Above them, Seraphae hovered with wings outstretched, her figure still and commanding. Her long glacial-blue hair swayed in slow motion, carried by the unnatural wind her presence summoned. With a slow grace, she raised her chin and looked down upon them all.
Her voice, when it came, was ethereal—soft, haunting, and impossibly clear, as though spoken directly into their minds.
"I am Seraphae. The Angel of Winter. Harbinger of stillness. Keeper of the Frosted Tomb."
As she spoke, the frost on the ground thickened. The very air around her pulsed in rhythm with her wings, beating slowly like the cold heart of a dying world.
"You step into the domain of forgotten ice… Do you come seeking death?"
Her spear shifted slightly in her grip, its tip now glowing with a cold white light. Snowflakes began to fall—not from the ceiling, but from the very air around her.
[Warning: The Angel of Winter has appeared in front of you and the being's Angelic Core is a rank of Dawn's Light.]
Zay swallowed hard and lowered his center of gravity, aura coiling around his legs like smoke.
Aris stepped into a defensive stance beside Zay, her blade pointed forward.
Vyker's glaive pulsed faintly with bright orange light.
Seraphae's eyes narrowed. "Then come. Let your warmth test the stillness of eternity."
Seraphae raised her spear toward the ceiling, her expression unreadable. The weapon responded instantly—its shaft glowing with a soft, cerulean light. As she slowly lowered the tip to face the group below, snowflakes began to manifest in the air around her, each one spinning delicately, unnaturally still in the frozen atmosphere. They drifted upward, gathering above her head.
There, they merged into a rotating halo of frost—translucent, elegant, and chilling in both beauty and purpose. The light from her spear reflected off the halo, casting ethereal glimmers across the chamber walls.
Zay's eyes narrowed.
He saw the pattern, and without hesitation, he lunged to the left—boots skidding against the frosted stone. His instincts screamed danger.
Aris and Vyker didn't question it. They remembered the tunnel—the moment Zay had taken the lead and saved them from the corridor that erupted in magma—and mirrored his movement, diving to their left.
A split-second later, the ground where they had just stood ruptured with a sharp crack. A massive spike of jagged ice burst upward, sharp enough to pierce through steel, humming with ancient cold. It reached its peak, then exploded into a thousand crystal shards, which melted midair into soft, harmless snowflakes that fluttered gently to the ground.
Above, Seraphae narrowed her eyes, unamused.
'Future sight. Annoying.'
She subtly adjusted her grip on the spear, then beat her wings once more.
A sudden shimmer passed through her figure as [Angel Wings] activated.
Another pair of wings unfurled behind her—grander, brighter, each feather etched with lines of runic frost. Her original wings dissolved into hundreds of crystalline fragments, which began to orbit her body in slow, mesmerizing arcs—like frozen stars in her own private storm.
She rose higher into the air, framed by her halo, her wings, and the silent weight of the cold she commanded.
Vyker narrowed his eyes as Seraphae hovered above, her crystalline wings swirling like a blizzard held in orbit. The cold wind brushing against his skin wasn't just weather—it was calculated presence.
"She's not aiming to kill us yet," he muttered, watching the ice halo spin faster. "She's testing us. Watching how we react… how fast we move. Like we're prey."
Zay exhaled sharply through his nose, nodded, his gaze never leaving Seraphae. "Reaction speed… prediction… tactical pressure. She's measuring us."
Vyker's gaze remained fixed on Seraphae as he nodded slowly. "Then... let's hold back, wait until she makes her move. No point in showing everything we've got until she's closer. Unless one of you has a long-range attack. I don't."
Zay shook his head in response. Vyker caught the slight movement in his peripheral vision and clenched his jaw, biting down on his bottom lip before releasing it with a quiet exhale.
"I have one," Aris spoke up, her voice tight, "but it's weak. All it does is summon a small aura sphere and toss it in one direction. It doesn't even have enough force to break through a tree... so I doubt it'll be much use here." She swallowed hard, her gaze flickering between the others, an edge of doubt creeping into her tone.
Seraphae slowly loosened her grip on the spear—her fingers unfurling with deliberate elegance—as the weapon dissolved into a hundred shimmering crystal shards. Each one hovered in place for a heartbeat, then fell into a slow, graceful orbit with the other shards.
