hand to his chest. His ribs ached with every breath.
"This isn't normal cold," he muttered.
Eccaruss didn't answer. His eyes never left John.
---
For John, there was no darkness—only white. A muted, soundless world where every edge was softened by frost.
The cold didn't bite anymore. It had gone deeper. It had stolen the sense of where his body ended and the ice began.
He tried to lift his arm. The thought went out, but no movement followed—like shouting into an empty cave and hearing nothing back.
Then the pain started.
Not in his skin—but in his blood. Tiny crystals began forming inside his veins, spreading outward with each heartbeat. They replaced warmth with sharp, unyielding structures that pushed against living tissue.
His jaw tightened. The Ice Calamity didn't kill by freezing the outside first—it went for the warmth within, turning the life inside against itself.
John turned his focus inward, into his spiritual sea. There, his core—a perfect crystalline sphere—pulsed faintly. The frost had not yet reached it.
"Not yet," he whispered. "You're not breaking me yet."
---
Outside, the snowfall thickened. The flakes descended slowly, but each one stung when it touched bare skin, as if made of tiny shards.
Tony shifted his boots in the new snow. Frost had already crept up his sleeves.
"He can't survive this," he murmured.
Eccaruss's voice was calm, but it cut through the air. "If you step inside that radius, you'll freeze before you reach him. And he will watch you shatter."
Tony froze mid-step, his fists curling so tightly they trembled.
Eccaruss kept watching John. "His survival depends only on whether he can keep his inner flame alive against this cold. Nothing else matters."
---
Inside, John felt the frost pressing closer to his core. It was patient, steady—like a predator closing in.
But there was still warmth. A faint ember pulsed around the crystal sphere. Small, fragile—but it pushed back.
He concentrated on that ember, feeding it with every ounce of willpower.
Then the world shifted.
The frost cracked and gave way—not to warmth, but to a sudden, suffocating heat. The cold didn't simply melt away; it boiled, vanishing into waves of pressure that slammed into him.
The Fire Calamity had begun.
---
It wasn't the relief he expected.
The fire roared through his veins, replacing stillness with relentless movement. His lungs felt as if they'd been thrown into a furnace. Every breath came with the weight of molten metal.
His spiritual sea rippled violently. The once-small ember swelled into a fierce flame, threatening to burn uncontrolled.
This was the second trial. The ice had tested whether he could protect his warmth. The fire now tested whether he could control it without letting it destroy him.
If he let the flame grow wild, it would consume his core from the inside.
---
Outside, Tony noticed the change before he understood it.
Hairline cracks spread through the ice coating John—not from shattering apart, but from within.
A warm glow pulsed inside him, soft at first, then brighter. The frost closest to John began to melt into mist, curling upward into the cold air.
Eccaruss's gaze sharpened. "The second calamity—fire."
Tony's voice was low. "He made it through the first?"
"If he fails this one, the first won't matter."
---
Inside, John stood between two extremes—snow and flame, cold and heat—each pushing against him.
If he leaned toward the fire, it would consume him. If he leaned toward the frost, it would smother him.
He slowed his breathing, letting the two meet instead of clash. The frost cooled the flame. The flame kept the frost from returning.
It wasn't about winning against one or the other. It was about holding both.
Slowly, the chaos in his spiritual sea steadied. The forces wrapped around his core, equal and balanced, like two halves of the same shield.
---
From outside, it looked as if the last of the ice melted away in ribbons of steam. The glow within John shifted from a flicker to a steady, calm light.
The ground around him was strange—patches of snow beside puddles that steamed faintly in the chill air.
Tony's tense shoulders eased.
Eccaruss gave a faint nod. "He's found it."
---
John's eyes opened. The white, frozen world faded. The pressure lifted from his chest, and his limbs obeyed him again.
He stepped forward. Steam curled from his skin. His breath came steady.
---
From Tony's view, the frozen statue that had been his brother was gone. Only John remained, standing in the mix of frost and thaw, calm and unshaken.
Tony let out a slow breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Eccaruss's gaze stayed on John. "Two calamities down," he said quietly. "The rest will not be so forgiving."
And just as the last word left his lips, the third calamity struck.