Yuanji tightened his grip on the glaive.
The lizard's lightning—once boiling out of its body in wild, uncontrolled torrents—now flickered unnaturally, the brilliant arcs swaying with erratic hesitation.
Yuanji's breath steadied.
Even with his vision swimming, even as poison crawled like fire through his meridians, the sight of the beast igniting with power stirred something iron-hard within him.
So… this is it.
The storm gathering before him didn't frighten him—it solidified his resolve. If it was going all out, then he would too. Even if it killed him. Even if pushing his qi meant letting the venom tear through his body like shattered glass.
His fingers tightened on the glaive. His stance lowered. His eyes burned with the fierce clarity of someone who had already accepted death.
"Then come…" he whispered, voice ragged but unshakable. "I'll—"
He froze.
The lightning—which had howled around the lizard's body only a heartbeat ago—flickered unnaturally, the brilliant arcs dimming like lanterns swaying in a dying wind.
Then died.
Not slowly. Not gradually. Instantly. Like a candle snuffed by unseen fingers.
He blinked through the blur in his vision, at first convinced his senses were failing him, confusion cutting through the pain.
What…?
The lizard no longer surged with power. No bursts of thunder. No crackling arcs. Only its battered, bleeding form—white scales cracked and scorched—standing opposite him in utter stillness.
Its golden eyes glowed faintly in the shattered courtyard.
It simply stared.
Breathing slow. Steady. Unhurried.
Yuanji's brows furrowed, breath catching. "Why… stop? Did its body fail? Is it too injured to maintain lightning…?"
But the longer he looked, the less sense it made. The beast wasn't staggering. It wasn't collapsing. It wasn't preparing another charge.
It stood as though waiting. Watching.
A faint shiver crawled up Yuanji's back.
What… it isn't moving… why is it just staring at me like that?
His breath rasped.
Injured? Overdrawn? No… even wounded, a creature like this wouldn't collapse its own advantage. Not unless—
His thoughts froze.
—is it smiling at me?
The lizard hadn't moved. Its battered white scales were split by deep cuts, wings trembling at odd angles. Yet its posture, its stare… something felt wrong.
Those golden eyes held a cold, steady brightness—too calm, too aware. Its jaws remained slack, but the shape of its muzzle, the faint tension at the edges of its features—
It held something else.
Something unsettling.
Something almost like—
A smile.
Yuanji's heartbeat stumbled.
"Huh…?"
The air shifted.
A faint chill brushed across his cheek.
Yuanji tensed.
What… is this…?
When did it get this cold?
The courtyard had been scorched moments ago, air thick with ozone and heat. Now a creeping, unnatural frigidity seeped into the cracks of the broken stone.
He tried to inhale—and the air stabbed the inside of his lungs with cold.
His breath fogged slightly. Frost crept over the glaive's metal in delicate, branching veins.
Why does the air feel colder than—
He didn't finish the thought before snapping in half.
His eyes darted downward—
Because something moved.
—and only then did he see it.
Not the lizard's body. Its paw.
When did it lift?
Yuanji's eyes widened. He hadn't noticed it rising—not through the lightning, not through the haze of pain.
But now—
One of the lizard's forepaws, which had been raised without him noticing, had come down.
Not in attack. In activation.
The stone beneath it pulsed with a dim, frost-blue glow.
shnnnnk—!
A web of glacial qi exploded outward in a perfect ring, racing over the ground like living frost.
Yuanji's eyes widened in horror.
"—Wait—"
A sharp KRRRACK—!!
The ground erupted.
A massive forest of ice spears burst upward all at once, exploding from the courtyard floor like a field of frozen fangs. Jagged, crystalline blades shot toward him from every direction—silent, brutal, merciless.
Yuanji's heartbeat thundered in his ears.
Cold.
So that's what the cold was—
Not the air. Ice element.
Yuanji barely had a heartbeat to react. His glaive shot upward, carving a defensive arc in front of him—but the ice was faster. Jagged spears, sharp as frozen daggers, surged toward him, glinting in the dim courtyard light.
"What—!?" he rasped, eyes wide. Reflex drove his motion, muscles screaming, as he slammed the glaive horizontally to block the first wave.
CRASH!
The impact reverberated through his arms, sending a jolt of pain up his shoulders. The ice splintered against his blade—but more kept coming, a relentless forest of crystalline fangs, each shard slicing through the air like a living weapon.
He staggered backward, barely holding the line. Frost hissed against his armor, the air cracking and popping as freezing tendrils bit into his skin. For a heartbeat, all he could do was brace.
Then—
A burst of blue flame erupted.
It wasn't a trick of the light. Not a spark from residual lightning. It came from within the very ice itself. Blue fire, cold yet burning with impossible heat, tore through the courtyard. The shards of ice that had been hurtling toward him shuddered as the flame met them.
Steam hissed violently, scalding and thick, billowing up in choking clouds. The jagged spikes disintegrated in an instant, evaporated into mist before they could even reach the edge of his defense. The smell of ozone and boiling frost burned his nose, stinging his lungs.
Yuanji blinked through the haze, sweat and blood mingling on his brow. His hands shook, but he held the glaive ready, eyes scanning for the source of the sudden inferno.
The lizard—or whatever this creature had become—stood motionless, wings slightly extended, scales still glistening with frost. Its golden eyes glowed faintly in the rising steam, the faint curl at the edges of its muzzle holding an almost human amusement.