All the teams converging on the pole avoided taking to the air. No one glided, no one flew, no one dared to rise above the frozen earth for more than a heartbeat. They advanced the old-fashioned way, boots crunching over ice and wind-scoured stone, step by careful step. The polar cold here was not the sort an ordinary Energy User could grit their teeth and endure. It gnawed at the marrow, crept into the lungs, stiffened blood itself.
Ethan and Blackie were exceptions.
