Countless spikes of earth shot out towards the turbulent ground, like a downpour or a machine gun.
Ghiaccio, buried deep underground, clutched his head. Countless spikes landed on him. Unlike the living dead Bucciarati in the original story, Ghiaccio clearly couldn't withstand these bullet-like earth spikes.
Ghiaccio relaxed his breathing. A large number of frozen air blocks were inside his White Album.
He couldn't stay any longer; he was running out of oxygen.
The moment the countless spikes touched him, Ghiaccio froze them into ice, which then instantly shattered into fragments.
Secco, also buried deep underground, heard the sound of ice shattering—
"I heard it! You bastard! Here!" Secco instantly plunged into the ground, swimming rapidly. The originally hard ground began to become like water—
Ghiaccio also heard his voice and began to swim in the 'water' just like him.
Ghiaccio started to feel the air thinning. The amount of air White Album could hold was not much, and he had been in the 'water-like' underground for too long.
"It's been long enough," Secco shouted, constantly chasing White Album. "I don't believe you can stay in the water for this long!"
In the water-like underground, Ghiaccio truly couldn't hold on anymore. He started to gasp violently, then swam upwards—
Suddenly!
Secco grabbed Ghiaccio's ankle. Ghiaccio struggled like a drowning man—
"Heheheh." Secco held Ghiaccio's foot tightly, a cruel smile on his face. "Your ice is completely useless against me. I can melt your ice instantly."
"It's a shame; I won't get to see you drown."
The severe lack of oxygen made Ghiaccio's hands tremble. His struggles grew slower and slower, his vision flickered, his consciousness blurred, and then he began to sink.
Seeing Ghiaccio as if he had completely died, inside the warm green White Album mask, Ghiaccio calmly closed his eyes and stopped breathing.
Secco breathed a sigh of relief. "He's finally dead. Although I don't know how he stayed here for so long, I'm not curious anymore."
"Hiss." Secco muttered to himself, "It's so cold... Why did it suddenly get so cold...?"
Secco threw Ghiaccio's body aside and began to swim rapidly upwards—
"Snap."
A crisp sound came from his ankle—
"Wha... What?!" Secco's eyes widened instantly. He subconsciously looked down. Ghiaccio, who had originally closed his eyes, suddenly opened them—
"You, you bastard, you think you can kill me..." Ghiaccio smiled, his voice coming from inside White Album, sounding muffled. His voice was already hoarse, and now it sounded incredibly terrifying.
The situation began to reverse!
"You... you bastard! All your ice was melted by me?!"
"Idiot, look closely, I didn't freeze you at all!"
Secco looked at Ghiaccio's smiling face. A tremendous fear, accompanied by cold, reappeared. His strength seemed like a balloon, easily popped with a poke.
No! he roared in his heart, I fell for it! It's too cold underground! I must get out quickly!!
"Bastard!" He quickly swam up. Ghiaccio didn't drag him, but came ashore with him.
Ghiaccio walked to the surface with him. To get away from Ghiaccio, he rapidly swam several meters across the ground.
Ghiaccio crawled up from the lake-like underground—
"It's finally warm!!" Secco cried out, his voice choked with tears.
"Is it?" Ghiaccio looked at Secco with a smile.
"Shut up, you cold cat! You can't freeze me, can't freeze me!" Secco pointed a finger at Ghiaccio, shouting loudly, then let out a violent sneeze. He instinctively tried to pull his hand back, only to find intense pain shooting from his wrist—
"It's cracked..." He seemed to suddenly realize, a look of immense fear on his face. "My blood vessels have burst..."
"Why... When did you freeze me... I could clearly melt you, I was clearly out of your range... When did you freeze my blood vessels..."
"Hmph," Ghiaccio said expressionlessly. "I truly couldn't freeze you. From the moment you kicked my chin, I already turned the underground into permafrost. For every minute you stayed in there, it would get one degree colder."
"Especially since you were constantly moving. After moving, the body generates heat. I already told you, you're an idiot. Did you think moving around would make you warm?"
"Actually, generating heat meant your temperature was constantly being stripped away by me."
"I didn't freeze you; I was stripping away your temperature."
"Now, the blood flowing in your vessels is like ice needles. As soon as you move even slightly, those ice shards will pierce your blood vessels!"
Secco looked at Ghiaccio in disbelief. I had trouble breathing and felt exhausted just now because at that time, my red blood cells couldn't work, and oxygen couldn't even be transported.
"It's not about freezing you; it's about temperature deprivation."
"You froze yourself."
Secco remained motionless, because moving would cause the frozen blood to pierce his internal organs and blood vessels. His body was frozen from the inside, and he had to wait for the sun to melt him.
But—
His breathing was already... already... "Let's see who drowns in the end," Ghiaccio said viciously.
"You actually used such a treacherous scheme to trick me! Didn't you say you'd freeze me? You actually changed the temperature of the underground... That's too much..."
Secco's organs were deprived of oxygen, and his face turned bluish-green... He could no longer maintain his Oasis ability... Ghiaccio deactivated White Album, and a layer of mud stained his blue T-shirt.
"This stupid dog actually got me so dirty!!"
Ghiaccio had indeed almost fainted in the end because the oxygen in his White Album had run out. But because Secco didn't have enough time in the sub-zero environment, he had to use the small frozen air block he had reserved to plug the air holes.
This was very difficult for him, because the underground was so dirty that once he used that air block, mud would surge in.
Ghiaccio slowly walked toward him, preparing to deliver the final blow—
"Cioccolata... save me..."
A huge sound came from the terminal building. Ghiaccio immediately put on White Album, and the ground quickly froze, allowing him to slide to the side. With the help of ice skates and the icy surface, Ghiaccio's movement speed was quite fast.
Ghiaccio looked up and saw a palm-sized stone, entangled with branches, heavily smash onto Secco's head—
"It hurts!" Secco screamed, and then the stones began to decompose, reassembling like mahjong tiles!
Suddenly, they transformed into a helicopter, completely flattening Secco into a meat patty—
And the pilot of the helicopter was Cioccolata, already dismembered and oozing yellow blood.
Secco and Cioccolata were no longer able to fight.