Funeral silence fell over the room. The only sounds were the ominous cracking of ice as it consumed heat, and Ice's heartbeat — steady, rhythmic — striking like the drum of a distant war.
A chain shot from the room's void like a hungry serpent, its links coiling with liquid lethality around twin curved blades — Naz's ancient Khopesh. His father's.
Ice gripped both handles, and rose from the chair with a venomous dignity — like a king crowned by chaos and exiled by his own pride. He cast a look of suppressed hatred at the smiling Zis, advancing with arrogant steps that announced a terrifying self-assurance hiding a hollow, shattered soul.
Suddenly, a liquid golden aura washed over the blades, spreading across the steel like sacred oil.
At the same time, Kily's interface flickered — two arcs of light separated to reveal cascading green symbols before the screen shifted to that familiar violet mottled with crimson. Kily's synthetic voice rang like a metallic hum, vibrating only inside Ice's skull:
[System Identification]: Ancient Pharaonic lineage codes detected.[Enhancement]: Speed, Strength, and Dominant Presence increased by 30 levels.
Ice stared at his feet in shock and confusion. A muffled laugh escaped him before a bleak silence settled. It was a bitter battle between madness and absolute stillness.
The atmosphere turned pitch black — grey patches glittered in the air as if dancing to a phantom symphony only he could hear. Ice — thin, weak — bent his head like a man suffering a lethal collapse of existence itself, not just a drop in blood pressure.
The world turned to ink. He swayed unstably — laughing hysterically one moment, freezing the next — a sight that far exceeded his frail frame.
Pale plastic-like masks appeared around him, coated in grey fog, floating aimlessly — reflecting his shattered psychological state.
Zis stood like a statue of indifference, watching the horrifying scene unfold.
Then suddenly — frost surged through Ice, crawling from his toes to his head, encasing him in a crystalline tomb. His eyes remained fixed in an expression of wide, eternal terror. The stillness was brief — the ice shattered, replaced by an eruption of blue hell.
Ice surrendered to waves of madness — releasing a terrifying scream. The sound of an orphan tasting a bitterness capable of splintering mountains.
The ice shell exploded. Ice seized a shard — sharp as a blade — and lunged, carving a jagged line across Zis's face.
In that moment, the fundamental opposing forces of existence collided: the burning flame of rage and the zero of brutal emptiness. The fires of the south met the ice of the north.
Zis — bound and bloodied — watched the transformation with a mixture of shock and demonic ecstasy.
Ice's pulse thundered in Zis's ears like the rhythm of an approaching war march.
The system ignited.
[Level 15 Active — Countdown: 4:58][Alert]: Zeus (Dragon) genetic data merged with "the Loom."[Status]: Frozen Certainty Disorder (FCD) — Complete emotional detachment.[Ability]: Frozen Instinct — Automatic "Momentum Freeze" within 5-meter radius.
Ice's body transformed into a biological killing machine — freed from the constraints of thought, immersed in pure action.
Zis (quiet, mocking voice): "Heh… hehe… you really think these fleeting sparks of power will change your fate?"
Ice didn't answer.
The ground exploded with frost as he moved like a ghost beyond sight. He danced around Zis in a spiral vortex — a blend of melting and freezing. His blue eyes pierced the fabric of reality, seeing every molecule, every thread of the Loom Zis had woven for defense.
Ice didn't direct his chains toward Zis's body. He wrapped them around himself at high frequencies — pulling threads of the Loom from the void and condensing them in his wake.
Then suddenly — a "Frozen Flame" erupted. Blue glacial fire consumed Zis's defenses and reduced them to crystalline rubble.
The first strike targeted the field, not the body.
Ice encircled his opponent inside a rotating wall of glacial fire. Zis felt the weight of "Response Freeze" — his limbs grew heavy, his will scattered. In an instant, Ice struck — gripping the Khopesh, synchronized with the Loom's pulse as if he were the hand that wove it.
The chains launched in a blurred arc around Zis, weaving an infernal rotating wall of glacial fire. Zis roared trying to break the cage — but found himself trapped by Ice's unconscious "Response Freeze." His movements became sluggish, his perceptions clouded under a thick blanket of cognitive rigidity.