Tsuneo stood frozen, not by cold, but by revelation. His masked gaze swept the deadly ice spikes, then locked onto the unconscious Tamotsu sprawled on the ash. Though his face was hidden, his voice vibrated with a dangerous intensity. "This power... transcends Soulwardens. Transcends all known death-gifts." He knelt, a gloved hand hovering near a spike, not daring to touch its lethal edge. "Fire Wardens burn. Stone Wardens harden. Wind Wardens cut. But ice... the Ice of Wisdom doesn't ignite or erupt. It chooses. The Grey Vale itself gifts it. No training forges this. Only destiny carves its path." His voice dropped to a whisper thick with awe and dread. "Other elements have their paths – Stone of Death, Flame's Heart, Wind's Edge. Potent, yes. Brutal. But this?" He tapped the air near the spike. "This is the Glacial Heart. Raw potential siphoned from the Vale's frozen core. An opportunity... or a curse waiting to freeze the world."
Tamotsu, drained beyond measure but stubbornly clinging to consciousness, finally succumbed. He sank into an uneasy sleep on the cold ash, the ring of deadly spikes his grim, silent cradle.
Unseen in the swirling grey curtain, the Flickering One watched. He hadn't joined the eastern scouting party. He lingered, a half-real wraith woven from ash and shadow. He saw Tsuneo's profound shock, saw Tamotsu's vulnerable collapse. A low, distorted hiss, like wind through cracked bone, escaped his insubstantial form. Too volatile. Too catastrophic. He dissolved completely, not into ash, but into the shadows themselves, flowing with silent, predatory intent towards the jagged obsidian peaks where deeper darkness pulsed like a diseased heart.
Tamotsu dreamed. Not of earth, but of impossible geometries. The star-city. The voice boomed, shaking his soul's foundation: "Remember ."
He snapped awake to a guttural snarl and the acrid stench of sulfur burning his nostrils. Three hunched shapes lungedfrom the ash-fog – Demon-Forged. Smaller than the bone-scythe titan, but feral and fast. Skin webbed with angry crimson fissures, claws like jagged obsidian daggers. They ignored Tamotsu, focused on the seemingly vulnerable, kneeling Tsuneo!
Tsuneo was already a blur of motion. A long, ebon blade, etched with faintly glowing crimson runes, materialized in his grasp. "Stone of Death: Bedrock Mantle!" His left arm, from shoulder to fingertips, transformed instantly into cragged, unyielding granite. A demon claw screeched across it, showering sparks.
"Awake!" Tsuneo roared, parrying a second demon's lunge with his runed blade, the clash ringing sharp in the dead air.
Tamotsu scrambled upright. A fourth Forged, unseen, lunged at him from the swirling grey behind! Claws aimed to rip through his spine! Half-asleep, driven by primal terror, Tamotsu's hand shot out. "Hah!" Frost exploded from his palm, not a blade, but a wave of instant glaciation. It engulfed the demon's striking arm, shoulder, and part of its torso in a thick, jagged shell of blue-white ice. The creature shrieked, trapped and thrown off balance, a macabre ice sculpture.
"Help Tsuneo!" Tamotsu yelled, the command raw. He focused, sweat freezing on his brow, forming a crude, heavy ice dagger in his free hand. He didn't attack his frozen foe. He charged the demon harrying Tsuneo's flank. His clumsy strike scraped harmlessly off the demon's hide, but it was distraction enough. Tsuneo seized it. "Stone of Death: Quake Knuckle!" His granite fist, moving with deceptive speed, slammed into the demon's ribs. A visible shockwave crackedthe air. The demon folded, ribs pulverized, and hurtled backwards.
But shadows moved. Five... six... eightmore Forged materialized from the ash, drawn by the noise, the death, and the unique, chilling scent of Tamotsu's power. They fanned out, low growls rumbling, obsidian claws glinting, cutting off any retreat. High on a jagged rock, the Flickering One rematerialized, a barely-there smirk twisting his ephemeral features.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced Tamotsu's chest. Trapped. Overwhelmed. The Glacial Heart power within him churned, a frozen maelstrom reacting to his terror, his desperate will to survive, to protect. Images flashed – the impossible star-city, the commanding voice, the consuming void. This wasn't training. This was the Vale screaming through him. Primal. Instinctive.
He slammed both palms onto the ash-covered stone. The words tore from him, raw and guttural, fueled by pure survival and the surging Glacial Heart:
"ALL CORNERS OF HELL!"
A massive, intricate circle of blinding cerulean light, fifty meters across, etcheditself onto the ground, encompassing Tamotsu, Tsuneo, and all eight demons. The air temperature plummeted instantly. Frost exploded across every surface – rock, ash, demon hide – in a crystalline wave.
From the glowing circle's outer edge, thousands of razor-sharp ice spears, each taller than a man, erupted upwards like a frozen volcano. Simultaneously, from the churning ash-clouds above, thousands more ice daggers, each the size of a forearm, rained down like the fury of a glacial god.
No escape. No cover. Only a maelstrom of frozen annihilation filling the entire circle.
The sound was a horrific symphony – the wet thunks of spears impaling hide, the brittle cracks of bones shattering under icy hail, the choked, gurgling cries of eight demons instantly transformed into grotesque, perforated statues of ice. Then... utter silence. The circle's light faded. Only the grotesque ice sculptures remained, already fracturing, collapsing inwards into piles of grey, demon-tainted ash.
Tamotsu collapsed to his knees, gasping, utterly spent. The cold in his chest was a deep, hollow ache, a drained well. Tsuneo stood amidst the dissolving carnage, his stone skin reverting to flesh, his runed blade hanging loosely at his side. He stared at Tamotsu. Then at the crumbling ice-statues. Then at the fading, scorched mark on the stone floor. Utterly stunned. "Glacial Heart..." he breathed, the words thick with awe and a thread of genuine fear. "...manifesting All Corners... a baptism in frozen hell..."
The Flickering One didn't witness the aftermath. The instant the first ice dagger pierced the ash-clouds, his smirk vanished, replaced by abject terror. He didn't dissolve – he blinked, vanishing from the rock with a soundless pop of displaced air, fleeing faster than thought, a streak of panicked shadow hurtling back towards the eastern ridges.
He rematerialized, gasping, form flickering wildly, directly in the path of the returning group – the Stone Man, the Quick One, the Girl. "Attacked!" he shrieked, pointing a trembling, insubstantial hand back the way they'd come. "Demons! A horde! Tsuneo and the boy... overwhelmed! Gone!"
The Girl's sharp eyes narrowed to slits. "Flicker? Your scent is wrong. Ash and... fear. We sensed no horde."
"No time!" the Flickering One screamed, terror making his voice distort. "We must flee now! They're coming! The ice... the cold... it draws them!" He didn't retreat. He lunged, not away, but towards the Quick One, shadowy claws coalescing into deadly points. Panic demanded containment. The Frost-Spawn had to be isolated. The catastrophe silenced.
"Liar!" the Stone Man's voice boomed like an avalanche. His skin crackled, hardening instantly into seamless granite. "Bedrock Mantle!"
The Quick One's blades were twin flashes of silver light. "Traitor!"
The Girl's hands ignited with coils of shimmering, heat-distorting energy.
A desperate, brutal fight erupted on the windswept ridge – the Flickering One lashing out with frantic, shadowy fury against his former allies, his violent betrayal echoing the frozen silence of the slaughter ground far below.