Akhil still had his gaze on the being when he felt it... The abrupt change in the surrounding.
The temperature dropped.
Not gradually. Not with warning. Just a sudden, brutal plunge that transformed the arena's atmosphere from warm to arctic in the span of a single heartbeat.
Akhil felt it immediately—that bone-deep cold that made breathing painful, that turned exhaled air into visible clouds of vapor. It wasn't just uncomfortable. It was dangerous, the kind of cold that could kill if exposed for too long.
Around the arena, fighters shivered involuntarily. Even those still engaged in combat stumbled slightly, their movements disrupted by the sudden temperature shift. Breath came in sharp gasps, each inhalation feeling like drawing snowflakes directly through the nose and into the lungs.
'What—' Akhil's thought was interrupted as his combat instincts screamed at him to identify the source.
