The moment Seraphis stepped forward, the air cracked.
Not from heat, not from force—but from a cold so absolute, so overwhelming, that the very concept of warmth ceased to exist.
Luciel felt it first. His storm, once raging, stuttered. The wind, the lightning, the fury—it all hesitated, as if the very atmosphere itself feared what was coming.
Seraphis lifted a hand.
A single snowflake formed at her fingertip. Delicate. Elegant. Deceptively fragile.
Then—
The battlefield froze.
A wave of frost erupted outward, sweeping across the shattered earth, swallowing fire, wind, and blood alike. Ethan's collapsing body was untouched, the ice curving around him with unnatural precision, but everything else—everything—was sealed beneath an ocean of crystalline white.
Luciel leapt back, his instincts roaring at him to move, but even he felt it—the terrifying, unnatural weight of something that should not exist.
This wasn't normal ice.
It wasn't even Saint Realm magic.