The shards pulsed once, then blinked out of existence—only to reappear above the chamber with a resonating hum. One by one, they expanded, multiplying and merging, until a colossal snowflake began to materialize in the air above her—its edges sharp as razors, its design intricate and ancient, like it had been carved by the hand of a god. Zay's eyes widened as he looked up.
The snowflake spanned the entire breadth of the chamber's ceiling, casting an ethereal blue glow across the blue stone floor.
Seraphae inhaled deeply, her chest rising with quiet finality. As she exhaled, her chest fell slowly, a curl of frost-laced breath escaped her lips, misting the air like the breath of death itself.
[Winter's Era] activated.
Without warning, she shot upward—her wings slicing through the air as she ascended into the heart of the massive snowflake. The moment she passed through its crystalline center, the temperature in the chamber plummeted.
Ice exploded outward, instantly. It surged across the walls, the pillars, the ceiling—consuming everything it touched. The chamber groaned under the pressure of the sudden frost, and the ground cracked violently as rime spread like a living organism, seeking flesh and warmth to devour. A deafening wind followed—howling like a chorus of wailing spirits—as a blizzard descended with fury, swallowing light and vision in a maelstrom of white.
The chamber shifted into her domain—a frozen cathedral of death.
"Now!" Zay shouted through clenched teeth, violet aura flaring around him like a dying star. Aris and Vyker responded instinctively, igniting their own aura in tandem—a chaotic collision of colors that pulsed out in a desperate shield against the frost.
For a moment, it worked. The sheer force of their combined auras pushed the blizzard back by inches. But it wasn't enough.
Vyker's feet locked first, then his knees—ice crawling up his body like a sentient predator. He growled and raised his glaive, he swing his glaive, breaking ice off and his aura flaring defiantly—but it was too late. In the next breath, the frost swallowed him whole. His body became a frozen sculpture mid-motion, glaive still raised, eyes wide with resolve, now lost to silence.
"Vyker!" Aris screamed, her aura faltering for a slight second, and frost licked at her arms, then her ribs—until her scream cut short and she collapsed to her knees. Ice engulfed her, encasing her in a thick prison of transparent death. She remained frozen in a moment of terror, her hand still reaching toward her fallen comrade.
Zay stood behind them both.
The aura shielding him flickered violently, pulsing with strain. Ice burst around his boots and raced up his legs, stopping just below his knees. His body trembled from the cold, breath coming out in long, harsh fogged gasps—but he held firm, teeth clenched, eyes locked upward through the maelstrom.
Floating high above the storm, halo of frost spinning slow and ominous over her head, her wings beating like silent war drums—she stared at him. For the first time since her awakening, her face changed.
Gone was the serene mask of detachment.
Hatred surfaced—raw, unfiltered, absolute. Her icy-blue gaze burned with something ancient, something furious. She looked at Zay not as a threat, but as a stain.
And then she spoke, her voice a melody of frost and judgment that cut through the blizzard like a blade:
"You monster. A creature so foul it should not draw breath. I will personally account for this error… and punish the mistake."
The wind paused for just a moment—as if the world itself held its breath.
Then her wings beat once more, and the temperature dropped even further.
Seraphae lifted her hand quickly, her fingers splayed with grace and frost. All around her, crystals began to form—dozens at first, then hundreds—growing from the cold air like blooming flowers of death. They shimmered in hues of glacial blue and silver, orbiting her with eerie reverence.
She turned her palm upward and opened her hand fully, revealing the sigil etched in frost across her skin. A pulse of aura radiated from her core.
The crystals responded.
They elongated—stretching and reshaping into jagged, deadly spikes of pure frost. Their edges glistened like razors, each one humming with deadly potential. And then, as silence fell across the frozen chamber, Seraphae whispered:
"Aeloria frysth'valen,
Nerthak seran'yth cal'dorei,
Vel'kiryen an shal'mora…
Let the stars weep ice upon the wicked."
Slowly at first, the spikes began to spin then with increasing speed—forming a bladed ring around her that whirled with growing fury. Lightning crackled between them, arcs of cold electricity leaping from point to point, binding the frost together in a spiral. Each current pulsed in sync with her heartbeat—controlled, divine, merciless.
"You will be punished. Filth." she said coldly as she lowered her hand and closed her eyes.