Kai exhaled slowly, his breath fogging in the cold air he summoned.
The hallway was choked with skeletons, dozens of them clattering forward in a relentless tide. Their sockets burned with unnatural blue light, their rusted swords scraping against stone.
He didn't charge in. Not yet.
Kai extended his hands, feeling mana surge into the stone beneath their feet. The air temperature plummeted, the very moisture in the chamber condensing into rime that clung to bone and blade alike. One by one, the skeletons slowed, their movements growing rigid as frost crept up their joints and into their hollow ribcages.
Only when the last of them stood frozen in place, brittle and still, did Kai strike.
"Ignis Ventum."
A roaring blast of superheated wind erupted from his palms. The sudden thermal shock rippled through the icy forms, and in a deafening cascade, they shattered, exploding into clouds of powdered bone and shards that clattered harmlessly across the floor.
